List of Articles• How to Start Your Own Club - Guidelines • Goal Setting • Instant Mastery - Just Add Water • The Perfect Partner - Perfect for What? • Don't Look for Mr Right - Create Him! How to Start Your Own Club - Guidelines The practical factors come first! WHO to invite to your Club? You might be really enthusiastic; you’ve read The Mastery Club and you’re raring to start! But none of your friends have read it or maybe they’re just not that enthusiastic... I suggest that you look for kids who are genuinely interested, even if your Club is quite small to begin with. Don’t force others or use peer pressure to get them to join your Club because you might find your members dropping out after a while if you do. It’s probably worthwhile making a basic rule that new members need to have either read The Mastery Club or be in the process of reading it to be eligible to join. (And that goes for your adult mentor as well!) NB They can buy copies from The Mastery Club website or go to their local bookshop and ask for it. And YOU can become an affiliate and make money when they buy a book...
HOW MANY members should you have? Nina gathers another four kids; somewhere around that number is probably a good start. Something to consider here is how will you keep up the energy and enthusiasm in the group if some people drop out or are unable to attend a few meetings in a row (for whatever reason). If there are only one or two members left, the whole thing might fall over quite quickly.
If you’re finding it hard to gather enough committed members, maybe that can be your first goal/challenge/project! Remember, too, that leaders have vision that others don’t always share. That’s why they say that eagles soar alone while geese flock... In other words, is it possible that other kids may not be interested in joining, or even make fun of you for wanting to start a Mastery Club? Absolutely! You can almost count on it. Is it possible that an adult may be negative about your plans? Yep. So remember this Success Tip: it’s not what happens that matters; it’s how you RESPOND to what happens that matters. Your response is always in your hands, and it’s your source of power.
WHERE to meet? If you are inspired to gather together a few other young people to get a Club started, you’ll need your parents’ permission, and to agree on a place to hold your meetings. Maybe you’ll have one regular meeting place, as the kids do to begin with in The Mastery Club, or rotate homes, as they do later.
Who is going to LEAD the meetings? The two main leaders in The Mastery Club are Nina and her uncle, Nuncle! And it’s probably a good idea for you to also have a young person as leader, and an adult mentor to call upon from time to time. (Nuncle isn’t always present at the meetings, and he certainly doesn’t run them. He’s a friendly and helpful resource.) Leadership is a great skill for all people to develop, so maybe the leadership role can be rotated also.
How to START and FINISH your meetings. Some years ago I was guest at a Salespeople’s Breakfast which began with a rousing affirmation that everyone joined in on: “I’m alive, I’m well, and I FEEL GREAT!” We all stood up and called it out vigorously. At the Unity Church, congregants come together in a circle at the end of a service and hold hands while they sing a Peace song. Maybe your Club can create its own starting and finishing rituals so that everyone knows when the meeting has officially begun and when it’s officially over. That will help people to focus. (How long should the meeting be? That depends on how many members you have and how focused everyone is. An hour is probably a good length of time to allow initially.)
Now we need to consider AGREEMENTS. It’s really important to have a framework of respect in a Club - respect for each other’s ideas and for listening when others are speaking; also respecting confidentiality, which means keeping what members share about their goals, dreams or challenges inside the group. It’s also important to remember that when people are being creative, which is what ‘mastery clubbing’ is all about, criticising ideas can cause them to dry up. So make an agreement to listen with an open mind. Think ‘how we can’ rather than ‘why we can’t’.
The first Mastery Club meeting that Nina runs has two main purposes: one is to point out to the group that they each have amazing potential. That’s why she arrives at the See the invisible, hear the silent, do the impossible motto. See if you can come up with heaps of examples of the amazing things people have achieved. Think about athletes who cherished a dream to win gold at the Olympics since they were children, and singers who were entertaining their families in the kitchen, and business owners who started their first businesses when they were nine years old. Almost anything is possible, and the things that aren’t possible (like living on Mars next month) are probably not really that important to you anyway.
That’s the key: to come up with a challenge/goal/dream that makes your heart sing. It has to inspire you or you won’t be bothered acting on it. Choosing your goal – something you’d each like to create in your life – is the second purpose of your first meeting. Some members will come up with these immediately, while others might take a bit longer, as Natalie did. There were quite a range of goals, if you think back to the book - everything from passing maths tests to family holidays overseas. The most important ingredients when you’re coming up with a goal that will inspire you is that it must be something that is important to YOU and it must be something that YOU can take a first step towards today or tomorrow, whether it’s talking to someone, making a phone call or doing some research. There’s no point just dreaming up something that would be nice (like having your favourite celebrity invite you out to dinner next week).
