When I learned self-inquiry, I stopped attempting to resolve my problems with other people. I’m not saying I stopped communicating with others, stopped apologizing, or trying to resolve genuine conflicts. What I mean is I recognized that when I had a problem with someone else, I was the source of the problem – not the other person. For instance, my anger, judgment, righteousness, or impulsive reactions were the cause of the conflict I was experiencing. The other person’s actions were just the trigger.

Prior to learning self-inquiry, I would approach everyone who upset me as if they were the problem and they had to change. Self-inquiry taught me to look at my reaction, dissolve contention, and only on rare occasions would I need to involve the other person in resolution. Why? Because most of the time the only problem was the one I created in my mind.

I’m not talking about the kind of self-inquiry that asks, “who am I?” I’m talking about the skill of turning inward for resolution instead of blaming other people for your upsets. When used correctly, self-inquiry dissolves patterns, traumas, and upsets like throwing ice in a hot tub. In the context of problem resolution, self-inquiry leaves other people and circumstances out of the equation. You don’t have to drag someone else into your drama to find resolution.

Is it possible to resolve issues without involving other people who seem to be so much a part of the equation? Yes. Absolutely, yes. And the benefit of doing so far exceeds any “mutual resolution” you could create with another person. Allow me to explain.

When you approach another person to resolve a problem, you immediately put them on the defense. Especially if they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. Resolving the negative feelings in your heart first allows you to approach another person with love and a commitment to resolution that doesn’t come with the sting of blame. Most of the time, you’ll find that once you resolve your own negative feelings, your whole issue disappears and you don’t even need to talk to the other person because you realize they haven’t done anything.

Ten years ago if someone did or said something that upset me, I would attempt to “work it out” with them. For instance, when someone said something I considered mean, I would approach them with the intention of “resolving the problem.” This involved letting them know how I felt about their behavior. Then came the ultimatum: If they wanted to be in my life, they had to change.

Although it seems legitimate – why would anyone want to continue a friendship with someone who is disrespectful? – this “work it out” approach never worked and any appearance of resolution was only skin-deep. There was constant tension, bitterness, and resent in the space between myself and everyone I had attempted to “resolve” a conflict with. The same goes for people who tried to resolve a conflict with me.

Then came the cumbersome construction of boundaries, and the necessity to catalog who I could and couldn’t trust.

My relationships became volatile, and we walked on eggshells around each other trying hard to remember each others’ “triggers” and “boundaries,” apologizing profusely when we forgot. Resolving issues in this manner only succeeded in creating an exhausting emotional prison.

After “resolving” a problem with someone, then came the boxes I had to put people into in order to manage my interactions with them. This person’s a homophobe so I can’t invite them to gatherings with my gay friends; this person is a doomsdayer so I have to limit my interactions with them; this person only talks about themselves, so I’ll only hang out with them when I’m short on time; this person is an arrogant bastard so I’m not going to answer my phone when they call; this person is an atheist so I can’t talk about my spirituality around them or they’ll go off on me again.”

I thought it was was normal to have to put people into boxes like that. When I hung out with my atheist friends, we’d all agree that the doomsdayer was nuts. When I hung out with the doomsdayer, we agreed that the atheists were misguided, and so on. I’m sure I got put into some boxes, too.

We put each other into boxes according to our interactions, agreements, and disagreements with each other. And based on the way we went about “resolving our problems” with each other by attempting to get the other person to change their behavior, we only reinforced the need for more boundaries and boxes. Nobody was willing to change their behavior; we just all walked on those eggshells and swept the contention under the rug.

When I Got Sucked Into NLP Seminars
I Thought I Found The Answer

After witnessing profound communication potentials during some NLP seminars, I thought I found the solution to my problems. Learning a new way to approach people to resolve a conflict gave me the idea that softening my approach and learning higher communication skills would get me the resolution I wanted. So, I learned high level “communication skills” and NLP.

These skills were effective with other people who shared the same training because we were all playing the same game. However, it fell flat in the real world. I could manipulate people’s responses and behaviors, but unless it was “game on” 24/7, they reverted back to their chaos.

At the time, I didn’t understand the core problem was my desire to change another person’s behavior. I didn’t need better communication skills – I needed to stop bringing my issue to the other person.

Self-inquiry is effective for a reason

Involving others in the process of resolution left tension, bitterness, and resent in the space between us. When I used self-inquiry, I achieved a different level of resolution that left only love in the space between myself and others. And I learned it through a single interaction with my first teacher that left me bewildered and curious at the same time:

After a minor disagreement my Teacher said something that I considered mean. I immediately walled her off and went silent. Several minutes later she called me to the kitchen table and asked me to sit with her. She said, “let’s talk.”

I wasn’t buying it. I know what “let’s talk” means. It means I’m going to be made wrong and told I need to change my behavior.

I sat down. She said, “I want to acknowledge that I didn’t mean what I said, and I want you to know that I love you.” She reached out for my hand. I was silently waiting for the slap down.

“I care about you, and I don’t think of you that way. I was just frustrated. I didn’t mean it and I love you,” she continued.

I waited. And waited.

She got up and gave me a deep and meaningful hug that seemed to last forever.

She never brought me into the equation of her experience of our conflict.

