People Will Say Anything
And their speech may not be so polished. They will act like two-year-olds sometimes but with very convincing disguises. They will come across in ways that tend to make you feel bad.
How can you be around such “negative” people if you’re going to maintain your sanity?
The Work Opens a Door
The next time you are faced with a negative person, excuse yourself and go fill in a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet on that person and what they did to offend you just then. Then question what you wrote and turn your thoughts around.
When you look at their behavior again, you may find that there is an alternative explanation for it. This is the beginning of translation.
A Translation from Surface Appearances to Other Possibilities of What’s Really Going On
For example, I used to be bothered when people said, “I miss you.” I saw it as needy, grasping, codependent behavior. But when I did The Work on it, I was able to translate the sentence from English to “Clarity” for myself.
I translated “I miss you” to “I love you,” which has a very different feeling to it for me. A feeling of self-sufficiency, abundance and joy. It is a sentiment I can accept readily.
So I installed this little app in my head which now automatically translates, “I miss you,” to “I love you.” That’s all that I hear when someone says, “I miss you.” And I get to stay happy and open no matter how codependent someone may be.
Here’s Another Example of Translation
One of my clients felt pushed to drink by a friend in a social situation. My client didn’t want to drink, but felt the social pressure. When her friend asked her, “Would you like a drink?” and then didn’t accept her “no,” she became angry inside, and felt uncomfortable, eventually conceding to accept the drink she didn’t want. Then she went into self-attack.
When she did The Work, she saw things differently. She was able to translate her friend’s words from English to “Clarity.”
In English it sounded like “Would you like a drink?” In “Clarity,” it sounded like “I love you, and want to include you.” When it was translated, there was no pressure to drink because she could still receive the love while rejecting the drink.
And Here’s One More Example
Someone wrote a worksheet on a person who was complaining. She felt frustrated and disempowered by the constant spew of negativity.
When it got turned around, she was able to reinterpret the complaining as something different: uncensored sharing. The same complaining then came across as intimacy from this point of view. She got to hear the other person’s story. She got to see how she sees things.
This translates the same complaining into a sweet kind of sharing. A much more palatable experience.
The Work Is A Translation Machine
The four questions and turnarounds will show you the other side of any story. And when I think of it this way, as translation, I find that I don’t have to change other people. The whole world doesn’t have to learn “Clarity.”
I just let them speak as they do, and translate what they say into “Clarity” for my own understanding. I don’t tell them what I’m doing at all. But with this approach, I can then tolerate any negativity, because I don’t see it as negative anymore.
If you want to make The Work a steady practice this fall, join us on Inquiry Circle for ongoing practice of The Work.
Have a great weekend,
Todd
“The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want.” — Byron Katie, Loving What Is
