The Gathering Room: The Perfection of Connection

okay today's episode is called the um the Perfection of connection and the reason that I thought to say this is that I have been trying to learn Spanish oh please don't hold me to this um as you may know Ro and I are doing a retreat in Costa Rica um next year and we love love love it down there this beautiful place called imoa and because we don't speak any Spanish we're like it's time to learn so we've been studying Spanish using apps on our phones there's some wonderful wonderful apps and this one was recommended and we've been doing it and it's super fun and it gamifies it and I often get it to praise me but I am under No Illusion that I'm learning to speak Spanish I am playing a game with my phone that is setting me up to maybe speak Spanish someday that would be nice because um yeah I I've studied so many languages and I've never felt completely competent in any of them including English so I was I went to get my haircut and I was in the the chair while they're like washing my hair and I'm I'm doing my little thing on my phone and trying to get the answers right it's so gratifying when you got an answer right it gives you a green light and a sweet sound that becomes your life and breath and when you put in something wrong and it says and it turns red I literally like go completely blank for a minute and and have to find another reason to live very very tied into the human nervous system so I'm doing that and then I go get the shampoo washed out of my hair by this incredibly lovely lady who is from Central America and whom who always have beautiful conversations with me in her second language English and she's amazing and she starts speaking to me in Sp Spanish she is on to me that I've been studying it on my phone and I just went everything I knew went out the window I have learned a lot of words I can sort of put them together but I made I'm trying to think of anything to say my mind is blank and I start stammering things like how are you but not saying it right she asked me how are you of course I said that I I used the wrong verb to say I'm fine that is not a complex sentence Martha Beck and she was gently correcting me and being so sweet and I managed to gag out something asked her about her son and she told me he likes to read and he's reading a book about a man who turns into a dog and then she wanted to talk about other things but I was so completely obsessed with the man that turned into the dog I was like is it a big dog or a little dog she's like it's big whatever let's talk about my son I'm like no is the dog ferocious or is the dog CT anyway in the end we communicated in Spanish and I realized something that I have never had the opportunity to do I have studied all these languages well like six languages but always in classrooms always in places where I was being told green light you did well pet on the shoulder or red light you are bad you get a bad grade and you want to you know run away and never see anyone ever again so I've always been after Perfection Perfection Perfection that's what the whole school system teaches us that we've got to get it perfect there's a an exam on your desk and you have to get the math perfectly right you have to show your work and it has to be perfectly done and on the grammar test it has to be perfect grammar no child ever learns language an original first language that way what happened to me in the hairdressers was a connection with a human being in another language that was incredibly sweet I did get a little of this in Japanese because I had a Japanese tutor when I was living there briefly and I made mistakes so hilarious that even through her Japanese politeness she once laughed so hard she fell off her chair but I loved her because I had a friend and I had a friend in Japanese when I was studying Chinese for years it was just did I get it right did I get it right it was always in a classroom and it was really hard and I often didn't get it right will I ever be truly fluent in Chinese no even though I've tried harder to learn that language than any other when I was in Germany um I went there for a little book tour once and we didn't have phone apps at the time but I listened to tapes in my car you know those tapes that are very inadequate once I got to Germany I would sort of bumble around speaking English trying to make it understandable and at one um I would draw cartoons on transparencies as I talk to try to make my point because I did not speak enough German to even lift my head in any kind of Pride I just I was so not perfect at the language and I remember one German woman stood in line to get her book signed after I had drawn my transparencies and she came up to me and she said in German I don't understand you with my head but I understand you with my heart I don't speak German how do I know that that's what she said maybe she didn't but I could swear I didn't understand her with my head but I understood her with my heart that's what happened to me in the hairdresser and I realized that we are trained to look for Perfection and we are always trying to be perfect we go to a party and we want to show up perfectly um you're not going to show up perfectly ly but if you show up not to not to perfect but to connect nobody cares that you've not done it perfectly in a classroom sense if you show up I always say this to writers don't show up to give a get attention show up to give attention so whatever you're having trouble with and you're trying to be perfect about I'd like you to think of something right now that you're trying to do perfectly I've got to be a perfect parent you're not but if you stop and connect with your child even if the child's not there if you stop and imagine their experience and feel that connection you may not understand it with your head but you you'll understand it with your heart I'm trying to be a perfect person you're not okay connect with