She completely disarmed me.

I was waiting for her to tell me I needed to take responsibility for my part, but that never happened. The conflict we just had – the interaction we both participated in – dissolved into pure love in a single moment. She didn’t need my apology to fill the space between us with love. She didn’t need me to change to fill the space with love. Most importantly, I didn’t need to do anything to fill the space with love. Because she filled the space with love, I was able to meet her there without having to make things right first. Things were already right, because she never made them wrong.

With that interaction, I saw a possibility for human relationships that transcended the concept of “conflict resolution.” I had never experienced anything more powerful in my life. I finally understood that bringing another person into the equation of my upset activated a vicious circle of emotional manipulation.

What Self-Inquiry Looks Like From the Inside

Years ago I had a roommate who told me I could put my blender on the kitchen counter in a specific spot. I used it daily, so I needed easy access to it. A week later I came home from work and my blender was gone. I searched the cabinets and cupboards and couldn’t find it. When my roommate came home, I asked her what happened to my blender. She told me she put it in the laundry room because it was taking up too much space.

The available counter space was vast; 6 feet in length on one side and 5 feet on the other. And my blender barely used a square foot of that space. With the exception of a jar full of dog treats, the counters were bare.

My immediate, internal reaction was, “what the hell? You JUST told me I could put my blender in that spot. And I need to use it every day. I’m not going to walk to the laundry room every time I want to make a meal. That’s ridiculous. I’m paying rent here and now you’re being unreasonable.”

This initial reaction was automatic, and any sensible person would probably agree that she was being unfair. But, I didn’t allow my mind to entertain those thoughts.

Prior to developing the skill of self-inquiry, I would have gotten into it with her and made sure she knew how ridiculous she was being. I might have even attempted an open conversation with her to point out her issues of control, and get her to work on those issues.

I also would have stood firm as a renter and made the request that she keep my blender on the counter and honor her word. I would have made a genuine effort to help her understand why I needed access to it so she felt better about leaving it on the counter.

All of this sounds reasonable, right? Of course. And that’s the way most of us have been taught to resolve issues with other people. You talk it out, communicate, and compromise. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Handling situations like that can create peace and harmony in any environment. However, self-inquiry will lead you to a deeper resolution within yourself.

Here’s how I initiated the process of self-inquiry in this situation:

I knew there was something deeper to discover that had nothing to do with my roommate or the blender. It was all about me. I shifted my focus away from her and into myself. This is what that process of self-inquiry looked like:

I asked myself what this situation was really about. It wasn’t about fairness or people not honoring their word. It wasn’t about someone trying to dominate and control me. It wasn’t even about me choosing the wrong place to live, although if I shared this experience with friends they’d all tell me to move. It wasn’t about anything in the external world.

Because of my awareness, I knew the situation was showing me something inside of myself, if only I had the eyes to see. And it wasn’t going to be obvious. I would have to dig for it. So, I removed my focus from the external, as if my roommate didn’t even exist, and began to dig. This is the conversation I had with myself:

What am I resisting in this situation that is creating my frustration? For one, I just want to live my life and make my smoothies and that’s being interrupted by an unreasonable and inconvenient requirement to stash my blender in the laundry room after each use. I don’t like arbitrary rules that make no sense. I can understand rules that have a purpose, but this one doesn’t serve any purpose other than to satisfy someone else’s need for control. I’ve always refused to follow rules that make no sense – there seems to be a lot of those in this world.

There are people in this world who have no problem following arbitrary rules even when their rights are being violated. Even when I was in school I refused to follow arbitrary rules. Like being denied the ability to use the restroom when I really needed to go – I just left anyway. I didn’t care if I got marked down. Or being told we can’t have bottles of water at our desk – I’ve always ignored that rule, it’s a human right to have access to water. I never cared about getting detentions for not following those rules. But other people would shrink away from consequences and do as they were told. I’ve never been swayed by consequences. I would rather die than follow arbitrary rules. Why am I not swayed by the threat of punishment?

So here I am as a renter, and I’m being asked to do something that presents a severe inconvenience to me, and makes eating my meals an arduous task. All so that someone else can feel better about their OCD. What am I resisting? I’m resisting compromise. 

Now at this point, you might be thinking, gosh if your roommate was making this outrageously absurd rule, there is no way you should have to compromise. She’s clearly nuts. You should just move.

Wherever you go there you are; you can run from yourself, but you won’t get far.

As easy as it would have been to just pack up and move, I knew it wasn’t the answer. The situation appeared to be about a fickle roommate with OCD making my life difficult, but it was really about a lifelong pattern that I was about to uncover and bust wide open.

Now, when I discovered I was resisting compromise, I don’t mean to say that I was resisting compromise in this specific situation with the blender. I mean to say that this situation brought me to the awareness that I had been resisting compromise for my entire life. And the situation with the blender was only a symbol that was pointing me toward that realization. This situation was a pattern I had been experiencing my whole life, but only now did I actually get the message.

As I dove deeper, I discovered the situation wasn’t actually about compromise; it was just another layer in the cake, pointing to an even deeper issue.

