Staying in Our Exalted Story

As we begin to grow through this process of personal development, we must first clean up the inner landscape that is often cluttered with emotional baggage—energetic and emotional clutter that interferes with our direct experience of life and impacts how we interpret life.The more we do this, the more we begin to enjoy the relative ease and simplicity of our inner landscape.  We experience more peace, we can be more reflective and less governed by our emotional reactions to things, and we are more buoyant, more present.In this new way of being, other people are less likely to trigger something in us that causes us to lose our paths because there is less to trigger.  However, if we don’t have the necessary skills, we can still be pulled out even if we are very clean.One of the places that this happens is in relationship with others.I was talking to a client recently that has done a lot of her inner work with me. She is buoyant and engaged with life, is clear about who she is, brings loving energy to herself and the people in her life, and she has embodied and expressed what we teach beautifully.  On our coaching call she reported feeling off, of having lost the thread of well-being, and she wanted to get back on it.As we investigated, we traced the broken thread back to just two days prior when she had a conversation with a friend.  He was having some challenges, and in her compassion she was comforting and relating to him about it in the way that we do in our culture.  We say things like, “That is terrible,” “she shouldn’t treat you that way,” “you poor thing,” “the same thing happened to me,” “what you should do is,” “what I would do is”… and so on.All these things take us out of the zone of happiness, out of being and loving.She got involved in the story and it took her away from the basic truths she has been learning and loving:

• Happiness comes from the inside.
• It is not what happens but how we hold it.
• Everything that happens is perfect and there to help us develop and grow.
• Not giving self away.
• . . . and one more thing . . .

This is where I had an AHA!  Even when we are grounded in our happiness and in ourselves, if we are not relating to people skillfully, we can take on their energy, lose the thread of our story, and become ungrounded.The part she wasn’t doing was she wasn’t using Inquiry Method to relate to other people.I developed the Inquiry Method to teach people how to work and relate to other people like I do.  I have always taught it as a skill to help ourselves to help other people work on themselves, but I now realize that it is critical to our own well-being, and the use of it is a critical stage in our growth.At a certain point it is crucial that we stop being pulled off our path by others, and we want to do this with love and compassion.  In fact if we use the Inquiry Method with other people, we not only reinforce our own groundedness, but we are an invaluable companion and support to others.  It is win, win, win, win . . .In inquiry, we are there to explore the other persons experience without getting lost in it or pulled off from it. We are a loving witness and friend, but we stay grounded in ourselves without letting our egos get lost in the story.  We are separate from it because we remember the basic truths in ourselves.This process and mastering it is invaluable to our growth. As we embody Inquiry, we take a quantum leap in our development.Inquiry Method is like a martial art; it requires practice and mastery but gives huge rewards in inner growth and outer performance.  Inquiry Method affects our learning, our relationships, our leadership, and our experience of life and joy.  Through inquiry we meet life and others with a sense of wonder, curiosity, and a joy that is amplified within us.If you want to keep growing and keep your field uncluttered, you need a context for relating to others and life.Keep your eyes open. I will be creating a Inquiry Method Leadership series in the future for those who have done their work with the Garden Company and are ready to take themselves to the next level.  If you already know you are interested, let us know and get on the list. The more of you that express interest, the sooner this new process will become a reality.