Leslie Cameron-Bandler was working with a woman who had a compulsive behavior—she was a clean-freak. She was a person who even dusted light bulbs! The rest of her family could function pretty well with everything the mother did except for her attempts to care for the carpet. She spent a lot of her time trying to get people not to walk on it, because they left footprints—not mud and dirt, just dents in the pile of the rug.
When this woman looked down at the carpet and saw a footprint in it, her response was an intense negative kinesthetic gut reaction. She would rush off to get the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the carpet immediately. She was a professional housewife. She actually vacuumed the carpet three to seven times a day. She spent a tremendous amount of time trying to get people to come in the back door, and nagging at them if they didn’t, or getting them to take their shoes off and walk lightly.
There were three children, all of whom were there rooting for Leslie. The family seemed to get along fine if they were not at home. If they went out to dinner, they had no problems. If they went on vacation, there were no problems. But at home everybody referred to the mother as being a nag, because she nagged them about this, and nagged them about that. Her nagging centered mainly around the carpet.
What Leslie did with this woman is this: she said „I want you to close your eyes and see your carpet, and see that there is not a single footprint on it anywhere. It’s clean and fluffy—not a mark anywhere.“
This woman closed her eyes, and she was in seventh heaven, just smiling away. Then Leslie said „And realize fully that that means you are totally alone, and that the people you care for and love are nowhere around.“ The woman’s expression shifted radically, and she felt terrible!
Then Leslie said „Now, put a few footprints there and look at those footprints and know that the people you care most about in the world are nearby.“ And then, of course, she felt good again.
Autor: The Storyteller
By good fortune, I was able to raft down the Motu River in New Zealand twice during the last year. The magnificent four-day journey traverses one of the last wilderness areas in the North Island.
The first expedition was led by „Buzz“, an American guide with a great deal of rafting experience and many stories to tell of mighty rivers such as the Colorado. With a leader like Buzz, there was no reason to fear any of the great rapids on the Motu.
The first half day, in the gentle upper reaches, was spent developing teamwork and co-ordination. Strokes had to be mastered, and the discipline of following commands without question was essential. In the boiling fury of a rapid, there would be no room for any mistake. When Buzz bellowed above the roar of the water, an instant reaction was essential.
We mastered the Motu. In every rapid we fought against the river and we overcame it. The screamed commands of Buzz were matched only by the fury of our paddles, as we took the raft exactly where Buzz wanted it to go.
At the end of the journey, there was a great feeling of triumph. We had won. We proved that we were superior. We knew that we could do it. We felt powerful and good. The mystery and majesty of the Motu had been overcome.
The second time I went down the Motu. the experience I had gained should have been invaluable, but the guide on this journey was a very softly spoken Kiwi. It seemed that it would not even be possible to hear his voice above the noise of the rapids.
As we approached the first rapid, he never even raised his voice. He did not attempt to take command of us or the river. Gently and quietly he felt the mood of the river and watched every little whirlpool. There was no drama and no shouting. There was no contest to be won. He loved the river.
We sped through each rapid with grace and beauty and, after a day, the river had become our friend, not our enemy. The quiet Kiwi was not our leader, but only the person whose sensitivity was more developed than our own. Laughter replaced the tension of achievement.
Soon the quiet Kiwi was able to lean back and let all of us take turns as leader. A quiet nod was enough to draw attention to the things our lack of experience prevented us from seeing. If we made a mistake, then we laughed and it was the next person’s turn.
We began to penetrate the mystery of the Motu. Now, like the quiet Kiwi, we listened to the river and we looked carefully for all those things we had not even noticed the first time.
At the end of the journey, we had overcome nothing except ourselves. We did not want to leave behind our friend, the river. There was no contest, and so nothing had been won. Rather we had become one with the river.
It remains difficult to believe that the external circumstances of the two journeys were similar. The difference was in an attitude and a frame of mind. At the end of the journey, it seemed that there could be no other way. Given the opportunity to choose a leader, everyone would have chosen someone like Buzz. At the end of the second journey, we had glimpsed a very different vision and we felt humble – and intensely happy.
I have been teaching for a long time, almost 20 years now, and I like to believe that I have learned a few things myself, and even that I’m a better teacher than I used to be.