Self-inquiry continues, more deeply

This wasn’t the first time this issue popped up in my life. In fact, when I got that spot on the counter for my blender I was in shock because up to that point I had not been allowed to put any appliances on any kitchen counter in any house I’ve lived in. And what made it worse is that I had to purchase a new blender in red because that was the only color my housemate would allow in the kitchen.

That alone was enough for me to attach myself to the idea that I was right and she was wrong. But, with my awareness, I knew that anytime I feel like I’m absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong – even if the entire world agrees with me and supports me – something deeper is fueling that conviction. And it doesn’t matter if I really am right about the situation. If ever the need arises within me to get someone else to change their behavior, or validate my experience, that’s an automatic invitation for me to step back and go inside. I knew that even if I was factually right and the Supreme Court ruled in my favor, it doesn’t matter. Being right about any situation won’t unravel your Gordion Knot. Self-inquiry will.

So I dove deeper. Beyond my resistance to compromise, there was something else for me to discover. I went all in.

Okay, so I’m unwilling to compromise. Why? What is it about compromise that puts me off so much? Well, I’ve never had my needs met in a compromise. The deck is always stacked in the other person’s favor when I compromise. I don’t ask other people to compromise. I allow them to live their life the way that works for them and I work around it. I resent being asked to compromise in a situation that doesn’t have any real reason. Being asked to put my blender in the laundry room isn’t a compromise; it’s a decision being forced on me by someone else to control access to my own property.

Wait a minute. I see where this is going. When was the first time someone forced me to do something with my own property that I didn’t agree with? Well, there was the one and only time I got dragged to a Catholic church when I was eight years old. My dad made me donate all of my allowance money that I had been saving for craft supplies. When they passed around that collection net, I was forced to give the church everything I had saved completely against my will. I didn’t get to choose to give an amount I wanted to give – I was told I needed to give it all. Bingo!

What did I decide in that moment as an 8 year old kid? That I was never going to let anyone tell me what to do ever again. I decided that all rules were a threat to my ability to make my own choices, and following rules meant losing my freedom.

I Had Collapsed Following Rules With Losing Freedom

The moment I got that, I dissolved unconscious resent toward my dad and my step-mom that I had been holding onto for being forced to give away my money. I asked myself the one question that never fails to bring everything back into balance, “what can I let go of that’s standing in the way of love?” The answer was that I can let go of resent, and making them wrong for what I experienced. So, I let that go, and experienced a profound shift in the quality of my life in an instant.

I had collapsed following rules with losing freedom, and spent my entire life up to that point operating from this belief – unconsciously. Anytime someone had a rule to follow, even if it was insignificant like formatting a paper double spaced with size 12-point font, I would always find a way to get around it. For example, I’d use an 11.75-point font in an unconscious attempt to hang onto my freedom. If I followed the rules, my subconscious really believed my freedom was at stake.

This realization explained (and dissolved) a plethora of patterns in my life that never made sense to me. Including my former patterns with money. And I didn’t have to do anything but dive into self-inquiry and be willing to look at everything that came up.

I never would have discovered this if I had reacted to the blender situation in the external world. I could have whipped out amazing communication skills to be the diplomat. I could have just moved. I could have compromised. I could have made my roommate see things my way. But none of that would have led to the absolute freedom that came when I chose to look inside and dissolve this pattern.

Essentially, an upset 8 year old had been running my life for decades. And I’ve done this process with enough situations over the last decade to know that issues like these always go back to a decision made in childhood about myself, or my world. The difference with this situation is that it happened to be a root pattern that unraveled myriad other patterns, completely eliminating my need to explore those other patterns.

There’s no need to hash out the details

With self-inquiry, there’s no need to engage in the details of situations that arise in order to resolve them. The simple act of honest self-inquiry dissolves all issues.

The Takeaway of Self-Inquiry

Life presents all of us with situations where we are absolutely certain we are right, and others are clearly wrong. Sometimes we can even prove this with facts, data, photos, and even video evidence. But getting caught up in right and wrong is a distraction. These situations are invitations to look beyond the surface. Because it’s never about the situation – it’s about you. And it will always be presented in a way that ensures you’ll never see it unless you’re willing to look where you absolutely don’t want to look.

Until you can look past the temptation of judgment and morality, you’ll experience a compulsion to resolve issues in the external world by reasoning with people, trying to get them to change their behavior, blaming them and feeling resent toward them. And sometimes you can get people to change, and your relationships might improve. And if that’s all you want, then there’s nothing wrong with that.

If you want Self-Transformation, and to be AWAKE, you need a different strategy.

Cross-posted from my other blog.

I was 29 years old when I was first confronted with the possibility that I might be responsible for everything in my life, and I mean everything. My successes and failures, as well as being sideswiped by people who beat the crap out of me in school. At the time, the idea didn’t make sense. Why should I take responsibility for situations I didn’t create? Wasn’t I the victim?

I didn’t provoke the people who physically assaulted me while I was in school, and I certainly wasn’t going to take responsibility for anyone who chose to steal from me or lie to me. The very thought made me angry. “They always blame the victim,” I thought, “and even when it’s clear you’re innocent they still let the tyrants off the hook. And those new age hippies want me to believe I created these situations? They have no idea what I’ve been through.”

