Communication: Learning the Code

I’m learning to play bridge. I’ve always loved cards, and have been pretty good at it too. I’ve played Rummy, Spades, Hearts, Whist, and Pinochle, just to name a few. Bridge, however, is another story altogether. Bridge is a complex game that depends highly on proper communication. It doesn’t matter how powerful your hand, if you don’t receive the proper communication from your partner or give the proper information to your partner, you will both be at a major disadvantage.

What’s also interesting in Bridge is that sometimes you have to lie.

Well, not lie exactly…more like speak in code. For instance, you might open at 1 club, even if you don’t want clubs as trump. It’s a signal to your partner that you have opening points and you want to know what she has in her hand. So then your partner has to respond telling you how many points she has and what her best suit is in. But of course, she doesn’t just say, “I have 10 points and I’d like to play it in hearts.” No, that would be too easy and would give your opponents too much information. A response of 1 heart to an opening of 1 club tells your partner that you have a minimum of 6 points and at least four hearts. While speaking in code is a bit tricky to learn, once you understand it, you can communicate fairly well with your partner.

While speaking clearly is certainly preferred in regular day-to-day communication, the truth is all of us speak in code at times, and it would behoove us to remember that and learn how to recognize when someone is saying something other than what they mean.

Children, especially, cannot always tell us what they are feeling, so we must learn to decipher what is really going on with them. I used to be a nanny and I quickly learned that if I didn’t pay attention there would be a ‘failure to communicate’. Charlie (age four) once acted up when I was trying to get him and his brother out the door to go to their first swimming lesson. He insisted he wasn’t finished playing his game and couldn’t leave yet. He screamed and resisted, and nothing I did or said would convince him to leave. Had I not understood his code, this could have been a much more frustrating morning. What I realized was his disobedience was really about his fear of swimming. When he was three he had a frightening experience with water, and so now with that memory still intact, he was afraid to go to his lesson. I was able to discern his code and reassure him that he would not have to go into the water if he didn’t want to, but that we still had to leave so his brother Will could go to his lesson. We went to the lesson and the teacher, also very understanding, was able to reassure him, and Charlie, eventually, not only went into the water, but learned to become a great swimmer!

Our children, our mates and our friends sometimes speak to us in code. It sure would be nice if we all said what we meant, but sometimes we aren’t even clear about what we are feeling. I’m reading “The Idiot’s Guide to Bridge”, which is helping me learn the code language of Bridge. Too bad there isn’t such a manual for relationships; that would sure be helpful! This isn’t to say we are all idiots when it comes to communication (or Bridge), but that we want to learn the basics in an easy to understand format.

The book “The I of the Storm” by Gary Simmons is sort of a manual about learning to communicate in conflict. Simmons tells us that when people lash out at you, it is more about them than about you. There is something missing in their relationship with you, and they haven’t figured out how to communicate what is missing for them, so they make it about you. Once you understand this code, you can say to them, “Tell me more”, so you can get more information about what is really bothering them. While I’ve read this book, I still sometimes forget the ‘code’ when someone lashes out at me, but I’m determined to remember to not get defensive, and to ask for more information.

I’m going to keep practicing Bridge, because the more committed I am to learning the code, the better I will get at communicating with my partner. The same could be said for communicating in normal life: the more we practice understanding what the other person needs from us, but isn’t able to say, the better we will be able to communicate effectively in return.

Wow! Compared to relationships, Bridge is beginning to look easier and easier!

Remembrance

I have been re-reading Angels and Demons in preparation for the movie coming out next month. I love the book, because even though it is fiction—there is so much history and truth to be found in it.

One of the things that the author, Dan Brown, mentions in telling his story is a Buddhist philosophy called Remembrance. The idea of remembrance is that if one is having a difficult time figuring out the answer or solution to a challenging or impossible problem, then instead of trying to figure it out, simply ask the mind to remember the solution. “The presupposition that one once knew the answer created the mindset that the answer must exist…thus eliminating the crippling conception of hopelessness.”

I love this idea for a couple of reasons. One, it embraces the idea that time is not linear. In our limited thinking, we think of time in terms of past, present and future happening along a straight line continuum. However, what if they are all happening concurrently?

If that is the case, then somewhere my future self already knows the solution, and I simply need to connect with that future self to figure out and bring the solution into the present. This idea is a bit difficult for us to grasp our mind around, but I love it. Maybe that’s why I love Star Trek so much!

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) has been using the idea of reaching back in time to communicate and bring resources to our inner child, I see no reason why we can’t reach forward in time as well.

Another reason I love this idea of remembrance is that in Unity we teach that we are one with the Divine Mind of God. Since God is all-knowing, then God already knows the solution to any challenge I may be facing and I simply need to connect my mind to God Mind to remember the solution that already exists.

