In the past several years, doing The Work regularly, I’ve become super interested in the Living Turnarounds.
You might wonder what I’m talking about?
When we do The Work….the four questions, followed by finding turnarounds, or opposites, to the concepts we’re questioning….
….we often find turnarounds that “clunk” (as one lovely participant put it in the spring retreat this past weekend).
It’s like the turnaround makes you take palm and hit forehead.
For example: I once did The Work (many times in fact) on a very dear friend who reacted abruptly to something she thought I did that wasn’t accurate.
While the thing she reacted to wasn’t actually true….I still deeply investigated “she doesn’t care about me” because of what happened.
When I said out loud the first turnaround I saw clearly “I didn’t care about her” I sat for a few minutes thinking, nope, I definitely cared very much about her!
But I knew to keep sitting with it, and find even the smallest example, to open up my mind (for my own benefit, not because I “should”).
As I waited, I began to realize; Oh. I listened to her talk on the phone for long periods of time without saying “I need to hang up now” and secretly resenting the length of time I was in the conversation. I never told her I don’t like to hang out in bars or buy exotic drinks. I was occasionally jealous of her fortune, and the fact she didn’t have to work for a living.
I didn’t exactly have kind, compassionate, loving thoughts towards her at all times. I wasn’t honest. I judged her and never brought up my irritations–which in real friendship is hard, but deeply valuable and connecting when you can sort through it.
These were all ways I didn’t care. I secretly harbored many unpleasant thoughts about her.
Dang. I was not truly caring about the friendship, not really steppin’ up to an honest, genuine connection. And I had been doing it a long time, maybe most of the so-called friendship.
Another turnaround I found in my work on that friend was of course “I didn’t care about myself”.
Again palm to forehead.
Clunk.
Why didn’t I speak up for what I really wanted, or say NO if I didn’t want to go to that loud, brightly-lit bar or to spend precious money on fancy hors d’oeuvres?!
Which brings me back to this experience of looking closely at the Living Turnarounds.
If I lived my life, actually caring for myself, or feeling the way she DID care for me instead of being so sure she didn’t….
….what would it look like?
I began to notice when I didn’t say “no” or speak up. I began to include my own desires and wants and preferences in activities, with respect and love for myself (whatever this ‘self’ was).
Instead of ignoring when I wanted to say “no” to an invitation in order to be pleasing to someone else and not shake any feathers, I said “no”. I started feeling a sense of trust for myself, like I would take care of me without guilt, without hurting anyone else, without pretending anything.
Instead of believing someone didn’t care about me, I realized they might care enormously. I felt the sense of them caring. It was warm, kind….even somehow recognizable.
Of course they care. How very dear, tender and loving they are. Even if they seem confused or do things I learned were supposed to mean “they don’t care”….
….I could imagine the turnaround. I could feel how it was just a possible, even more probable, that they DID care (even my old friend)!
Slowly I lived the turnaround. And it grew bigger.
It’s been a little here, a little there. Speaking up just a little more, and a little more. Sharing my inner heart. Noticing when I haven’t responded to a request quite right and saying something then. Or maybe I have a question for someone in order to understand what my own answer is. Or I decide to spend time with someone face-to-face so we’re on the same page and learn about each other.
There hasn’t been a major turning point, as I’ve lived this new turnaround of caring about myself, caring about others, feeling the care people have for me, and trusting there’s a wonderful solution that works (if there’s a conflict) however long it takes.
This Living Turnaround is nothing super dramatic. I don’t have a story to share like “one day I said NO and everyone dropped their jaw in shock and from that point forward, I was the president of the United States”.
Ha ha!
But little by little, as this turnaround has come alive, whatever I am appears to be much more honest, speaking the truth when I know it, honoring whatever’s true inside me with loving kindness.
“Realization has no value until it’s lived.” ~ Byron Katie in 1000 Names For Joy
If you want to move closer into living your turnarounds, the ones that “clunk” (feel true and right for you) then spend a little time feeling in your body what they might be like, each day.
Ask yourself what you would do, how you would walk, how you would talk, what you would say, how you would live, if this turnaround were just as true or truer, than your original stressful belief.
The best news of all?
You don’t even have to believe it 100%.
Everyone and everything cares about me. I care for every part of myself. I care for everyone and everything.
What would it be like, today, to live this turnaround and act like it was true?
Pretty awesome.
Much love,
Grace