Nonfiction Book Recommendations #3

This blog post will summarize the main points of a life-changing self-development nonfiction book I would recommend to anyone on a transformational journey.

Book Recommendation #3 (Summary of Main Points): Getting Real by Susan Campbell

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Getting Real Book Summary:

Foreword

Those of us who understand honesty as a fundamental spiritual practice know that simply being honest, like meditation, helps us to experience life more fully. In fact, a further magnification of the already enhanced experience of being that comes from noticing occurs when we accurately describe our experience of noticing to another. Intimacy happens. Two beings know each other and have learned more about being itself.

Introduction

As infants and young children, we took on a bunch of false beliefs about how the world works and how people are.

. . . there seemed to be nothing that I could do to escape that feeling of emptiness.

· False Belief #1: If you express your wants too strongly, you’ll be punished.

· False Belief #2: You need to shut down your feelings to avoid making others uncomfortable.

· False Belief #3: No matter how much you want something, even if you holler about it, you won’t get it, especially if you really, really want it.

· False Belief #4: You can avoid painful feelings by becoming judgmental and critical of others

· False Belief #5: It’s not safe to talk back to an angry person.

I learned strategies for staying safe and in control by not expressing wants or anger and by being judgmental when I was really afraid. We limit ourselves in the interest of staying safe.

It is a part of the human journey to start out whole, then to continually cut off parts of ourselves in response to real or imagined pain, and to spend the rest of our lives searching for what we have cut off, buried, or forgotten about. Thus, we project onto others what we cannot feel, experience, and own up to in ourselves.

So, honest communication becomes your “awareness practice”—your vehicle for noticing what you avoid (your irrational fears) and how you go about avoiding it (your control patterns). These practices are a way of using language to help you stay with your present felt experience—what you see, hear, smell, feel, remember, sense, and intuit.

The way out is to go deeply in—to stay with the felt experience rather than going into a control pattern. All we need is genuine curiosity, an openness to experiment, and a willingness to experience with awareness whatever comes up.

Getting real is about unhooking from your self-image (personal story and false beliefs) and being real about the parts of yourself that you thought you had to hide in order to survive.

Shoulds prevents us from seeing how our life really is—and from taking appropriate action. Shoulds also justify not taking action in a situation that has become intolerable. “He shouldn’t treat me that way.” So you focus on what he should or shouldn’t do instead of on your own anger, and you get to feel wronged, righteous, and stuck. Shoulds keep you from owning your power to create the life you want. They keep you in denial about your actual feelings and situation.

Getting real serves as an antidote to the sort of self-deception that keeps people feeling powerless and overwhelmed. Once you stop trying to get reality to conform to you ideas and ideals and let yourself see, feel, and express what is, you will feel more empowered to deal effectively with your present situation.

You are most lovable when you are most transparent. Your power to heal any tendency to struggle against yourself lies in your ability to be aware of what is, without praise or blame.

Ch. 1 – How to Stop Being Right and Start Being Real

We all lie, sugarcoat, pretend, or withhold. Why?

The most common reasons people give are

· to avoid hurting people’s feelings

· to avoid looking foolish

· to avoid conflict, disagreement, or feeling anger

· to ensure things turn out right

· to avoid feeling out of control

We all lie to avoid what we perceive as dangerous—to our ego, to our comfort, to our safety. Most of us lie because our sense of safety and self-esteem depends on our feeling in control, in control of how other people react to us, of whether we appear smart or foolish, of whether we’ll get what we want.

We communicate with the intent to control rather than the intent to relate. But until we take a risk and share authentically, nothing real can happen. Sharing withholds or unexpressed feelings that we are trying not to think about allows us to release feelings and have more available energy and attention to give to the person or situation.

Based on a three-year research study, about 80 percent of a person’s communications is geared controlling something that is beyond their control. If we persist in trying to get our relationships to conform to our expectations instead of letting them be how they actually are, we may miss important opportunities to know ourselves and others more deeply.

Control-oriented communication is geared towards ensuring a predictable result. It is the ego-mind’s way of protecting us from feeling anxious or uncomfortable when facing an unexpected or unknown outcome. When you relate you speak the truth of what you think, feel, and notice as a way of sharing information and making emotional contact—and not as a way of getting a particular outcome. You speak your truth without knowing how this truth will be received.

There are 10 essential truth skills:

1. Experiencing What Is

2. Being Transparent

3. Noticing Your Intent (Controlling vs. Relating)

4. Welcoming Feedback

5. Asserting What You Want and Don’t Want (making a request rather than a demand, For ex. “Would you be willing to . . . ?”

6. Taking Back Projections – Understanding that what we “see” and judge in another person is actually a mirror of something in yourself that you’re uncomfortable with.