You might remember that at times The Mastery Club members felt disheartened because they couldn’t see proof that their dream was coming true. Affirmations, visualisation, treasure maps, and taking action are core activities when getting started. You can always pull out your copy of The Mastery Club for guidance – and remember about the 10 Lessons Summary at the end of the book. Read the UCAN! Plan articles, perisist, be patient, trust... Michael Losier has a great line to help him keep faith while he's waiting for a goal to materialise: He says, "A lot can happen in a week..." (And adults, remember that you can start a Club too! Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, calls them ‘mastermind groups’.) © Liliane Grace 2006 Want to include this article in your newsletter, blog or website? You can, so long as you include this complete blurb with it:
Liliane Grace is a Melbourne-based author and speaker with a special interest in personal empowerment. The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, her prize-winning novel for youth about how to realise your dreams, is praised by readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Champion Series inspires younger readers with true stories about moderm day leaders who persisted through obstacles until they achieved their childhood dream. For more information about books, speaking, workshops, articles etc. or to receive the Mastery Club newsletter, please contact Liliane via her contact page at www.themasteryclub.com.au.
Back to Top GOAL SETTINGStep 1. BRAINSTORM wildly! Allow your mind to head off in all sorts of directions and imagine all sorts of even barely believable possibilities.
• Where would you like to live? What sort of house?
• How would you like your relationships with family and friends to be?
• If you’re studying, what sort of results would you like to achieve?
• What is your ideal occupation? What would you LOVE to spend your day doing?
• Where would you like to travel or holiday?
• Write up a budget for your ideal life - so THAT’S the income you’re planning to attract!
• What secretly cherished dreams do you have - what hobbies or interests would you like to indulge? Do you desire to launch your own business?
• What else inspires you - is it to acquire items of beauty, to attend personal development courses that you’ve so far considered too expensive, to upgrade to a better car, to contribute generously to a cause that you believe in...?
etc.
Step 2: RECORD all of these inspiring ideas. Dr John Demartini has been keeping record books of his visions and goals for YEARS. His books are thick and heavy tomes. He continually clarifies and crystallises his ideas.
Step 3: CHOOSE the most appealing items to focus on. All of your desires will continue to percolate in your consciousness if you give them some attention and commit them to paper (or even computer file!), but life naturally follows priorities. What are YOUR priorities?
One universal law is that everything that comes to us does so ‘by right of consciousness’; which means that you will only attract what you resonate with, what you are in harmony with. That’s why two people can walk down the same street and one get mugged but not the other, or why two people can have a dream and one materialises it while the other just runs into problems or gives up. “First in mind, then in body (physical form).” Are you in resonating with ideas of prosperity and growth or with ideas of limitation and stuckness? We all run into challenges regularly, they’re a blessed part of life - but we don’t have to stay there!
Step 4: WRITE UP a goal card or affirmation or mission statement or treasure map - in other words, put your priority desires into the form that inspires you, and saturate your consciousness with them. And then...
Step 5: TRUST – these are universal LAWS. They always work.
© Liliane Grace 2006
Want to include this article in your newsletter, blog or website? You can, so long as you include this complete blurb with it:
Liliane Grace is a Melbourne-based author and speaker with a special interest in personal empowerment. The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, her prize-winning novel for youth about how to realise your dreams, is praised by readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Champion Series inspires younger readers with true stories about moderm day leaders who persisted through obstacles until they achieved their childhood dream. For more information about books, speaking, workshops, articles etc. or to receive the Mastery Club newsletter, please contact Liliane via her contact page at www.themasteryclub.com.au.
Back to Top INSTANT MASTERY! - Just add water.By Liliane GraceIn July 2006 I launched my first book, The Mastery Club, in the wake of - and setting off - an absolute explosion of little miracles. For one thing, world inspirational speaker and author Dr John Demartini happened to agree to read my manuscript and in response, wrote my Foreword. For another, enough business people and individuals came forward to purchase copies of the book that our printing bill was covered. For another, I sold out in five months, went to a second print run and sold that out in six months, and then went to a third print run, all inside 12 months. For an unknown author with virtually no publicity and no big money backers, that was pretty awesome.
And then my little Mastery Club project hit a few snags and things started to slow down. The website needed to be updated and there were a series of delays and mishaps, including being offline and unable to process orders just when I was guest speaker on an international telecall. The publicist I had hired, who was absolutely convinced that she would have me on national TV inside of a couple of weeks, didn’t turn up a single media opportunity in ten months. Sales were slowing down.
And the people around me who loved my book were looking to me to be a master and produce more miracles. I began to feel stressed and make justifications to myself: “I’m a writer, not a master!” But at the same time, I wanted to live up to their expectations. I wanted to embody the mastery that had inspired me. I wanted to get results. Quickly.
