On a recent Bridge Walk support call someone was speaking in what I found to be a very open-hearted way about the level of resistance the voices are kicking up. This person was being told (internally) that their efforts needed to produce x, y, z. The message was, essentially, “You’re not pulling your weight.” It was crystal clear to me that the participation of this person, in their courageous willingness to come onto the call and see through the lies of those voices, was every bit as “valuable” as any contribution any of us is making in the campaign.
In my experience, it can be very hard to see that, to take that in, if I am the person who is experiencing the resistance. In looking at that for myself, this little parable dropped in:
Let’s take George, fictitious Sangha participant so-named in honor of the film It’s a Wonderful Life, which so perfectly depicts this process. Two scenarios:
Scenario one: George hits a massive wall of resistance when considering participating in the Bridge Walk campaign. “No way! You can’t do that! It’s not you. You will fail. You will be humiliated. And, who are you going to ask anyway? No one will want to give. Forget it.”
“That’s true,” thinks George, “plus I have way too much on my plate as it is.”
“Could you get on one of those support calls?” whispers a still, small voice.
“WHAT!!!??? And bring everyone down with your gloom-and-doom energy?? NO, way!” insists the voice of conditioning.
Scenario one ends here.
Scenario two: George hits a massive wall of resistance when considering participating in the Bridge Walk campaign. “No way! You can’t do that! It’s not you. You will fail. You will be humiliated. And, who are you going to ask anyway? No one will want to give. Forget it.”
“That’s true,” thinks George, “plus I have way too much on my plate as it is.”
“Could you get on one of those support calls?” suggests a still, small voice.
“WHAT!!!??? And bring everyone down with your gloom-and-doom energy?? NO, way!” insists the voice of conditioning.
“Hmmm…” realizes George. “This is a lot of suffering. Perhaps there is conditioning at play. Maybe I will just call into the support call. I can just see.”
Grace, miracle, divine intervention… call it what you will. George presses *6 and speaks on the call.
Meanwhile, Holly, fictitious practitioner number 2, is listening along. BAM! Something George says puts the pieces together and Great Aunt Martha drops in to her awareness. For the last several years Holly has been prevented from reaching out to Great Aunt Martha because, “Her?! You can’t ask her! She is so conservative with her money and doesn’t appear to care a whit about any cause. DON’T DO IT!”
The insight Holly received from listening to George overpowers the suffering conversation. Holly reaches out to Great Aunt Martha who, it turns out, has a latent internal philanthropist waiting for the right opportunity. And, just for the fun of truly punctuating our story, it is Great Aunt Martha’s contribution that, in the last days of the campaign, takes us across the finish line.
A little out there? Not really.
At the time of this writing we have raised just over $45,000. Phenomenal. Between now and the end of January, that needle will move to $110,000. The great mystery and magic of it is that none of us knows how. I am convinced that while it is not up to me (aka any one of us), it does take all of We. We truly do not know which one of us will flap our wings in … (insert the name of your home town) and “cause” us to reach the $110,000 mark.
Please join us on our next support call, no matter what the voices have to say about your participation! Information for the next call will be posted here!
In Gassho
Jen