Say “Yes” to Encounters! by Petra

I just posted on a forum with the topic “People Pleasing Revelations”. The introducing lines said: “A stepping stone to help loosen from automatically saying “yes” or “no” is to pause. If there is a sense of pressure, or a lack of clarity, giving permission to respond with, “I don’t know right now” allows the space to see the motivation behind automatic responses. Pausing allows the space for the Spirit‘s Guidance to be revealed…”

Previous postings

First I’ve read previous postings on this forum carefully and they were really helpful to me. An insight from this forum and quoted freely: “I listen to the Spirit and then speak or act, say no, or say yes accordingly. This way it is not personal and Spirit will hold me and carry me through the experience and I can trust this will not escalate my emotions or disturb my peace of mind, no matter what it looks like on the screen”

Present state

Where am I right now honestly? I have a feel it’s a practice for me to say ‘yes’ more often and stay emotionally available during encounters. I find this challenging and I am feeling inadequate around this. I do break off some encounters way-before-their-time and/or tend to over-the-top with “giving” because it is like my feelings are shutting down involuntary when others are getting too close to me. Fear thoughts like that it is too risky, I might lose a lot. I feel embarrassed, ashamed, naked and boxy, like a kind of Basil (John Cleese’s role in Fawlty Towers).

Experimenting

I have a lots of opportunities to experiment in the Spain Community and that feels truly helpful. I observe these feelings at the very moment when they occur. A practical example can be an encounter with Marieke this morning. I asked her if she wanted to see pictures of her I’ve posted on Facebook yesterday. We watched them, we talked a bit and I really enjoyed this short encounter. We exchanged some more thoughts and right after she had said something nice about me, I started to feel uncomfortable, trapped and I thought it was time to move on with work which is a bit awkward on an unscheduled Sunday…

Ordering of thoughts

Although I don’t regard myself as a social nerd and I feel joyful often, I cannot deny to feel far more at ease and being able to connect deeply with animals, small children, elderly people, homosexuals and “mentally challenged” people ̶  and please don’t take this personally  ̶  as long as they don’t look a lot like me in whatever form. It seems as if they are more reliable in their verbal and non-verbal expressions and that the rest is often keeping up this masquerade.

Icebreakers

Moreover I find it easier to connect while doing certain things like reading, writing, walking, sporting, listening to music, dancing besides living in a community with two clear guidelines: no people-pleasing and no-compromise. This all together seem to work like an icebreaker, a smooth bridge between “me” and “them” and I am so happy about this! Don’t get me wrong I clearly see and feel it’s all about my mind, me being afraid of intimacy and trying to control situations. I gladly pause more often to hand this over to Spirit (to be continued soon…)