"Nice," yes. The very essence of "Nice."
Posted by John on 03/21/2007 16:04:51
In reply to Re: It's Nice To "SEE YOU" Be Back posted by Eddie on 03/21/2007 09:31:44
Ha! Hi, Me2! {Spoken with laughing delight.}
[So, I've caught on how to be less vague in making that remark, since the
last time I said that to Eddie. Heh-heh.]
If you will read our recent chatting, Me2, Eddie and I have been
wondering together about what, if anything, a prolonged silence by our
"group" means. We both (or let me speak for me) I was struck by the
silence, had many projections about it, and then Eddie came along and I
was asking him to take a walk with me through some awareness game steps
for the sake of seeing if we could find any over-looked stuff around in
the space of the group that night have "offended everybody somehow."
That, too, is a projection, though for our purposes in this training I'd
like to call it an "awarely guarded projection." In other words, we
don't believe it's true, but we allow, for the sake of study of our
ongoing lives, that it might be true. Indeed, we can say this is worth
doing if we wish to be sensitive to the other people (group members)
around us. For if either Eddie, or I, or both of us—which could well be
the case—have rubbed anyone the wrong way, or wounded any of our group
unknowingly and they have become alienated from us because of it, the
practical thing to do, and the caring thing, as well, is to see if we can
catch-on, if that is possible, to what we did that put "painful stuff"
into the space that might have unknowingly hurt other people's feelings.
I'm sure you are brave enough to be sincere, Me2, and Eddie, as well. So
with your appearance Eddie and I aren't being alone here any more. And
in both of your cases, it had nothing to do with being offended by
anything. That leaves only two of the five of us who were here in group,
before the silence, and new voices that had just posted, too.
I supppose that (ta-dah!) logic would dictate that we have a
preponderance of evidence that nobody was offended, and that *everybody*
even those we haven't heard from so far, is simply being tied up by other
important things they are being properly responsible for. In other
words, it looks so far as if "everybody simply had other things to do."
Now, here you might be getting tired of our game, Eddie. But I would like
to go on playing it. Even if it later does turn out that everybody was
just being normally busy, and the non-posting had nothing to do with any
painful stuff that had been dumped into the group space, I'd like to
follow our thread awhile longer. The value in it may be that maybe you
and/or I will be able to recognize some unrealized activity in the group
that deserves some pause for study. We are learning how to "Know thy
Self" in this way. It is simply *practicing learning how to pay
attention to our own patterns of behavior. Whether or not others
reacted, if either of us have made more of a potentially painful impact
in the space that we realized at the time, it is educationally
beneficial—in this approach to catch on to that, if we can, and at least
I feel this way about it, for my own good! Because each time I recognize
something in my conditioned patterns that automatically rubs some other
people the wrong way, I might wake up on it, when it is happening and
have aware choices on how I proceed.
I'm going to jump over to your second posting today, now, Eddie, and see
what you have to say there, and then I'll continue following up there.
Me2, you are, of course, welcome to jump into our little exercise with
your observations any time you wish.
By the way, I wish you'd check out that post of mine on "Projections"
first. Eddie and I have both absorbed the importance of being able to
recognize projections for what they are in my post there. It is
especially relevant in continuing this aware exploration for "anything we
can directly experience that may tell us more about "what happened—if
anything!—when the whole group went silent."
Glad you're back, wishing you all well, and hoping for easier times for
you Folks ongoingly, Me2.
John