Stumbling around in the dark

Funny story.

When I was 17 years old, I went on a Sixth Form French exchange. We went there first, then they came to us.

Me and my correspondent fell into such an instant camaraderie—like brothers, separated at birth!—that we’re still in regular contact with each other now, 40 years later, and have had many visits over that time. He’s brilliant!

Anyway, the first night I’m there in France, he takes me to a bar in the village and we play some pool, drink some cider and have a real laugh, getting to know each other – both delighted at how well-matched we are.

I go to bed a very happy chappy but wake up in the middle of the night, desperate for the loo.

Now they do things different on the continent—it’s shutters, not curtains—so it’s absolutely pitch dark everywhere. This was well before the days of mobile phones with torches (we’re talking the late ’80s!) so I fumble my way out of my room, and onto the long upstairs landing, bladder bursting.

Also pitch black. No ambient streetlight or anything. Just impenetrable darkness.

🙈

Now, I’ve only been there a matter of hours, I’ve had a couple, and I’m not entirely sure where the door to the bathroom is (or a tumble down the stairs, for that matter!) so I do the safest thing I can think to do in my desperation, and hug the wall, feeling my way along it for either a light switch, or the toilet door handle.

Unexpectedly, as I’m frantically swiping my hands back and forth, the first thing I encounter is a picture, meeting it with such force that I practically take it off the wall. I grab it with both hands, relieved it doesn’t fall, and freeze, unsure what to do.

I’m in a strange house, in a foreign country, in total darkness, busting for the loo so badly I’m about to have an accident, and I’m stood there like an idiot, holding a piece of their artwork in my hands.

(I would like to take this moment to remind you I’m 17 years old, and frankly, I’m quite pissed 🥴)

Wisdom speaks. With the care of a properly drunk person, I lay it gently on the floor, leaning against the wall, and continue swiping manically to find the door… instead immediately hitting another bloody picture, and having to do the same again to save damaging anything, then carrying on with my frantic search.

I don’t remember how many pictures it was in total (he’s always been an artist – it was a lot!) and I never did find a light switch, (anywhere!) but I eventually located a toilet, in which to relieve myself.

I crept back to bed. In the absolute darkness, it was the only option.

The next morning, there was much hilarity in the house as I came down to le petit déjeuner, a bit hungover, to applause, and had to try and explain in my broken French exactly why his mum arose to discover all their artwork having been removed from the walls while they slept!!!

😂🤣😂🤣

Honestly. Giles, circa 1989… it wasn’t pretty.

🤦🏻‍♂️

And the link to relationships?

Well, we all make mistakes, and they’re all born out of total psychological innocence.

I’ve said, many a time, that:

So when it comes to other people, and there’s tension, if our sense of identity is under attack and we don’t see through the illusion of self in that moment… we’ll lash out.

Nothing strange or unusual about that. It’s doing what makes sense, right there and then.

Taking it further… if someone’s level of understanding of how their mind works and how they’re experiencing the world is such that on some level it really looks like their own feelings of self-worth come from denigrating or hurting others… they’ll be abusive.

(Hurt people hurt people.)

Again, this is just the human operating system playing out in the way it does.

All behaviour lies downstream of in-the-moment understanding.

There will be consequences, of course—we have laws for the more extreme stuff—but understanding where behaviour comes from is crucial.

So go easy on your self.

Because the shift happens not in fixing the past, but in seeing the innocence that was always there.

Regrets about the past

I worked with a client once, who was overwhelmed by their mind. It was keeping them awake and they were suffering. (Big time 😩)

We did what we do, in a block of Innate Health coaching, and after a while, as they rediscovered clarity, everything changed for them. (Big time 😲)

I say “everything,” because that’s how it works, when you get a totally different understanding of how you’re experiencing the world and who you really are. You see the whole of life differently.

Including relationships.

So this person, somewhat unexpectedly for them, saw their marriage blossom, as a result of the time we spent together looking at anxiety and insomnia. It was fantastic to witness.

But, minds being minds, they then felt a bit bad; a bit guilty—“not proud,” I think was the term used—about how distant they’d been with their partner recently, and that made total sense to me too.

If I think back, when I myself woke up to some of these simple truths, I probably cringed a little bit about past behaviours, but as Syd Banks pointed out:

“Everyone is doing the best they can, given the thinking they have that looks real to them.”

That means you, me, your partner, your kids, your work colleagues, your boss, other people you disagree with… there are no exceptions.

So next time you find the Reader Ego Construct 📦 getting stuck into you over something you did or said in the past, by all means learn from it.

By all means apologise, open-heartedly.

By all means strive to do better.

But if you’ve been stumbling around in the dark and eventually find the light switch, don’t dwell on the damage done.

Life’s happening NOW.

It’s waiting to applaud you, anew, in every moment that comes along.

💝

Giles

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