When I started teaching, I used to get angry at students pretty often when they were talking too much, or sleeping, or not paying attention or any of the other ‚misbehaviours‘ that students do in the classroom.
At some point along the line, I gave up being angry because I began to see that if it had any effect, it was usually a temporary one. I found that it was much more effective to actually engage the student in some way, to redirect their ‚misbehaviour‘ into a behaviour that better fitted my goals for the classroom.
Of course, there are times when that anger is still present, and sometimes it might even be justified, but it doesn’t come out in shouting, but instead simmers below the surface and sadly comes out in more subtle ways such as me not being fully present for the students or creating busy work for them.
And sometimes it comes out strongly in other ways. A few months ago, a student kept falling asleep in class, time after time, even after I gently woke him and tried to engage him in various ways.
Finally, in frustration, I rapped my knuckles on his desk near his head in order to wake him up yet one more time. Unfortunately, although the rapping knuckles wasn’t loud enough to wake him up, it was hard enough to really really hurt my knuckles, to the point that weeks later, they are still sore, and I figure that I must have fractured something. Of course, the student didn’t realize any of this and only woke when the student next to him tapped him on the shoulder.
After this incident, I tried extra hard with this student – to engage him, to call him by name, to get him interested in the class.
And it worked – he actually began to smile, to take part in the class activities and to become engaged.
Now, if only I had tried that before I fractured my knuckles.
Once upon a time a man was returning from work via public transport. At some point a father entered the train with 3 kids. The father sat across the man. The kids were noisy, badly behaved and the father seemed not to care sitting there kinda absent. The man was getting more and more nervous and annoyed with the inappropriate children’s behavior, the fathers indifference and decided to approached the father. The father acknowledged the man and said to him that he and the kids just left the hospital, and he is struggling to find the right words to tell the children that their mother has passed away.
One day the Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. „You have no right teaching others,“ he shouted. „You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake!“
The Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man, „Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?“
The young man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, „It would belong to me, because I bought the gift.“
The Buddha smiled and said, „That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself.“
Buddha was giving a talk one day underneath a tree in front of a group of people. Many of the people were already believers, several were interested in hearing what he said with an open mind, but there was one man there who had already made up his mind that he was right and that Buddha was wrong.
All during the Buddha’s talk, the man interrupted and heckled rudely. The Buddha simply responded to each interruption calmly and quietly and despite himself, the man began to become impressed by the Buddha’s words and attitude.
After the talk, he went up to Buddha and congratulated him on a good talk. Then he asked,
“Why didn’t you respond to my heckling – usually people get very upset or start arguing back at me.”
Buddha smiled at him and asked the man a question in return.
“When a person offers you a gift and you refuse that gift, who does that gift now belong to?”
“It belongs to the other person.”
“That’s right,” said Buddha. “And so I left your gift with you to enjoy as you see fit.”
Once there were two lands, connected by a single road. The land in the south was hard, barren, and difficult, and the people who lived there struggled even to be poor. The land in the north was rich and fertile, with abundant springs and deep soils, but the people quarreled and fought so much that in the midst of abundance they imagined themselves poor. And so they sent out raiding parties even to the south, to steal what little the poor southlanders had.
The road that connected the two lands wound through steep mountains, and at its narrowest became a ledge barely wide enough for a single wagon, with a vertical wall of rock on one side and a thousand-foot drop on the other. At the south end of the cliff the road broadened into a meadow, with young woods on the precipitous slopes above and below it, and here the southlanders set the small garrison that was all they could spare to guard the road from raiders from the north.
One spring a weeping boy came stumbling into the meadow from the south. His face was bruised, his cheek recently opened by a sword. He came to where a few scraps of cloth and burnt logs marked the garrison of the southlanders. He wept over the wreckage, and over the trampled, bloodied earth where his kinsmen had fought their last battle, trying to hold back the northland raiders. And there by the edge of the track he planted an acorn, just sprouting. „Guard the road,“ he told it, weeping, and went back the way he came.
