THE PRACTICE –PART TWO

1. THE PRACTICE –PART TWO SHARING AND WHAT IT MEANS BETTER TO RECEIVE THAN GIVE?

2. REVIEW OF STEP ONE • You have chosen three to five broad categories that define who you are. • You have begun to add elements and sub-categories • You have been examining your actions to determine whether they are consistent with the categories and elements you chose.

3. ARE YOU MISSING A CATEGORY? • When you examine who you are does a recurring theme come up that doesn’t fit into one category? Are there one or more events that seem to affect several categories? • You may be missing a very common category: • Many people’s lives are shaped around an event or series of events that create their own category, and that is: • TRAUMA • It is ok to have TRAUMA as a category. • Until you acknowledge it, it cannot go away.

4. Self examination brings change • THE PRACTICE of self knowledge can evoke very powerful emotions, and cause a great deal of mental stress. When you begin the process of sharing, you will note that some people in the community you are building have some very deep problems. You may even find that you have some deep problems of your own. Sooooooooo…what to do?

5. STEP TWO • The sharing phase of THE PRACTICE is quite specific, but has only four rules: • Share only what you feel comfortable sharing. • DO NOT GIVE ADVICE. DO NOT GIVE ADVICE. • Take, take, take what others have to offer in the way of experience. • Do not judge or criticize what others share. There are no teachers, counselors, gurus or leaders in the practice. We share what we have, and we take what we need. We are not attached to what happens with what we share.

6. Share only what you are comfortable with • Your immediate community of people will put toes in the water before diving in. A brilliant insight on your part may be far beyond their understanding, or may be something they figured out in second grade. No one will criticize your insight, but if it is too personal, you may not be comfortable sharing something more mundane in the future. Start by sharing something basic that you can expand on in the future.

7. EXAMPLE • One of my first insights was that I considered my work to fall into two categories, both science and service. That made me examine the reality that I get paid to give service. So, do I always give my best service when I am being paid? Do I give better or worse service when I am not being paid. Guess what? I actually give better service when I AM getting paid. That made me realize I have a deep seated belief that if I am volunteering to do something, I don’t have to give it my best effort, and I chased that to some specific events in my childhood.

8. DO NOT GIVE ADVICE. DO NOT GIVE ADVICE. • This is the most important rule. If you feel like you could really help someone out of their situation, stop what you are doing and go look in the mirror. Seriously, go look in a mirror at your own face, and ask yourself, “Why does this make me want to give advice?” Your answer will be, “I’m just trying to help.” That is not true, and you are lying to yourself. Give up the belief that you can help with advice. If someone in your community has a situation where they need advice, they will find it within themselves through the practice.

9. DO NOT GIVE ADVICE CONTINUED • THE PRACTICE is designed for mentally healthy people who have the power to find their own truth within themselves. If someone in your community is “stuck” in a negative space, they will figure that out without your response. Simply moving forward with your own sharing is a community service. ADVICE is always harmful, and we wish to DO NO HARM.

10. Take, take, take what others have to offer in the way of experience • Read or hear what others have to say in your community, and take what is helpful in your own PRACTICE. Your own intuition will guide you to what is right and helpful to you. There will be no advice (you don’t need it.) • Express gratitude-for example, “Thanks, Joe. Your insight really helped me with something that’s been bugging me.” • In THE PRACTICE, it is better to receive than give.

11. Do not judge or criticize what others share. • The only appropriate comments to what others have shared are gratitude, and well-though out questions. Some of us are very expert at asking a question that basically says, “Wow, I think that is really stupid.” A well thought out question asks only for information, and clarification. Some examples follow:

12. Well thought out questions • Can you tell me how you are defining “service” in your share? • Can you share a little more about how you consider your work to be both science and service? • Can you tell me what you mean by “volunteering”? • Would you be comfortable sharing an insight from your childhood “volunteering”?

13. Examples of gratitude • Thank you, that made me realize that my work is service, too, and I never volunteer! • I think that made me realize that my parents didn’t consider me a “volunteer” (lol). • Gratitude always expresses how the share helped YOU. It has nothing to do with the person who wrote the share. • “Thanks for making me realize I am grossly underpaid.” is NOT an example of gratitude.

14. Building your community • Find one or two other people who will understand and embrace THE PRACTICE. • Take enough time to allow everyone to choose their broad categories and elements and sub-categories. • When an insight comes, share it, following the rules. • Take what you need from the shares, and build upon them, without giving or taking advice.

15. Building your community (con’t) • As each person in your community becomes comfortable with the sharing process, s/he will naturally invite others to the community. The community is a safe place, where you can say something revealing about yourself that may help someone else. You will gain insights into yourself as well. The community becomes one big mirror in which we can all see ourselves.

16. Getting started with sharing. • This is AN EXAMPLE of how one community got started with the sharing process. • When I was in high school, my friend shared with me that she assigned “times” to certain people, that she stopped what she was doing and thought of them for just a brief moment. As we have evolved over the last 40 years, that has become our time to share. My time was 12 noon. We agreed that wherever in the world we were, at 12 noon, we would stop and think of each other. Of course my 12 noon, is her 2 PM now, and her 12 noon is my 10AM. But now, we have cell phones, and can share whatever we want by texting at our own 12 noon. A similar process can evolve in your community by choosing a time when people can stop whatever they are doing, and evaluate whether their action in that moment is consistent with where they are going in terms of THE PRACTICE. If it prompts a share, you are on your way to community. Don’t feel obligated to respond to a share. Just put one out there, and think about it later. For instance, if I am brushing my teeth at 12 noon, how it that consistent with my self-knowledge? • My share: OMG! I’m brushing my teeth, and I just realized I need to clean up my dirty mouth! I must have dropped five f-bombs this morning. • Her response: Thanks for that, I haven’t even counted mine! • Please share your examples of starting community.

17. Another exercise for starting a community • One community started this way: • A group of people took pencil and paper (you remember pencil and paper) and began to spend 15 minutes per day drawing a map of their favorite neighborhood from the past. Most were from childhood, but some were from early adulthood. Start with a large piece of paper, and draw small. Each day, more details were added to the neighborhood. I started with my mother’s back yard, and within about a month, I had gotten all the way to the high school, adding details each day. As details are added, sensory memories are recorded on a separate paper. I began with the smell from the lilacs and honeysuckles, the feel of the sand on my hands, the colors of the ripe red tomatoes in the garden, etc. This exercise stimulates the hippocampus in the brain, and allows memory to surface. Daily adding to the map, with the sensory memories, opens neural pathways for memory access. It stimulates the ability to understand the broad categories, and what experiences fit into those categories for self-knowledge. • What might be another exercise for starting a community of people whose broad categories might be very different?