your inner self connect with the part of you that feels and hopes and Longs and dreams that part of you can't do anything wrong it's just trying to connect with the world connect if you want to you know get your whole life right you won't you can't connect with this moment right now like this it's been said before and it'll be said again this present moment is your life this is all you ever need so let's right now whatever you're trying to do instead of trying to be perfect drop in connect with this moment connect with the part of you that's trying so hard to be perfect give it kindness kindness connects and then whoever else is involved if you're trying to get a book published okay connect with editors with readers you don't have to have them in the room in this present moment they are alive somewhere find the connection if you're trying to find love love and nobody seems to love you stop looking outward connect In This Moment connect with your true self connect with the knowledge that the love in your heart is going to be met by the love in other Hearts connect connect connect this is why em Forester said only connect I was um I was doing some watercolor and I've been really trying hard to do watercolor and one thing I've learned is that if you draw little I'm really pretty good at drawing little separate things like I can draw a car and I can draw a building and I can draw a person but they don't work as a painting unless you connect them everything in the painting has to look connected and then suddenly instead of being like any other like a photograph or whatever it becomes something that speaks to you so I want to show you this hang on um this is a picture of a a church facade in New York that I snapped a picture of as I drove past it and I thought I'd go back and paint it sometime and I drove past it again and it was gone it had been next to a women's uh shelter and the women's shelter caught fire and it burned and the whole church burned but they were able to save the facade so I painted it and I want to show you a little bit of just painting um I was painting the so all the little bits of the church and everything and then these cars I was painting all these little cars and I got really into painting how does the car really look and I do I have the perspective right on the car and and then I realized that the cars weren't connected so I took a brush a big flat brush and I dipped it in some blue paint and I just brushed it all the way across the cars and the blue of the car is connected all the way through and they became something that was more than a bunch of cars it was part of a message I wanted to send about the fact that this beautiful Church which is connecting the heaven with the Earth that we all come from the unmanifested and then we manifest briefly as something physical and it crumbles and then we go back into the unmanifested it's the soul connecting with the Earth connecting with the soul again so that was my way of connecting something visually and it's so liter you literally have to draw a brush through all the different things and make them one thing so as you're trying to be perfect in whatever it is you're doing take a big beautiful ethereal paintbrush and just draw one streak of light between you and everything you want to connect with and then you'll realize that the reason it feels so good to connect is that any separation is not real what's real is the spaciousness it's the meditation that we do every week that we're going to do again today the spaciousness that is most of the volume of our bodies has no boundary it's connected with all of space it's connected with the space in other people it's all ready connected so when we drop our attempts to be perfect in our cultures way of being very singular and perfect and we just draw a brush across the whole whole experience and make it one we're returning to the reality that in our hearts we know is greater than picking things out and making them perfect so I want you now to look back on your whole past and all the imperfections that were there take a big deep breath let the Perfections go and draw that brush of light through all of them you don't have to perfect anything you just have to connect NE in your imperfection like me stumbling along and telling this poor woman what what kind of what kind of dog like the joy I felt when I was actually talking about a man turning into a dog with a real Spanish-speaking person it was a little return to the sacredness of communion that is what we're all looking for all the time we come here to appear separate and then we work all our lives to be connected so Picasa said I have worked all my life to paint like a child you've been struggling all your life to get past the desire to be perfect at small things and instead to drop into the imperfection of your being and allow yourself to connect with all these other folks who are feeling exactly the same way none of us feels perfect and that is perfect because when we connect with each other in our desperate desire to be perfect and our failure to do so we feel each other's Hearts we get out of the head and that's what this is about relearning that we are one that's perfect so let's do our meditation and then I will take some questions as per usual Okay so I hope you've already connected with the present moment um let's get get comfortable in our chairs lie down sit down if you have to stand up get relaxed take a deep breath and ask yourself the question can I imagine the distance between my eyes can I imagine the space inside the atoms that create the distance between my eyes can I find the space that is seamlessly connected between the two eyes that appear separate can I imagine the connection the space between my eyes and the back of my head can I imagine the space inside my neck can I imagine the spaciousness inside my skull and connected with my spinal cord and going all the way into my torso can I imagine