May 15, 2024 • 57 mins
Entering the worldview of another is necessary for entering into solidarity, cultivating hope, trusting the process of development, and encouraging acts of service. The SH!P Approach to caregiving provides a simple, albeit not always easy, framework to help facilitate loving and effective accompaniment. Clinical social worker, Doug Scott, LCSW, synthesizes decades of spiritual seeking, pastoral praxis, counseling techniques, graduate education in theology, careful engagement with the Law of One material, and many hundreds of clients into a framework that can help inform loving service. Note: the SH!P Approach is for suggestions only, and is not a clinically researched protocol.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello, listeners. Well, what you're about to hear is a presentation I did for
our Building Forth community,
and I recorded it so that I could offer it to anybody who would like to listen
to it in terms of a podcast.
I've been a psychotherapist for 22 years, and also
(00:23):
somebody who's been very interested in different spiritualities,
as well as graduate work in pastoral theology.
And so what I'm offering here in this presentation is a synthesis that for many years was intuitive.
And then as time went on, I felt a, I guess you could call
(00:48):
it an invitation to bring it
to some level of protocol or not
even protocol as much as a an outline or
a stated approach that invites
caregivers to enter into the lives of care seekers and really offer them what
(01:12):
seems to be true for most spiritualities and also good psychological techniques,
inviting them caregivers to have an approach of entering in and helping care
seekers to identify and live their values.
(01:37):
And so, during the course of the presentation, I state a couple of things that
I'd like to give credit to.
They're not my ideas, and so I'd like to be able to give credit first to Brian McLaren.
There is a point in the presentation where I speak about simplicity,
(01:58):
complexity, perplexity, and harmony.
And these are four stages that Brian McLaren comes up with in some of his work,
where he speaks about the stages of people who undergo a metamorphosis or metanoia, rather,
(02:18):
inside their religious traditions.
Deconstruction, as it is often called. But I position these stages within my larger framework,
and I noticed that I did not state that I got that idea from him meant to,
(02:38):
but it just didn't come out in the moment.
So I'd like to be able to state clearly here that those four stages are something
that I learned from a spiritual master, to be honest, a real guide in our times.
Also, I'd like to state that Richard Rohr,
who is a spiritual father to me, as well as a primary mentor in my life and
(03:06):
has been for years and years,
a lot of what I am presenting is my distilled and synthesized presentation of
how to perhaps live some of the stuff that he teaches.
In other words, putting it into praxis.
And at one point, I talk about the three steps forward, two steps back.
(03:30):
Three steps forward, two steps back as a pattern of loss and renewal and loss and renewal.
And I don't believe I stated that I got that from him. So I'd like to be able
to offer that at the outset.
But anyways, I hope that you enjoy the presentation and please feel invited
(03:51):
to reach out if there's any kind of dialogue or conversation you would like
to have if you feel so inspired.
My email is doug at cosmicchrist.net.
Thank you. Calling this the ship's approach, the ship's approach.
(04:14):
And what it is, is my attempt to,
to synthesize, to present a working praxis.
Praxis meaning taking philosophy and theology and technique and counseling and
all of that stuff and bringing it to a level of practice so that it can be incarnated out into the world.
(04:41):
And if you take at least what I've tried to do is is see how different spiritual
traditions to, I would argue, the level that I can.
To see the spiritual traditions, to see the different spiritual seeking,
things that I've learned from mentors, good guides, elders, as well as very,
(05:06):
very good techniques and counseling.
And if you boiled all of these things down, what might we have? That's the question.
And I think it's taken me about 22 years to allow some of the synthesis to work,
to come together in my unconscious, and then it moves into my subconscious.
(05:28):
And then hopefully it's somewhat coherent tonight.
Now, let me say it this way, that there'll be nothing that I share with all
of us here that is going to be something you don't already know.
Oh, and I hope that's always the case tonight, because if it's new,
(05:50):
then I've probably missed the boat. See what I did there? Ship's boat.
I probably missed the boat because this this is these are things that have been
around the human condition for millennia.
So what I'm hoping to do is present something that you, immediately tonight
(06:10):
maybe, can take this and try it on to see if it works.
Now I'm making some assumptions here, and I'm going to be up front about those
assumptions before I get into the different ways that this ship can sail, if you will.
The assumption I'm making is that we, humanity, we're all in the same boat together.
(06:36):
So whether we're coming from, say, a law of one material perspective or some
kind of spiritual tradition,
that there's this sense of inherent unity that is always true in the unconscious connection,
the unconscious collective, and sometimes realized in the unconscious.
(07:00):
Conscious or exoteric, the external manifestations, you know.
Sometimes we can get together in large gatherings and feel a sense of transcendence.
Something larger is taking place. So I'm making the assumption that we are indeed
in the same boat together, okay?
And I also am making the assumption that underlying humanity,
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I'm hoping, irregardless of culture and time,
I'm not saying that that is an absolute statement, because quite honestly,
I'm not smart enough to know that.
But my best guess is that there are certain first principles, values,
if you will, that most, if not all humans at some level would agree that they operate from.
(07:50):
And so what I'm saying here is that we're all in the same boat,
but this boat is going somewhere.
You know it's going it's moving forward and the wind that's moving forward would
be the values that we share okay from a law of one material perspective it might
be where we could say we're.
(08:10):
Traversing third density together and trying
to sail into the waters of fourth density yeah
okay so ships approach what
does this mean well i'm
giving you the overview the basic overview tonight each
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one of the letters probably a whole book could be written on okay but you don't
need to worry about that because if you just remember what ships stand for then
i think I think it's actually going to bring out what you already do when you help people.
It'll bring it out and hopefully maybe give you an outline of a step one,
(08:54):
step two, step three, step four that could give you the chance to be helpful.
Even more effective, if that's your desire in helping others.
Okay. All right. Now, I can't see anybody.
So, if you do have a question, either raise your hand and maybe Troy could call
on you or just blurt it out.
(09:15):
Either way, I think it's fine. Okay.
So, the first thing is, the reason why I have the I as written as an exclamation
point is because it's the most important part of the whole acronyms, S-H-I-P-S.
I is the mast, okay? It is that which is connected to the other letters.
(09:39):
And it stands for interview.
And we can nuance that meaning, interview,
by thinking of entering the view of the other,
entering the worldview of the other, trying to understand that everybody has a viewpoint,
(10:02):
which is a view from a point, and that my viewpoint is not necessarily someone else's viewpoint.
And so when we're doing this SHIPS approach, approach we are
always invited to try to enter into
and discover and work
from the point of view of the other okay if we take the word interview actually
(10:28):
and look at it in the way that we might say interfaith you might have heard
of the term an interfaith gathering or intercommunal gathering mothering.
It's the sense of, I guess you could even say internet. Yeah. But this, this sense of.
Sharing our views, seeing each other, and sharing them.
(10:52):
And it's in the spirit of dialogue, which is interesting when you look up the
origins of that word, dia, meaning through, and is sometimes translated as flow.
And log coming from logos.
So can you see that when you are entering into dialogue,
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entering into the view of another, you're actually
sharing the flow of the word
the logos isn't that
interesting yeah so you can
see already i'm hoping that this has meaning in
lots of different spiritual ways even if it's also perfectly congruent in psychology
(11:38):
too in counseling skills okay so why it's in the middle is because when we are
going to see that in order for each of the other letters,
the S and the H before the I and the P and the S after the I,
after the interview letter,
that we have to always enter into the S through interviewing,
(12:06):
entering their view, and then the H through entering into to their views.