7. Revising an Earlier Statement

8. Holding Differences – Helps you see the relationships between things that may first appear as separate and mutually exclusive

9. Sharing Mixed Emotions

10. Embracing the Silence

These 10 truth skills constitute an awareness practice—a way of speaking and listening that helps you to see, accept, and deal creatively with whatever is. You can only be as authentic as you are self-aware. What is often stands in sharp contrast to what you wish were happening or think should be happening.

When your attention is on your mind chatter (thoughts, inferences, judgments, and interpretations), you are not present to what is happening here and now, so you cannot be real. You become more real as you peel away your automatic defense patterns (to feel more safe, comfortable, and secure) and conditioned false beliefs.

When you express what you are honestly thinking, feeling, and wanting with the intention of relating (rather than bolstering your position), you come to see that who you are is not defined by your thoughts, feelings, story, or position. You come to experience yourself as a human being whose experience of life is constantly changing and who is okay regardless of what you feel.

You learn to participate in life instead of trying to control it.

Ch. 2 – Experiencing What Is

The chapter begins with a story of a mother (Mona) who gets “triggered.” The trigger is from an old, unprocessed emotional event (neglect, trauma, abuse) from the past that gets reactivated by a similar person, event, or situation in the present. These emotional “imprints” are called Samskaras in yoga philosophy. The mother stays with her sensations and feelings when her son goes off to college enabling her to remember reactivated feelings (energy) from an earlier childhood trauma, thereby allowing her to finally process and release a stuck energy pattern within her body allowing her more freedom in the present moment.

Do you ever start to feel something and then try to avoid feeling it? Do you tell yourself that you are being unreasonable, inappropriate, that it won’t do any good, that you are weak, or any number of other self-suppressing messages?

Mona discovered that self-suppression, not the current situation, was at the root of her pain.

As long as you avoid experiencing whatever is calling out to be experienced, you will not heal. A part of you will be lost. Any time you feel something and then notice yourself trying to avoid feeling it, it’s probably more significant than it appears.

Most of us are vigilant about avoiding painful feelings. So we must become equally vigilant at noticing the control patterns of our minds—because to feel what we actually feel, perhaps something that we weren’t strong to let ourselves fully experience in the past, allows us the possibility of becoming real.

Most of us are thinkers instead of being feelers—to compare, judge, or theorize instead of simply experiencing what is. Experiencing what is demands that you set aside your beliefs about what should or shouldn’t be going on, about what you wish were going on, what you expected, what you were prepared for, what you interpret, and what you judge as acceptable. These are all ways of maintaining an illusion of being in control.

The ability to make the distinction between what you actually see and the meaning you attribute to what you see is crucial to the work of Getting Real.

Most couples fight about the meanings they attribute to the partner’s actions. Instead of stating observations, feelings, imaginings (I imagine you are ...), even revealing judgments/inferences, and making requests (NVC – nonviolent communication language), couples tend to make internal inferences, assumptions, and conclusions and then withdrawal, isolate, numb, distract, fight, angrily state assumptions or conclusions, be passive-aggressive, or be resentful.

Our interpretations are a lot more painful than our actual experiences. When you learn instead to simply tell others what you are feeling, without the fancy interpretations, you avoid unnecessary pain and misunderstanding. It is generally easier for the other person to hear us nondefensively when we speak about what we heard them say instead of why we think they said it.

Automatically responding to your worst internal fear is a common control pattern. Your buttons are pushed, and you react. This pattern keeps you in familiar emotional territory, where you don’t have to risk learning anything about yourself. You don’t have to change (no healing).

Authentic contact requires stepping into the unknown together in the here and now responding with present moment sharing, instead of reacting through familiar control patterns.

At first, just noticing and experiencing what is, without embellishment, is often difficult because it’s more comfortable to focus on what you think should be happening than on what really is happening.

The ego (the mind’s idea of who you think you are) does not solely define you as you are the deep and abiding presence that allows the mind to think whatever it wants. The ego tends to believe that pain is bad and is to be avoided at all costs, but feeling pain is healing and a part of the human experience.

Resisting the experience of pain can make it hurt worse. The mind imagines danger where none exists. Our active minds have trouble with just the facts. The mind likes to compare our present state with some wished-for and often unattainable state. It likes to aspire to being “better” (which is often a control pattern to avoid experiencing how you really are). And it likes to attach significance to what we perceive.

Mind chatter is simply the mind’s attempt to protect itself—to avoid the anxiety or helplessness of not knowing or not being in control. Yet your real self, your presence, you as the notice, doesn’t need protecting or defending. The more you experience yourself as “the one who notices” the safer you will feel. You will learn how to distinguish between what really belongs to you (your presence or beingness) and what is nonessential or transitory (your ideas about yourself, the world, people, things, situations).