The little tree took the boy’s words seriously. It grew branches into the road to entangle the raiders, but they swept them aside, or lopped them off, and once the little oak got chopped down for kindling and had to regrow from its stump. As it watched northland raiders return with wagons of booty, leading lines of wretched captives, it felt terrible that it could not stop them, but what could it do? It was just a tree.
One day a wizard appeared from the south. He was a mere youth, but he pulled up the sapling oak as easily as if it had been rooted in water instead of earth and stone, and drove it into the center of the road between cliff face and drop-off, where the road was barely one wagon wide. The tree felt its roots drive a hundred feet into the stone of the mountain. A witchy light encircled it as the wizard cast on it spells to protect it from shovel and blade, fire and lightning, drought and disease. „Guard the road,“ the wizard commanded, and went back to the south.
The next party of raiders tried to hack off the tree, and when their blades broke, bent it double and drove their wagons over the top. But when they returned the next spring, the tree had grown too big to bend, and they had to leave their wagons and go ahead on horseback. This limited their raids, but not enough. The tree grew and grew, trying to block their way, until the bandits had to take the packs off their horses to lead them through the narrow way on either side of the tree, and reload the packs on the other side.
In time, the raids ceased. In time, travelers appeared from the south and squeezed their horses past the tree, headed north. They spoke of the richness of the north, of what good lives people had there now that the northerners had stopped fighting. They went north, and few ever returned, and those that did returned smiling, and brought their relatives north with them again.
But the tree still worried about raiders. It grew larger and larger, blocking more and more of the road — and no ax could cut it, no fire burn it, no shovel dig it free. In time only a pony could squeeze through beside it, then only a man, then a man only if he took his pack off and pulled it through behind him. Those few travelers willing to brave the rough track came from the south with what little wealth they had accumulated, and groaned to see the oak larger than the stories they had heard, blocking more of the way. A mound of abandoned possessions grew in the meadow, carts abandoned for rucksacks, treasures of a lifetime left behind with much wailing when their owners could not squeeze them past the trunk. Many people turned back rather than abandon what they valued most.
Over time the travelers grew poorer, and fewer, until the tree only saw a person every few years, and then a long time passed when no one came at all.
It was the autumn of the oak’s 500th year guarding the road. The woods were alight with fall color. The oak’s leaves had turned a wonderful copper-brown. One day a large band of travelers approached from the south. Some pulled handcarts, others carried packs, but it was evident from their ragged clothes and weary faces that life had grown ever harder in the south, and they were desperate to pass. They groaned when they saw the tree, for it had grown so large that only a child could wriggle past between tree and cliff — and legends told of the disasters befalling those who had attempted to pass by other means.
But among these travelers was a wizard. He had been old when the world was young, and grown younger with time, until now he stood before the tree a man in the prime of life. He touched his staff to the oak’s bark, and said, „Who are you?“
„I am the guardian of the road,“ the tree replied, astonished to discover that it had a voice. „I protect the south from raiders.“
„I see by your girth that you have guarded the road for a long time,“ the wizard said. „In all these years you must have gained the appreciation of countless people.“
„Not one!“ the tree exclaimed. „Not once in 500 years has anyone thanked me!“
„Ah,“ said the wizard. „But at least travelers are glad to see you, for you are a fine, strong oak,“ he said, admiring the mighty branches and copper-brown leaves, „perhaps the biggest and most beautiful I have ever seen.“
„Travelers are horrified to see me!“ the tree exclaimed. „They curse me with every breath!“
„Ah,“ said the wizard. „But at least you defend the south. Why, you must have turned back countless raiders over the years!“
The tree thought about this. „The last raiders came by 410 years ago,“ it said.
„Yes, 408 years ago the north became peaceful,“ the wizard said. „It turned into a rich and fruitful land where people from the south could find a better life — but the trail is hard, and a guardian blocks the way.“
„Someone must guard the road,“ the tree argued. „What if raiders come again?“
„When you were planted, this was a young wood,“ the wizard explained. „But wizards have worked in it, and the wood has grown up, and its magic is strong enough to defend against anything. Have you not noticed?“
„Two hundred years ago, a gang of bandits camped on this meadow with a captive girl,“ the tree mused. „A bear chased most of them off that cliff, and a stag bore the girl south on its back, unharmed. One hundred years ago a woodcutter and a witch came to remove my spell and chop me down, and lightning struck them both. Yes, I think you are right: these woods can defend the road.“
The tree looked at the ragged people behind the wizard. „It would be good for these people to find a better life,“ it said, „but I was put here by a many years ago by a wizard, and cannot be moved.“
„I can move you,“ said the wizard who had been old when the world was young. „Why, there is a spot right over there by that spring that would be perfect for a tree such as yourself. Travelers would picnic beneath you where you could hear their conversation, and children would climb among your branches and tell their children about when they climbed the biggest oak in the world. Furthermore the soil in that spot is deep and rich; you would thrive.“
„That would be a good life,“ the tree agreed.