So each one of those is always coming back to the I in the middle.
Okay, so S stands for solidarity.
We enter their view, and our goal with the S is to enter into solidarity with the other.
(12:28):
Entering into solidarity with the other. All right, and I'm going to introduce
each each one of these letters.
Then I'm just going to give a little bit of a overview of each one of the letters,
just a little bit further.
Right now is actually the time of when I want to ask,
(12:50):
If someone might have a sense of what solidarity means to you, I'd love to hear it.
So what might solidarity mean when you hear that word? Or how have you been
touched by someone who's been in solidarity with you?
I feel it's like the oneness that we share with each other.
Good. Psychology and psychiatry talk about rapport building.
(13:15):
So rapport would seem like a synonym.
Mm-hmm. no doubt, getting into beginning that relationship and entering into
some kind of field of consciousness with the other.
Yeah. Sirak, you were about to say something.
Yeah. I think for me, it comes when maybe I'm sharing a thought or a feeling
(13:39):
with a friend and they respond with something to the tune of like, wow, that makes sense.
Like, man, man, that makes sense why you're, or they'll say something like,
man, of course you feel that way, man, thank you for sharing what you're sharing.
It kind of reaffirms, you know, sometimes I share and as I'm sharing,
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I get more insecure the longer I talk.
But when someone stands in solidarity with me, statements like that resonate.
That's beautiful. Thank you. I would say that 95% of the time when you and I
want to vent to somebody or we have a problem and we want to share it either
(14:23):
with friends or a partner or loved ones,
we're actually not looking for the other person to fix us.
Even though especially as guys okay i'll
say myself but usually guys feel this desire to fix because we're good at fixing
things you know problems are diagnosed and then solved but actually solidarity
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is its own healing energy it's the sense that if i know i'm not alone
if i know that we're in this together i can
bear so much you can bear so much if
i know i'm being accompanied that someone is bearing with me then already most
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of what i really had a problem with especially in terms of trying to make sense
of something can really be decreased a lot you The intensity decreases.
So solidarity is immensely therapeutic. It's immensely helpful.
And...
(15:32):
It is what most of us are actually looking for is to be well met.
Okay, we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means in a second.
But is there anybody else that wanted to offer a thought about solidarity? Susie?
It just seems like holding space for somebody in a really pointed way,
like you both know, I'm on board to just hold space, go.
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And you're safe with me. And you're so safe with me.
You know underlying what you're saying there suzy is
that i'm already in touch
with my vulnerability and so you're safe with sharing your vulnerability without
me judging you why would i need to judge you if i already know about myself
and in fact i've learned that my vulnerability and being in touch with that
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is actually my strength so i'm inviting you to share your vulnerability so that
we can support each other because I already know that that's how we move forward, right?
Like you can get that sense, huh? Yes, very much so.
Oh, good. Okay, moving along.
We're going to go to hope. So the next letter is hope.
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And again, we enter into their view of the other person. And here we're trying
to understand what gives them a sense of hope.
And the first stage of this, as we're entering into their view,
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is either listen for or directly ask,
how have they felt hope in the past?
What has inspired hope for them? How would they define hope?
Because our goal with the ship's approach when we're meeting somebody is to
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cultivate hope in them i'm going to tell you that and i i'm i'm assuming this
is a privileged statement i i,
but i'd like to say almost all the time if not all the time there is some level
of hope in every single situation.
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I would argue, this is my own bias in terms of my faith, but I would say always
there is some ray of hope there.
And our job in some senses is to be a gardener. That's why I use the word cultivate, right?
Because maybe it's to plant a seed of hope where one thought there wasn't any,
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or maybe it's already been planted by somebody and our job is to provide some water.
Maybe that sprout has already sprouted a bit, but needs some support.
The winds are coming and knocking it down.
Regardless, we can get a sense of what gives them a hope and be someone through our solidarity.
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We enter into that hopeful energy and tap it with them, activate what is in potentiation there.
In a little bit, we're going to talk about actually one great perhaps definition
of hope is creative energy that is always and everywhere present and ready to be activated.
(19:03):
Okay. And then let me just share here this too is when you might be in an encounter
with somebody who has had a really traumatic experience to where they,
in that moment, feel as if there is no hope.
And I know in counseling, occasionally I'll have a client whose capacity to
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identify, see, see and even hope for hope is gone.
Now, because I believe there's always creative energy there in potentiation,
always maybe buried under the soil, okay?
But because I believe that, I make the following statement to such people as
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I say, well, listen, I know right now you have no hope, but I want you to know I'm carrying your hope.
And when you are ready, I'm going to give it back to you.
And see, that's a gesture of solidarity too. I know you can't see any ray of light here, but I can.
I'm not leaving anywhere. I'm holding on to your side of that,
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your given amount of hope, say, and I'm going to give it to you when you're ready.
I've got it. All right. Anyways, it's a very meaningful statement for somebody
who's really hurting. And somebody's done that to me before, too.
So I'm saying that from a professional position, but somebody who's received
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that kind of engagement and encounter with me.
All right. So I'm going to ask you guys, if you wouldn't mind weighing in a
little bit, if you want to, is do you have any sense of what that word hope means for you?
One thing my dad always said to me that
really saved me through
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some really dark night of the soul times is he would say it's always darkest
before dawn and that would give me just enough to hope and hang on for just
a just a small glimmer of light so that's what hope means to me is just know
that this too shall pass, sort of.
(21:21):
And notice who gave that advice to you was somebody with whom you have a relationship
that you see perhaps as, in some ways, a guiding presence.
Yes. Yeah. So you can trust it. Very much. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Moving on, we have process.
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P for process. process so s for
solidarity h for hope p for
process again we're always remembering to entering enter the
view of the other and process is
really something that is always and everywhere happening everything is in process
even god god as god is being is one way to understand god God is God is being as becoming,
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being is becoming.
Certainly from the law of one perspective, we would, we see Ra talking about
even the Creator learns upon a macro scale.
In process thought, in process theology and philosophy,
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that's the whole point, is to actually to critique the sense of substance,
that God is a substance and we are substances and that the substances are not shared.
In other words, there is an infinite gulf between the substance of God and the substance of creation.
And, you know, on one hand, it's understandable how that kind of thinking emerged.
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But on the other hand, it doesn't really make sense anymore if we look at the
idea that maybe what we called spirit, as in the Holy Spirit,
is really energy, which is everything.
Everything is congealed light.
Everything is light, either sort of frozen light if it's more solid material
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or more vapor type light if it's in space. But even space has light.
It's more spread out. So everything is a process. Everything is moving forward
into greater complexity.
And our job is with others is to affirm the process of growth.
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Help them to see that process means journey. And really, we can help them see
also by seeing in our own life too, that the journey is the destination.
Imagination now granted this kind of wisdom
is more naturally seen embraced
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and lived from in the second half
of life but it doesn't have
to be we don't have to wait until the second half of
life if we're not there yet chronological because
you can embrace now even in
your own life if you're younger say
is thinking about when you've
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really wanted to go somewhere or maybe we idealize
a future seeing our present as intolerable in some way idealizing a future but
then when you get to that future when that future becomes a present well then
all of a sudden we might have a real letdown.
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It's anticlimactic in some ways. Maybe we have a little awareness that we put
a lot of eggs in that basket of the future,
but we missed enjoying the process of having that future move into the present.
