When something isn’t working in your life, there is something you don’t know… but how are you going to find out what you don’t know, and how are you going to learn it? Big question!
I just got off the “itch” webinar. I felt real gratitude flowing towards me from participants. True gratitude I recognized as gratitude I have felt before.
Let me tell you my story: When I was 28 years old, I dated a man who was older than me. One evening he sat me down and said: “I think your father never spoke to you…”
“How did you know? I never told you that?!” I answered, dumbfounded that he knew that.
“I know because if he had, you would not make the mistakes you are making” he answered.
You know, at the time I lived alone, and had a lot of issues with guys wanting to rape me.
Every incident started in a similar way: someone would walk me home, and ask if he could come in for a cup of coffee. I thought nothing of it, but they all wanted sex.
My older boy friend explained that a cup of coffee is code word for sex… I would have never figured it out by myself. I was never again bothered by men like that.
A woman, my older brother’s wife, explained a diplomatic way to make others think it was their idea, so they don’t feel forced, don’t become defensive.
I was older now, and I never manage to learn this new way. I wish she had explained that to me when I was much younger.
Generosity like this is rare, and I am lucky that I had a few people in my life that explained things to me, that taught me things that because of my blind spot, I could have never figured out myself.
Everyone has at least one blind spot, and unless someone generous comes alone, it remains a blind spots… and blind spots are dangerous: you can get killed, maimed, buried, hurt, or remain poor and unexpressed.
Today’s session was like that: teaching new ways of being that you could have never learned, given the blind spots you have.
And something, deep inside, really knows that all that knowledge, all that teaching was sorely missing, and with that you are twice the man or woman.
I remember every single person fondly, who taught me things, ways of being, how to do things, that I had a blind spot preventing me to see.
The woman who taught me that excellence, greatness is a scale, not black and white… and saved me from the horrible self-flagellation I did to myself previous to that.
The woman who taught me that you can lie by commission, and you can lie by omission… that gossip hurts even if you didn’t intend for it to be gossip, even if what you say is true.
None of the learning came from courses, or even books. It all came from individuals, generous enough to look me in the eye and say: hey, do it this way. Or hey, you are making a mistake here.
I intend to be this for my students. That person they will remember for the rest of their lives, that showed them what was invisible and unavailable to them, because of the blind spot created by the “itch.”