Ch. 3 – Being Transparent

When you’re letting someone know how his words affected you, it’s important to be specific about what you heard.

The choice you make (to be real) reflects your beliefs about how safe it is to be honest, to let yourself be seen by others. . . . Then you make the choice either to let yourself be seen or to hide, pretend, withhold, or talk yourself out of your feelings (as in, “it’s no big deal”).

Is your intent to relate (to know and be known) or to control (look bad or make someone else look bad). When you communicate with the intent to relate, you will naturally become more transparent, that is, easier to know. You aren’t being strategic or trying to manipulate the outcome. You’re being open and sincere, with no hidden agenda. Also, being specific about what your sensations and feelings and observations and repeating back what they said helps you connect to your felt experience instead of your interpretation.

The first and most important part of being transparent is seeing yourself without praise or blame. The reason most people give for not being transparent is that they experience a gap between how they are and how they think they should be. Then they beat themselves up about the disparity and try to at least look like how they think they should be.

Any time you feel unsafe or unable to be honest about yourself, it means you have energy tied up in a false belief, probably unconscious, that is still dictating your life choices.

We encountered traumatic past events where we developed false beliefs (ego-forming) in order to protect us and keep us safe from physical and psychological harm, which limits ourselves in being vulnerable, open, present, and taking risks. However, when we encounter similar future situations, we become “triggered” emotionally and either resort to a reactive defensive pattern, or we allow the energy to flow and let ourselves feel until the energy and feelings subside, thereby healing the “stuck” energy and alleviating or eliminating the false belief that went along with it allowing more of our wholeness to shine through.

Another good way to let go of unconscious beliefs and to see yourself more honestly is to examine the secrets you keep from others. Having secrets is the same thing as affirming, “If people only knew me, they wouldn’t accept me.”

Getting familiar with your fears can help you to take them more lightly. Many people suffer unnecessarily because they try to hide what they’re afraid of—they are afraid or ashamed of what they are afraid of. If you accept your fears, they won’t rule your behavior as much as if you try to pretend they don’t exist. What is the false belief that is driving strong fears, and is there a desire hidden beneath a fear? Naming and being specific about fears can help reduce their intensity and power. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to hide.

It is a great idea to find a support system for yourself—people who also want to relate instead of control, who want to know and be known, and are willing to allow you to “go out and come in again.”

Many people experience fear only when certain “taboo” thoughts or emotions come up—such as anger, judgmental thoughts, or emotions or sexual hunger. As children, we learned either to protect others from feeling uncomfortable or to protect ourselves from their reactions to us.

Where anger, neediness, sex, and joy are concerned, people need a lot of help from their friends to Get Real. Expressing judgments to other people can be a lot more freeing rather than acting them out on others in intense emotions or actions. Furthermore, learning to accept that you have judgments or other self-defeating thought patterns can help you develop compassion for yourself. Often the best way to find compassion is to notice its absence—like when you are judging yourself for judging yourself.

The way back to being fully self-expressive is to begin by noticing when we cut ourselves off and then to openly share what we notice.

Ch. 4 – Noticing Your Intent

Is your intent to relate (to share your experience) or to control (make someone else feel bad or to save face)? Are you focusing on something within your control or out of your control?

By staying out of trouble instead of speaking your mind, you are more at mercy with your environment. Your sense of self-worth will be based on not how things turn out, but on whether you express what you think, know, and feel in each moment. As you learn to relate more and control less, what you express will be based on your own present-time experience, something no one can argue with, something that only you are an authority on, so you need not be afraid of disagreement.

Relating is not about convincing anyone that you are right; it is about shared learning and mutual understanding. You are truly curious about how others respond to you, even if they disagree. The controlling mind prefers to have things be predictable and known. It prefers that others agree with you or conform to your wishes. It prefers stances and positions and stability over change. Your controlling mind is trying to create a certain impression or receive a certain outcome. It likes to make you feel like you know how things should be or turn out when in reality you really don’t know how things should trun out, what is in your best interest, what’s in someone else’s best interest, or why someone did what they did.

If our ideas about being in control are illusions, where does this leave us? I think we human beings need to become more comfortable with the discomfort of not knowing, as in: I tell you what I’m feeling without knowing how you will react. You will begin to shift from someone who is trying to get certain results to someone who is simply aware and present. Getting comfortable with discomfort means not resisting information, feedback, ideas, or events that may be at odds with your expectations and desires.

One of the best things about feeling discomfort is that it signals, before things getting really bad, that something needs to change. Most of us think we would have too much to lose if we were to let go of controlling things and let ourselves be seen as we really are.

