My sister's grandchildren. May they keep being the change we seek.
Be the change you want to see.
So what is stopping us from ending the gruesome wars, world hunger and pollution?
Marianne Williamson keeps saying we are not trying hard enough to be the change that we seek.
I agree and I would like to add that we actually haven’t a clue how to be the change that we want to see and that we are not looking hard enough either.
Deep in my heart I know that I am extremely ineffective to create the change that I seek.
Because to create it I need to learn a very basic life skill and that is to get on with people in my own little world in a way that eliminates hunger, pollutions and fights in my own world.
We are the problem; is my own little world not a reflection of the bigger world?
I fight, I too am hungry for love and attention and we all pollute each others mental state.
Being in action is Do-ing community
Judging by the comments, Wilma struck a cord in all of us with her post on Community is Dead – Long live Community.
We all agreed that there is an incongruency between independence, money and fear
and community, favor bank and love.
Megan captured what is true for many of us when she shared how she became Ms Independence;
I was raised, especially after my father left and we went “broke,” to be fiercely independent. Letting people help me out was not something I was comfortable doing, especially not without attaching some sort of payback schedule to it. I learned very early on how to take care of myself… As a result, in my 20’s I was Scrooge-like in many ways, guarding what I earned and sharing it only with those closest to me.
George with his sponsor Beryl
Money as a currency is not evil, but society’s illusion that money is our primary and only currency IS evil.
To give us the illusion that to be safe and secure we need lots of money to buy our independence is a cruel myth.
Because of that very obsession with independence we live fearfully and alone and we are NOT splendidly playing a big game.
To think we can be independent is our downfall AND a far bigger goldmine has been taken away from us; that being our communities and other people.
It is community that gives us access to a far more reliable and valuable currency, the soft currency of the universal ‘favor bank’.
As our quest for money and independence has taken over our lives, we no longer need to practice community and now we have virtually lost our ability to DO community.
Instead of benefiting from community as a resource we ignore it.
We are reduced to only getting along with our circle of friends and immediate family, if that. Actually most families are no longer crash hot communities these days.
Well Wilma, you have done it again with your post All Conversations are not Equal in Intimacy. You have clearly explained how conversations work, how ’social integration’ is necessary and useful but very limiting when it comes to intimacy and deepening our shared understanding of each other.
Not only in our daily interactions with others, but here on this blog as well. When someone like Wilma shares intimately about her relationships with her daughters and her first husband, it creates the space for others to share intimately as well.
Our holiday in Vietnam! My daughter and I made it happen by intimate conversations.
Wow, I am excited by all the conversations that have sprung up around listening, making requests, right of refusal and questions.
What an awesome way to deal with these elements of this WomenLikeMe topic called ‘How to Create our World through Conversation’.
Ann-Marie and I have certainly had our hands full with this topic and its practices and we thank you all for your commenting, as it validates for us that this is not as simple as it seems.
I find it very exciting to finally see HOW I can now choose to manifest a great base camp by connecting intimately with my sponsors or HOW I can choose to ignore my lack of conversation skills and thus continue to go it alone and stay small.
It is useful to realize that through conversation;
- we make things happen
- we get through the day
- we sort out our relationships
Hi everyone. Thanks so much for sharing your observations and experiences with asking questions in response to Wilma’s post this week.
It was so cool to read that Peggy, armed with her questions was off to do a radio interview with her husband’s ex-wife, to talk about the relationship between ex-wives and step moms. A very real example of intimacy being present rather than distance. Wouldn’t it be great if all ex-relationships were like yours Peggy!
I noticed that several of your comments gave Wilma suggestions on how to improve her relationship with John’s parents. And with the exception of Megan, no one actually asked Wilma any questions to further their understanding of the situation. Questions like; what did you do about it, do they know you better now, is it still a problem???
Huummm.
John built this boat by asking questions.
When I first met John’s parents I expected at least some questions.
But I got none.
Not getting a single question made me feel really uneasy; it made me feel unwelcome, as if they did not care about me, as if I did not count.
Of course they cared but the fact that they never asked anything made it very hard for me to give them some information about the woman their son was living with.
How do you volunteer information about yourself when not invited by questions?
Thus they got to know very little about me.
So how can they relate to me when I am virtually a stranger to them?
How can we create any intimacy and personal relatedness when there is nothing to talk about other than the weather and the color of the blooming bougainvillea?
Hi everyone. Thanks for your thoughts on listening in response to Wilma’s post this week. It looks like Wilma has opened up a topic that has some interesting contradictions and many layers to peel back.
We listen every day, many of us are trained at it and do it for our work and yet Tess said similar to Joy who shared that; “only one person in my own life has been an active listener.”
Zeenat went on to say; “I’m still searching for that great listener.”
I’d love to hear more examples of how listening has made such a difference that, as Tess says, these people stand out “head and shoulders above the rest.” In these sharings of how listening has made a difference, we can be inspired by what is possible for all of us.
Robin, thank you for sharing how listening makes a difference for you. Your words revealed something that I’d never thought was possible:
Walking, talking and listening.
Listening is a very powerful skill.
I, as base camp benefit hugely from excellent listening skills as they create intimacy and a shared understanding with my sponsors. And listening ultimately allows for coordinating effective actions that make me fly.
I can finally confess that I can do something very well after having unraveled my struggle with requests.
I am very well trained in it professionally.
I also have the advantage that I love observing and observing is definitely part of listening.
I adore getting a handle on what is going on, I guess it also served me to become a perfect people pleaser.
I listen with my senses. I listen with my ears, my heart, my eyes, my smell and my intuition.
I listen with all of me and the information I gather that way is quite extensive and often unique.
Listening can make or break a relationship and being careless with our listening can have huge negative consequences.
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