It’s been very difficult for me to bring examples to the phenomenon “or-ness”, in spite of the fact that it is all over. I was trying to define it, but it’s eluded me.
Here is an article I didn’t write. It is a beautiful illustration of the principle of how to replace “or” with “and” and give birth to a lot better, a lot more loving life than it was before. Really nicely done:
It started with “I love you, but …”
It could have been “I love you, but you’re driving me crazy” or any of the following: “I love you, but you’re not listening to me”; “I love you, but stop leaving dirty dishes in the sink”; or “I love you, but I need some alone time.” I’ve begun many a sentence with those four words, and never paused for a moment to think about what they mean. What are we actually conveying when we begin a sentence like that?
What my husband heard wasn’t the first part of the sentence, but the second, every time. What he heard was “I love you if …” and “I would love you, if only you would …” He didn’t like it, he said so, and I’m glad he did.
He was right. I was throwing “I love you” in to soften the blow, but let’s be honest, when you say it like that, the purpose of the statement is to communicate everything except “I love you.” The “but” slices the top of the sentence off and the “I love you” gets discarded like a strawberry’s calyx. “I love you,” usually the most beautiful and powerful three words anyone can say, becomes a lie, inauthentic and cheap. A con.
My husband asked if I could replace the word “but” with the word “and.” I stopped and repeated the sentence I had just said to him with the revision, and the light bulb inside my head nearly blinded me with epiphany. “I love you AND you are driving me crazy.”
Suddenly, his driving me crazy was no longer an exception to my loving him. It was part and parcel of the package. I could love him and be driven crazy by him simultaneously! A little conjunction transduction made all the difference.
It took me a while to make the change in my delivery permanent, but it was worth the effort. It has made a significant difference in my communication with my husband, and now, my kids. Above all else, I want my family to know that I love them regardless of circumstances, even if they are driving me crazy.
Your boss, your children, your clients, customers, your teachers all now come with this “but” and you are pretentious, resisting them and what’s wrong with them, rendering yourself separate, superior, and ineffective.
Try it out with everyone.
The art is catching the hidden “or” expressed in this context as “but”. The “or” is the context. In these situations it says: You either be perfect or I can’t or won’t love you.
One of my students has told me repeatedly: “I can’t be coached by you unless you are nice, kind, and non-confronting…” i.e. allowing her to stay the same. And she did… because I refused to obey her hidden ultimatum, the concealed threat. She left.
Let’s switch this phenomenon around for a moment:
If you live inside this or-ness, then you probably resent people for not loving you the way you are, for not accepting you. Whether this is a fact or not, you expect them to reject who you really are and they comply… catch 22… You really think it’s them… never suspecting that you are causing it to perpetuate your view of yourself.
Once you realize this dynamic, you may start to allow people to be the way they are, and love them exactly the way they are, and exactly the way they aren’t. To the degree that you succeed in that you will be able to allow people to know you, and love you how you really are… Ultimately this is what we do in the Playground program, little by little allow you to be you, thus encouraging you to allow others to be the way they are.
Can you imagine how much energy that will release and give you to grow and expand? Tremendous! The missing capacity, the capacity of allowing, is the DNA capacity that needs to be activated.
In spite of the fact the the Playground is a very simple and very gentle program, it has the promise to activate all the missing (inactive) capacities. Of course adding activators, energetic activators, (whether they are infused in water (remedies) or audios like the avatar state audios) can only speed up the process and make it easier.
The energetic activator of allowing is included in the Effortless Abundance Activator.
In yesterday’s Start Driving your Own Life we got really close to seeing everything you need to master to become a human being… but I, somehow, missed this piece…
This gentle, albeit difficult step: allowing… replace all and but with ‘and’.
It was a neutral question, just wondering what IS possible, knowing that it may not be visible to me.
I am currently dealing with a lot of change in my life and admittedly, I am more frequently at my ‘saturation point’ as far as confrontation goes. At least I recognize this as my issue and choose not to bring this to class where it gets in the way.
As much as I find it challenging at times, I LIKE your coaching style and I find it effective. It doesn’t need to be comfortable, I get that. How coaching connects is an individual thing, I don’t believe I could find a style for ‘everyone’ as you suggest, even if I tried. Each of your students is on his/her own journey.
Actually, let me put it this way: go and find someone whose coaching you like, because it’s nice, kind, and non-confronting, and effective, and save other people the trouble of finding someone. Please come back and share it with everything. I promise everyone will be grateful for your sacrifice.
no chance, not possible. No ego is willing to let, what needs to be seen, in a way that transformation can happen.
The only difference is a long term program like the Playground, but even there the one correction/one rule to only say what is real and actually happened is VERY CONFRONTING.
Is this question is why you haven’t been coming to class?
Is it possible to be “nice, kind, and non-confronting” AND coach to cause change?