Are you a taker?
Before I get to the question in the title, let’s look at a similar question: what is the difference between a judgment and an assessment?
The difference is subtle.
Judgment:
1. judgment is hiding that personal agenda: the speaker needs to be placed about the judged thing or person to be “authorized” to judge… “I have the right to judge, because I am better, smarter, because I-I-I-I-I whatever. Desire to receive for the self alone.
2. a judgment is always systemic. It uses two pronged concepts, good/bad, right/wrong, smart/stupid… systemic judgments.
Assessment:
an assessment is not building up the speaker’s self-estimation, it is observations about the observed, and mostly not concerned with the systemic (two-pronged aspect of anything), instead extrinsic or intrinsic aspects.
None of the judgment can be verified in reality, while much of the assessment is a part of reality: visible, trackable,
Now let’s return to the original question:
Is being a taker a judgment or an assessment?
We are going to look in reality and see if it can be seen in reality. 1
I assess… lol, that it can be seen.
A taker is also stingy, with one hand they reach out to get, with the other they hold onto, tightly, to what they have already gotten.
A companion to this stinginess is the “whatever these are… ” being greedy, and the concept of feeling slighted. Always getting less that you feel is your due. 2
It is also coupled with not recognizing value…
Value is not real, by the way. So the expression “recognizing value” is from unreality. Value is something you give… assign… and depending on what you value more, what you value less, your vibration is high or low.
Most people I observe that another for their time. Which would indicate that they value the time the other gave… none of what was happening in that time.
Imagine thanking your spouse or lover for their time… it would signal the end of the affection and intimacy in that relationship.
Or imagine thanking the chef for their time it took to create the culinary experience… you would not be invited to that restaurant any more.
Or an actor, a musician, a scientist, a magician, or even your cat…
You see what you are. The principle, you don’t see things as they are, you see things as you are holds doubly true here… You are dishing out what you feel is wrong with you or alternatively what you feel other people give you.
If your case is worthless or nothing (zero) you’ll view everyone as that… and you’ll thank them for their time… or want more of their time… because maybe the time has some value, even if they don’t.
You will give no value for most of what you get, for example support, or faith in you, or love. Because you can only see what you have distinguished for yourself through tracking it through your own experience of your intention… an inner thing. Invisible until it isn’t.
Yesterday I had the last “Talk to me” free webinar of the year.
I saw that the more I give someone the less they are inclined to give back. They, probably, feel that they are giving ME what they are doing for themselves, for the courses they take, the coaching they are in, etc.
This, being outward driven, doing things so that… something or someone outside should give them something… seems to be a huge symptom of the current civilization… and it is getting worse.
I have lived my life to get better, do things better, to become someone that wasn’t predictable… for my own sake, for myself.
I admit there were occasional thoughts “If I became successful, then maybe my parents would be proud of me” but I knew they would not… could not… so I returned to do things for my own sake, for the pleasure it gave me.
You can only feel your own feelings, by the way. When you feel loved, you feel you loving. You can’t feel another loving you… they feel that.
Just think about sex… do you feel the other, or do you feel yourself? You feel yourself. Only.
What are the best feelings? Giving, generosity, gentleness, kindness, producing something that is beautiful, masterful.
I have tried my hand on many many things, craft, art, science, or physical things, all to experience… what? Success? No. The “sound” of the beautiful sound a violin gives when you play it well enough so the sound becomes music. The sound that comes out of your mouth. The magic of the picture emerge on the paper in the developing solution in the dark room. The magic of dancing the color red, the miracle of feeling the non-existent mirror when you do pantomime, the precision of the line that just touches a circle under your rapidograph…
I have learned over 20 professions to the degree that they passed that magical “sound”… the joy of competence.
But, of course, if you do things for others’ sake, you never experience any of it… or you need to shift who you do things for.
It is the most generous thing to do things for yourself… for the perfection, for the joy of it. You loving yourself, you loving yourself through that magic making quality…
By the way, if you have a dog… just watch it as it leaps for the Frisbee… it loves how it feels to be himself. It doesn’t give a fig about what you think: he puts all his attention on how he feels.
I go every Tuesday to a senior exercise class. And I have started to do some of that at home… and my body feels good doing it. I feel young, and vibrant, and amazing. I don’t care what the mirror says… I care how it feels.
One of my students learned something from me and tried it ONCE: go and walk like a dance, even in the street, and feel how you feel.
Who cares what other people think.
Do you think Fred Astaire gave a rat’s ass? No, he danced for himself. That is what made him great.
Or Billy Elliot… ditto. and if you watch the last scene in that movie, the soaring flight of the swan… when you do it for yourself, the whole world has permission to fly with you.
But THAT is not the goal, or if it is, it is failing.
To live a life for others’ sake is a failed life. Wretched. Truly.
In yesterday’s Talk to me webinar I had a conversation with a long time follower, one-time student.
There was a magical moment when he, suddenly, unexpectedly, got in touch with himself. What I said: We allow consciousness to pick a path for us…
He had lived the joyless, thankless, ungratifying existence of living for others’ approval, appreciation, to be validated.
And maybe for the first time, he heard that he was looking at the wrong place… and that there is a place that is joyful? He didn’t say. And almost instantly he returned to being approval seeking, turned outward, like he has always been… but there is hope for him, like there is hope for my people in the Playground groups.
Two have already reported the exquisite joy they experienced when they let go of “what others think about that”.
A new group, a men’s group is starting up, hopefully soon. Because of this new student and his schedule, the group sessions will be on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, starting somewhere between noon and 6 pm, so I can get to bed at my usual bedtime.
If you want to sign up, go to https://offers.by-sophie.com/playground
PS: You can give too much… especially when the intended recipient can’t use what you give.
There is living knowing that the only pleasure you’ll ever get is what your activity gives you. But there is living that is truly desire to receive for the self alone: showing stuff down on people’s throat, teaching or preaching to them what they don’t need or can’t use.
If you look, you can detect the difference in that one is gaining pleasure without limiting another’s, and the other is gaining pleasure at the expense of another.
And there is a third, where you giving too much makes the recipient dependent on you, and hate you. Need you and hate you.
Noticing that is YOUR job… because although the hate only hurts them, not you, you are being evil… and on the whole that doesn’t feel good.
I experience this, intermittently, with students who live the “8” energy, the energy of the roller coaster. when they are in the hell phase of the 8, the low vibration, low intelligence phase, I need to look what they can take… instead of giving like a fire hose.
That is MY lesson to learn.
Did I ever say that I don’t have an easy job? And coaching has been pretty much the hardest profession to produce that beautiful sound I want to hear, the sound of music from the violin.
- While I was looking for suitable illustrations on google, I found a ton of memes that are rules… All rules are asking you to meet other people’s expectations… and ignore your own inner needs, your own expectation of yourself… like make yourself happy, fulfilled, big, feel good about yourself. so please take the illustrations with a grain of salt.
- Another symptom of stinginess is the unwillingness/reluctance of being an investor.
The fireplace analogy of “fireplace give me heat, and then I give you wood” shows how this works.- The Desire Trap is a stinginess indicator.
- The directionlessness is a stinginess indicator.
- The unwillingness to learn new things, to develop skills and capacities is a stinginess indicator.
Stingy people don’t feel good about life, about themselves.
You may be only occasionally stingy… You may feel you have nothing to give, you don’t even have enough for yourself… lol.