In the months following my book launch I had begun receiving invitations to speak at networking events and other functions. As I shared my story of going from a stuck life to living my dreams, I began to hear a nagging little background voice saying, “Oh yeah? What about now? That was last year. Now you’re in the poo.” I mean, really. I was getting parking fines and I’d backed into someone’s car while reversing out of my driveway; I couldn’t get through to someone I needed to speak to, I was overspending, I felt I’d made a critically bad business decision, and our phone system seemed to be beset with problems (people not able to hear me or voices sounding robotic)…
I started to flap around, bringing up my defences to keep people at a distance. Didn’t wanting anyone watching me too closely. Started getting busy doing other things. I didn’t really want to be an international best-selling author, did I? What an inconvenience that would be! I’d rather just get on with my little ole life…
But, as Caroline Myss says, once you’re calibrated to a certain level of truth, you can’t go back. So the desire to master my circumstances kept whispering in my ear. After all, the words emblazoned on the cover of my book were “See the invisible, hear the silent, do the impossible!” If I wanted to create magic, I had to hold the vision no matter what the external circumstances looked like. If I wanted my book to succeed, I had to walk my talk.
So I threw myself back into my inspirational reading – The Master Key System, As A Man Thinketh, Your Invisible Power, Working with the Law… I got focused again on my visualising and affirming. I Got Serious.
And sales still limped along.
Friends who loved The Secret urged me to watch it again and root out my negative limiting beliefs. Others, who worked energetically, suggested that I do this or that process to clear my energy. Someone in my inner circle emailed me saying: “The other thing is, use The Mastery Club principles. Wouldn’t that be awesome - using The Mastery Club principles to make The Mastery Club go off?”
You could say that I saw red. I felt offended. Well, what do you think I’m doing?!! Did the writer of that email think he was presenting me with an original idea? How outrageous!!
And I felt inadequate. Why wasn’t I getting results? What was the matter with me? Was I just going to disappear – ‘remember that author who wrote about mastery and couldn’t do it?’
Fortunately outrage is a motivating energy and feelings of inadequacy send one ‘inside’ to reflect and wonder and ask for help. And help came. It came in the form of friends and consultants who reminded me of some very grounding truths.
I realised that I was being asked to step away from pretences of instant-total-mastery and anchor myself in the humble truth. The humble truth is that mastery is a journey, an apprenticeship. It’s not a get-rich-quick-pill-magic-formula-snake-oil-charm.
It used to be that universal laws like those taught in The Secret were only made available to people who deliberately joined mystery schools or secret societies or religious orders. This information was not for the common man. Achieving mastery became the work of a lifetime, not a Sunday afternoon treasure mapping session plus three visualisations and a week’s worth of affirmations. If you want to play with the nature of reality, you don’t do it overnight.
Yet it seems to me that many people who watch The Secret seem to think that mastery is something that can be achieved instantly – ‘just add water’. Sit and visualise for five minutes every day for a week, say a few affirmations every day, and voila! Dreams will come true. Magic.
It struck me that that’s a kind of spiritual immaturity. And, in saying so, I feel a little like the boy who observed that the emperor was wearing no clothes. That child spoke out about what was real rather than the fantasy everyone was playing along with. For me, this realization was almost a shock, because I’d been drifting into the fantasy too.
One of the laws that my mother drilled into me as a child was expressed in these six words: “Everything comes by right of consciousness”. We have to raise our consciousness and that is not an ‘add water’ process. You can’t microwave your consciousness. It doesn’t respond to remote-control-button-pushing. You have to chop the wood and carry the water. You have to do the do of it.
I’ve always said that goal-setting isn’t about what you’re going after; it’s about who you become along the way. I wrote an article on that exact topic in one of my Mastery Club newsletters. Funny how we have our own answers but don’t always pay attention. I think we sometimes glide over the top of those neat little answers thinking, Yes, I know what that means. Yep, I agree. But sometimes we have to stop ourselves in our tracks and take a good hard look and actually register what it means.
It’s about who you become along the way. That’s a lovely phrase, but what does it mean in practice?!
Well, what I get is that it means we are going to have to deal with our limitations. Which means we are going to make mistakes. We are going to experience delays and unpleasant surprises. We are going to be ill. We are going to forget to do things. We are going to give in to weakness. We are going to experience unpleasant emotions and disagreement.
Why? Because that’s the road to mastery. (If there is such a destination.)
We are being given the opportunity to be patient when we want to snap, to trust when the appearance of something is alarming, to be courageous and persistent when we would like to give up, to listen to the real message of our anger and irritation, to rest and honour our physical and emotional bodies, to keep rebalancing our lives so that everything that is important to us is given time.
