Q: I’ve been feeling that I’m in a lot of difficulty. The seminar’s been really helpful. I’ve been able to sit with the emotion of what’s been coming up. So it was really good when people in the chair were speaking from a perspective where I could really understand it. I see I find it difficult to shift levels. My self comes on so strongly, and I move in that more than in vulnerability. I’m still trying to figure out how to find any ground.
John: It’s in your heart. The real ground is in your heart. It’s not in your self.
Q: So how do I distinguish the difference?
John: You come into real ground when you are opening and softening in your heart. Real ground doesn’t feel like ground. The ground that you so easily feel in your self, when you have it, is not real ground. In a relationship, real ground is your leaning into any little bit of dearness. It doesn’t matter what’s happening in your self. Lean into any little bit of dearness toward him.
Q: John, I hear what you’re saying but I don’t feel I can find that place. I even find it challenging when you say ‘open and soften in your heart’. I feel a contraction. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
John: Okay, then while he’s sleeping, put your hand on him. Don’t wake him up; put your hand on him, and while your hand is on him, relax as awareness and find your real connection with him.
Q: In me?
John: Well, your hand is on him so find it somewhere there. When you put your hand on him, be open to find some tiny touch of dear connectivity where you are forgiving one another for the selves you have. So you’re not forgiving him of something or you of any particular thing. You’re being forgiving that each of you have the selves you have.
Q: Sometimes I feel like I’m doing it from effort and I wonder whether it’s a real opening or I’m trying to make my self believe something that I don’t really believe.
John: You don’t believe in your self; you find it in your heart. It’s there in your heart. That’s why you wait until he’s sleeping so you’re not facing something of his self, which means there’s less to face of your self. Let everything relax and find something of him.
Q: So is that my heart responding to what I know?
John: Yes.
Q: My self doesn’t have enough ground.
John: You don’t need ground in your self because you’re not going to use your self.
Q: How do I not give that ground to my self?
John: You don’t need it in your self. You have it in your heart and you need to be in that tiny little bit of ground that’s in your heart. You need to move past your self for you to be in your heart.
He’s not the problem; his self is not the problem; the relationship is not the problem. The problem is that you’re relating to the self you have in the circumstance of your relationship.
Q: I see that inwardly but I don’t know how to change it.
John: At night time, when he’s sleeping.
Q: Okay.
John: And if you can’t find it, think of what you would find if he were unconscious in the hospital after a car accident, and you were to put your hand on him. Then you’ll find it.
Q: So does it matter that I feel like I not getting anything, like understanding, or I don’t know how to do the work?
John: That’s fine. Then do it every night.
Q: He falls asleep very quickly, so I’m sure it won’t be hard.
John: Give it a really good go, and when it doesn’t work, that’s fine. Do it the next night, and the next night, and the next night. You’ll find it.
Q: I feel like I’ve got no foothold in anything. I see there’s this little switch in me every time I see something open, my self comes up to sabotage automatically.
John: The way you relate to your self is what does that. Your self doesn’t do that; it’s your relating.
Q: How do I change that?
John: Don’t relate to your self. Relate to anything lovelier than your self. Find a tiny little bit within you that is lovelier than your self. If you can’t find it, then look for any tiny little bit outside of your self that’s lovelier. It doesn’t matter where you find it, but wherever you do find it, that’s where your heart goes. That’s where your relating goes, instead of to your self. It’s in a shift of your relating.
Q: I can feel such a backlog of emotion in me that it’s even difficult to relate to that.
John: For you to move past your self is for you no longer to relate to anything that is an experience of your self. So concerning your self, you give no voice or movement, not even in the privacy of your heart. Then there’s no complaint, no story, no issue. Your relating shifts away from your self to anything at all that is lovelier than your self in you, in him, or anywhere. The only reason you can find it outside of yourself is because it’s in you, so it doesn’t matter where you find it.
