Rightsville is no place we wanna be
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Rightsville is no place we wanna be
“Right or wrong – hmmm, this is one that I struggle with because when I am right… I AM RIGHT!! So why would I want to submit to not being right and playing a game of being politically correct and meet in the middle?” So goes the voice in my head and the digging in of feet into the floor; “I AM RIGHT therefore I won’t concede to being wrong”.
When I watch this video in which Tanya Curtis talks more and explains the place of learning together, I start to loosen in my body and relax a little into this possibility that there is a place we can hang out in that is about learning together, no right or wrong. It starts to feel like a place I would want to be rather than out in the cold on my own in ‘Rightsville'.
And that is the truth; when you are in a relationship and you are in the ‘right/wrong’ game you are both on your own, out in a corner of the room, backs to the wall, digging in your heels. Both stuck in what is true for you but not what is True. That is the giveaway – you are both cold, alone and stuck.
Truth by its very nature is universal and is for all, it is solid and vast, it is the foundation you can both stand on and know yourself and know the other and know the All. Sounds much more appealing than the cold, sharp, shaming world of 'right and wrong’.
Many of us have had role models stuck in ‘right and wrong', be that obvious shouting and arguing with each other or passive/aggressive silence with niceness all around.
So we don’t have to do any beating up on ourselves but just be willing to want to be on the same ground with our loved ones and with everyone in general, to be open to listening truly without defending, to really hear what the other is saying; to be willing to actually be vulnerable and speak what is true in your heart regardless of how it will be received.
If you are in the place of standing on the same ground with love as your foundation, you haven’t the fear of how the other will react or reject because you know you are both committed to having a space that is loving and open, exploring the situation, wanting to learn from each other.
If you have been living in Rightsville for 30-50 years, maybe less maybe a lot more, it is going to take some time to really feel ok with laying down your normal patterns of behaviour and reactions to situations that need talking through, and that is ok, it is just your willingness to do things differently, to risk being more open, to be the first to do it this way, to want to build true foundations. If you can commit to that then the rest will follow.
For that to happen you have to leave at the door the Wrong and Right Brothers and don’t invite Aunty Assumptions who likes to say, “I know all about you and everything that you think, you will never change”. These people are not invited to the conversation and neither is Cousin Jealousy.
As you can see, when it is written in black and white, there is no place for these positions at the table of loving communication.
At this table, you need:
- transparency
- open-heartedness
- learning together
- curiosity
- genuine interest
- listening without waiting for your turn to speak (it’s ok, we all do it)
- genuineness to want to communicate with care, love and honesty, with oodles of understanding as your basic foundations.
Put like this, it seems mad to want anything else in your life, but these old ways of living are very familiar so be prepared, it won’t be without some backward or side steps, because it has been a lifetime of living in the right/wrong patterning. It is also the position of most people around us, so the energy is strong and wants to keep that as the ‘normal’. You see these interactions everywhere, on your TV, on the news, in politics – it’s all about right and wrong.
So go gently with yourself, take your own hand in care and understanding, with no ‘right or wrong’ in your head.
This will be an amazing shift and with this foundation within yourself, you will naturally start showing up in your everyday interactions with that same level of care and love. It is always an inside job first, how you treat yourself and the voice you let run and how it speaks to you will be the way you interact with others, overtly or covertly.
So this brings us to the foundations within, how you are caring for yourself, how much understanding you have for yourself, how loving you are with yourself. Start small and build up and this will occur naturally, with continued adjustments to how you are with yourself.
It all boils down to what you want your life to feel like: do you want to be right and filled with the hot air and anger and the isolation and coldness of this, or do you want to hang out on a very solid foundation that is honest and caring, that fills you with warmth and lightness where you are in it together, learning about yourself and the other?
Filed under
Conflict, Relationships, Tension