In Practical Kabbalah – A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Everyday Life, Rabbi Laibl Wolf says, “Hassidism teaches us that two basic guidelines affect our course in life. The first lies in our gifts - the special qualities that distinguish each of us from the other. The second is the constellation of events around us, over which we have no control. The Ba’al Shem Tov, the founder of Hassidism, teaches us that these are divinely ordained to provide us with the optimal stage upon which to express our life’s role. But we fight these events. We seek to control them through our limited wisdom, although we may in fact be doing ourselves a grave disservice.”
In other words, would you choose illness or divorce or a car accident or retrenchment? Probably not. And yet many people look back on those difficult experiences and recognize the gifts they came to offer.
So we choose the experiences that inspire us, and G.O.D./the universe/Great Spirit/your Higher Self/whatever you want to call it steps in to provide the surprises that will cause us to grow. As Dr John Demartini states over and over in The Breakthrough Experience – A Revolutionary New Approach to Personal Transformation, Love is support and challenge, not just support. The support nourishes us and the challenges nudge us to grow.
Rabbi Wolf goes on to say that “By fighting our seeming adversities, the Cosmic process of rebalancing invariably results in the rise of even more pressing circumstances that are in truth a corrective mechanism of the Creator”. In other words, what you resist, persists. The sooner we surrender and look deeply into the challenge, the sooner it gives way to its gift.
So is mastery about being in total control of your life? Of snapping your fingers when you want something? Of only having things happen to you that you want? Suppose you’ve made a treasure map and set goals and visualised, and then a whole lot of stuff happens that seems to upset everything you wanted to do and your dreams are as far away as ever, does that mean you are a failure as a master?
Not at all. Sometimes stuff happens that we can’t predict or wouldn’t choose, but it’s all for our good. It’s grist for the mill. It’s helping us get there. (And where, by the way, is ‘there’? I believe it’s a greater expression of our divine nature – our power, our joy, our love, our creativity, our wisdom… not necessarily into the mansion with the fountain on the front lawn.) We can all experience manifesting breakthroughs from time to time, but total control will never be possible simply because it’s not a good idea. We might grow faster and more truly without the fountain…
Naturally I would like my book to shoot to Harry Potter stardom in a twinkling, but I don't hold the big picture; G.O.D. does. The creation of The Mastery Club occurred over a period of some eight years, from first idea to finished manuscript, even though the writing actually only took about six months once I was in my flow. Why did I dither along the way so much? I don’t know, but the timing of its completion and launch was exquisite.
Some naturopaths once told me that if you eat junk and get sick, you’re experiencing a reaction to the junk, but if you eat cleansing whole foods and get sick, you're experiencing a healing crisis. Likewise it seems to me that I'm going through a healing crisis of my consciousness at the moment, and you can't rush that any more than you can rush physical cleansing.
So… since it’s not about having total control, the important question becomes: how do we deal with the process, the ‘failures’, the delays, the ‘bad’ stuff?
The answer is simple: by remembering that it’s an apprenticeship. If you were aiming to be an Olympic athlete would you expect to achieve that goal after one sporting event? And what if you came seventh instead of first? Does that mean it’s time to give up your dreams?
Becoming a master of your life is an apprenticeship. Just as with sporting goals, there will be ‘failures’ along the way and you need to go into training to build muscle and fitness. Only the journey of personal mastery is about mental muscle and attitude fitness. A serious level of mastery requires a serious (life long) commitment.
Our task is to find the gifts, learn the lessons, take all the little steps, remind ourselves that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time; to not discourage ourselves by comparing with others who seem to have it all together. (Just look a little more closely and you’ll probably find some area of their life that isn’t so perfect.)
And remember to go looking for what you ARE doing well RIGHT NOW. (I’m telling myself as much as you.) Acknowledge the successes, however small. Celebrate the accomplishments. Little things, like stopping to smell a rose instead of rushing past, or saying no to that extra helping or to the person who is pushing your boundaries, are all signs of growth. We need to recognize them.
When I now think of those people who I felt were expecting me to produce magic, I can say: I am! I am making a difference already. When I sit at my computer and read the emails being sent to me from readers of all ages, I am moved to the depths of my heart. Those readers are grateful to me for insights and inspiration. They are making changes in their lives. Who knows what they will be moved to do as a result?
My book might still be in the crawling stage, but all fast runners crawled first. The opportunity for mastery comes from holding one’s vision in spirit and persisting with the process through matter. If we truly love our dream, the delays won’t matter. As Dr Demartini says, a master sees the blessings in difficulties and the warnings in wonderful experiences. There’s no such thing as instant mastery. We might experience manifesting breakthroughs and magic from time to time but a serious level of mastery requires serious commitment.