the space connecting every aspect of my body can I imagine the space within the room where I'm sitting or standing or lying can I imagine this seamless Connection in the space in this room and the space in my body can I imagine the space inside my body in connection with the space inside the bodies of all other creatures can I imagine that they can imagine me can I imagine the Stillness underneath the action that seems to be happening in this world can I imagine the silence under the sounds I'm hearing now there is only one silence there is only one space there is only one Stillness and it is infin it it holds everything and you are it Limitless boundless all connected that's who you really are remember that when you come into a place where you're trying to be perfect and your imperfection will be perfect for that situation for that job okay so PC Longston says can you say more about how to drw drop into the present moment thinking about your advice to think of a place you've been where you got that aha feeling well it's a bit much to strain for an aha moment aha moment you're looking for something singular you're looking for something perfect but the best way to connect is with a moment that isn't aha that is ordinary in Zen you go higher and higher through levels of Enlightenment you have greater greater realization of your true nature and the highest level of all is ordinariness you realize that every single thing you do is the aha moment they say before Enlightenment uh chop wood carry water after Enlightenment chop wood carry water but after Enlightenment every little task you do vacuuming the carpet changing the diaper washing the dishes every single moment is the aha moment that connects you with eternity with infinity you feel the water flowing over your hands and connecting you with the dishes the heat of it the slickness of a porcelain cup and in that moment of absolute attention the walls can drop away and you can become infinite after the Ecstasy the laundry but in the laundry the Ecstasy that's where I left my e ecstasy it's in the laundry um no I don't have any ecstasy not in my laundry or anywhere else except my heart okay Leanne says this connection idea can it be used to heal the Regrets We have for how we have or may have hurt others 100% find a place if there's a place in you that hitches that say oh I shouldn't have done that go to that part of you and understand that right now there are dozens and dozens of people right now doing the same thing you're doing looking back on the thing they regret and we are all connected in our imperfection we've all done that wrong we've all got those little H wincing regrets or waves of Shame so let the wave of Shame be part of the Stillness that carries to other people and connects with what they've experienced as a wave of Shame and when you see it in everyone you realize it's okay in me I don't have to be in I don't have to be perfect because I'm here to be connected with a World in which all of us are imperfect and who wants to connect with a perfect person would you want to see a movie about a person who starts perfect stays perfect and ends perfect that is not interesting what's interesting is the imperfection and how we reach across the divide and across our shame and our pain and find the love for other people that reflects to ourselves and makes us all one so yeah think of something you regret realize that everybody on this broadcast is thinking of something they regret and that we're all together in that and that we can love each other and guess what you get to be included in the each other Kate says most people on this Earth see the solidity of reality reality not the spaciousness how can those of us who live more in the reality that things are empty interact deeply with those who see things as more solid and separate do you find this challenging Martha it's not so much challenging as um there are sometimes moments of like oh it's not exactly sadness but it's like somebody's having a having a real meltdown over something that's not perfect and you know that they think that this this thing they're working on for work or this thing that's happened in their family or in their relationship they're it's got to be perfect and and they're looking at the things and not the spaciousness in which it's happening and you stay inside that spaciousness and there's just a lot more noise over the silence there's a lot more action over the Stillness but you can still connect with the Stillness if you I used to get pulled in into the um into the frenzy a lot more I still have that adhy frenzy thing but when someone's hurting or someone's hysterical or whatever I've had so many clients over 30 years who have gone so many directions I can just breathe and look at them and feel the spaciousness inside my own body and feel the spaciousness connecting with them and love fill that with love it's it's love already you don't have to fill it it's full it's briming over so you hold them and you get more still and you get more silent in your heart you go down and down and down that's what I did in Germany when I went on that book tour I didn't speak any German but I'd get up and I'd speak English from a place of I drop way down and try to find a connection with the hearts of of the people in the room and it worked it actually worked because all of them study English but now it was that understand with the heart not with the head that was the real thing that made that a beautiful beautiful experience um let's see uh Amy Says am Tu says what would you suggest for a mean little voice that says things like they didn't like you or you really annoyed them after interacting with others this happens with strangers and even with friends yeah because it's always imperfect it never plays out exactly the way you want it to something is always wrong with my hair always something's always wrong with what I said I Stumble over words but only