Something I learned as a child is to become very attuned to dynamics between people – to ‘pick up on’ tension in a relationship, a change in dynamic, a change in flow. Primarily, the reason for having developed this particular ‘skill’ early on, was so I could get to my room and hide BEFORE the tension/change/disturbance grew and accumulated into a full-blown situation of conflict. Not ‘primarily’, that was really the only reason, lol.
What I had observed over time is that before ‘shit hit the fan’ – there was already ‘a change in the air’, subtle at first, then it would become more pronounced, sometimes it would fade again, other times it would escalate into emotional outbursts and physical consequences. I’m sure, even with simply reading the words ‘a change in the air’ you could already relate to what I mean, might have even had a bit of anxiety, discomfort creep up, because you know exactly what I’m talking about. That moment when you feel alerted to the fact that ‘trouble is coming’.
Living in a community setting for 10 years, on the farm and then also for a while longer in Panama, this ‘skill’ could have come in handy, that is, if I had directed it and remained stable within it. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and so, instead of having harnessed it as a useful tool, I would allow my mind to run away with me and bring about the very thing I feared and was trying to squash: conflict.
So, here’s the general pattern I would go down:
It would start of course with me noticing a change in flow between people, initially it’s like I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but my ‘internal alerting system’ would go into ‘higher vigilance mode’ because ‘something’s different’. So, now I’d start to pay attention, looking for any physical indications that there is indeed a change and that I’m not ‘making this up’/’that it’s all in my head’. During this ‘phase’ of it – oh yes, there’s phases – I would also look at points I need to look at within myself – checking where I am taking things personally, where am I reacting to someone, etc. Doing my ‘due diligence’ in a way of making sure I am not projecting a change in me onto others. After this, if I would still experience that ‘change in the air’ and especially if I also could start pin-pointing specific physical events/changes/points that were ‘out of the norm’ for someone/people – then the next phase would activate.
In this phase I would start trying to ‘figure out’ what exactly changed, why it changed and what the solution is to whatever brought about this ‘shift’ where something used to be flowy, at ease, natural, to now there being tension and a level of discomfort. I had this belief that if I was going to bring this up, then I was taking responsibility for it and if I was taking responsibility for it, then I needed to walk every step of it by myself – try to pinpoint the problem, trace the problem, see how the problem is playing out and what needs to happen to solve the problem – BEFORE I bring this up with the very people in relation to whom I noticed a change. So that, if and when I walk up to a person/people I would have ‘things to say’ lol – it all sounds quite ridiculous in hindsight – but this played a big part in it, literally the fear of not knowing what to say or how to respond to something another says. Not having the confidence to simply speak what I see as I see it, not have the confidence to open something up WITH someone in REAL-TIME - that I felt I needed to come prepared, I needed to have my ammunition ready, I needed to be able to present an irrefutable/ solid case so whoever I speak with can’t go ‘no, you’re just seeing things’ or ‘it’s all you’. And preferably, I needed to have other people that corroborated my version of the story, even if they did not see or suspect anything of their own accord, after I was through presenting my ‘case’ they sure were alarmed. Then I would feel I had not only a solid case but strength in numbers too. Now I was ‘ready’ to confront the person/people – to ‘expose’ a change/shift that had been taking place and building, that had remained unspoken (“it must be they’re hiding something!!”), which surely, from my perspective, would have devastating consequences for all.
And so, as you can imagine, these talks never went well – and I would be accused of making things up, of filling in gaps with my mind, connecting dots of moments of seeing things that I construed into one big story that backed up my own fears – and of course they would be correct.
But all I took from it was: I did so hard my best to ‘be sure/make sure I am thorough before I spoke – be sure it’s not all in my head – be sure I looked at everything, make sure others see the same as me and still, people don’t hear me’ - ending up with what? Conflict, of course, the very thing I wanted to prevent. And what else? A confirmation of my own fear – that if I speak to someone about what I see, they will dismiss me. A perfect cycle of self-sabotage. I was now the apparent victim – when all the wile I was the creator and orchestrator of my own fears, a creation process that included the destroying of trust in relationships, the creation of gossip, the casting of doubt, worry and fear in others’ minds, and the hailing of mind fabrications, above all else.
It’s a despicable story for sure. And you might recognize it from your own life, either having been in my shoes as the one orchestrating ‘interventions’ to ‘help’ someone do what you think they need to do in order to solve the problem you think they’re having, or because you’ve been on the receiving end of the story – where another in your life came to tell you what they believe needs to change in your life because of these and these and these things they have observed in/about you... from afar.
