Since hearing of the death of my friend Tracey I have been in a very black space. I pride myself on always being there for my friends and the truth was that I wasn't there for her. I dedicated my kundalini class last night to her and at one point I thought I could hear her laughing at some of positions I was putting myself into. The postures we did last night were all to develop tolerance and it seemed apt in that it was tolerance for ourselves for when we don't behave in the way that we want to. Tolerance starts with tolerance for ourselves and then we can have tolerance for others. If I want to know how much tolerance I have towards others I have only to look at how tolerant I am of myself. I have moments where I am OK and then others where I dissolve into tears and beat myself up. I am so used to being able to call up my friends and fess up about how bad I have been at keeping in touch and its usually been OK. This time I can't do it. I am never going to hear her voice or see her smiling face and the finality of that has been very hard for me to take and bounce back from. But the strangest thing is that I feel her so close.
On Monday morning I didn't want to get out of bed. I knew though that I had given my word to do certain things and part of me also knew that these feelings of not wanting to do anything were not me. It was a strange experience watching that part of me that had the feelings of not wanting to engage with the world and that part that knew that I had given my word to do things. The battle between these two parts was raging and I was the witness of it all. I eventually dragged myself out of bed and had a shower. I took out my list of things I said I would do and methodically went through them. All the while I had Tracey's face before me. I was committed to do an agreement in London and I had a real struggle to get myself ready and go. At East Croydon a woman got on the train and came into the same seat as me. She smiled at me and I said 'hello'. We both busied ourselves with doing our own thing until she took out a book which I saw was a Buddhist book. She caught my eye and I asked if she was a Buddhist. It turned out from our brief conversation that she wanted to start a meditation and spiritual centre in Brighton, had premises that she had just finished renovating and was a filmaker, interested in making spiritual films. I told her a little about me and she asked me for my contact details and asked if I would be interested in creating something new with her.
We exchanged details and when I returned I sent her an email stating that I would like to meet up for a longer chat to see what we can create. She replied and next week we are meeting up to discuss possibilities. She sent me her website url and when I looked she is an experienced documentary and filmaker which is amazing because I have talked about making a film of my own experience that would inspire others to really take on the spiritual as opposed to the religious. I feel sure that it was Tracey that made this happen for me. I had been feeling so bad and wrong for breaking contact with her and it was her way of showing me that I'm not a bad person for not keeping in touch. I'm always aware also that my ego will take any negativity on my part and use it for its own ends so I have to manage that also. There is also a payoff in me keeping myself in a powerless position and that is that I don't have to take responsibility to generate or create anything new. By staying in the victim mode and making myself bad and wrong I can take myself out of the game of being responsible and the temptation not to be responsible is very strong at the moment.
What I also see from the way that I cut off contact with Tracey when she didn't respond to my texts or messages was that this was very much like how a child would behave; a kind of tit for tat and I was reminded of what was said to me when I was removed from being accountable for a team about a year ago. I was told that having me in charge of a team was 'like having a five year old in charge'. At the time I dismissed the comment but seeing my behaviour with Tracey - it is all coming from the same consciousness, the right brain consciousness, the childlike consciousness. What there is for me to do so it try to get more of a balance. But how on earth am I going to do this given how right brain dominant I am.
The worry for me is that as I get older I seem to be getting more childlike not less. I'm beginning to have a wariness when speaking with adults that wasn't there before. It's like before I even begin I have told myself that they won't understand me. It's getting to the stage that I would much rather listen than speak at all. I think I can understand people like Sri Aurobindo who took himself away from the world, retreating into his right brain when the consciousness shifted. I don't want to do this because I believe that I can make a difference to people but I'm also aware that as I get older my right brain consciousness is likely to get stronger which is probably going to lead to adults feeling more frustrated with me than they already do. .....
What is ironic is that in order for me to be a powerful leader for children and young people I have to be a powerful leader for adults first.....how likely is my dream now.....not very I would think........
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