And so my journey began with great resistance to truth. It wasn’t that I created adversity through the “law of attraction,” it was that I was a tyrant in denial. I was throwing stones and pointing fingers.

I had an incorrect and disempowering perception of responsibility. I didn’t know responsibility had nothing to do with blame or guilt. I only “took responsibility” while shaking my finger at the other person until they owned their actions. If they refused to own their actions, or didn’t own them to my satisfaction, I withdrew my admission of responsibility and threw a tantrum.

…Until April 2009 when I met my first teacher – a woman whose way of being transcended the triviality of human nature. Regardless of the circumstances, she spoke directly to the heart of everyone she encountered.

My Jedi training was like the Karate Kid

In the 1984 family drama Karate Kid, a teenager named Daniel moves from New Jersey to sunny California with his mother. Daniel doesn’t fit in and gets repeatedly punked by karate students form the local Cobra Kai Dojo. The maintenance man for their apartment, Mr. Miyagi, saves Daniel from a severe beating by effortlessly defeating his five attackers. Daniel is impressed, and wants to learn karate. Mr. Miyagi agrees to train Daniel to fight, but for a while has him performing menial tasks like painting his fence and waxing his car.

Daniel thinks he’s being used until Mr. Miyagi attacks him by surprise and Daniel’s body automatically responds in perfect defense. Those menial tasks were developing a foundation of precise muscle memory the whole time.

Mr. Miyagi trains Daniel in karate. Although the karate depicted in the movie is actually a blend of various styles, in the movie, Daniel quickly surpasses the skill level of everyone around him; he was trained by a Master to become a Master. And that’s exactly what my first teacher did for me. Except, she didn’t train me to conquer others – she trained me to conquer myself.

I was awed by her way of being

There was something about the way she communicated with people. It wasn’t a contrived method of manipulation like most conversations are. It was an authentic expression of the highest potential for human interaction. She saw value in everyone – she gave space to their garbage and continued to interact with them in pure love.

She unwaveringly held the space of love and resolution, which left people feeling understood even when they didn’t agree. Upsets that started to surface were smoothed within a matter of seconds. The other person always yielded to her direction of love.

Why were people so quick to abandon their anger and resent around her? The truth I discovered is more powerful than Jedi mind tricks, but I had to become like her to understand.

Personal development isn’t useful unless
you apply it from the inside out

I don’t think many people know what real personal development is. I didn’t before I met my first teacher. I’ll be completely honest here – in the past, when I learned anything about personal development, I only used it to tell other people what they were doing wrong. I completely missed the part about doing the work on myself. I thought telling other people what to do was doing the work on myself. That’s because personal development usually comes packaged as information to absorb, it’s not delivered as a personal experience.

My teacher changed that for me and made the actual experience of personal development a way of life. Daily life. Intensely. For several years. Like Mr. Miyagi, she kept me intrigued and pissed off in exactly the right balance that had me constantly curious, motivated and striving for greatness.

It was like training a muscle to grow bigger – you have to give it more weight than it can handle so it has a reason to grow. I could have done 1,000 repetitions of things I already knew how to do and it would have brought me zero results. Instead, I was challenged every day of my life – physically, emotionally, and mentally – to rise up and let go of my past.

When I met my teacher we were inseparable

Just a couple of months after we met, she invited me to drive down to Los Angeles with her and stay with her at a friend’s place while she did her usual business. She had been driving back and forth once a month for a year, working hard on producing a musical. It sounded like fun to me, so I went.

The 350+ mile drive down to LA with her was really fun. We talked the whole way, and when we got there we unpacked, talked with her friend for a bit, went out to grab something to eat and then came back and went to sleep.

The next day we met up with a friend of hers who lived in Manhattan Beach, and we stayed there for the night. We stayed up talking for hours as usual.

I started talking about a recent painful situation where a close friend of mine stopped talking to me but wouldn’t tell me why. I was really upset because we had been friends for 3 years and we really connected on a deep and creative level. I felt like my heart was being ripped in half.

This was something I had talked about with her before; apparently quite a few times because after I was done expressing my pain, she told me bluntly, “I got it. I got that you’re in pain, I got that it hurts and that you miss her. So, what are you going to do about it?”

I was confused by the question. As far as I knew, there wasn’t anything I could do about it. She wouldn’t even talk to me.

“I want to resolve this with her but she won’t talk to me,” I said.

“Okay. But what if you can’t resolve this with her? You said yourself she won’t talk to you, so how are you going to complete this on your own?” She asked.

I thought about what she meant by complete. It was an interesting word. It sounded much better than resolve. When she said the word complete, it implied it was possible to be be okay with a situation even if the other person won’t communicate with me. “Well, I guess I just have to accept the fact that she won’t talk to me and I will never have answers,” I said.

“Okay. And do you need answers to be complete with this situation? What will having answers do for you?” She questioned.

“Uh, actually I guess it doesn’t make a difference, she doesn’t want to be friends so whatever answers she gives me will hurt more, and I I’ll never get her to tell me anything anyway.” I sighed.

“Okay, great! So just let it go then. Stop it! Why are you still talking about it? I’ve heard you complain about this so many times that I’m tired of hearing about it. Every time you complain about it, you’re wasting your time and my time as well. SO STOP IT!” She laid into me pretty hard.