It’s true that at times someone might not realize that they have changed in some way or that they have at some point started going down a path that is not honoring them and that may have consequences for them and others, and yes, others can play a role in picking up on this before they do and bringing it up with them. But it takes discernment to see what is what: what is my responsibility and what is not? What am I actually seeing/observing and what am I interpreting/assuming/adding on? What is necessary and what not? And more so, what is supportive and what not?
There’s many factors that contributed to me having a hard time with this discernment. One stems of course from experiences growing up. Remember that ‘change in the air’ I mentioned? As soon as I’d pick up on that kind of ‘change in the air’, it would feel like I’d be walking on egg shells in my own home. Always having that eery uncomfortable tension ‘hanging over my shoulders’ that something is ‘up’ - I don’t know quite what it is, yet I know that something I do could set it off at any moment, so best to just keep my head down and not trigger anything. Over the years I developed a real ‘dislike’ towards such tensions to the point where I made a decision somewhere along the way that I didn’t want to walk on eggshells forever, and so that if it’s something that doesn’t resolve on its own, I would rather take on the disturbance, face it, expose it, risk conflict and ‘breaking the peace’ than to keep quiet and live with that tension.
My experience had been that most people rather stayed quiet, that most people rather not risk rocking the boat – at home, at school, in social circles. There’d been many times where I felt that it ‘fell to me’ to speak up or speak out against something, that somehow I didn’t fear ‘going there’ as much as others. Not that I wasn’t afraid – but it wasn’t the kind of fear that stopped me from going through with it anyway. This then of course contributed to bolstering the belief that when there is such kind of tension, especially in group situations, it naturally becomes my responsibility to do something about it. Firstly because I tend to pick up on them quickly and then secondly cause apparently I was more willing than most to speak about it and receive the fall-out.
A very basic point that I somehow never asked myself is the following: If there is a change in the flow, a change in the dynamic between people, where things were flowing easily at first and suddenly they are not, does that automatically mean this change is bad? Even if someone/some are deliberately keeping something hidden from others, does that necessarily then imply it is something that will have nefarious consequences for everyone? See, in my mind – it did; Tension = Bad. Secrets = Bad. Hiding = Bad. Nothing good could come from it. It had to be stopped in its tracks. That in itself already ‘set me up for failure’ because my very starting point would be that here I am faced with something dangerous that I couldn’t just ‘go talk about’ - cause I mean, I didn’t want this thing to blow up in my face. It would activate this strategizing, planning, prepping, where I’d want to be sure I have all my bases covered.
That’s where I’d then spend a lot of time painstakingly trying to figure out what could be going on.... in my own mind. Taking bits and pieces of information and connecting them with theories and possible logical explanations. I mean – these things would be intricate and my mind would come up with some crazy shit. Yet it was all believable to me. Anything is possible, and somehow the most outrageous theories were the ones I ended up giving the most credit, the highest likelihood of being true. Mind you, I always managed to find a theory or explanation that connected all my dots in a logical way. And because all the ‘pieces fit’ - and because there was logic in it, I thought it must be what was actually going on. The moment you go ‘aaaaahhh, THAT’s what it IIIIS! NOW it makes sense!!’ When really, it was just a made-up story – the best my mind could come up with, or rather, the worst my mind could come up with.
The last time that I noticed a change in the flow, a change in the air – the same old pattern repeated. I could see myself go through each of the phases I described. But having gone through a few of these scenarios, I asked myself the questions I hadn’t asked myself before.
1. What am I actually seeing?
2. What is my actual responsibility within this?
3. What can I do/say and in what way, that would actually be supportive?
And it turned out, it was very little:
1. What was I seeing?
I had noticed certain specific points, that were physically clearly distinct/different than usual – indicating a clear change in dynamics.
2. What was my responsibility within this?
My responsibility within it was interestingly, not at all towards them, but towards myself: I had noticed a change that I did not understand and within that, it was my responsibility to ask and get clarification.
That was it.
It wasn’t my responsibility to figure out ‘for them’ what is going on, as though they can’t do that for themselves or as though they are oblivious to it in the first place, nor was it my responsibility to help them fix it, because I didn’t even understand what exactly was going on, so I wasn’t at all in a position to fix a problem that I don’t know is there or that I don’t have all the information of/about.