We long for the courage to live with integrity. We long to reconnect with our authentic self—that sense of uniqueness and originality that comes from deep inside and is independent of others’ expectations. When we have the courage to show up as we are, we discover that we feel more deeply connected to others.

Most people I meet are still playing the right, safe, and certain (that is controlling) game. The rules of this game are: project a positive image; don’t be too different from the norm; deny or cover up any doubts about yourself or what you are doing; don’t rock the boat, especially if this could lead to conflict or disapproval; act like you know, even if you don’t; and don’t show vulnerability. It’s time to stop acting as if we’re kids dependent on the adults around us. Let’s get more comfortable with discomfort.

So, when you think you’re right or you know how things should be, your “knowing” may be based on a very limited, biased view of reality due to unresolved past trauma and false beliefs. Controlling inhibits you from clearing difficult feelings as they occur. This keeps you distracted and unable to perceive your environment accurately. Communicating with the intent to relate builds trust and connection rather than disconnection and a wall of silence. You learn to trust that you can handle another person’s honesty, even if it is uncomfortable or against your wishes.

Six types of control patterns:

1) Identifying with Your Story or Script - Were you the smart one or the pretty one? What family role or roles do you still portray in your adult life?

2) Filtering Your Perceptions through Strongly Held Beliefs – Most core beliefs can be traced back to the need to feel safe and the belief that we are unloved or unlovable. What beliefs were formed from traumatic events or neglectful periods of your life?

3) Getting Your Buttons Pushed – What are you hypersensitive buttons? Fear of criticism, abandonment, rejection, humiliation, embarrassment, of being controlled, of being smothered, of being ignored, etc.

4) Gesturing Automatically – Having your face or body in a particular way as a way of controlling others.

5) Speaking in a Patterned Way – rapid speaking, non-stop talking, repeating words or sentences, prefacing comments with self-deprecating remarks to soften criticism, often-repeated phrases, slowly speaking

6) Replaying the Same Self-Talk Over-and-Over – Some people have a constant inner battle going on between the inner voice that wants to do what it wants and the voice that keeps telling them what they “should” be doing. Some continually replay worries about the future or past regrets/glory days.

Someone might use “I” messages and experiential language or NVC language, but may still have the intent of controlling rather than relating, so you may have to ask them what their true intent was beneath their words.

Ch. 5 – Welcoming Feedback

You welcome hearing the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. It means you’re genuinely curious and interested in other people’s realities. Do people feel they can be honest with you? If people aren’t approaching you with uncomfortable feedback, you may want to ask yourself how well you are listening. Are you open to and curious about all types of information? Do you ever unwittingly blame the messenger? Do you avoid feedback?

Asking for and receiving feedback strengthens your capacity to connect and to form intimate relationships. You are letting yourself be affected by another person. Asking for feedback from another establishes the fact that you are interested in her viewpoint and that you are open to learning with and from this person. This practice also strengthens the trust between you.

When you allow people to give you feedback about something they have been withholding, it clears the air and the two of you can get back to feeling open and relaxed with each other.

There are several ways to ask for feedback:

1) Asking for it out of the blue

2) Asking for it in response to something somebody says that is edgy or if it is an offhand provocative remark or if it is confusing or unrelated to the present moment

3) Noticing something that piques your interest – If someone is acting out-of-character, or different, or didn’t keep a promise, or something seems suspicious or out-of-the-norm

4) Having a regularly scheduled feedback schedule for relationships that are important and ongoing – Appreciation/Resentment clearing ritual, Sharing withholds, when you _______, I felt _____, Use reflective listening (reflect back what you heard) when there is a disagreement or conflict going on.

The first thing to do when receiving feedback is to pause and take it in and really be aware of thoughts, sensations, feelings, triggers, etc before proceeding any further. Respond with an acknowledgement or any feelings or thoughts related to the feedback. If the feedback is vague, ask for details or clarification regarding what was said. Feedback is most useful when you don’t criticize or ask the other person to change. See if you can adopt an attitude of being open to learning in regards to receiving feedback. Avoid defending yourself, making excuses for yourself, or passing the buck.

It is a good practice to have little to no verbal feedback when receiving feedback as you may have to deal with triggered feelings and thoughts and to let the energy settle. If you prefer to share, share your experience in regards to what feedback you received.

Being open to feedback does not mean you swallow the other’s impression of you as the truth. It means letting the feedback in and letting it have an impact on you. Listening to feedback is different from agreeing with it or taking it on. You are the one who decides whether or not to make any changes based on what you have heard.

Ch. 6 – Asserting What You Want and Don’t Want

To support your feelings, you need to know what those feelings are. And you need to be willing to reveal that you do have feelings and desires. Learn to express your wants or don’t wants even if people are unable to meet them. Do you have a difficult time expressing what you want and don’t want in a relationship?