„But there is another possibility,“ said the wizard, for he was a good and kind man, and could see into souls, and know dreams. „For five hundred years you have watched travelers pass by, and longed to travel yourself. You have watched friends pass by, and longed to know friendship. You have watched lovers pass by, and longed for love. You have watched adventurers, and longed to go adventuring. And you have watched magicians, and longed to do magic. If I make you a man, you can have all these things — and as a magician, you will live as long as a tree.“
„Yes,“ the tree said, rustling its copper-brown leaves. „Yes, I would like that very much.“
Then the wizard laid his hand against the oak, and its trunk opened with a sigh of release. The wizard reached into the tree, and drew forth a young man with copper-brown hair and eyes the color of the sky, and clasped his hands. „Welcome,“ the wizard said.
Then he reached into the tree again, and pulled forth boards that assembled themselves into wagons with wheels bound in copper-brown metal. He drew forth harnesses and saddles of copper-brown leather, and great muscled horses with copper-brown manes and hides the color of oak bark. And as he did this, the tree got smaller and smaller, until only a sapling stood in the road.
„What was possible is possible again,“ the wizard said, and as he spoke the great pile of moldering junk in the meadow turned bright and new. „We will take these treasures with us, to the people in the north who valued them enough to bring them this far. They will serve us well.“ Quickly the band of travelers loaded them into the wagons, exclaiming over their beauty and value.
Then the wizard put his hand around the sapling in the road, and pulled it out of the path as easily as the young wizard had planted it. As he pulled it free, it turned into a staff, with copper-brown metal at the top that held not so much a crystal as a space. Like the space held by a tree’s branches, whose emptiness calls attention to the many other ways the tree might have grown, or might grow still, this crystal held the space of possibility.
The wizard handed the staff to the new man by his side. The man looked through the crystal at the woods, and saw all the ways that the magic woods could now defend themselves and guard the road. He looked ahead at the path, and saw the bright shining land of the north, and the wonderful future that awaited him there. He looked behind him at the travelers, and saw the connections to their many friends and relatives who were afraid to walk the road, and who might never know freedom so long as the way to it remained so difficult.
Then the man who had been a tree thumped his new staff on the ground three times. With the last thump, the mountain moved — and the road that had been a narrow track, with hard stone on one side and a deadly drop on the other, became wide and welcoming, so broad that many wagons could easily move abreast along it with room to spare.
„Very good,“ said the wizard to his new friend. „Let us proceed.“
And they all moved forward together.
Sigmund Freud was asked for advice on how to make difficult decisions. „Spin a coin“ he said. When challenged about the idea of leaving important choices to chance he explained, „When the coin comes down you will have some clue as to how you really feel about the decision“
Once upon a time, a wise man was acting as the judge and arbitrator in a dispute. First the advocate of the first side gave an eloquent discourse advancing his claims. The wise man who had been listening intently agreed and said, „That’s right.“ Next it was the other advocates turn and he was just as erudite. Once more the wise man agreed adding, „That’s right.“ His clerk listening to the wise man’s pronouncements commented, „They can’t both be right.“ „The wise man agreed by saying, „That’s right!“
There were about nine hundred of us in the room. It was air-conditioned but without any windows so when the lights were switched off the blackness was total. On the stage the course leader struck a match and lit a small candle, it was surprising how much light it gave. He used his candle to light those held by a couple of people in the front row and they, in turn, lit the candles of those behind them. Without any hurry and rush within a few minutes every candle in the room was lit as we all contributed to the powerful light that filled the whole area.