Within the sales process I have learned the importance of listening. There are levels of listening, as one must see the whole and the parts. One thing I notice is how self validation comes forward, in the form of the speakers experience, the things that express the structure the person uses to self guide, to self support. It is a form of conception, a form of knowledge and information that defines the person. I must listen to this, as it shows me what the person uses to order themselves and their goals, and what is unique about them. This means, that window into what potential they gravitate towards to connect as a starting point with this earth.
The moment I interrupt them, I am essentially beginning to force something on them. I am taking what they have said and already, in a rush, relating it to myself. I have not asked questions to clarify and made sure that I understand where they come from, what they have defined themselves as. And, I have not used their state of being to hear what would more than likely, to a tiny degree, expand my awareness, because inevitably, everyone is unique, because everyone is standing on a different point on the ground, thus even with all the layered stories of experience within this, there is always an insight buried in the storm. I must listen for that, and yet, understand the building around that point. It becomes an incredible thing to be able to do, this math, and this discovery of a point of connection. This is overall a process, and it is the same for myself, as it is for another. It is a reciprocal process.
Lately, I have attached the image of a horse to this process. For some reason I define a horse as having a reciprocal nature. This is moving backwards and forwards, to see the parts and the whole, to even enjoy this process. It is accepting the gift of understanding and then reconstructing once a connection is made.
Before I began to realize this, I would get scared and angry, righteous and overwhelmed, moving into all manner of justifications and frustrations to push a goal I had within me. There is nothing wrong with the goal, really, it is who I am within what I am doing that is the problem. That rush, my own agenda wanting a quick connection instead of realizing that the process is living. In space and time I can only be here, and development moves in many ways, like self awareness is in perpetual change, or transformation, and that this is being here.
This reminds me of the summers I allowed art students to open a gallery in my living room. Each student had a different approach to their art. One did iconographic pictures, mixing up cartoon-like images in new ways. Another, did pictures of nature, oil paintings and water colors. Another, did really simple still life’s of objects. When people walked into the gallery, they would automatically be drawn to certain images. Some like the simple and somewhat amateur still life’s, some went right to the paintings of nature, and some stood in front of the story line images. Each type of art made some sale.
Thus, each person reveals their own belief systems within their choices, and their words more than likely reveal the patterns of their belief, and the experiences used to justify their belief systems. Before one can connect with another, one must reciprocate, meaning move back and forth, listening and understanding where a person comes from as their perspective of reality.
Within this, resistance is productive, because it helps realize what defines as a structure and then allows one to open up that structure in small and simple ways, to open doors into accepting other perspectives and expand within one’s self. Within this, comes an ease and a sense of trust. And, an exposure of how all of this works, because one then has the contrast of one’s belief and that of another. Thus what could be considered a limitation, becomes a means towards expansion. Limitation becomes an illusion. Yet, this is how we learn, this is how we practice becoming present, enjoying form no matter what and seeing it for what it is and looking outside of that to change, as change will happen in small steps, digestible steps. This is reciprocity at work, moving backwards and forwards until something is clear, enjoying one another no matter the starting point.
What does this mean in practice? This means listening to the story being told. This means hearing the value judgements, realizing the persona is in the words, getting to know the personality. Within this, discovering the potential suppressed as the means to the end, have not been lived and instead a past of experience leading to a role, as a persona was the choice made. This means moving back and forth, grounding one’s self in the physical reality that is right here. This physical reality remains, even when the persona wavers in protection and defense, avoidance and blame. In the silence, and the stillness of focus can one begin to sense patterns and call them out by name, indirectly telling stories, creating a value that realizes the capacity through ordinary action that leads to the extraordinary movements that we all admire for their grace and ease. Those who have a small measure of development, that supposed exception to accepted and allowed rules that reveal in every way, the means to the end - as it is simple. What complicates is what causes resistance. That self suppression via limitation and ideas of lack circulating as pictures and words, as voices in the memory, a mind full of morality codes made larger than life and in separation from the practice of reality , a physical reality. It is a firewall , that is emotional. It is the veil. It has parts that are good, yet those are ideas - not presence in reality, they are - right or wrong - personifications. They are illusion, they are like a television. You are electrical and magnetic by design. As within, so without, as above, so below.
So much of my life has been caught in sympathy. This means being sympathetic only, accepting another persona and agreeing with it, instead of realizing real empathy is listening and then giving practical solutions that move the path SIM-ulated into an expansion that allows one to move with ease and create, meaning to live the kind of potential realized inherent in the design of who and what we are as men, with two arms and two legs and two hands and the ability to move with our presence into forms, be they imagined or real, to sense the space of this reality around us, catching those point of resistance and yet seeing the creation of them, an inflating of what is a value judgement made huge, and bringing what was not expressed, or what was missed into a practical action. This is making things small, as within an equal size relationship to the physical world. This can only be done right here, in the commons of reality that is the physical world.
Within this I need not fear the projections of the mind of men as this is not who and what they really are. I need not fear losing anything, because what expands and creates can never be lost, yet it can become silent and begin again. What works remains and what destroys cannot remain, we either realize the value being life, or we continue believing that our egos are larger than life, mis-using the imagination with what is an imperfect practice, as we are not here, in respect of physical reality.
If we accept knowledge and information from an authority that speaks on a soap box from a distance, we lose all connection to our natural ability to assess reality, and we become instead filled with malice- a crystallization mercurial in nature a false morality, because we miss what is hidden in plain sight as the physical world. We believe that adderal will help our depression because the label by the authority says so. We follow instead of investigate. later we may discover that this ‘ thing’ is really crystal meth with an added chemical chain that does not change the action of the original and real name. The damage done from such following is the mis-takes never solved, these which accumulate as mis-information/story, that weigh down the body while one lives in a false bliss up there in a bubble that is a personification. If we listen we all hear this, we all see this, we all know this. It is that we fear to live. Yet, that which we fear is the only way out. This is why that which we resist persists, because it must be made clear and brought down into practical measure equal to physical reality, as the physical is creation in expression.
Within myself, in relation to this, I realize the people I have trusted I can no longer trust, or that I am alone, that I must stand and be responsible for who and what I am. Someone once said, trust no one. In reality, I can only trust myself, with the help of the commons, as the ground here, I can begin to slow down and listen and no longer become confused, or recognize that I am confused and see that I have not found that simple point to bring forward that is always right there in front of me, in every moment. For this, I can use my best friend; silence - and who has a twin known as patience. I am here. I can take that which is good and does no harm and I can walk with self forgiveness into investigation and assessment to find what is self corrective until equality in each and every point realizing the value is life is here on earth. I see, realize and understand that fear is a sign that I am not present in reality. I can use the capacity of myself as life, to take the time to reciprocate and build understanding and then relate to respecting reality and choosing what is best for all, as this is what s best for self, here.