The aim of assertion is not to get better at getting what you want. Rather, the idea here is to speak your truth so that you can see yourself more fully and feel yourself more deeply, allowing you to stay connected to your own flow of energy. Often, when you do this, you also see that getting what you want is not essential to who you are. Experiencing your feelings and expressing yourself are.

If you have difficulty saying no, remember that it says nothing about the kind of person you are. It does not mean you are tight or selfish. It doesn’t mean people won’t like you. There may be a false belief that you can’t say no in order to buy people’s friendship or to avoid conflict or that you are mean or selfish.

If you desire intimacy with the people in your life, you need to include all varieties of strong contact in your expressive repertoire, not just the nice, sweet kind. Remember that people tend to be self-absorbed much of the time. Thus, they may need to hear a strong, clear expression of what’s okay and not okay with you. If you hint around, wait for them to notice you, and then resent them when they don’t, you are operating from a naïve picture of how most human beings are. Most people aren’t good at anticipating your needs.

When asserting your needs, you will bump up against another person’s boundaries and may push their buttons, but it might help the other to stretch their boundaries. When you are asking for what you want, be specific and give as much detail as possible and what vision this serves.

Do you have any control patterns in asking for what you want such as “if you help me with this, I’ll help you with that (that may be something that they don’t want or don’t want help with)”, or do you use a complaint to cover up a want such as, “Why don’t we ever sit by the fire and just be quiet together?” A complaint is a cop-out in complaining about never doing something instead of asking to do something.

One situation in which you may feel like saying no is when someone asks you to answer a question about something you don’t wish to talk about at that moment. One of the objectives of Getting Real is to stop taking other people’s reactions personally.

Say what you want, not what you don’t want. Asserting what you do want is a bigger commitment for you, and it’s easier for the other to take in.

Ch. 7 – Taking Back Projections

Notice that your triggers are signals that you are internally battling with yourself that often becomes projections (blaming, gossiping, criticizing, etc.) towards other people. Human beings are like walking, talking projectors. Everywhere we go we see things “out there” that really originate inside us. If you’re upset that your mate doesn’t listen to you, take a look at yourself. How well do you listen to yourself?

If I have a “should” about someone else (projection), it’s a signal that I have unresolved feelings about the same issue (shadow). Being judgmental is a control pattern. It is one of the ego-mind’s many automatic ways of dealing with inner conflict, pain, and anxiety. Becoming aware of control patterns and how they can be useful signposts pointing how you avoid the truth of who you are.

Learn how to become aware of control patterns and projections by learning to share judgments, criticisms, interpretations, and assumptions about the person or situation. When you are triggered, realize that you are unable to see objective reality and are projecting. We often need others to push our buttons before we can become aware of what our buttons are.

Think of a person whose behavior bothers you in some way or someone who you deeply admire. Their admirable qualities or bothersome behavior are probably attributes that you are suppressing, uncomfortable with, denying, avoiding, hating, or have some type of false belief/unprocessed pain around. For example, a selfish person might mean that you are often selfish yourself or that you need to be more affirming of your own needs. Selfishness may be an attribute that you over and under-learned for various reasons.

These projections are often easy to spot due to being “triggered” and having highly-charged “reactive/defensive” energy.

Think of someone who you are emotionally involved with. Use the sentence, “If only you would ______, I would feel ______.” Whatever you want to feel is a feeling that you have repressed and having difficulty feeling it. You are projecting this block onto someone else. Whether or not you feel _____ is not the other person’s responsibility—it’s yours. You can use your awareness of this projection to communicate your wants in a way that is real and transparent. Own up to the fact that “feeling _____” is hard for you and that you want his/her help. Asking for help is quite different from holding another responsible.

One way to take back your projection is to do to him/her what you are asking him/her to do for you. Another way is to state your projection: “I’m having difficulty feeling __________ to you. I want your help. If you would ________ when I’m _________, that would give me __________.

Notice when you are taking on blame when someone is getting angry or disappointed with you. When you’re unable to stay present, I always recommend confessing what’s going on for you as soon as you become aware of it. If you’re thinking to yourself, “I’m getting defensive—like I did something wrong,” share this.

When someone projects anger on you, don’t automatically assume that your behavior is the cause of it. His anger is his. It’s about him. On the other hand, don’t automatically assume that you have nothing to learn about yourself. Often a projection contains information about both people involved, so take a look inside and see if you are triggered. If you are, it’s probably related to one of your inner conflicts as well as the other person’s. Active listening to a projection is another way of handling to see if fits and how you feel about it before responding if you decide to respond.

If you feel defensive when you feel blamed or criticized, once again, sharing your self-talk help you disidentify with your defensiveness and be more present. You are the only you have any control over.