“Yeah, you’re right. It is a waste of time.” I said, not quite believing my own words.

“Are you sure you’re complete with this? Because I’m not going to have this conversation with you again. And if you say you’re complete with this you better mean it.” She wasn’t being mean, but she was serious.

I felt bad for wasting her time. I felt bad all around. Like she didn’t even want to listen to me. But I knew she was right. Somewhere, inside, I knew she was right even though I didn’t see it yet.

“Yeah, I’m complete with it. I won’t bring it up again.” I said, hoping my words wouldn’t come back around to bite me in the ass.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I felt uncomfortable because I wasn’t getting the sympathy I was addicted to. I didn’t want resolution. I wanted to talk about my drama, get her to make my friend wrong, side with me, make me right, and then I’d feel better. And that wasn’t happening.

As I drifted off to sleep I wondered if people could really get complete with painful situations in a matter of seconds or minutes. Could it be a simple decision? Could I really just choose to be “complete” with my situation right now? I wouldn’t have anything to be upset over if that were the case. The thought of not having something to complain about felt uncomfortable and strange.

At the time, I didn’t have the formal training to understand how to get complete with any situation in a matter of minutes, but she planted the seed by introducing the concept. As with all teachers, the experience would come later.

The distinction of being committed

Throughout the time we spent together, she challenged me to my core.

One day we went for a hike and walked along the railroad tracks by the beach. I started talking about how I loved lifting weights and couldn’t wait until I had the equipment to workout again. She asked me, “Are you committed to that?”

“Of course,” I said. Didn’t I just say I wanted to do it?

She challenged me. “Really? When are you going to get the equipment?”

“I don’t know… as soon as I have the money?”

She wasn’t buying it. “What are you really committed to?”

I stopped to think. I already told her I was committed to it, I just couldn’t afford it at the moment so it’s not like I had any choice in the matter. All I could say was, “I can’t make the funds appear out of nowhere.”

“That and 25 cents will get you a cup of coffee,” She barked back.

What the hell?

We walked the majority of the railroad tracks back in silence. I knew I was missing something, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. I kept asking her to explain it to me but she pulled a Mr. Miyagi on me and all she would tell me was, “keep looking. What are you really committed to?” I felt put-off. But I knew I’d get it eventually.

She left me hanging with this one.

I realized later on that I wasn’t committed to building my home gym. I was committed to complaining that I couldn’t afford my home gym. Instead, all I had was an idea and a desire – “that and 25 cents will get me a cup of coffee,” as she said.

The distinction of being my word

Spending time with her was always so much fun. We stayed up talking sometimes until the sun started to rise over the beautiful ocean view from her living room, poking its morning rays through the Eucalyptus trees lining a large cliff. She shared much of her life with me, telling me stories about traveling the world with her bands over the years, and her trips to England, France, and Scotland. Everything she shared was fascinating, and there was no end to her stories.

One night, she said she was going to go for a walk in the morning at 9am and asked if I’d like to join her. I said I’d love to join her and said I’d get up at 8am.

I fell asleep on the couch quickly that night, and awoke at 8am to my alarm blaring. I hit the snooze button and slept until 8:30.. I figured I would just skip the shower until after our walk. I really wanted an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

When I got up, she was already in the kitchen blending her usual morning breakfast of green super foods and supplements. There was something off about her energy; something I couldn’t put my finger on. I said good morning to her, and she replied, “I thought you said you were getting up at 8?”

Was she serious? I was still on time for our walk. I chose to skip the shower. I was an adult, I was allowed to choose whether or not I slept in for an extra 30 minutes without prior approval from anyone. What was her deal?

“I just wanted to get a little more sleep, so I slept another 30 minutes. I’m still ready for our walk. Why does it matter when I get up? I’ve gotten up every morning at 4am for the last ten years, sleeping in until 8:30 is a luxury for me.” I was starting to get upset.

She remained completely silent – something that drove me absolutely insane. I kept pressing her, “what? What is it? What are you not telling me? What am I not getting?” She wouldn’t tell me. She changed the subject and asked me if I’d like to eat some turkey bacon and eggs with her. I gave up the fight and stopped pressing her for answers, but I sure could taste my bitterness in my breakfast.

She left me hanging on that one for a long time, too.

At the time, I thought she was upset because she thought I was lazy for not waking up early every day. Since that day, I felt intense pressure to get up early every single morning or else she’d think less of me. I got it a couple months later when we had a conversation about moving to Los Angeles.

“What do you think about sharing a temporary place with me out in LA while I work on the musical? I’m going to move down there anyway, but it would be nice to have your company too, and we can hang out and I can introduce you to a lot of really great resources for your business.”

“That sounds great! I’d love to!” I had only spent a short amount of time in LA, and it was hotter than I preferred, but if I got to hang out with her all the time, I could handle the heat and the plastic people.

Her tone quickly turned serious. “If you move with me, I have to know that I can count on you 100%. You have to be completely count-on-able, I don’t want to move anywhere with anyone who can’t make the rent, or doesn’t keep their word.”

“Of course you can count on me, I’ve never not paid the rent. I can cover myself. You can count on me.” I tried not to let my feelings of being offended show.