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So I think what we can do is help others,
first off, by seeing the wisdom for ourselves that the journey to we hope is
a joyful future, but that journey actually has to start now or we never get there.
Even happiness, we might be happy for a nice meal, but even as we're going and processing the meal,
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there's a little part of us maybe that is starting to get the fishing lure and
the rod and reel and casting our thoughts to the future of some other kind of
meal or experience that's happening after this.
Okay so the journey is the destination and
that when we can have the perspective that the
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journey is the destination there is a sense of joy there joy joy is often can
be defined or seen as an undergirding understanding of perspective okay it's the 40,000 foot view,
even as you're down on the ground.
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So holding the macro with the micro together actually gives you a sense of joy
because you can kind of really sense how it all does belong.
And even though it's not our job, say, to know all the details of how things
will emerge, we can know that there is an aim to everything,
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that everything is moving towards some kind of orientation or an aim.
And what seems to always be true from the micro to the macro.
From psychological to the physical to the spiritual, what always seems to be
true, Check it out in your own
life, is that everything moves from a simplicity to a greater complexity,
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to a perplexity, finally to harmony. I'll say it again.
Think of maybe when you were a child, or maybe even if you've struggled with
your faith of of origin, try to bring some way that you've really struggled.
And maybe when we're younger, we see things as simple, or maybe we know people
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who are very fundamentalist Christians, for example, and they have a very, quote, simple faith.
There's white, black, black, there's right or wrong, white and black, either or.
It's all very simple and prescribed, huh?
Okay. At some point, though, if we're moving and appreciating this greater perspective,
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it's going to bring us into complexity.
We're going to start to feel how everything is really much more complex than
we thought. But even inside of our belief system or something,
we're like, whoa, it's a little bit more complex.
Sometimes, though, we start to encounter such differences when we meet other
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people in solidarity and what gives them hope and things like that,
that our way of understanding the world and their way of understanding the world
seems to be incompatible.
And this brings us to perplexity perplexity is really where growth happens it's
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where i don't know anymore give you an example i've known it a couple of times where you might have,
somebody who's trying to be faithful to their faith of origin who which might
hold homosexuality as a sin or something along those lines,
you know, or maybe it holds some cultural people as less than.
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I'm looking around at my fellow Texans often holding migrants as less than or
something along those lines, okay?
But what happens when we may have a gay kid? kid. What do you do then?
Because then you got to choose. Do I choose my kid? Do I choose my faith?
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Oh my God, I'm in perplexity.
Or what happens when you meet somebody who is, quote, the enemy and damn it, you can't deny that,
just like you, in their first principles and their desires to be human and grow.
All right? So that leads us to perplexity. And it's only through holding perplexity
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long enough, you know, doing solidarity, expanding our sense of hope,
all of that, that we move into harmony.
Notice that when we do harmony, if you listen to a symphony,
that it's not just one note. It's not even usually just two notes.
Lots of notes. There's sometimes minors, chords inside, massive chords.
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It all holds together and creates a beautiful, complex array of diversity all
held together in a unity.
Okay, so that's harmony. And see, when we can get into harmony at some point
in our life, then we have joy the next time that we think we're in simplicity
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and then we move into complexity And then we get perplexity again.
We can hold it all together as, well, you know what?
There is a pattern here. And I can feel joyful about that because I'm no longer
worried about how this might unfold.
Even if I don't know the particulars, all I know is that I'm participating in something that has me.
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My yes is important. Okay. And lastly, process honors the idea of the spiral growth.
Three steps forward, two steps back. Three steps forward, two steps back.
That you and I, if we look at our life, we feel like we understand things.
We've got into harmony in some ways.
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I'll never forget what I now know, you know, that kind of thing.
And then it could be the very next day, or it could be a little while down the
road, if you will, where we lose
perspective in some ways, and we feel ourselves, quote, slipping back.
Okay, into, and we think we're going to be slipping back all the way from where we started.
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But the truth is, if we're listening to our, and learning from our life's journey,
we realize that we might have started here, and then we do the three steps forward,
and then we have two steps back.
And then we do again, three steps forward and two steps back.
And we repeat that. So, you know, five or six cycles down the road,
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we'll do a two steps back, feeling like we have to start all over.
Because each time you lose the two steps, the trick is, is you feel like you're
very, almost always, you feel like you're back at the start.
But the truth is if you bring over and put on top of each other the two steps back of the fifth cycle.
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Overlay it on where you started the transformational journey,
there's a mighty movement to greater awareness, even on the two steps back.
So that's that process. And so you can almost see it as a spiral.
It's a spiral that starts smaller, more narrow, and actually expands as we go up.
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We learn to open up our hearts through the two steps back when we surrender
into the two steps back and then we start again and we engage the world.
We feel like we've got it and then something happens and we contract.
But our contracting is a little bit less contracting and narrow than when we
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started. I hope you can see that. So that's process.
The last thing of the S is we invite the other person to engage in some form
of service today that is of a higher order than, say, transactional.
Transactional in the sense of, well, I'm going to do this thing knowing that
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I'm going to get a little payback.
So why is service so important? Well, as we'll see here in a minute,
because I've got a little bit of data on it, but service itself has become very,
it's been studied a lot in counseling circles to be one of the primary tools
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to help clients navigate anxiety and depression, depression.
Serving others actually is a tool recommended to decrease our experience of
intense anxiety and depression.
You can already probably imagine why, and we'll talk about it in a second.
(34:36):
But as part of the ship's approach,
entering into solidarity, cultivating hope, honoring process in their lives,
and then rather assertively, obviously not aggressively,
but assertively inviting them to plant some kind of seed of service, of love in a hidden way.
(35:02):
And they may not even think it's going to be that big of a deal but you gotta
you gotta just trust that metaphysically it is always and everywhere true that
it is in giving that we receive okay so.
Wanted to just circle back and give you give us just a few phrases on solidarity
(35:24):
since i introduced what solidarity was i just want to give a first off an image
so you can see there's four Four people,
young people, arm in arm, their backs are towards the camera.
So what we see is their backsides.
They're looking, they're facing forward together.
You don't see a leader and you don't see a follower.
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They're arm in arm, literally arm in arm, walking lockstep together towards the,
future that is is unknown but will
be traversed together and i
know one of one or two of you must know what ram das is famous for saying if
(36:08):
you remember you can say it remember we're all here walking each other home
yeah we're all here just walking each other home isn't that a beautiful image of solidarity.
So here it is, engaging the other in solidarity so that the other feels seen,
(36:30):
heard, accepted, and accompanied.
In other words, when you and I are doing the ship's approach and we're meeting somebody,
even if it's just for five minutes, we can still really, really try to make
this our goal is that when I leave you, okay, when I leave, when we leave and
(36:54):
I'm walking away and you're walking away,
I know that there'll be some level of solidarity when I can sense that you feel
seen by me and heard and accepted and accompanied,
that there's not me in front of you or me above you but rather i'm in it with
(37:16):
you huh okay and a mantra maybe,
that is really helpful to hold in the heart is connection over correction that
even if i strongly disagree with this person in front of me even if i have to
say wow i really see this differently than in you.
(37:39):
My energy and my desire in relating to that person is going to lead with connection over correction.
Because if we have the energy of correction over connection,
believe me, I don't care what your words say, it is transmitted the correction
(38:04):
energy and we've We've already stopped the flow of engagement with the other person.
We've lost them. Quite honestly, we've lost ourselves.
We are sharing in the spirit of correction over connection, not only will not
be received, but honestly is likely coming from a place of us,
(38:28):
inside us, that is not integrated.