If you want to make good decisions, pay attention to what is, not to what should or shouldn’t be.

Ch. 8 – Revising an Earlier Statement

Giving yourself permission to “go out and come in again” is one of the kindest things you can do for yourself. That is, allowing yourself to be honest and revise an earlier statement that wasn’t quite as truthful because you were caught by surprise, or weren’t all there in the moment.

Another process is ‘if I had to do it over again” because one or both partners going into a control pattern instead of being present with their truth. The partners can share “what they wished they’d done or said” if they had had more presence of mind at the time. Tell the other person that you’d like to revisit the incident to share with her a new insight. Then simply say, “I realize now that I wish I’d done (or said) …” or, “If I had it to do over, I would . . .”

One reason people give for not “going out and coming in again” is that much of their energy is tied up in criticizing themselves for not doing it right the first time. If this is true of you, do you really think that you can do everything right the first time? You may realize that you have seen something more or that your feelings have changed since the last communication, thus requiring a revision. Once you report your present experience, a new and deeper version of the truth is often revealed.

If you discover that your actions have harmed another person, expressing regret or making a Monday morning quarterback declaration may not be sufficient to bring closure to the matter. You may want to ask, “Is there some way I can make it up to you?” Asking this question is appropriate only if you sincerely wish to make amends.

You can also practice revising an earlier statement where you have lied and want to come clean about it.

Ch. 9 – Holding Differences

If you want to see reality clearly and take action based on all available input, you must be able to hold differences—to maintain your own viewpoint while considering other people’s views. This truth skill enables you to take in several perspectives at once so you can consider them in relation to one another. It allows you to see more of what is actually going on rather than narrowing your vision to feel right, safe, or certain. You can dominate, or you can submit, or you can hold differences (negotiate). You can often see that two views may be complementary parts of a whole instead of mutually exclusive.

To find harmony in this world of diversity, we need to embrace paradox. We need to recognize both the inevitability of disagreement between people and the possibility of harmony through approaching conflict as an opportunity to see more of what is really going on. The more you try to avoid conflict the more havoc it plays with your well-laid plans.

At some point we learn to accept diversity as a fact of life. While human beings do have similar basic needs, we each view the world from our own unique angle or perspective. This uniqueness is our contribution to the human story. It’s what we have to teach one another. Most people have learned to mask the ways in which they differ from the social norm. We need to learn that your view need not be a threat to mine. When you are able to hold differences between two seemingly opposite poles or positions, your consciousness actually expands, and you become a “bigger” person.

The human ego has a tendency to see differing wants as a problem, rather than as simply what is. Advanced listening is required when holding differences as you need to be able to listen to things you’d rather not hear, things that challenge your point of view, or even things that push your buttons. Holding differerences depends on your ability to assert your boundaries. You know what you feel and want and value, and you don’t let anybody mess with those things unless you so choose. Holding alternative views in your mind and consider them simultaneously and in relation to one another. This will deepen intuitive and creative decision making and problem solving.

Active listening builds mutual understanding and often provides the information needed for discovering mutually beneficial solutions. Can you imagine feeling two contradictory things at once: the wish to have what you want alongside the wish for your partner to have what he or she wants? Instead of jumping to a premature decision or resolution, can you hold the differences long enough to possibly come to a new or deeper understanding on any underlying issues that possibly lie underneath? This may lead to a new decision or path choice based on this deeper or new understanding. I have come to fully trust the process that occurs when you let yourself simply hang out with uncertainty.

Ch. 10 – Sharing Mixed Emotions

You have probably thought of someone you haven’t been completely honest with. How do you feel as you anticipate telling her/him something that might be difficult to express? Do you notice any mixed feelings? In my case, a friend and former business partner comes to mind. I want to tell him I resent him for not paying me the money he owes me, but my mind warns me that I could lose his friendship if I upset him. What do I do? Do I speak up or shut up? Well, I’m sure you have guessed from the title of this chapter that my recommendation is to express both things, if you really are feeling both.

Sometimes feeling confused or having confusion is due to having mixed feelings. Confusion simply means more than one thing is pulling on your attention. The way out of confusion is to allow one of your several feelings to float to the foreground and be expressed, even if you also feel something else in the background. Once this is done, see what emerges next in your foreground, and express that. Usually when you express what’s in your foreground, the way is cleared for the next “layer of the onion” to be expressed.

Use “and” instead of “but” as a conjunction word to avoid negating one feeling when using but as a conjunction between stating a positive feeling and a negative feeling. Do not assume that one feeling cancels out another, both can be true.