“Okay. You know, though, when you say you’re going to do something and you don’t do it, I notice. And the more you make promises you don’t keep – the more it tells me I can’t count on you.”

I was so confused. What was she talking about? I hadn’t made any promises. I don’t even use the word, “promise.”

“What have I done to make you think you can’t count on me?” I asked, curious yet afraid of the answer.

“When you say things, people pay attention.” She said. “And you create expectations whenever you say you’re going to do something. Like when you said you were going to get up at 8, but didn’t. It’s not about what time you get up. I’m not attached to the time you get up. I really don’t even care when you get up. But if you set the expectation for me that you’ll get up at 8, and you don’t, I see you as unreliable because you’re not being your word.”

I was speechless. Ever since that day I thought she was upset because I wasn’t an early riser. But in that moment I got it. I really got that people pay attention to what I say, and the more I follow through with what I say I’ll do, the more people see me as reliable, knowing they can count on me. That’s what builds real trust.

A promise doesn’t have to include the word “promise” – making a promise is as simple as saying I’m going to do something. I contemplated this deeply, and I wondered just how much I was doing this to other people, too. And how many people were doing it to me.

I bought a notepad and took on the challenge of writing down every single promise I made to anyone as soon as it came out of my mouth, and when I filled up one sheet of paper by the end of one day I was shocked. I hadn’t planned any of the promises I had made, most of them were just things I said to get off the phone with someone or placate them so I didn’t feel guilty about ending the conversation.

I made all kinds of promises I had no intention of keeping. I told people I’d love to talk to them more about things I had absolutely no interest in. I told people I’d call them tomorrow. I told people I wanted to hang out with them “next week” and I even told potential clients I had no interest in working with that I would consider working with them and get back to them next week with a final decision just so I didn’t have to tell them, “no” on the spot.

Just looking at all of the promises I made in one day was exhausting. Where  was I going to get the time to follow through with them? Realistically, I wasn’t going to follow through. In that moment I knew I had to make a decision – either follow through with all of the promises I had made and push myself to complete exhaustion doing things I didn’t want to do, or communicate to them that I wasn’t going to do it. At this time, I didn’t know this revelation was actually one of the key components to maintaining integrity with myself and my world. She pushed me to having the experience that revealed this as the best solution, as she did often.

When I dove deeper into this inquiry, I discovered a ton of standard phrases I was just spewing out without any meaning or intention behind them. I realized there are some very specific bullshit phrases we all learn to say growing up that people don’t actually take seriously. Phrases like, “I’ll call you tomorrow” or “let’s talk soon” or “let’s do lunch.” It’s all meaningless bullshit.

Accountability without blame?

We moved to Hollywood, and rented a couple of rooms from a friend. Meanwhile, we were looking for our own apartment.

As we were walking home from one of our walks, she pointed out a “for rent” sign on an apartment building and asked me to call them up. In that moment I wasn’t feeling up to talking, so I said I’d rather call later and wrote down the number instead.

I thought it was no big deal, but she pressed me.

“Just call them,” she said.

“I don’t want to. I’ll do it later when we get home.”

“Stop being a little bitch,” she blurted out.

We walked in silence the rest of the way home. When we got inside, I started making some grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. I was so upset I could hardly concentrate.

“Hey, let’s talk,” she said to me. “Come sit down.”

I sat down, completely uninterested in talking. I know what “let’s talk” means. It means I’m going to get reamed some more, made wrong, and told how I need to correct my behavior.

“I want to acknowledge that I didn’t mean what I said on the way home, and I want you to know that I love you.” She reached out for my hand. I was silently waiting for the slap down.

“I care about you, and I don’t think of you that way. I was just frustrated. I didn’t mean it and I love you,” she continued.

I waited. And waited.

She got up and gave me a deep and meaningful hug that seemed to last forever.

She completely disarmed me. I had been waiting for her to demand that I take responsibility for my part, but that never happened. I was expecting her to lay into me at least a little bit for being stubborn and not making the call, but she didn’t. In fact, our entire conversation was devoid of blame.

She was accountable for her own actions and had no attachment to whether or not I even acknowledged my part. It wasn’t even in her awareness. She owned her actions and immediately moved the conversation toward love.

I was 30 at the time, and I had never experienced a conversation like that in my life. I had never experienced a conversation that ended in resolution. I had never experienced a conversation that acknowledged and validated my experience. In that moment, I was completely disarmed. My defenses dropped. I couldn’t stay mad. All I could do was feel deep love for her.

She wasn’t making me wrong. Why wasn’t she making me wrong? Why wasn’t she blaming me for my part? I had been stubborn and frustrated the hell out of her and she had every right to say, “okay now this is where you take responsibility for your part…” and she didn’t. She was accountable for her words and went straight to love. And it wasn’t just in her words. She wasn’t just saying those things and then holding onto resent. She really didn’t have any interest or investment in whether I ever accepted responsibility for my part. Her communication skills were beyond making people wrong.

That situation was the first time in my life that I felt the absence of conflict in a conversation to resolve an upset. You can take all the conflict resolution skills in the world and dump them in the garbage – they’re nothing compared to what she taught me. And that was just the beginning.