And what I mean by that is, and I've seen this in myself, where I find myself
correcting somebody or telling what they should do or should blah,
blah, blah, and then realizing, my God, I don't don't take my own advice.
That'd be really nice for me to follow.
Who am I to say that because I'm a hypocrite?
(38:52):
So, connection over correction is a great way to really live inside this humility that works.
That works. Hope. All right.
Identifying what has inspired hope in the the past during times of perplexity,
identifying the times of, quote, resurrection in their lives after times of, quote,
(39:15):
crucifixion, and how thankful, how thankfulness is possible when we take development into account.
In other words, sometimes heard in places like AA meetings, You'll hear somebody
say, oh, my God, I never I've lost everything.
I've lost my wife and my home and my custody of my kids.
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And I had to be in jail for a while and I lost everything. Had to start all
over. Oh, my God. I never, ever would have chosen that ever.
But the miracle of miracle is that I can sit here with all of in front of all
of you and say, but I'm so grateful that I went through it because I wouldn't
be here with the way that I know how to love.
Love anymore if I hadn't. Wouldn't have chosen it, wouldn't want to do it again,
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but I can say with a certainty that I am so thankful.
And if we're listening to our life, we have had those moments.
What we are trying to to ask and cultivate and dig if you will identify identify
with inside the other person those moments where they emerged from pain a moment
(40:30):
of pain liminal space darkness,
emerged from that and emerged in a
in a more expansive way learn from it you
know what is it what is it said what doesn't break you makes you okay now this
is also something very important the last thing about hope i want to share is
(40:51):
that i really believe this now this there might be better definitions of hope
but i i want to share something that i've been.
Playing with in my own mind see if it works out for you hope is actually,
may be well understood as the extremely potentiated creative energy that is always present,
(41:17):
can often be felt, can always be shared,
and in fact is the hidden reconciling force force, that can reconcile seemingly
opposite energies or conflicts that you don't feel like can be resolved,
that feeling that it can be resolved, that there's something that can be resolved here.
(41:44):
I don't know how. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what movement to go into.
My God, what are we going to do?
Just trust that in that moment,
maybe planted five layers down in the soil beneath your feet is a churning and
burning ball of potentiated energy that's ready to be tapped and explode open
(42:10):
in a sort of a big bang of creative energy.
That there's something right there every moment as you experience life.
There's something right there in the moment with you that is yet to be tapped,
but always present to be potentiated or released if we can but tap it.
(42:34):
And often it is felt it's that little sense of ray a light at the end of the
tunnel or sunlight around the clouds of darkness it can be felt as a warmth as as a quiet,
okayness a quiet subtle invitation to trust even if that seems like folly and
(43:00):
hope can be shared My gosh,
I think that's one of the messages of good spiritual traditions is that it's
a mechanism to share hope towards God.
Shared love towards a greater feeling of
love and manifestation of love it's
(43:23):
always shared and as i said it is a hidden reconciling force what i mean by
that is whenever there is an affirming force that goes in one direction you
know the status quo what you think is what you know, whatever life is for us right now,
and then all of a sudden it meets this wall,
(43:45):
this denying force, and it feels like you can't get over that.
In that exact moment, there's always a reconciling force that what it would
do is it wouldn't reconcile the problem by blasting through the wall,
because that would just be repeating the same consciousness of mind that got us into the problem.
(44:09):
That's why the war in Gaza is not going to produce anything what people hope there.
It's just going to create more of the same problems.
Moss is going to grow a hundred times.
This idea that there's such a thing as redemptive violence is a fantasy.
But if we can, we have this right here, and then we midwife, you go looking for it.
(44:33):
You midwife this reconciling force to reconcile the problem,
it will always bring us to a satisfying solution where the actual energy of
the stuckness becomes transformed into the next flow,
(44:53):
the air jet flow that takes us forward again.
Maybe you can think of a relationship problem that
is never resolved until one or both
of us finally sets down
the old need to be right need to correct and then offers some some reconciliation
and then all of a sudden there's a break breaking through you know maybe I'm
(45:18):
mere vulnerability and someone else and feels invited to take a stab at that okay.
Ways and then when with the last thing
is we have process okay we're not going to do the law of three here's the process
and i as i said before it's three steps forward two steps back three steps forward
(45:40):
two steps back we go from the old room of our lives through liminal space
into a new room okay and then because we're invited to do it process it'll recycle,
and we go right back the new room that was the new room becomes a new old room
(46:02):
what was the resurrected state ends up becoming the status quo for a while and
we're always called to leave the old room back into liminal space,
the dark nights, moving in.
And then finally we navigate that well.
And then we're going to reemerge into a new room. And the cycle just continues. So that's process.
(46:29):
And then the last thing is we have service. And I just read these out loud and then we'll close.
Service, this is according to the National Institute of Mental Health,
improves physical and mental health.
Service provides a sense of purpose and teaches valuable skills.
(46:50):
Service provides the opportunity to actually nurture new and existing relationships.
And of course, metaphysically, it's always a spiritual truism that whenever we give in service,
us, we actually receive the same energy of love and light that we freely give away becomes.
(47:14):
Our experience because you're simply giving to your other self,
the other cell in the body.
So there we have it. Ship's approach. Ship's approach. And so if you can maybe remember solidarity,
hope, process, and service all through interviewing on each step,
(47:36):
entering their view, then it'll take what you already do.
In fact, you might even be doing this anyways, but it will take it and maybe
even give you just a little bit of a structure.
Okay, so I'm going to just ask if there's any thoughts or questions.
We can certainly talk a little bit here.
(47:58):
Be interesting if maybe next week, which is going to be our, what will be next week.
It's going to be a law of one presentation, but we don't have to do that next week.
We could just maybe see if you guys wanted to, we wanted to try this out and
see how it works and we could report back.
(48:18):
Rudy, did you have something you wanted to say real quick before we end?
Yeah i wanted to ask when
when the perspectives are really
far apart what's the most important thing
for accessing the i part of the process i know that like 60 seconds is not like
(48:39):
the best format to give you for answering that question but yeah in my experience
but i've not been in every experience, of course,
when there are really, really opposing viewpoints, all right?
And if the relationship is worth it to you to try or you feel called to enter into this,
(49:03):
then admitting where we differ while having the spirit and energy of connection,
ask them open-ended questions to dig and find what three values do they hold as foundational.
(49:27):
And one way I do that is say, well, if you were to die and then you were able
to come to your funeral and there was your loved ones sitting around talking
only good things about you and you can go up and listen,
what three things would you really, really hope they say about you?
And get them to articulate them and then maybe even ask them to,
(49:50):
well, what does that one mean? What does that one mean to you?
So once you have that foundation, then you can share maybe yours,
or maybe you can say, wow, we have some very similar ones,
and ask them then how in their view does their particular opinion about something
(50:12):
match with their values?
Because then you can share how your opinion matches
even with their values or with your values and at least get us get across that
our values are the same and we might differ on how they look but we can at least
(50:32):
work on our differences given that we might share some common values.
Like i said each one of the letters is a whole book so that's that's just one example example.
Thanks. Yeah. Well, thank all of you for, for allowing me to share this.
I hope it was interesting.
(50:52):
Thank you. God bless. And we'll see you next week.
Bye. Thanks, Doug. Beautiful. Brilliant. Thank you.
