Being straight....without being aggressive

It was good to get back to my usual Saturday cycle spinning class. The combination of music, rhythm and meditation in the early morning really sets me up for the day. I returned home to get ready to go to my assisting agreement. A friend called me and usually I would be not present in the conversation because I would be thinking about leaving to get there on time. This time I chatted fully and at a natural point in the conversation explained that I was doing my agreement and had to be there soon. This resulted in a natural 'oh you'd better go if you're going to make it'. I said 'goodbye' and set off. For some reason I thought that the agreement started at 2pm and it was almost 1.30pm when I set off. To be in integrity I called the office and explained that I was going to be late. I did this to be in integrity just in case I was late.

But I knew that I would arrive in time. I didn't know how this was going to happen but I knew. To my amazement for a Saturday the road to the centre was almost clear!, this is unheard of in London. The result was that I arrived in plenty of time. What I had totally forgotten was that my agreement starts at 2.30pm, so I arrived at two minutes to 2! This is symptomatic of my mind at the moment, it seems to be just going through the motions of human life. My consciousness though is definitely somewhere else.

I arrived into the centre to find that there were no notes left for me for what to do. I immediately felt irritation rise and my immediate thought was to walk out. The ego raised it's haughty head with thoughts like 'this is no way to treat a volunteer who has given up a Saturday afternoon'. With this thought came upset and another thought quickly followed 'me making phone calls when I'm upset just doesn't work, the last time there was complaint in about me'. There was a woman at the next desk and I said to her 'this doesn't work for me that there are no instructions left to tell me what needs to be done'. All she said was 'I got that, I have lots of names for people who need to be called if you want to do that'. I said 'yes' but there was huge resistance. Then I saw something that my manager has been trying to get me to see since my agreement started 'I want things to be a certain way and I get upset when they are not that way'. I expected instructions to be left and I got upset when they weren't. Wow.....What would my life be like if I could create some flexibility around this and not expect everything to be a certain way, that would be so freeing. Freedom from upset ever.....how amazing is that.

In spite of this insight I was still upset. I set about making phone calls and surprise, surprise, nobody was in or it went direct to answerphone. Then a woman came over, she had just had a call from my registration manager with instructions for me that I didn't understand....aagh.... He had spoken about names in a folder. When we got the folder the names he had given were not there. My patience almost at breaking point and my legs threatening to have a life of their own and walk out with or without me I persevered. Another phone call to the registration manager established that he had said one thing but really meant another. This just added another layer of frustration on top of what were layers of upset. I could see that this was going to be a very challenging day. If I came out at the end of this 3 hours without any scars it would be a miracle.

We found the required list of names and then there was another instruction to call people to be experts but to be an expert he/she has to be registered for the seminar. This threw me into more confusion. How do I invite people and then say there's a requirement. I saw a woman who I was told was a seminar leader and I went up to ask her how to do this. During the conversation I told her that I felt it was being manipulative to invite someone and then say 'by the way before you can do this you have to be registered'. She said that the manipulation was in me and that all I need to do is to be straight. She gave me an uncomfortable demonstration of how it would come across as manipulative and it was so apt. I would say things like 'the thing is to be an expert you have to be registered, and therefore it's a requirement'. She showed me how to be straight by saying 'we would like to invite you to be an expert. An expert is someone who is registered to do this seminar, would you be interested in registering, yes, no, yes, thank you for being an expert, no, absolutely fine'. When she said it, it didn't sound in the least bit manipulative.

I knew then why my phone calls to do this were not successful it was because I was not being straight. To me being straight is being aggressive. This was how I viewed being straight. She gave me a great way through. She said 'the next phone call you make, tell whoever you are speaking to that you are here to have a breakthrough in being straight and ask them to tell you if they feel you are coming across as being manipulative'. Wow.....what brilliant guidance this was. It made a complete difference to the next conversation and at the end of that conversation the woman had registered to do the next seminar and be an expert.....all of this came from being straight. I know now that being straight is not the same as being aggressive. I know now that I can be straight without it coming across as being pushy or aggressive. This is a huge learning and I would not have got that without the assisting agreement. By being straight I allowed others to be straight with me in that they either wanted to register or they didn't and either way was perfectly OK.

At the end of the evening the guy who was working at the next desk and is a coach on one of the programmes came up to speak to me. He had been late arriving for his agreement and then had taken the work which the other woman had given me to to do which had pissed me off. He asked if I had anything to say before I left. I said 'your lateness had an impact on me and on the other woman who was here' and I was pissed off with that. He then talked to me about the insight I had had earlier about the power there is in flexibility and not always wanting things to go a certain way.

To be flexible enough that when they don't go the way I expect or want, not to get upset but to genuinely be able to be happy with the changed circumstances. I know that I am a long way from that because of how upset I was yesterday when things weren't the way I expected them to be. Especially when I had told my registration manager when this was done before that it didn't work for me. For it to be like that again for me meant a lack of respect. But I know that is just the meaning I put on it. I know though that the whole purpose of an assisting agreement is about discovering things about yourself that are hidden from your view so that they can be seen and given up to be powerful in the game of transformation. I can't be powerful if my energy is tied up in upset because things weren't the way I want them to be. There is no power in upset all there is is a making wrong and a looking good, the power comes in a flexibility which is genuine and not a flexibility that comes of pretending that things are OK when they're not. That's not flexibility, that's repression.

After the agreement I was tired. Discovering hidden things in this way is exhausting and not so comfortable. But I remember what Manuel said about the consciousness not only expanding to experience joy, bliss, peace but also expanding so that things that are not so comfortable to look at also emerge. I write often about the joy, peace and bliss which is deep within me and so to balance I have to expect and accept what emerged yesterday. I am so grateful to have the assisting environment which enables it all to come up. As always it is not about anything being wrong, only about things that don't work. It's not wrong that I get upset when things are not the way I want them, or I won't change direction if things are not a certain way, but when I don't show flexibility I am not powerful and as a result my consciousness does not expand....

This blog is concerned with the expansions of consciousness that result in spiritual awakening. Each time we see something limiting and give it up some consciousness that has been frozen is freed. It is freed to work towards the upward expansion of consciousness that results in spiritual awakening if that is the intention. The process of freeing frozen consciousness is firstly to recognise and take responsibility for something, then get the impact on how it has affected life, and then give it up and create a new way of being that is empowering and powerful. In this way the consciousness is freed and is then powerfully redirected to developing the consciousness that is necessary for spiritual awakening......