My housemate Patricia and I had an argument this morning concerning our different perspectives on what degree of cleanliness in the common space of our house should be. Patricia has been living as my housemate since this past March, and though we get along very well most of the time, inevitably shit happens in friendships.
However, in a good, healthy, and conscious relationship shifts happen as well. From my experience our unconscious is pretty heavily populated by our “Belief Baggage” (or “BB’s” from here on out). Generally speaking BB’s are all our opinions, judgments, or unresolved experiences that get attached to the main issue at hand, which is totally neutral in and of itself.
Here’s how it worked with Patricia and me. When we first talked about divvying up the household chores, it became clear that Patricia was a lot better at cleaning than I was and enjoyed doing it more than I did. I took on other household tasks that she didn’t like to do, and I didn’t mind doing. The problem was that my “Belief Baggage” around cleanliness in the kitchen didn’t match hers, and that included not really getting how important a clean kitchen was to her.
Even after having some discussions about cleaning up after myself more (uh-oh hear comes the blind spot!), I was still operating unconsciously with a “dirty” threshold far higher than Patricia’s. In particular was the cleanliness of the kitchen floor. I tended to see the floor like I did when I lived by myself; I accepted a tolerable amount food crumbs and minor left over spills from cooking that I knew I would take care of when my “dirty” threshold was crossed. Plus, now I had the added thought that Patricia was in charge of cleaning the kitchen floor, not me.
Patricia’s sense of cleanliness is far keener than mine, so what was just food crumbs to me was garbage to her, and that was unacceptable to how she prefers to live. Had I been able to see it as garbage as well, then I know I would have cleaned up better than I did. But I wasn’t wired inside my mind that way, and then a few weeks ago we had some guests drop by:
ANTS!
Ants start showing up in the kitchen, (not all over the kitchen), but mostly on the side of the kitchen where the sink, counter, and the oven were located. Now for the two years I have been living in this house, (with one other housemate for a while, and then mostly on my own), we never had ants! Never! Why did they all of a sudden show up this year?
“Elementary my dear Watson” you could say. Everything shows up for a reason, and now I see that these ants were the final catalyst for both Patricia and me to do an upgrade of our BB’s. (It will be interesting to see if the ants disappear now that we resolved our differences.)
Now a basic premise of my Embodiment practice is about staying present in the body with Presence (the nonjudgmental Self) with whatever happens, whether that be a pleasant or unpleasant experience. Then I can safely “let the fur fly” if need be to flush out the attached BB’s and then transform them using The Body Transcendent tools that I have.
Mind you, this isn’t easy to do! It takes a lot of practice to not completely fall into the game of accusing you and defending me at all costs. You have to sustain enough Presence in the midst of it all to enable the transformational process of your BB’s to happen as they pour forth from the hidden lairs of your unconscious ready to do battle.
As the proverbial dust settled, I suddenly got an insight of how I could perceive this situation that could work for me and that was the principle of Mindfulness. I don’t have any BB’s around that, so I could readily recognize that I needed a mindfulness upgrade around keeping the kitchen cleaner as Patricia suggested.
I promptly started cleaning up the floor without rancor, muttering under my breath, or any resistance whatsoever. It was clear to me what was needed to be done and I acted impeccably. The BB’s involved were transformed and I know I will keep my word to keep the kitchen clean.
I feel this in my body as an upliftment in my mood, and a deeper resolve inside that feels very empowering. When I showed Patricia the cleaned floor she was very happy and acknowledged me with thanks. After that we had a very lively an inspiring discussion together about how we’ve helped each other grow so much since we became housemates!
“How Sweet It Is.” (That’s for you Alice!)
For all of you who are in a relationship, be that as housemates, friends, lovers, or with a spouse, consider this:
Change is inevitable, but growth is an option.
Inevitably your Belief Baggage is going to visit you.
That’s a given.
Whether you wreck havoc with them or use the opportunity to upgrade them is your choice.
{ 5 comments }
I love the ants part. Its really nice (and rare) to see a guy shift without complaining especially about housework!
Ooooh, I complained all right! This was not an easy subject to deal with because I didn’t have any problem with my own mindset about the kitchen. It had worked for me for years without any problem, so I wasn’t so keen on changing something I didn’t see any need to do. It was only when I was presented with Patricia’s preference for a greater degree of cleanliness AND the arrival of the ants that I realized that my mindset needing upgrading.
I like this post alot and hears why. It involves my two favorite words, shift and mindful. These days I’ve been getting quite a bit of mileage out of these two. It seems like they go hand in hand. For instance, If you are mindful a shift will occur. It always leads to change and growth soon to follow. Sometimes I feel as though being mindful is a bit like walking on egg shells. So maybe what I think is being mindful is more like being obsessed about what’s going to make the other person content and sometimes you just can’t fulfill that for whatever reason. To me, mindful feels like having common sense to a degree. If you are aware that X is someone’s hot button then guess what don’t push it. However that means we have to be paying attention, present, aware, mindful 24/7 and that makes me really tired just thinking about it. Or maybe there’s something I’m missing.
There is a big difference between mindfulness and being obsessed about something or someone. Mindfulness is about paying attention, but with ease and nonjudgmental awareness. For me there’s a background sense of curiosity and intrigue as to what the moment is revealing to me when I am being mindful. Having to monitor someone’s else’s “buttons” 24/7 so you don’t push them certainly makes me tired thinking about it as well! Practice going back and forth consciously between an easy mindfulness and then obsessing as you described Amy, and watch how that feels in your body. I believe you will feel a huge difference in the two approaches.
Well done, jim. Your web site looks great and FEEEELs perfect. Good to see that you are really stepping out. Your experience with Patricia–wow!!! It’s so refreshing to see how we can bein “disagreement” without blame, without making anyone wrong. This is the place we meet, at the Heart. The power of love and truth is truly transformational as we hold the perfection of the Divine flowing through each body, touching our tenderness and urging us more and more toward the “kiss of the Beloved”.
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