Hello, listeners. Well, what you're about to hear is a presentation I did for
our Building Forth community,
and I recorded it so that I could offer it to anybody who would like to listen
to it in terms of a podcast.
I've been a psychotherapist for 22 years, and also
(00:23):
somebody who's been very interested in different spiritualities,
as well as graduate work in pastoral theology.
And so what I'm offering here in this presentation is a synthesis that for many years was intuitive.
And then as time went on, I felt a, I guess you could call
(00:48):
it an invitation to bring it
to some level of protocol or not
even protocol as much as a an outline or
a stated approach that invites
caregivers to enter into the lives of care seekers and really offer them what
(01:12):
seems to be true for most spiritualities and also good psychological techniques,
inviting them caregivers to have an approach of entering in and helping care
seekers to identify and live their values.
(01:37):
And so, during the course of the presentation, I state a couple of things that
I'd like to give credit to.
They're not my ideas, and so I'd like to be able to give credit first to Brian McLaren.
There is a point in the presentation where I speak about simplicity,
(01:58):
complexity, perplexity, and harmony.
And these are four stages that Brian McLaren comes up with in some of his work,
where he speaks about the stages of people who undergo a metamorphosis or metanoia, rather,
(02:18):
inside their religious traditions.
Deconstruction, as it is often called. But I position these stages within my larger framework,
and I noticed that I did not state that I got that idea from him meant to,
(02:38):
but it just didn't come out in the moment.
So I'd like to be able to state clearly here that those four stages are something
that I learned from a spiritual master, to be honest, a real guide in our times.
Also, I'd like to state that Richard Rohr,
who is a spiritual father to me, as well as a primary mentor in my life and
(03:06):
has been for years and years,
a lot of what I am presenting is my distilled and synthesized presentation of
how to perhaps live some of the stuff that he teaches.
In other words, putting it into praxis.
And at one point, I talk about the three steps forward, two steps back.
(03:30):
Three steps forward, two steps back as a pattern of loss and renewal and loss and renewal.
And I don't believe I stated that I got that from him. So I'd like to be able
to offer that at the outset.
But anyways, I hope that you enjoy the presentation and please feel invited
(03:51):
to reach out if there's any kind of dialogue or conversation you would like
to have if you feel so inspired.
My email is doug at cosmicchrist.net.
Thank you. Calling this the ship's approach, the ship's approach.
(04:14):
And what it is, is my attempt to,
to synthesize, to present a working praxis.
Praxis meaning taking philosophy and theology and technique and counseling and
all of that stuff and bringing it to a level of practice so that it can be incarnated out into the world.
(04:41):
And if you take at least what I've tried to do is is see how different spiritual
traditions to, I would argue, the level that I can.
To see the spiritual traditions, to see the different spiritual seeking,
things that I've learned from mentors, good guides, elders, as well as very,
(05:06):
very good techniques and counseling.
And if you boiled all of these things down, what might we have? That's the question.
And I think it's taken me about 22 years to allow some of the synthesis to work,
to come together in my unconscious, and then it moves into my subconscious.
(05:28):
And then hopefully it's somewhat coherent tonight.
Now, let me say it this way, that there'll be nothing that I share with all
of us here that is going to be something you don't already know.
Oh, and I hope that's always the case tonight, because if it's new,
(05:50):
then I've probably missed the boat. See what I did there? Ship's boat.
I probably missed the boat because this this is these are things that have been
around the human condition for millennia.
So what I'm hoping to do is present something that you, immediately tonight
(06:10):
maybe, can take this and try it on to see if it works.
Now I'm making some assumptions here, and I'm going to be up front about those
assumptions before I get into the different ways that this ship can sail, if you will.
The assumption I'm making is that we, humanity, we're all in the same boat together.
(06:36):
So whether we're coming from, say, a law of one material perspective or some
kind of spiritual tradition,
that there's this sense of inherent unity that is always true in the unconscious connection,
the unconscious collective, and sometimes realized in the unconscious.
(07:00):
Conscious or exoteric, the external manifestations, you know.
Sometimes we can get together in large gatherings and feel a sense of transcendence.
Something larger is taking place. So I'm making the assumption that we are indeed
in the same boat together, okay?
And I also am making the assumption that underlying humanity,
(07:23):
I'm hoping, irregardless of culture and time,
I'm not saying that that is an absolute statement, because quite honestly,
I'm not smart enough to know that.
But my best guess is that there are certain first principles, values,
if you will, that most, if not all humans at some level would agree that they operate from.
(07:50):
And so what I'm saying here is that we're all in the same boat,
but this boat is going somewhere.
You know it's going it's moving forward and the wind that's moving forward would
be the values that we share okay from a law of one material perspective it might
be where we could say we're.
(08:10):
Traversing third density together and trying
to sail into the waters of fourth density yeah
okay so ships approach what
does this mean well i'm
giving you the overview the basic overview tonight each
(08:31):
one of the letters probably a whole book could be written on okay but you don't
need to worry about that because if you just remember what ships stand for then
i think I think it's actually going to bring out what you already do when you help people.
It'll bring it out and hopefully maybe give you an outline of a step one,
(08:54):
step two, step three, step four that could give you the chance to be helpful.
Even more effective, if that's your desire in helping others.
Okay. All right. Now, I can't see anybody.
So, if you do have a question, either raise your hand and maybe Troy could call
on you or just blurt it out.
(09:15):
Either way, I think it's fine. Okay.
So, the first thing is, the reason why I have the I as written as an exclamation
point is because it's the most important part of the whole acronyms, S-H-I-P-S.
I is the mast, okay? It is that which is connected to the other letters.
(09:39):
And it stands for interview.
And we can nuance that meaning, interview,
by thinking of entering the view of the other,
entering the worldview of the other, trying to understand that everybody has a viewpoint,
(10:02):
which is a view from a point, and that my viewpoint is not necessarily someone else's viewpoint.
And so when we're doing this SHIPS approach, approach we are
always invited to try to enter into
and discover and work
from the point of view of the other okay if we take the word interview actually
(10:28):
and look at it in the way that we might say interfaith you might have heard
of the term an interfaith gathering or intercommunal gathering mothering.
It's the sense of, I guess you could even say internet. Yeah. But this, this sense of.
Sharing our views, seeing each other, and sharing them.
(10:52):
And it's in the spirit of dialogue, which is interesting when you look up the
origins of that word, dia, meaning through, and is sometimes translated as flow.
And log coming from logos.
So can you see that when you are entering into dialogue,
(11:14):
entering into the view of another, you're actually
sharing the flow of the word
the logos isn't that
interesting yeah so you can
see already i'm hoping that this has meaning in
lots of different spiritual ways even if it's also perfectly congruent in psychology
(11:38):
too in counseling skills okay so why it's in the middle is because when we are
going to see that in order for each of the other letters,
the S and the H before the I and the P and the S after the I,
after the interview letter,
that we have to always enter into the S through interviewing,
(12:06):
entering their view, and then the H through entering into to their views.
So each one of those is always coming back to the I in the middle.
Okay, so S stands for solidarity.
We enter their view, and our goal with the S is to enter into solidarity with the other.
(12:28):
Entering into solidarity with the other. All right, and I'm going to introduce
each each one of these letters.
Then I'm just going to give a little bit of a overview of each one of the letters,
just a little bit further.
Right now is actually the time of when I want to ask,
(12:50):
If someone might have a sense of what solidarity means to you, I'd love to hear it.
So what might solidarity mean when you hear that word? Or how have you been
touched by someone who's been in solidarity with you?