The trap is becoming attached to our (self-centered, limited view) time frames, and the antidote for that is to remember that most of the 'overnight successes' we hear about actually worked through the ups and downs of their process 'invisibly' for quite a while first. Besides, suppose we could tick off every goal just as soon as it was set, what would be the drawback? Arrogance? Boredom?
Someone once said to me, ‘a master has infinite patience’. If it’s good, it’s worth waiting for. Now, Liliane Grace, remember it!!!
© Liliane Grace 2009
Want to include this article in your newsletter, blog or website? You can, so long as you include this complete blurb with it:
Liliane Grace is a Melbourne-based author and speaker with a special interest in personal empowerment. The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, her prize-winning novel for youth about how to realise your dreams, is praised by readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Champion Series inspires younger readers with true stories about moderm day leaders who persisted through obstacles until they achieved their childhood dream. For more information about books, speaking, workshops, articles etc. or to receive the Mastery Club newsletter, please contact Liliane via her contact page at www.themasteryclub.com.au.
Back to Top The Perfect Partner - Perfect for What?A first-hand account of the retrieval of a drowning relationship.by Liliane Grace“Describe your perfect partner,” someone asks you.
“Okay,” you say. “Tall, good-looking, riveting eyes, sex appeal, intelligent, sensitive, honest, good communicator, creative, spiritual, great in bed, fun-loving, financially independent, aligned with whole health and whole food, romantic…”
The list of glowing adjectives just spills out, doesn’t it? It’s not at all difficult to be a Pygmalion, dreaming up an ideal partner, but let’s just fast forward the film past those first few exhilarating years to when the rose-coloured path begins to look boggy... or even bloody...
All relationships go through phases or moods or ‘ups and downs’ or whatever else you like to call it – that’s a pretty widely accepted understanding now. But while some couples are able to ride the bucking bronco without falling off, others aren’t, or are in grave danger of being trampled. And when you’re hanging on by the skin of your teeth, feeling and looking desperate, advice comes from all sides:
“Leave him – he’s a bastard.”
“You’re only staying in it because your self-esteem is so low.”
“You’re being used – get out!”
It sounds right, it makes sense, you can see a light at the end of the tunnel, you feel a weight lifting off – free at last! You can even just begin to make out the vague form of your next perfect partner... still hazy, but most certainly there, and most certainly more perfect than this one.
HOLD IT!
Here’s a little sobering question that I asked myself when I was about ready to let go the reins and put in my application for another steed:
Perfect for what?
When we talk about ‘perfect partners’, what do we mean? Are we really wanting someone who is, quote, ‘faultless; complete; absolutely correct; absolute, utter’? Can you imagine how much worse your arguments could become? “But darling, I’m faultless, remember? Absolutely correct!”
Not on your life!
We put so much time and energy into dreaming up someone who has all the qualities we wish we had. Someone who has mastered everything we’re trying to master (money, open communication...). Someone who will be so perfect that s/he will be endlessly patient with our imperfections...
So here’s that question again: ‘PERFECT FOR WHAT?’ What, ultimately, is your relationship for? What purpose does it serve?
Let me share with you a dream that I had during a very dark period in my primary relationship, when the quantity and quality of our communication could pretty fairly have been compared with the Cold War... The dream was comprised of two images, two very powerful simple images. The first was one of those toilet dreams, you know the sort? I was about to use a toilet in full view of a whole heap of people. In the dream I grab someone and get them to stand in front of me while I go. Analysis of image #1: I don’t want anyone to see my shit. In the second image, I am admiring a beautiful big tree and leaning right out into it. Something makes me look down, and, just under my nose, I see a beautiful nest. Analysis of image #2: There’s a home right under your nose.
The impact that those two simple, clear images and their quiet, to-the-point messages made on me was not insignificant. I was reverberating with the implications of the dream for the rest of the day, and the next, and the next... Because at the time the dream came, I had been fully embroiled in blame and if only he’d change, everything would be better; and I was beginning to indulge in fantasies about cutting loose and finding my next more perfect partner and creating a more perfect nest. So what does my subconscious tell me? Look at your own shit. There’s a home right under your nose.
It made me sit up.
I’ve always gone along with the teaching that the world is your mirror, and your partner is your mirror, and when you change, they’ll change, but there was a huge chasm between my walk and my talk. When it came down to it, I couldn’t bear looking at my own imperfections. It was much easier and more emotionally palatable to shine the light on his imperfections, and deliver a few swift kicks into the bargain.
So I began to contemplate the question: What is the purpose of this relationship? My subconscious wasn’t slow in delivering answers. ‘To grow, to develop, to expand, to learn, to become more whole.’ That’s easy enough to say - I’ve said it before; so have you, probably. But when you investigate what it means, what it means in practice... now that’s another story.