This experience taught me first hand how to disarm frustration, anger, pain, and hatred in a moment.

This experience showed me why most conversations fail. Insisting that someone else take responsibility for their actions puts righteousness in the space between you and the other person. When you disarm the other person with absolute love, it’s love that fills the space. You can only fill the space with love when you’re not attached to being right about making the other person wrong. It doesn’t happen usually because it’s not human nature, it has to be learned.

The distinction of “what’s so”

I’ll never forget the day my pride was speared with the sword of reality. Four words came rolling off of my teacher’s lips that made me so mad, “I don’t believe you.”

Seriously, again? I know I wanted personal growth, and I know I asked her to point out to me when I was full of shit, but this was getting ridiculous.

I made something in the microwave and forgot to wipe it out when I was done. Big deal, right? I told her I didn’t mean to forget. I’m actually a neat freak. And she said, “I don’t believe you.”

I was pissed.

I felt compelled to justify my neatness. I was the cleanest person I knew! I make one mistake and I get reamed. It figures.

“What do you mean you don’t believe me? That’s how I’ve lived my life every single day, ask anyone who has ever worked with me, my high standards of cleanliness used to drive them mad. I take apart the toaster to clean it!” I was seriously offended. Who was she to not believe me? Why would I lie? Why wasn’t I allowed to make a mistake?

“Well, based on results, that’s not the truth.”

“OH! So I make ONE mistake and forget to clean the microwave ONCE, and that means I’m not the clean detail-oriented person I know I am? I can’t make a mistake? What is your problem?”

She looked at me and looked back at the sink full of dishes she was tending to and didn’t say another word no matter how much I antagonized her with my demands for conversation. In that moment I vowed never to leave even a single crumb on the counter again. I didn’t want to be seen as a slob. I wasn’t a slob. But she probably thought I was a slob. Just like I thought I had to prove to her I was an early rise, with this experience I felt like I had to prove to her that I wasn’t a slob.

In the moment I described above, I really thought her issue was with the mess in the microwave and that somehow she was seeing me as a slob. But again, that wasn’t it at all. It was about who I was being in the moment. And who I was being was a defensive asshole who had to be right, attempting to justify my mistake by my past. As if being neat and tidy in the past actually mattered in the now. As if being diligent about cleanliness even yesterday pertained to right now.

The issue wasn’t about cleanliness, or having that one mistake unfairly noticed and being hounded for it. It wasn’t about making me wrong. It was about teaching me to acknowledge the reality of NOW instead of using the past to justify righteousness around how I “used to be.”

I used to be detail-oriented and clean all day long. I used to never let a crumb escape me. I used to take apart the refrigerator gaskets daily to clean them at work. I used to… “Used to” is meaningless. Like she said, based on results, that’s not the truth now. And it clearly wasn’t. And I knew it. And that’s why I was so upset. I couldn’t handle being called out for making even the smallest mistake.

The truth is – I could have just said, “oh, whoops, I forgot. I’ll remember next time.” I was so caught up in my identity of being a perfectionist that I couldn’t handle being called out for making a mistake.

Trying to play the part too soon

On another occasion, a friend of mine called me to complain about her boyfriend. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t just end the relationship. I also thought it would be a good time for me to put into practice what I had learned from my teacher about not tolerating drama in my life. So, as my friend complained I asked her why she’s tolerating her boyfriend’s nonsense, and if she’s really sick of it why doesn’t she just walk away? I also told her I was tired of hearing her complain, and I wasn’t interested in the conversation we were having. After hanging up I walked into the living room with my food to sit down with my teacher.

“I heard you in there trying to manage her life. That’s the kind of bullshit you have to stop. Like I said, I’m not attached to what you do but you told me you wanted me to kick your ass, so I’m just pointing it out.”

“You say the same exact things to me all the time when you’re sick of my shit, it’s the same thing,” I said.

“Nope, keep looking.” She didn’t even look up from her computer.

What the hell?

By that time I knew there was more to the situation anytime I found myself pissed off at her. I knew I was really pissed off at myself for not getting the deeper message.

“I don’t want to listen to her complain so I told her when she wants to have a conversation, call me,” I said. “I thought I was supposed to eliminate the drama from my life.”

“And how does the conversation you just had with her eliminate the drama from your life?” she asked casually.

“She knows I won’t put up with her shit.”

“Does she?”

“I just told her that, so yeah. She does.”

“You seem upset by the situation.”

“Of course, I’m getting grilled by you and it’s pissing me off because I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me.”

“What’s underneath that?”

“Nothing. That’s all there is.”

“Keep looking.”

Nothing pissed me off more than the phrases “what’s underneath that?” and “keep looking.”

I didn’t get it until nearly a year later. I said I was done with the drama, yet there I was, engaging in a dramatic phone conversation with this person for twenty minutes.

After my initial training
I was ready for the fire

According to my teacher, reasons were excuses. I thought that was bullshit. How could an explanation or reason be an excuse? If it really happened, how can it be an excuse? It’s just a fact. No matter how hard I tried to wrap my brain around this concept I just didn’t get it.