3. What could I do/say and in what way, that would actually be supportive?
All there was for me to do was to ask if I could speak with the people in question, privately – to share what I noticed and that I didn’t understand where it was coming from and so to ask for clarification.
Not spend hours trying to answer the question by myself, not talk to other people, not publicly try to expose or create some kind of intervention – just plain simple direct communication, sticking only to the facts, nothing less, nothing more.
So, that’s what I did.
And guess what... nothing exploded in my face.
I was simply given an answer – and despite all the wild and crazy theories that had floated around in my head as to ‘WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE GOING ON??’ - my mind hadn’t come up with the answer that was given, with what had actually been going on, that which had been right in front of me, just a question away. And I mean – I didn’t come even near guessing the truth..
Needless to say I was extremely relieved after this talk – not only because nothing bad had happened or was going to happen – but also because finally I ‘GOT’ this point.
I was looking at this idea today that once you go into an energetic reaction, once you act on it or speak in it, you cannot stop and, the energy has taken over and you now ‘have no choice but to ride it out’. That once that trigger is pulled, the bullet is out and there is no more stopping it. It can feel like that sometimes in terms of the ‘grip’ an energy has in such moments, where it feels all-permeating, ‘omnipresent’ that there is no ‘escaping it’, that it’s too late now. And yet, every breath is an opportunity to stop. You can look at the amount of times you were within a reaction and in split moments you would have this fluttery experience of ‘hm, wait a minute’ - it would come real quick and be gone just as fast, and most likely you ignored it, cause it was so seemingly ‘insubstantial’ in comparison to the energy that was just booming all through you. Those ‘flutters of awareness’ won’t be like a clear voice with instructions or a clear instant insight/understanding of all that is happening and all the choices you have in that moment, it’s just a flutter, a something going ‘hey, wait a minute’ or ‘hey are you sure?’ - and it won’t even have/be in words, but it has that ‘signature’. You can choose to ignore it, or you can choose to heed it. When you choose to heed it, you will find, you actually are able to stop right then and there. Doesn’t matter how intense the energy is, doesn’t matter how much of it there is, doesn’t matter what kind of energy it is, you can simply stop, you can choose not to continue down that path, no matter how much of yourself you had previously invested in it. You can choose to pull yourself out of the energy and ground yourself in your body and look again. That power we have in every single moment, it’s what makes us 100% responsible for who we are and what we participate in in thought, word and deed, because it is in fact a choice.
So it was also with this pattern. As I said, I had gone down the same old path, I had already spent a lot of time trying to figure things out in my mind, I had already ‘invested myself’ into the energy, the thoughts, the projections. But I could drop it all in one moment, with one decision, and take a different path.
For those who struggle with the same or similar point where you ‘notice something’, and you wrestle with the question if you should bring it up and if you do bring it up, what do you say exactly, and how? Remember that it’s not because you noticed something changing that you know what changed or that you know what to do about it. And it’s not because you don’t know what’s going on or what to do about it, that you didn’t in fact see a change. The key is in the three questions that I mentioned earlier – to be absolutely clear with yourself on what you in fact saw/noticed and what you assumed/interpreted/added on – to ask yourself what your actual responsibility is within this, and what is not – and from there, ask yourself what would be the supportive next thing to do and how. (Hint: if you were in their shoes, how would you want to be approached?)
I will leave you with a quote from one of Bernard’s talks, ‘The Gauntlet of the Living Word’, one I suggest rereading entirely when you have a moment – you can find it here: https://desteni.org/desteni-material/blog/interviews-farm-56-gauntlet-living-word
“I mean, there was a comment today on YouTube by a person, he says: “Read the bible, that is where the truth lies.” – I mean, the person don’t even See their Own Words! “Read the bible, That is where the truth Lies”... I mean, when you´re dead: You have a Cross or a, thing on your grave, where there is messages written. And it says: “Here lies the late so and so.” - The Direct Implication of these Words, and remember: Your Mind measure Words ambidextrously, moving it around – that´s proven that you can swap around the letters in a word and your Mind will still ‘rearrange’ it and come-up with the closely related word –
So, your Mind seek out related words – the Moment you don’t Clearly Understand something: Go and find-out what it means! Do not make up your Mind through Assumption – which most are doing, that´s Self-Deception. Go and find-out what it means. I mean, you at least have That Responsibility towards yourself, to make Sure you don’t End Up in a position, where you´re Lying.”
Thank you for reading.