I feel it's like the oneness that we share with each other.
Good. Psychology and psychiatry talk about rapport building.
(13:15):
So rapport would seem like a synonym.
Mm-hmm. no doubt, getting into beginning that relationship and entering into
some kind of field of consciousness with the other.
Yeah. Sirak, you were about to say something.
Yeah. I think for me, it comes when maybe I'm sharing a thought or a feeling
(13:39):
with a friend and they respond with something to the tune of like, wow, that makes sense.
Like, man, man, that makes sense why you're, or they'll say something like,
man, of course you feel that way, man, thank you for sharing what you're sharing.
It kind of reaffirms, you know, sometimes I share and as I'm sharing,
(14:00):
I get more insecure the longer I talk.
But when someone stands in solidarity with me, statements like that resonate.
That's beautiful. Thank you. I would say that 95% of the time when you and I
want to vent to somebody or we have a problem and we want to share it either
(14:23):
with friends or a partner or loved ones,
we're actually not looking for the other person to fix us.
Even though especially as guys okay i'll
say myself but usually guys feel this desire to fix because we're good at fixing
things you know problems are diagnosed and then solved but actually solidarity
(14:49):
is its own healing energy it's the sense that if i know i'm not alone
if i know that we're in this together i can
bear so much you can bear so much if
i know i'm being accompanied that someone is bearing with me then already most
(15:11):
of what i really had a problem with especially in terms of trying to make sense
of something can really be decreased a lot you The intensity decreases.
So solidarity is immensely therapeutic. It's immensely helpful.
And...
(15:32):
It is what most of us are actually looking for is to be well met.
Okay, we're going to talk a little bit more about what that means in a second.
But is there anybody else that wanted to offer a thought about solidarity? Susie?
It just seems like holding space for somebody in a really pointed way,
like you both know, I'm on board to just hold space, go.
(15:56):
And you're safe with me. And you're so safe with me.
You know underlying what you're saying there suzy is
that i'm already in touch
with my vulnerability and so you're safe with sharing your vulnerability without
me judging you why would i need to judge you if i already know about myself
and in fact i've learned that my vulnerability and being in touch with that
(16:20):
is actually my strength so i'm inviting you to share your vulnerability so that
we can support each other because I already know that that's how we move forward, right?
Like you can get that sense, huh? Yes, very much so.
Oh, good. Okay, moving along.
We're going to go to hope. So the next letter is hope.
(16:45):
And again, we enter into their view of the other person. And here we're trying
to understand what gives them a sense of hope.
And the first stage of this, as we're entering into their view,
(17:06):
is either listen for or directly ask,
how have they felt hope in the past?
What has inspired hope for them? How would they define hope?
Because our goal with the ship's approach when we're meeting somebody is to
(17:27):
cultivate hope in them i'm going to tell you that and i i'm i'm assuming this
is a privileged statement i i,
but i'd like to say almost all the time if not all the time there is some level
of hope in every single situation.
(17:48):
I would argue, this is my own bias in terms of my faith, but I would say always
there is some ray of hope there.
And our job in some senses is to be a gardener. That's why I use the word cultivate, right?
Because maybe it's to plant a seed of hope where one thought there wasn't any,
(18:11):
or maybe it's already been planted by somebody and our job is to provide some water.
Maybe that sprout has already sprouted a bit, but needs some support.
The winds are coming and knocking it down.
Regardless, we can get a sense of what gives them a hope and be someone through our solidarity.
(18:38):
We enter into that hopeful energy and tap it with them, activate what is in potentiation there.
In a little bit, we're going to talk about actually one great perhaps definition
of hope is creative energy that is always and everywhere present and ready to be activated.
(19:03):
Okay. And then let me just share here this too is when you might be in an encounter
with somebody who has had a really traumatic experience to where they,
in that moment, feel as if there is no hope.
And I know in counseling, occasionally I'll have a client whose capacity to
(19:29):
identify, see, see and even hope for hope is gone.
Now, because I believe there's always creative energy there in potentiation,
always maybe buried under the soil, okay?
But because I believe that, I make the following statement to such people as
(19:52):
I say, well, listen, I know right now you have no hope, but I want you to know I'm carrying your hope.
And when you are ready, I'm going to give it back to you.
And see, that's a gesture of solidarity too. I know you can't see any ray of light here, but I can.
I'm not leaving anywhere. I'm holding on to your side of that,
(20:16):
your given amount of hope, say, and I'm going to give it to you when you're ready.
I've got it. All right. Anyways, it's a very meaningful statement for somebody
who's really hurting. And somebody's done that to me before, too.
So I'm saying that from a professional position, but somebody who's received
(20:38):
that kind of engagement and encounter with me.
All right. So I'm going to ask you guys, if you wouldn't mind weighing in a
little bit, if you want to, is do you have any sense of what that word hope means for you?
One thing my dad always said to me that
really saved me through
(21:01):
some really dark night of the soul times is he would say it's always darkest
before dawn and that would give me just enough to hope and hang on for just
a just a small glimmer of light so that's what hope means to me is just know
that this too shall pass, sort of.
(21:21):
And notice who gave that advice to you was somebody with whom you have a relationship
that you see perhaps as, in some ways, a guiding presence.
Yes. Yeah. So you can trust it. Very much. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Moving on, we have process.
(21:44):
P for process. process so s for
solidarity h for hope p for
process again we're always remembering to entering enter the
view of the other and process is
really something that is always and everywhere happening everything is in process
even god god as god is being is one way to understand god God is God is being as becoming,
(22:15):
being is becoming.
Certainly from the law of one perspective, we would, we see Ra talking about
even the Creator learns upon a macro scale.
In process thought, in process theology and philosophy,
(22:36):
that's the whole point, is to actually to critique the sense of substance,
that God is a substance and we are substances and that the substances are not shared.
In other words, there is an infinite gulf between the substance of God and the substance of creation.
And, you know, on one hand, it's understandable how that kind of thinking emerged.
(22:59):
But on the other hand, it doesn't really make sense anymore if we look at the
idea that maybe what we called spirit, as in the Holy Spirit,
is really energy, which is everything.
Everything is congealed light.
Everything is light, either sort of frozen light if it's more solid material
(23:20):
or more vapor type light if it's in space. But even space has light.
It's more spread out. So everything is a process. Everything is moving forward
into greater complexity.
And our job is with others is to affirm the process of growth.
(23:41):
Help them to see that process means journey. And really, we can help them see
also by seeing in our own life too, that the journey is the destination.
Imagination now granted this kind of wisdom
is more naturally seen embraced
(24:02):
and lived from in the second half
of life but it doesn't have
to be we don't have to wait until the second half of
life if we're not there yet chronological because
you can embrace now even in
your own life if you're younger say
is thinking about when you've
(24:24):
really wanted to go somewhere or maybe we idealize
a future seeing our present as intolerable in some way idealizing a future but
then when you get to that future when that future becomes a present well then
all of a sudden we might have a real letdown.
(24:48):
It's anticlimactic in some ways. Maybe we have a little awareness that we put
a lot of eggs in that basket of the future,
but we missed enjoying the process of having that future move into the present.
(25:08):
So I think what we can do is help others,
first off, by seeing the wisdom for ourselves that the journey to we hope is
a joyful future, but that journey actually has to start now or we never get there.
Even happiness, we might be happy for a nice meal, but even as we're going and processing the meal,
(25:34):
there's a little part of us maybe that is starting to get the fishing lure and
the rod and reel and casting our thoughts to the future of some other kind of
meal or experience that's happening after this.