The perfect partner, I realised, wincing, is perfect for my growth, to push my buttons, to reveal my weaknesses for me so that I can heal and integrate and become strong in those areas. My perfect partner, I realised, shading my eyes from the glare of Truth, is tailored to sniff out every little dark and unloved place in me until I can bring it home.
At around this time, in the usual synchronous way of the Universe, I went for a walk along the beach with a good and perceptive friend who asked me a few pointed questions. “So he’s not intimate enough? How are you on the intimacy score?” (Only that day I had put my sister off from having a heart -to-heart because I was afraid of what she was going to say about me.)
“Intimacy is not about how close you can get to someone else, but how close you let them come to you,” he reminded me. “Do you show him your feelings? tell him what fears you have?” (Only in my mind, I reflected. I had plenty of honest communications with him in the privacy of my inner world; not so many that made it into his audible range.)
“If you don’t resolve it with him, you can count on meeting the same pattern in your next relationship,” he told me. I knew that – in theory. (But it might be easier next time, my mind pleaded. You’ll have the freshness of new love again for a while to bolster you up for a while.)
I am grateful to this friend, and two or three other very special women who reinforced the same message: take responsibility. He is your perfect partner because he is perfect for your growth right now.
And I am grateful to myself for not letting myself off the hook, for attracting me to a high thought: ‘he’s my mirror; for him to change, first I must change’ – and making me live up to it.
But my very first step was to honestly ask and to honestly answer that question: ‘What is the ideal partner perfect for? – For my growth.’ Not to carry me through life by protecting me from my immaturity.
As soon as I began energetically to draw my claws out of him, to stop focusing on his flaws and instead, begin to remind myself several times a day, ‘he’s perfect for you, stop finding fault with him and look at yourself,’ Life took both me and us in its gentle hands and began to unravel the tightly bound and painful knot that was our relationship. I finally acknowledged the depth of my grief about how far off the rails our relationship had come, surrendering to long and desperate fits of crying. He softened his granite mask to come forward and hold me in compassion, although feeling as helpless as me regarding our presumably irretrievable relationship. Yet in the days that followed, his depression and inertia slowly lifted, and he began to go swimming again, and bought himself a new tie. All little signs, but not insignificant.
It seems, in retrospect, that these were the only things I did: to decide to apply the theory that my partner is my mirror, and to take my attention off his apparent imperfections and acknowledge my feelings – first, my suppressed sadness. Since then a whole gamut of events has occurred, blending together invisibly but powerfully. We began to make love again, reaching a greater depth of intimacy than ever before, and the magic that generated in our relationship has continued to heal and make strong the new bond that is growing.
Today I would be hard pressed to find anything ‘wrong’ about him, yet ‘nothing has changed’. We still face essentially the same problems financially and in terms of our different interests and perceptions, but somehow the sting has come out of these and I find myself warm and smiling, no longer cold and angry.
In a recent counseling session with one of the special women I mentioned earlier, I tackled the question of my frustration that my partner’s qualities and interests were not the same as mine. It was easy enough to recognize the purpose and value of polarity, of yin and yang, but that didn’t do away with the pain of not being able to share activities I love to do.
Up came the mirror, and the question: So what is it that prevents me from being and doing what I love to be and do? Because in practice I wasn’t doing half the things I wanted him to do with me, and I wasn’t demonstrating all the qualities that I wanted him to demonstrate. It became increasingly obvious that it was up to me to step into the person I wanted to be, rather than to expect him to do it. After all, he might be aspiring to a whole other set of qualities. And the realisation that I could celebrate my openess or liveliness or pluckiness, rather than bemoaning his lack of them, was like a refreshing breeze on a very hot day.
There be magic in appreciating yourself, and awareness itself is healing.
The insight alone was enough to get the wheels turning: in the week weeks that followed I found myself effortlessly doing many of the things I had procrastinated, and comfortably not doing other things I’d berated myself for not doing. In other words, stepping into myself, making myself whole, growing, learning, integrating.
I’ve found my perfect partner - he was there all along. Have you?
This article is © Liliane Grace 1994 and was first published in Whole Person, Sept/Oct 1995. Want to include this article in your newsletter, blog or website? You can, so long as you include this complete blurb with it:
Liliane Grace is a Melbourne-based author and speaker with a special interest in personal empowerment. The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, her prize-winning novel for youth about how to realise your dreams, is praised by readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Champion Series inspires younger readers with true stories about moderm day leaders who persisted through obstacles until they achieved their childhood dream. For more information about books, speaking, workshops, articles etc. or to receive the Mastery Club newsletter, please contact Liliane via her contact page at www.themasteryclub.com.au.
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Don't Look for Mr Right, Or Give Up on Him – Create Him!
