So tonight I want to do something I haven’t done in awhile on this blog, and this is invoke the direct participation of “My Higher Self” in a dialogue 🙂 In fact, I do this all the time when I write at the cafe, but I admit that I have been rather reticent at times about typing “that way” here. But not tonight!
Thank you for being here with me, as always! I so appreciate it!
Of course, Chris. We appreciate you too!
[Note: when I write this way, it somehow makes the most sense to call the other voice a “We,” even if I refer to it on this blog as “My Higher Self”]
I so love you and appreciate your help! Tonight I am wondering about something. I just had one piano student quit abruptly (which sometimes happens). But the parent claims in a text that her son says he “wasn’t learning anything.” I was rather befuddled by this, they had only taken a total of about four lessons, plus I had already been quite accommodating to this student by giving them a screaming good deal AND a longer lesson. However, I had seen some warning signs in my dealing with the mother, and so I wasn’t altogether shocked that they left. On the other hand, it didn’t feel good at all to be summarily dismissed like that!
What is the purpose of going through these shitty-feeling situations? I mean, what higher purpose does it serve?
Chris, first of all, thank you for sharing your question with us. We so enjoy speaking with you. We love your verve, your desire to learn, your desire to grow and to know and to live a good life. Good on you!
While we don’t just have one answer for your troubles, we would like you to consider the source of them. What really is it that bothers you about this situation? As they say, “People will be people.” People do all kinds of things simply being themselves. They don’t do it to annoy or hurt you. They often can’t help it, and they usually aren’t aware of the impact they have on other people. The particular people you are talking about feel perfectly justified in their point of view. And they are!
They get to have their point of view. It isn’t compatible with working with you in any meaningful way, but you knew that when you first started working with them. In fact, the question is not, why did this people come to you? but instead, why did you say Yes to them? when you already knew there was something “not right” about the interaction the first day you met them.
This is absolutely true! I knew right away by the mother’s questions that there was something that might not be right. But I was willing to give it a shot. So when it ended, I really wasn’t that surprised. But it still didn’t feel good. Why is that?
Because you still attach the way you feel to other people’s behaviors. You still gage your rightness or wrongness, your worthiness or unworthiness, by other people’s reactions to you. You still feel a need for approval.
Indeed, you have come a long way, and that is why your upset in this situation was a lot less than it might have been in the past. Yet it is still there to at least some degree. There is nothing “wrong” with this. In fact, we applaud you for your progress in this area. It surely will help you in your teaching business, giving up attachment to other people’s behaviors.
Yet ultimately, these things “keep happening” because there is still something for you to learn from it.
Like how not to take things personally.
Yes, that and other stuff as well. How to be discerning. How to own what you want, who you serve, and who you don’t. How to follow your own hunches. How to trust your inner guidance!
When I fully learn how to do that, I hope that I will attract only great students!
We do not doubt it!