Ch. 11 – Embracing the Silence of Not Knowing

Silence is needed to allow your and the other person’s words to sink in. You also hear yourself better when there are silences. Silence between words also provides room for new ideas and feelings to gestate and take form—yours and the other person’s. When you embrace silence, you do not need to know everything in advance or have all the blanks filled in. You understand that there are many things that cannot be known all at once or once and for all.. These things emerge gradually as we learn to be more patient and to openly wait, without forcing the issue.

Have you ever noticed how some people ask a question and then, before the other person has had a chance to respond, answer it themselves! When I notice myself doing this, I know it’s an indication that I’m avoiding something—probably the void. Silence is associated with the unknown and people tend to fear the unknown. If the ego gets uncomfortable, it initiates a control pattern—filling the silence instead of waiting for an unknown reply.

Another control pattern is scripting future conversations when feeling uncomfortable about what to say or talk about with strangers or even long-time friends. The beliefs that knowing is better than not knowing and that fast is better than slow are commonly held cultural beliefs. Not knowing makes us feel out-of-control and uncomfortable and inadequate as we hold the beliefs that knowing provides us with more safety, security, and comfort and possibly seeming more valuable, popular, and interesting to other people for our knowledge. Thinking we know, even when we know what we know is not true, makes us feel on top of things. When we’re operating from this perspective, we think that if we act knowledgeable or say the right thing, people will think better of us.

Notice your behavior the next time you are sharing in a group setting: Do you begin talking right away, as soon as it’s your turn? Or do you take a few seconds to connect? Do you have something planned to say before you begin to address the group? Or do you sit in the silence and see what emerges? A talking stick or talking egg can be used for the person who is speaking to signify that it is that person’s turn to speak and that no can interject or interrupt before or during her share.

Allowing for silences between sharings seems to help people become present before they speak. As a result, the things that are said seem more real. Lee Glickstein, founder of Speaking Circles, encourages speakers to make contact with a few audience members before speaking and not to rush off stage afterwards by standing on stage during applause.

Every human interaction entails a large measure of uncertainty. Each time you express yourself, you take a step into the unknown, into “empty space.”Any time you express yourself to someone, you may be trying to remain unattached to the outcome, but you probably do care what the other’s response will be. Stay with the connection in the silence between speaking and waiting for their response.

What if you are attached to the outcome? What if you not only care about the other’s response, but you can’t stand to be told no or to be disagreed with? If you do “care too much,” if you are impatient or attached to a certain outcome, it will be difficult for you to embrace silence. You may feel compelled to fill in the empty space between your expression and her response with more words of your own. You may go into some type of control pattern if you imagine someone will not give you the type of response you want. However, doing so creates more static rather than connection between you. As a result, you may never discover what the other person really thinks or feels. If you’re not able to be still and receptive, the other will sense that you’re not open, so he won’t offer his deepest and truest expression. He may just tell you what he thinks you want to hear.

If you want to be the type of person with whom people can be true and honest, if you don’t want to be told what others think you want to hear, take a look at how spacious you are as opposed to how attached you are to getting things to go your way. Think about your recent interactions with people. Notice what proportion of the time you spent telling people what to do, how to do it, or what you think, fell or want and what proportion you spent asking about their thoughts, feelings, ideas, or wants and then really listening with an open mind. Do you tell or do you ask? Do you take space or do you make space?

If you spend most of your interactive energy on the telling side of the equation, this usually signals a high need to feel in control. If you are in a management role (or a parenting role) in which you need to direct others’ efforts, a certain amount of control may be necessary. But there is a way to give assignments that is clear about your expectations and that still leave room for the other’s response and input. You can let the other know that you see it as part of your job to let them know your expectations, clearly and directly. Then you can ask them for feedback on your management style.

Are you open or closed? If someone disagrees with your position on an important matter, do you quickly reassert your position, as in, “Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said,” or do you inquire about their reasons for their position, as in, “Can you tell me more about why you think that?” This latter response shows people that you are open. By being open I mean showing that you sincerely seek to learn something from another person. When you have an inquiring attitude, with or without actually asking a question, people can see that you are open to them. They feel significant. They feel safe, so they are more likely to tell it like it is.

Embracing silence and being open to listening to others are prerequisites for real, vital human connection. But another type of listening is just as important as listening to others, and that is listening to ourselves, sensing the silences between our words or thoughts. Often the deepest truths arise from the spaces in between words, that fertile void where thoughts are absent. Human communication is an alive, ever-changing creation—it is created, re-created, and co created in each moment. And creation requires patience: the ability to tolerate emptiness.

Having an open, inquiring attitude requires the ability to tolerate not knowing and not being in control of where the conversation will end up. As you learn to let go of control, you learn to trust yourself to consider another person’s views without losing your own (holding differences) and to be okay even when you have nothing to say (embracing silence).

As we learn to trust the silence, we learn to trust the unknown and the chaotic, which I suspect are where true creativity springs from.

