Last night I went to have dinner with a friend. Afterwards I was waiting for a bus at the bus stop to go home when this car stopped alongside me and a man looked out. Think 'Pretty Woman' except for I am no Julia Roberts and he certainly was no Richard Gere. A man was walking up the street and also looked at the car. No words were exchanged between me and the man in the car but my face must have conveyed everything that needed to be said because he crawled away. I caught the eye of the man on the street and said 'is that what I think it was'. He replied 'yes'. In astonishment I said 'but I'm at a bus stop'. To which he shrugged his shoulders and said 'his kind don't care about that'. I was amazed at what had happened. I lived in London for almost 20 years and I've never had anything like that happen and I'm one month living in Brighton and I've been mistaken for a hooker, it's just amazing. I didn't make it mean anything which is why I could be bemused about the whole thing without getting upset or angry. I'm under no illusion that had I been anyone vaguely resembling a female with a pulse he would have done what he did. I must admit to feeling a bit vulnerable after it standing at the bus stop on an eerily quiet street even though it was only 10pm at night. After what seemed like ages the bus came and grateful I quickly got on. I wondered what was the lesson in this for me. I believe that everything happens for a reason and when we can stand back and not get caught up in making it mean something but just look at it for what it was then the reason for every event will show itself. Unfortunately although I racked my brain for what its purpose was my intuition was unusually quiet.
I couldn't believe it when I let myself into the house and the smell of dope was strong enough for me to get high without smoking anything. I found myself feeling angry not at the fact that they were smoking again but because I had been told that the smoking is confined to the weekend when clearly it isn't. This is the one occasion when I find it hard not to make lying mean anything. Finding someone out in a lie is for me a betrayal of trust and it changes how I see that person. This is ridiculous because it is in the nature of human being to lie to make ourselves look good to others. This is the main driver of human behaviour, the need to look good and avoid looking bad to ourselves and others. This looking good is the price we pay for not being authentic. Unfortunately the cost is hidden from our view which is why we are not aware of it and why the need to look good can operate so effectively from beneath our awareness.
But why I find myself in this environment is also there for me to look at. What is it that this environment is going to teach me. For one brief moment last night I wondered whether it was a message to take another drug that maybe my consciousness needs another artificial shove to get to the next level of intuitions and insights but for some reason I am reluctant to make it mean this. Now I have a different context for behaviour. Tiredness I don't see as natural tiredness I see it as the tiredness of either being constantly stoned or the withdrawal of being stoned the night before. And yet, there is a kindness in these people that I am staying with. I see their love and commitment to their kids and the mother and father to each other. It is my issue why I am feeling judgemental and critical, nothing to do with them or smoking dope. It is times like this that I crash head on with the lovely tolerant Buddhist I want to paint myself as and the small critical identity which is never very far away.
And yet in spite of me being like this everything is taking off at a speed that is breathtaking. Having gone on a rant yesterday about not being able to get an interview at a Buddhist centre, I received an email from the centre reconsidering the request for the interview if it's not going to be published in a magazine. I was thrilled about this and immediately replied reassuring them that I wouldn't send the article to any media. In the meantime, I had contacted another Buddhist centre requesting the interview. They agreed without any hesitation so all I have to do is to confirm the time. So yesterday I had none and this evening I have 2!. Also today I had a call from the reviewer of my book requesting that the publisher send 10 copies to his book shop - all of this is quite incredible and I know that it is all happening because of me being in integrity over how I spend my days.
The only continuing nightmare is shorthand. The words that I live in dread of every day are 'how would you write'..aagh...all my hours spent drilling (fancy word for shorthand practice) the outlines and fooling myself that I'm actually getting somewhere only to be completely stymied when the lecturer asks us to work out something that we haven't seen before'. My competence bubble comes crashing down and I suddenly have mega headache and want to be anywhere but in the room. I think I'm so intuitive in every area of life and then when it comes to guessing what are the main outlines of a word...intuition goes right out the window and whatever I scrawl down bears no resemblance to the perfect outline that has gone on the board. I just dread the actual shorthand exam but this is not very powerful given all the training I have had for how to create the life I want which I must admit I am creating pretty well at the moment.
I've even managed to get a team around me to plan an end of exam party for all of us. This was something I was sure that I couldn't do. My identity had given me a point of view which was all about doing everything on my own. The thoughts of putting together a team to do anything made me feel sick. But the training I am doing is all about learning how to lead and empower and cause a team and as it's my last quarter I gave a commitment that I would push through any resistance to make this happen, and there has been huge resistance. I was convinced that Icouldn't put a team together and organise something and suddenly now I have 6 people all up for organising this event. Life is truly magical at the moment in spite of all the hard college work. I've also received confirmation that my work experience placement is all approved and an interview has been set up for me with a view to writing an article for that magazine for their next issue. This will be a challenge because it is working for a trade magazine and my interest and experience has been in writing for a consumer magazine so once again I will be challenged. I was sitting in the library yesterday writing and I was stuck for a word so I gazed out the window, then not only a word came but the whole sentence and it was perfect for what I was writing. I was so in awe of this because of how different it was when I was working in a different field. The magic of what is possible when you are doing something you love was not available because I had no integrity around what I was doing. I did it as best I could but deep down I knew that it was the wrong environment for me. When things get challenging for me in this field I can't fall back on the reason that it's the wrong thing for me. I know that it is so right for me if I can find the right magazine.
What I have found amazing is how ready people are to speak to me. When I recreate what people say so that they can see that I have listened and understood what they have said, they are so much freer in what they saw. Nothing builds closeness more than to be listened to and understood. It makes for a much better and more interesting interview also.
Tomorrow I start my first evening of the Vortex group healing. I'm in that place where now that it is almost here I'm wondering why did I sign up for it. But I know that this is just my identity that doesn't want to go because of some threat. I assert that when we feel any resistance to anything it is the identity that doesn't want us to have the breakthroughs that are possible if we push through that resistance and do that one thing we have been resisting or putting off. I was so resisting putting together a team to plan this event and I gave it up and just went for it and the results in every other area in terms of everything else moving and flowing are nothing short of magical. The tragedy is that we all too often give into the resistance and in that moment when we do that.....we die a little and the big game we are all destined to play if not in this life then in another shrinks. For so long I have kept myself small and safe rejecting lots of invitations to find out what's on the other side. These days I'm more willing than I have ever been to go to what's on the other side.....
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