Making Room for Others

Making room for others opens us to receive each other’s gifts. Yet this is hard work for me. Especially in transmitting the Work. I am so full of my own understanding and experiencing. For instance, it took me years of leading morning exercise to realize others did not necessarily experience it in the same way I did. Still, something is shared. A depth, a breadth, an understanding within the experiencing.

Making room for others to lead morning exercise broadens my own experience. But only if I don’t judge. Maybe they don’t lead it the way I do. How can they? When it comes down to it, what comes through me is not going to be what comes through another. What’s important is that something real transmits.

Making Space for Peers

Sometimes, working with our peers is harder than with a student. A student needs to be encouraged and guided along the way. A peer wants to be supported and share what they have made of their work. Claymont has many peers and too few students. Yet we need to give what we have obtained to continue our growth. One can’t give without a receiver. So, we need to make space amongst ourselves and for ourselves.

Getting out of the Way

To make room, I must step aside. That does not mean to disengage. Au contraire, I must engage, but in a real way. When I see myself reacting negatively, switching centers works. I can move to my feeling center and connect to Faith. Perhaps I need to sense my breast first and allow my trust in the Work to overcome my resistance to what this person is saying/doing/conveying, that is different from what I say/do/wish to convey.

By allowing my peer to manifest, the value of their sharing will be received or not, depending on their work and mine. The Work is the Work. When I am working on myself, especially with others, it opens what can be conveyed. We can help each other to be more than we can be alone.

But I tend to take what a person says and compare it to my own understanding. Does it measure up? Does it fit my paradigm?

Receiving

My work now is to open to what another has perceived. To give space for it to land and be valued. I might even be able to receive that person’s gift so they can grow.

My peers have made something of the Work for themselves. For each of us it has evolved in its own way over the years. Now is the time to make room for receiving what that “something” is that we have to offer each other.