Practices to Support Embracing Silence

1) Word fasting: Agree to be silent with a partner or friend for a given amount of time.

2) Partying without words: music (non-verbal) and dancing

3) Free association: When something bubbles up, we speak it aloud. It could be something related to the present situation, or it could be a memory, a feeling, a thought, a wish, a dream fragment, or a theory. You share anything and everything that enters your mind, uncensored. We allow plenty of space between the sharing.

4) Meditation: Alone, group, or a few others. sitting, walking, etc.

Ch. 12 – Serenity, Presence, and Compassion

Serenity, presence, and compassion are the three words that best describe the qualities we begin to embody when we Get Real. Serenity refers to the calmness and inner peace that come from knowing you are okay, no matter what happens to you. Presence is the energetic aliveness and attentiveness that say you’re open and available for anything that life may bring. Compassion is your ability to be moved or touched by others’ real misfortune or suffering without becoming dramatic or sentimental and without needing to find fault or blame. I am not identified with my personality or my personal story, but I am able to use these to connect with the world in whatever ways feel most whole and truthful at the time.

Serenity: The ego-mind has a need to control. When you operating from this need, you think things have to be a certain way before you can feel okay. Your peace of mind will be constantly threatened, because, after all, so many things are not in your control. On the other hand, when you are open to experiencing and learning from everything—every disappointment, every surprise, and every piece of feedback, whether laudatory or critical—then you cannot be threatened.

As you grow in your capacity to experience what is, you stop trying to manipulate reality to conform to your comfort zone. You more easily accept your thoughts, your actions, and your circumstances. You take life as it comes. On this Getting Real journey, you come to identify yourself as the notice or witness of your thoughts and actions instead of being identified with your social roles, your accomplishments, or your ideas about yourself. Nothing needs to be excluded. You do not take sides. If your mind is comparing, judging, or taking sides, the witness notices this. There is nothing to prove, nothing to defend against, nothing to get on top of. Serenity comes when you are not depending on getting your own way to feel good. Your happiness becomes unconditional. No one and nothing can take away your ability to be aware and accepting in the moment. The choice to accept or resist the moment is entirely up to you.

If you express what is in your foreground, it will soon change. Knowing this, you do not confuse a particular emotional state with who you are. No matter what you are experiencing, it will change. As you practice experiencing what is, you attain more perspective; you see from a wider vantage point. You discover that jobs, money, admirers, possessions, good moods, bad moods, lucky breaks, failures, and misfortune come and go. When you become better at noticing and sharing your self-talk, you get perspective on your mind chatter. You see that it isn’t right or wrong. It just is. You come to accept it without praise or blame. You learn to share it, partly in the interest of transparency, partly as a way of helping you stay in the present as the notice or witness, and partly as a way of getting completion. As you learn to accept what is, you become more able to let other people have their reactions to you. Your sense of safety becomes internal.

The more connected you are to yourself, to others, or to the situation, the greater will be your overall sense of well-being. The greatest gift you can give yourself and others is your free, open attention: your presence. When you are truly present, you can feel it energetically, and so can others. Presence begins with attention. …we run away from the uncertainty and aliveness of the present moment by thinking about it (assessing it, judging it, comparing it to something else, planning how to get it to last) instead of experiencing it.

Another way of affirming your presence is to notice and share your intent as a part of your message. For example, when Dana says, “I’m going to tell you a bit of my story about past relationships before I say what’s going on now,” it’s easier for us to listen to her story. We know she is aware of what she is doing.

To be present, you need to be relating to what is happening now—in this situation, with this person, in your current state. Your mental habits are what keep you from being present—habits like making judgments, having expectations, and filling in the blanks. Even if you are in a self-criticism pattern, sharing this will bring you back to the present.

Only when you become unattached to how others behave or how life treats you can you be truly present. Compassion comes from feeling connected to others. It allows you to experience, accept, and love what is. You carry around the conditioned fears and beliefs of your childhood. Through being transparent, you learn that you are most lovable when you are most transparent—that people want to love you if you will just let yourself be seen. You become compassionate by embracing everything, even your judgments. You embrace your ego-mind chatter, your inner critic, your attachments, your control patterns. Accepting your taboo thoughts and feelings is a powerful act of compassion toward yourself.

The way out of a painful experience is by going into and through it. This allows you to complete the unexpressed feelings from your past so that you can move beyond them. Getting Real opens your mind up to new possibilities. When you are not attached to a particular state, such as comfort, you’ll have no reason to resist what is. You’ll be able to perceive, take in, and relate to more of what is going on in the moment. You’ll see the options and possibilities (and even the dangers) of a situation more fully and clearly, because your attention will be freer. It won’t be constricted by the tensing and tightening that comes from strategizing and watching for danger.

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