I noticed a lot of things about the way she spoke, including the absence of the word “decision” from her vocabulary. She referred to everything as a choice. I noticed that her life was completely devoid of reasons of any kind. Even when things didn’t happen the way she planned, she never offered a reason. In fact she would say things like, “So I said we’d go for lunch at noon but I have to take a shower so let’s recommit to 12:30, does that work for you?”

Her communication eliminated any possibility for upset and drama. How did she do that? I could mimic her words, of course, but it wouldn’t have been authentic. I knew if I could just figure out what was allowing her to be this amazing communicator, I could have those skills, too. And have deep, intimate relationships with everyone in my life just like her.

I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted it. I wanted it so badly I was willing to do anything to get it. I wanted it because I saw the difference it made for her and everyone in her life. I wanted friends like hers. Every single one of them was an incredible example of love.

Transformation is deeper than change

Her way of being was thoroughly transparent, direct, and deep. I was certain she wasn’t from this planet; it seemed like she was planted in my life to help me pull myself out of the depths of my own hell. No human I had ever met came close to embodying her way of being. Unconditional love was her core.

From the moment we met, we shared a bond that was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced with another human being. For at least four years I never left her side.

In conversation, she referred to people as being “Transformed” or “not Transformed” and while I didn’t understand exactly what she meant, I knew it wasn’t just semantics. Conceptually I understood what she was telling me, but I had yet to go through my own Transformation to lock in that understanding as wisdom.

Transformation… what was this “transformation” business? All I knew is that it would help me get closer to my goal of being the person I wanted to be. I witnessed the difference it made in the lives of everyone who surrounded me from her circle. And they all had the traits I wanted. I was finally starting to figure her out. I concluded that “Transformation” was somehow at the root of who she is. I had to be part of that club.

When she told me the Landmark Forum was the foundation for her way of being, I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted it. I would have scaled mountains and jumped off of cliffs to know what she knew.

I asked myself what I was willing to give up in order to have this new life that I saw a slight glimpse of. My answer was everything. Literally everything. My right arm, my left leg, whatever it took, I wanted transformation. Thankfully, I didn’t need to give up any body parts, but I did have to give up suffering, being a victim, and a host of emotional addictions.

I jumped head first into the Landmark Forum

Most people new to Landmark Education attend an introductory evening and sit through the whole thing wondering whether or not they should pull out their wallet, finding excuses to discredit the speaker and reasons not to sign up.

I didn’t bother going to an introduction. I just called them up and paid for my weekend Forum. I was committed from day one.

One weekend later, my life was on fire with passion and clarity; in minutes I restored my relationship with my best friend and several friends I had not been in contact with for years. I let go of grudges I didn’t even know I was holding. I learned how to move beyond my past and dissolve old traumas (no matter how old) in minutes, without having to involve any other person. It was called completion, and it wasn’t something that could be understand intellectually, it had to be experienced. Finally, I got what she was talking about when she was pushing me to be complete with my friend who stopped talking to me.

Now I understood the core of what she had been teaching me for so long.

I wasn’t the only one having these breakthroughs. I witnessed hundreds of people in the course transforming their lives before my eyes; releasing pain and traumas from childhood, sobbing, laughing, restoring relationships in mere minutes, and passionately taking responsibility for their lives. This was not a motivational seminar. This was hands-on, all-on, on-the-mat commitment to being a powerful human being in a way that I never knew possible.

I had the biggest breakthrough of my life from doing the Landmark Forum. In the forum, I got that I had spent the last ten years attempting to validate my status as a bullied victim. For a decade, I poured my heart, soul, and over $10,000 into work that turned out to be an attempt to be significant; to validate my childhood experiences with being bullied. I had lied, manipulated, and pushed my agenda on thousands of people including my own fans/followers in the most despicable ways. I couldn’t stand being wrong, and I stomped on anyone who questioned me or called me out. It didn’t take me long to make numerous enemies in high places, and I thrived on being hated. Yep, my entire life up to that point of 29 years had been one giant manipulative lie.

But this revelation wasn’t crushing – it was liberating. This revelation was the match that set fire to my life and pushed me into a new world.

I had plenty of supporters despite my pernicious words and deplorable actions. However, I acknowledged that I was wrong to all the people who were supporting me, but they couldn’t hear me. They thought the actions I apologized for were right, and I knew they weren’t. So, like they tell addicts in a 12-step program, I stepped away from my entire life.

After I completed the Landmark Forum, I watched my entire life unravel right before my eyes, and that was just the first thread I tugged on. I wasn’t done. I wouldn’t be done for about eight years.

I began scrutinizing every experience, feeling, and thought as if it were rooted in lies. I finally got what it meant to “look underneath” something. I looked at everything in my life for what little I could be responsible for until one day, years later, I finally knew I am responsible for it all. Not because I caused everything but because I have an obligation to take responsibility for my life regardless of what happens.

The woman who introduced me to this new world became my closest friend and had more to teach me than all my years of schooling combined.

She gave me the tools I needed to complete my past. She taught me how to walk into the fire. She gave me the sword I needed to unsympathetically cut through my own bullshit and keep going, even if it meant hacking off my own head. Those experiences laid the groundwork for a subsequent transformation that delivered me out of the depths of hell and into the loving arms of Truth.

Cross-posted from my other blog.