Okay so the journey is the destination and
that when we can have the perspective that the
(25:57):
journey is the destination there is a sense of joy there joy joy is often can
be defined or seen as an undergirding understanding of perspective okay it's the 40,000 foot view,
even as you're down on the ground.
(26:19):
So holding the macro with the micro together actually gives you a sense of joy
because you can kind of really sense how it all does belong.
And even though it's not our job, say, to know all the details of how things
will emerge, we can know that there is an aim to everything,
(26:45):
that everything is moving towards some kind of orientation or an aim.
And what seems to always be true from the micro to the macro.
From psychological to the physical to the spiritual, what always seems to be
true, Check it out in your own
life, is that everything moves from a simplicity to a greater complexity,
(27:15):
to a perplexity, finally to harmony. I'll say it again.
Think of maybe when you were a child, or maybe even if you've struggled with
your faith of of origin, try to bring some way that you've really struggled.
And maybe when we're younger, we see things as simple, or maybe we know people
(27:40):
who are very fundamentalist Christians, for example, and they have a very, quote, simple faith.
There's white, black, black, there's right or wrong, white and black, either or.
It's all very simple and prescribed, huh?
Okay. At some point, though, if we're moving and appreciating this greater perspective,
(28:05):
it's going to bring us into complexity.
We're going to start to feel how everything is really much more complex than
we thought. But even inside of our belief system or something,
we're like, whoa, it's a little bit more complex.
Sometimes, though, we start to encounter such differences when we meet other
(28:28):
people in solidarity and what gives them hope and things like that,
that our way of understanding the world and their way of understanding the world
seems to be incompatible.
And this brings us to perplexity perplexity is really where growth happens it's
(28:50):
where i don't know anymore give you an example i've known it a couple of times where you might have,
somebody who's trying to be faithful to their faith of origin who which might
hold homosexuality as a sin or something along those lines,
you know, or maybe it holds some cultural people as less than.
(29:16):
I'm looking around at my fellow Texans often holding migrants as less than or
something along those lines, okay?
But what happens when we may have a gay kid? kid. What do you do then?
Because then you got to choose. Do I choose my kid? Do I choose my faith?
(29:37):
Oh my God, I'm in perplexity.
Or what happens when you meet somebody who is, quote, the enemy and damn it, you can't deny that,
just like you, in their first principles and their desires to be human and grow.
All right? So that leads us to perplexity. And it's only through holding perplexity
(30:02):
long enough, you know, doing solidarity, expanding our sense of hope,
all of that, that we move into harmony.
Notice that when we do harmony, if you listen to a symphony,
that it's not just one note. It's not even usually just two notes.
Lots of notes. There's sometimes minors, chords inside, massive chords.
(30:25):
It all holds together and creates a beautiful, complex array of diversity all
held together in a unity.
Okay, so that's harmony. And see, when we can get into harmony at some point
in our life, then we have joy the next time that we think we're in simplicity
(30:46):
and then we move into complexity And then we get perplexity again.
We can hold it all together as, well, you know what?
There is a pattern here. And I can feel joyful about that because I'm no longer
worried about how this might unfold.
Even if I don't know the particulars, all I know is that I'm participating in something that has me.
(31:11):
My yes is important. Okay. And lastly, process honors the idea of the spiral growth.
Three steps forward, two steps back. Three steps forward, two steps back.
That you and I, if we look at our life, we feel like we understand things.
We've got into harmony in some ways.
(31:33):
I'll never forget what I now know, you know, that kind of thing.
And then it could be the very next day, or it could be a little while down the
road, if you will, where we lose
perspective in some ways, and we feel ourselves, quote, slipping back.
Okay, into, and we think we're going to be slipping back all the way from where we started.
(31:58):
But the truth is, if we're listening to our, and learning from our life's journey,
we realize that we might have started here, and then we do the three steps forward,
and then we have two steps back.
And then we do again, three steps forward and two steps back.
And we repeat that. So, you know, five or six cycles down the road,
(32:19):
we'll do a two steps back, feeling like we have to start all over.
Because each time you lose the two steps, the trick is, is you feel like you're
very, almost always, you feel like you're back at the start.
But the truth is if you bring over and put on top of each other the two steps back of the fifth cycle.
(32:43):
Overlay it on where you started the transformational journey,
there's a mighty movement to greater awareness, even on the two steps back.
So that's that process. And so you can almost see it as a spiral.
It's a spiral that starts smaller, more narrow, and actually expands as we go up.
(33:06):
We learn to open up our hearts through the two steps back when we surrender
into the two steps back and then we start again and we engage the world.
We feel like we've got it and then something happens and we contract.
But our contracting is a little bit less contracting and narrow than when we
(33:32):
started. I hope you can see that. So that's process.
The last thing of the S is we invite the other person to engage in some form
of service today that is of a higher order than, say, transactional.
Transactional in the sense of, well, I'm going to do this thing knowing that
(33:54):
I'm going to get a little payback.
So why is service so important? Well, as we'll see here in a minute,
because I've got a little bit of data on it, but service itself has become very,
it's been studied a lot in counseling circles to be one of the primary tools
(34:14):
to help clients navigate anxiety and depression, depression.
Serving others actually is a tool recommended to decrease our experience of
intense anxiety and depression.
You can already probably imagine why, and we'll talk about it in a second.
(34:36):
But as part of the ship's approach,
entering into solidarity, cultivating hope, honoring process in their lives,
and then rather assertively, obviously not aggressively,
but assertively inviting them to plant some kind of seed of service, of love in a hidden way.
(35:02):
And they may not even think it's going to be that big of a deal but you gotta
you gotta just trust that metaphysically it is always and everywhere true that
it is in giving that we receive okay so.
Wanted to just circle back and give you give us just a few phrases on solidarity
(35:24):
since i introduced what solidarity was i just want to give a first off an image
so you can see there's four Four people,
young people, arm in arm, their backs are towards the camera.
So what we see is their backsides.
They're looking, they're facing forward together.
You don't see a leader and you don't see a follower.
(35:47):
They're arm in arm, literally arm in arm, walking lockstep together towards the,
future that is is unknown but will
be traversed together and i
know one of one or two of you must know what ram das is famous for saying if
(36:08):
you remember you can say it remember we're all here walking each other home
yeah we're all here just walking each other home isn't that a beautiful image of solidarity.
So here it is, engaging the other in solidarity so that the other feels seen,
(36:30):
heard, accepted, and accompanied.
In other words, when you and I are doing the ship's approach and we're meeting somebody,
even if it's just for five minutes, we can still really, really try to make
this our goal is that when I leave you, okay, when I leave, when we leave and
(36:54):
I'm walking away and you're walking away,
I know that there'll be some level of solidarity when I can sense that you feel
seen by me and heard and accepted and accompanied,
that there's not me in front of you or me above you but rather i'm in it with
(37:16):
you huh okay and a mantra maybe,
that is really helpful to hold in the heart is connection over correction that
even if i strongly disagree with this person in front of me even if i have to
say wow i really see this differently than in you.
(37:39):
My energy and my desire in relating to that person is going to lead with connection over correction.
Because if we have the energy of correction over connection,
believe me, I don't care what your words say, it is transmitted the correction
(38:04):
energy and we've We've already stopped the flow of engagement with the other person.
We've lost them. Quite honestly, we've lost ourselves.