By Liliane Grace
I recently read an article in which the author, Lori Gottlieb, believes that many women are too fussy in their choice of a life partner. In her opinion, they should settle for Mr Good Enough rather than holding out for a romantic fantasy. She advises her reader: “Don’t worry about passion or intense connection. Don’t nix a guy based on his annoying habit of yelling ‘Bravo!’ in movie theatres. Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics. Because if you want to have the infrastructure in place to have a family, settling is the way to go.”
And she makes a valid point. We’re fed such a steady diet of Hollywood romances on TV – in fact, her article draws heavily on television characters – that it’s easy to compare real people with celluloid people who’ve had powder dusted on their blemishes, whose words and actions are backed by stirring music, and who’ve had to re-state their lines until the Director is satisfied. So, yep, if you want to be happy in a relationship, you need a decent sense of reality.
But ‘settling’? Ugh! The word ‘settling’ travels with the words ‘for less’. And who wants to be viewed as ‘less’? We’ve all got bad habits. There isn’t a single perfect person on the planet. The nature of life in this 3D world is that everything comes in polarity: up/down, in/out, hot/cold, male/female… And, as philosopher, speaker and author, Dr John Demartini teaches, every human being possesses every trait, positive and negative, in one form or another. You can’t avoid some unpleasant personal characteristics – they go with the territory of being human.
But you don’t have to ‘settle for less’, with all that that infers. Settling for less drags the settler down while it demeans the ‘settlee’. Our thoughts and attitudes have a direct bearing on our emotions and subsequently on our approach to life, so viewing your partner as ‘less’ is hardly going to enhance your relationship.
In fact, words are terrifically important. Language is actually the thing we use to engender our experience of the world - we name and describe our experiences in words, we respond to our words with feelings, and then we act on our feelings out in the world. (There’s a clue about this in the Bible: “And the Word was made flesh...” John 1:14, King James version.)
Since language is the cornerstone of our experience, it makes sense to use it constructively. You can’t walk around saying ‘I feel awful, nothing good happens to me, things never work out for me…’ and expect to feel wonderful or create a stunning life. The thing is, if you want to have a great life, you’ve got to be conscious of what you’re saying about your life and use the words you’d like to experience. This is not just some dandy idea called ‘positive thinking’, it’s plain common sense.
For example, the word ‘can’t’ is just a cover for ‘won’t’ - after all, where there’s a will, there’s a way. ‘Try’ is equally weak – if you hear, ‘I’ll try to do better’, you know they’re stalling. On the other hand, if they say, “I’ll do better’, you hear commitment. ‘I have to get this done’ applies pressure and stress to the doer; ‘I choose to get this done’ is a centered, strong statement.
Here’s a goodie: ‘I need love’. We all need love, it’s a human pre-requisite for flourishing, but if we’ve got an ‘I need love’ refrain happening in the backs of our minds, we’re probably setting ourselves up for disaster. ‘I choose love’, ‘I desire love’ – design your own statement; just pay attention to the feeling that it creates.
So if language has such a huge bearing on attitude and experience, the way we think about our (potential) partners is paramount. To be honest, I’d hate to be married to someone who ‘settled’ for me. And I can talk, because that experience was part of my relationship story. Was. Thank God I woke up, but way back when I had only a centimetre or two of self-esteem, my partner gave up on his dreams of the go-getter career woman and ‘settled’ for me, the big-dreams-small-results-girlfriend. And when he settled, he lost his spark; became depressed; just mooched around. Meanwhile I felt awful because I knew I didn’t inspire him. The negative connotations of settling go both ways, right? The fact is, when we don’t think we’re worth much, we ‘don’t deserve much’, so we’re unlikely to attract a really gorgeous, self-actualised mate.
Fortunately the doldrums of life are really gifts wrapped in brown paper. If you can get the deceptive wrapping off, you’ll find the gift. My partner’s lack of interest in me bothered me and festered until I hit the wall of no return. We headed into counselling and by the end of the year the wrapping was in shreds: we had a transformed relationship and I was a new woman.
Here’s how language came into it: I changed ‘I’m sick of this’ and ‘I can’t bear this anymore’ into ‘I deserve better’. As the self-talk changed, so did the self-image and self-esteem. I coached myself into a new headspace. Instead of ‘settling’, try ‘choosing’. It gives way to a much better feeling - and a better attitude. The mind-body connection is alive and well. You simply can’t use negative language and expect to see positive results or feel fabulous.
Lori Gottlieb is right when she observes that hanging out for Mr Right (= Mr Perfect) isn’t the smartest of moves. Some years ago I wrote an article called ‘The Perfect Partner – Perfect for What?’ (Whole Person Issue #44, Sept/Oct 1995) in which I made the point that the purpose of marriage was not necessarily happiness, but growth. So while I agree with Ms Gottlieb that a flawless partner is a fallacy, I don’t believe we need to surrender our dreams. Instead of settling, try engaging with your partner until he’s the man of your dreams.