always only always is there something imperfect so the little voice comes up oh no you have to be perfect you made them upset if you were perfect they would love you no if you were perfect they probably wouldn't love you anyway if they were stuck in the Quest for Perfection if they're judging you on every little thing if they're going to throw you away for wearing white shoes after Labor Day or whatever it is they're not in the place of spaciousness not in their awareness but we're all always in the place of spaciousness because it's more real our bodies you know we come from we come from nothing we become a thing we become nothing again no thing and yet we're still there we're still real we're still humming with Vitality life is not this body because life can leave this body so when you start to get caught up in other people's opinions you know that you can drop into this present moment into what you really are the space the silence and the Stillness which is remember it's conscious it's aware it's not nothingness it is nothingness but it is absolutely brimming with awareness and compassion and all the things that we truly are and then you kind of go okay that was imperfect they saw my imperfection they judge me on my imperfection H I'm not going to judge them for judging me on my imperfection even though their judgment is imperfect I'm just going to remember all the times when I've judged people and I can understand them I've been in that place boom you're back in the present moment you're back with your real self you are connected and everything other than the connection will always have imperfection okay Monica says I've been wondering this for months now I get a headache every time I try to imagine the space between my eyes I can't do it I can imagine space between most other things just fine but that one I have to turn the sound off because it's painful any ideas about why that might be okay so in a lot of mystical Traditions there is the the concept of focusing on the third eye or the The Space Between the Eyes I believe that there's something that happens neurologically because the optic nerves cross right behind your the bridge of your nose this place here and I think that's a place where you can access both sides of the brain because that visual cortex is getting feedback that crisscrosses from the two sides so there's this strange space there that if you can drop into it seems to illuminate your whole being if you can't feel it it's probably because you're fighting and trying to feel it so one day what happens Monica is you will just be going along and lightly gently you'll realize there's a space between your two eyes and you'll imagine it as just peaceful still like clear water flowing nothing stressful no trying and all of a sudden you'll have this little burst of this freshness this awareness this this presence in the moment and that could be called Satori in Japanese the the sudden awareness of what you really are so the fact that you're trying and stressing and getting headaches is is a good sign you're doing it imperfectly and if you after you try and try and try to do something perfectly and I have had this experience with language you try and try and try and then one day you stop trying and it's in you and suddenly you find yourself saying something and it comes out right and it everything the the imperfection and the connection come together so that's going to happen for you because of the push and then relax trust that process couple more questions Dr Donna says what are you do and those you work with and for expect Perfection you realize that their expectation is an imperfection in their understanding of reality and you love them and you love yourself and you feel the connection between them the part of them that is judging themselves that is also judging you the part of you that's judging yourself that's also judging them and you realize that that's not the real thing that the imperfection is something held within the connection and the connection can't have flaw cause it's no thing Jenny says how do you forgive yourself for all the mistakes that live inside us and appear as shame how do we ask for forgiveness for the same from others the mistakes don't live inside us they are stories that we tell they are thought forms they are not alive nothing that hurts us spiritually emotionally is alive is real they are stories thought forms that we tell they are false they are not true this is why I wrote a book about integrity when you start to question every thought that brings you pain and suffering it will always fall apart when you compare it with something truer so I made a terrible mistake what's the opposite of that I corrected a terrible mistake well have you ever done that think about that and watch all your focus on imperfection fall away as you look for a connection between those experiences other experiences that you've had other ways of thinking about it so to connect and reconnect the stories inside our little left hemispheres where we hold all our stories of Shame and guilt and the need for forgiveness and the need to forgive all of that you know in the grand scheme of things in the universe at large those are so small those are the mistakes you made speaking Spanish to a beautiful friend who was washing your hair and you got it all wrong that's what we're here for to bumble around to try for Perfection and fail and in doing so to drop into the truth of our connection where the Perfection we've been looking for has been just sitting there smiling and waiting for us all along I love you all so much thank you for G joining me here on the Gathering room thank you for uh connecting with me you are perfect we are all perfect and we are all connected and that's my story and I'm sticking to itah bye see you later

Channel: Martha Beck

Views: 1,356

Keywords: Martha Beck

Id: DJ-xJIkKfkw

Length: 29min 14sec (1754 seconds)

Published: Thu May 02 2024