Lessons can come any time, any place

Seven months ago I began working with a life coach, and two months ago I began my life coach training program.  Those are two environments in which I am intentionally learning and growing in my capacity to guide and support the people around me.

I've held the belief for a while now that anyone and anything can be your teacher, and the training program I'm in supports that belief.  In fact, being a coach for another human being is one of the greatest opportunities to learn about myself.  So it's fair to say that I'm usually ready to learn.

But every now and again I get caught off guard, and a lesson and teacher will sneak up and punch me right in the nose!  That happened today.

I have an intention of growing my coaching practice this month. By the end of this month (August), it is my intention to have five new clients.  So, with the intention of making a declaration (as a coach I enlist my clients to Declare and Fulfill), I innocently crafted a tweet today as follows:

I commit to having 5 full pay coaching clients by the end of Aug-- who's on my team? 

Shortly after sending that tweet, a person, my teacher for the day, sent me a direct message.

Might want to be careful fishing for clients here.. They do not appreciate that!

Immediately my defenses raised, and I thought: "oh crap, I don't want to piss off people!  that's totally not my intent -- I'm just asking for support!  any kind!".  So I messaged this person back:

oh, is that how that came across? not my intention at all!  my intention was to ask for support... in all shapes and forms :)

 I thought that would have cleared everything up.  But it didn't end there...

ya got nothin in the bank of XXXX.  Before withdrawal must come deposit. You of all ppl should know that.

and

You need to build relationships. It's weird when perfect strangers ask for help

Now my feelings are getting hurt, and I'm getting mad, because this person is telling me what I should and should not do.  AND he's got a bizarre interpretation of when it's acceptable to ask for help.   So I was being insulted, and I was getting 'should-on'!

or was I?

In the back of my mind, my training and self-awareness started to kick in: "Hey, this person is speaking from judgment and interpretation..." and "I'm getting sucked into judgment and interpretation myself.".

See, here's what I've distinguished in the past few months: there is Reality, and there is Interpretation of Reality.  Reality is the realm of facts, and interpretation is the land of judgement and imagination.  Most of us spend most of our time Interpreting Reality.

For example, some a-hole cuts us off on the road.

Spoken as a fact this is more accurately stated as "a person drives in front of us suddenly on the road, leaving little space between my car and his bumper.  My body tenses and my heart begins to pound".

Spoken as interpretation, the guy 'cuts us off' -- an expression full of interpretation and judgment (as in, what kind of person cuts us off?.. he's rude and a jerk) -- and many of us (me for sure) would judge that person as being an idiot.  And I would get angry..

or is it afraid?  The judgement and interpretation is that I'm angry, but the fact is that my body has these particular sensations that I INTERPRET to be anger.

Back to the tweeting situation: the fact is I wrote a tweet.  I interpreted that tweet to be a declaration and a request for support (of any kind).  I did not interpret that tweet as fishing for clients.  In my mind, I only really wanted someone to say: "hey man, good luck!"  Or "You can do it!"  Or, best case, "I'll forward this on for you."

But that reader of the list apparently took it as an attempt on my part to solicit.  In subsequent tweets with this person, I saw much judgement and interpretation, much speaking from his internal story.

He gave me a lot of 'advice' that came through to me as "should's", which I interpret as a form of control.  As in, "you should do that!", for me, in my new awareness, is the equivalent of "I want you to do that because that's what I would do", and there is implied control within that statement... as in, what I am doing is not 'right' and that I ought to change it to do it his way.

But all of this that I'm writing right now is, in and of itself, more judgement and interpretation and it's all imaginary!

What's the Reality here?   I sent a message on an electronic medium.  I hallucinate (borrowed from Tony Robbins =) ) that some people read it.  Many did not.  Clearly it affected one person.  And it prompted me to learn something from the day.

And that is but ONE of the lessons I got from that exchange. :)

Stated concisely:

At any time I and you can become complete victims of our judgements, interpretations and imagination.

The thing to get from this is to be AWARE of what is happening.  And realize, that in any moment, there is a choice... you can subscribe to your interpretations and judgements, or you can create and choose another path.

And finally, there is the opportunity here to understand that, There Are No Mistakes In Life.  This was a bit of a disaster for me, but in the end it has created so much value for me.

Thanks for your teachings unnamed twitter follower :)