Gottlieb says “…you walk into a room and start talking to this person who is short and has an unfortunate nose, but he ‘gets’ you.” Why the emphasis on the nose? Why the ‘but’? I would have thought that finding someone who ‘gets’ you is wonderful, is what it’s all about! The whole point of relationship is to hook up with someone who values enough of the same things as you so that you are heading in the same direction. Usually when we do, we don’t notice the nose. (Now, the nose, in fact, is an important piece in the whole picture. When we’re infatuated we only see the lovely things, and the nose-things turn up later. If, in the early glow of love, one can notice the nose, accept the nose, and keep building relationship, that’s a great thing. On the other hand, if we’re enjoying the connection but discounting it because of the nose, well that, to me, is a pity.) Inevitably, the person who ‘get us’ will also value some things that are in direct opposition to what we find valuable – that’s where the growth comes into it. And it’s not a concept that seems to turn up in her article anywhere. What if the drab or irritating bits are there on purpose? What if they’re gifts wrapped in brown paper?
I suspect that if you sat down and made a list of all your partner’s pros and cons, you’d find heaps to appreciate (the pros) and plenty of opportunity for enormous growth! (the cons). Forget the static Mr Right idea –it’s an illusion. Forget about settling for Mr Less – that’s demeaning for both of you. Instead, consider deliberately co-creating your relationship. Tackle the unmentionable things. Dive into honesty and open communication. Take responsibility for being the person you want to have in your life. Instead of wishing he or she would change, you change.
This sort of approach is messy and uncomfortable and things don’t necessarily transform overnight, but when they do, it can be magical. I went from a stuck relationship with a depressed partner to a committed, conscious relationship with a man who is deeply in love with me. It’s not all perfect. In fact, in the midst of all that wonderment we are dealing with a fairly sizable ‘next challenge’. But hey, that’s life. It’s about growth and development, not ‘finding’ or ‘settling’. Our potential partners are not robots sitting in factories waiting to be collected; they are living breathing human beings who deserve to be appreciated, honoured with honesty, and challenged.
Anything can be transformed. A little irritating habit or a relationship gestalt. So long as we are willing to communicate, listen, and value ourselves and the other.
Here’s a story for you about how I came to grips with one of my partner’s less attractive qualities. When I first met him he had the habit of chewing the inside of his lip when he was thinking. I found it really irritating. One day, when we were on a long drive in the country and he was chewing, I decided to do it too to see what he got out of it. So he drove and chewed and, unbeknownst to him, I chewed too. And discovered that it made me feel thoughtful and inward and reflective. Quite a nice feeling. Funnily enough, that was enough to dissolve the charge I had on his chewing behaviour. I never even noticed him do it again. To be honest, I don’t know if he has, and I’m talking twenty years.
Where the big issues are concerned, strap on your seatbelts for some deep conversation. Call in a counsellor to support you in hearing each other. Take risks. I chose to risk my whole relationship because my growth as a person was more important to me than keeping a stuck relationship intact, and it was the best thing I’ve ever done. Asking my man to be more rather than less, and upgrading my own behaviours, has been transformational.
Gottlieb is regretting not having settled. (She conceived with donor sperm.) If she had settled, she reckons, she’d have someone to share the parenting journey (and the load). Maybe. Or she’d have someone to separate from down the track because she settled and then regretted settling. In the ecology of relationships, diversity is queen: some people are going to parent solo, some are going to create blended families, some are going to go for a traditional arrangement, some are going to set up gay households, some are going to leave the child-raising to grandparents, some are going to opt for a sperm donor (whether via an IVF arrangement or via settling for Mr Less in order to have babies)…
I believe we each choose the journey that offers us the most growth. Don’t settle; instead, embrace the brown paper parcels and start unwrapping.
The biggest temptation is to settle for too little. - Thomas Merton
© Liliane Grace 2008
(This article was first published in Living Now! in July 2008 and again in the ‘Living Now Annual’, February 2009. It was written in response to "Marry Him! – Lori Gottlieb argues the case for settling for Mr Good Enough"; Australian Financial Review, March 20-24, 2008.)
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Liliane Grace is a Melbourne-based author and speaker with a special interest in personal empowerment. The Mastery Club - See the Invisible, Hear the Silent, Do the Impossible, her prize-winning novel for youth about how to realise your dreams, is praised by readers of all ages and backgrounds. The Champion Series inspires younger readers with true stories about moderm day leaders who persisted through obstacles until they achieved their childhood dream. For more information about books, speaking, workshops, articles etc. or to receive the Mastery Club newsletter, please contact Liliane via her contact page at www.themasteryclub.com.au.
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