We are sharing in the spirit of correction over connection, not only will not
be received, but honestly is likely coming from a place of us,
(38:28):
inside us, that is not integrated.
And what I mean by that is, and I've seen this in myself, where I find myself
correcting somebody or telling what they should do or should blah,
blah, blah, and then realizing, my God, I don't don't take my own advice.
That'd be really nice for me to follow.
Who am I to say that because I'm a hypocrite?
(38:52):
So, connection over correction is a great way to really live inside this humility that works.
That works. Hope. All right.
Identifying what has inspired hope in the the past during times of perplexity,
identifying the times of, quote, resurrection in their lives after times of, quote,
(39:15):
crucifixion, and how thankful, how thankfulness is possible when we take development into account.
In other words, sometimes heard in places like AA meetings, You'll hear somebody
say, oh, my God, I never I've lost everything.
I've lost my wife and my home and my custody of my kids.
(39:39):
And I had to be in jail for a while and I lost everything. Had to start all
over. Oh, my God. I never, ever would have chosen that ever.
But the miracle of miracle is that I can sit here with all of in front of all
of you and say, but I'm so grateful that I went through it because I wouldn't
be here with the way that I know how to love.
Love anymore if I hadn't. Wouldn't have chosen it, wouldn't want to do it again,
(40:03):
but I can say with a certainty that I am so thankful.
And if we're listening to our life, we have had those moments.
What we are trying to to ask and cultivate and dig if you will identify identify
with inside the other person those moments where they emerged from pain a moment
(40:30):
of pain liminal space darkness,
emerged from that and emerged in a
in a more expansive way learn from it you
know what is it what is it said what doesn't break you makes you okay now this
is also something very important the last thing about hope i want to share is
(40:51):
that i really believe this now this there might be better definitions of hope
but i i want to share something that i've been.
Playing with in my own mind see if it works out for you hope is actually,
may be well understood as the extremely potentiated creative energy that is always present,
(41:17):
can often be felt, can always be shared,
and in fact is the hidden reconciling force force, that can reconcile seemingly
opposite energies or conflicts that you don't feel like can be resolved,
that feeling that it can be resolved, that there's something that can be resolved here.
(41:44):
I don't know how. I don't know what we're going to do. I don't know what movement to go into.
My God, what are we going to do?
Just trust that in that moment,
maybe planted five layers down in the soil beneath your feet is a churning and
burning ball of potentiated energy that's ready to be tapped and explode open
(42:10):
in a sort of a big bang of creative energy.
That there's something right there every moment as you experience life.
There's something right there in the moment with you that is yet to be tapped,
but always present to be potentiated or released if we can but tap it.
(42:34):
And often it is felt it's that little sense of ray a light at the end of the
tunnel or sunlight around the clouds of darkness it can be felt as a warmth as as a quiet,
okayness a quiet subtle invitation to trust even if that seems like folly and
(43:00):
hope can be shared My gosh,
I think that's one of the messages of good spiritual traditions is that it's
a mechanism to share hope towards God.
Shared love towards a greater feeling of
love and manifestation of love it's
(43:23):
always shared and as i said it is a hidden reconciling force what i mean by
that is whenever there is an affirming force that goes in one direction you
know the status quo what you think is what you know, whatever life is for us right now,
and then all of a sudden it meets this wall,
(43:45):
this denying force, and it feels like you can't get over that.
In that exact moment, there's always a reconciling force that what it would
do is it wouldn't reconcile the problem by blasting through the wall,
because that would just be repeating the same consciousness of mind that got us into the problem.
(44:09):
That's why the war in Gaza is not going to produce anything what people hope there.
It's just going to create more of the same problems.
Moss is going to grow a hundred times.
This idea that there's such a thing as redemptive violence is a fantasy.
But if we can, we have this right here, and then we midwife, you go looking for it.
(44:33):
You midwife this reconciling force to reconcile the problem,
it will always bring us to a satisfying solution where the actual energy of
the stuckness becomes transformed into the next flow,
(44:53):
the air jet flow that takes us forward again.
Maybe you can think of a relationship problem that
is never resolved until one or both
of us finally sets down
the old need to be right need to correct and then offers some some reconciliation
and then all of a sudden there's a break breaking through you know maybe I'm
(45:18):
mere vulnerability and someone else and feels invited to take a stab at that okay.
Ways and then when with the last thing
is we have process okay we're not going to do the law of three here's the process
and i as i said before it's three steps forward two steps back three steps forward
(45:40):
two steps back we go from the old room of our lives through liminal space
into a new room okay and then because we're invited to do it process it'll recycle,
and we go right back the new room that was the new room becomes a new old room
(46:02):
what was the resurrected state ends up becoming the status quo for a while and
we're always called to leave the old room back into liminal space,
the dark nights, moving in.
And then finally we navigate that well.
And then we're going to reemerge into a new room. And the cycle just continues. So that's process.
(46:29):
And then the last thing is we have service. And I just read these out loud and then we'll close.
Service, this is according to the National Institute of Mental Health,
improves physical and mental health.
Service provides a sense of purpose and teaches valuable skills.
(46:50):
Service provides the opportunity to actually nurture new and existing relationships.
And of course, metaphysically, it's always a spiritual truism that whenever we give in service,
us, we actually receive the same energy of love and light that we freely give away becomes.
(47:14):
Our experience because you're simply giving to your other self,
the other cell in the body.
So there we have it. Ship's approach. Ship's approach. And so if you can maybe remember solidarity,
hope, process, and service all through interviewing on each step,
(47:36):
entering their view, then it'll take what you already do.
In fact, you might even be doing this anyways, but it will take it and maybe
even give you just a little bit of a structure.
Okay, so I'm going to just ask if there's any thoughts or questions.
We can certainly talk a little bit here.
(47:58):
Be interesting if maybe next week, which is going to be our, what will be next week.
It's going to be a law of one presentation, but we don't have to do that next week.
We could just maybe see if you guys wanted to, we wanted to try this out and
see how it works and we could report back.
(48:18):
Rudy, did you have something you wanted to say real quick before we end?
Yeah i wanted to ask when
when the perspectives are really
far apart what's the most important thing
for accessing the i part of the process i know that like 60 seconds is not like
(48:39):
the best format to give you for answering that question but yeah in my experience
but i've not been in every experience, of course,
when there are really, really opposing viewpoints, all right?
And if the relationship is worth it to you to try or you feel called to enter into this,
(49:03):
then admitting where we differ while having the spirit and energy of connection,
ask them open-ended questions to dig and find what three values do they hold as foundational.
(49:27):
And one way I do that is say, well, if you were to die and then you were able
to come to your funeral and there was your loved ones sitting around talking
only good things about you and you can go up and listen,
what three things would you really, really hope they say about you?
And get them to articulate them and then maybe even ask them to,
(49:50):
well, what does that one mean? What does that one mean to you?
So once you have that foundation, then you can share maybe yours,
or maybe you can say, wow, we have some very similar ones,
and ask them then how in their view does their particular opinion about something
(50:12):
match with their values?
Because then you can share how your opinion matches
even with their values or with your values and at least get us get across that
our values are the same and we might differ on how they look but we can at least
(50:32):
work on our differences given that we might share some common values.
Like i said each one of the letters is a whole book so that's that's just one example example.
Thanks. Yeah. Well, thank all of you for, for allowing me to share this.
I hope it was interesting.
(50:52):
Thank you. God bless. And we'll see you next week.
Bye. Thanks, Doug. Beautiful. Brilliant. Thank you.
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