So next time you or I are feeling frustrated, we just need to take a little time to be still and to REMEMBER. The solution isn’t something we must search after, it already exists, right here, right now.

After all, God’s in charge and all is well.

Sunset in the Keys

My attempt at Monet

My friend Peggy told me this looked like a Monet painting. It was a photo I took in Key West.

Celebrating Rebirth

Easter is this Sunday and it is a time when we celebrate resurrection and rebirth. It is not an accident that it comes in the springtime. I am always happy and relieved when spring finally arrives. During winter the nights are long, the sky is dark, and the land is barren. Just about at the point when you think you can’t take anymore—spring arrives and brings with it the sunshine, chirping birds, and flowering trees. After the long and dark winter, we are so ready to burst out of our tomb and experience renewed warmth, light and life.

I just came back from Florida where it felt like summer; it was hot, sunny and in the high 80’s. Every day, while I was basking in the warmth of the sun, I would look at the weather on my laptop computer and notice that it was in the 30’s back in Fayetteville. Now that I’m back home it is cloudy and rainy, yet Easter is only days away. It just goes to show you that you can’t always rely on outer circumstances to tell you the truth. Even though it is gray and cold outside, if you look closely you can see the buds on the trees and the flowers blooming. Spring is here regardless of the current weather pattern.

Easter represents the soul’s rebirth. Just like the urge within each seed that propels it upward through the hard soil, there is an urge within each of us that pushes us beyond our current limitations into expansion and spiritual growth. Just as the seed grows first in the darkness of the soil, our growth too begins in the inner tomb of silence. The plant sprouts and grows with loving attention and the proper nutrients of sun and water. Our soul also advances in growth when our loving attention is focused on the Divine Presence within us (the Son) and is continually nurtured through prayer and meditation.

Two thousand years ago a man named Jesus came to show us all that regardless of the rain, wind, and storms of life—even death itself, we are not limited—we are alive and brimming with life. Just as the plant appears to die away each year only to reappear in the spring with new life, so it is with each of us. Regardless of the long dark nights of our soul, if we keep our attention focused on the Son and nurture that divinity within us we too will begin to see the sprouting of new birth giving rise in our consciousness.

No matter how empty or dark your life might seem, resurrection is always ready and waiting for you to claim it. As for me, I’ve been hanging out in the emptiness of the tomb for months now waiting to find my right and perfect church. I am hopeful that it, like Easter, is right around the corner.

Happy Spring, and Blessed Easter! May we each experience a renewal and rebirth of Divine Life.

More about Knowing

Here is an even better trailer...it tells you much more and gives you a better feel for the movie.



http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/imdb/vi2330985241/

Knowing

If you could know the future, would you want to? I’ve been exploring this idea of certainty, knowing and doubt and uncertainty for quite some time now. In fact I wrote a blog entry about the movie Doubt and the dangers of certainty back on January 6. (you can find it in the archives)

I’ve been unemployed for about 8 months now and have been searching for my right and perfect church for even longer. It sure would be nice to know where I’m going to end up; this idea of hanging out in the void of unknowing can be a bit unsettling sometimes.

I have already started packing. I figure I’m sending a message to the universe that I’m READY already!! My cats see all the boxes around, and look at me rather strangely. I tell them that we are moving, but I just don’t know where or when we are moving. I’m sure they’d like some certainty too.

So, if you could know what lie ahead in your future, would you be happy to know? That is one of the messages that the new movie, “Knowing” addresses. MIT Professor Astrophysicist John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) uncovers the meaning of a series of numbers that had been locked inside a time capsule for 50 years. The encoded message predicts with uncanny accuracy the dates, location, and death tolls of every major disaster for the past 50 years. The list shows three events yet to happen and John feels a strong connection to this list, because his wife died in one of the listed events. I’m sure he is thinking that if he had this knowledge earlier he could have stopped his wife’s death.

I could relate to this movie in so many ways. My husband died of cancer over 2 years ago, and the doctors told us that the cancer had probably been growing inside of him for 5 years before it was finally discovered. Had we discovered it earlier, he might have had a chance to beat it. I think there was something in me that knew. I made him get health insurance when he didn’t have any, and I told him time and again to get a physical and a colonoscopy. Something in me knew, but I didn’t really know. I’ve beaten myself up time and again because I didn’t force him to get a colonoscopy or a physical, but would it have really made a difference? I don’t have the answer to that question. Some part of me believes that it was simply his time to go, and there is nothing I could have done to change that fact.

I don’t want to tell you too much about this movie, except that you need to go see it. It was AWESOME! I left saying, “wow, wow, wow” over and over again, and, “that was awesome”.
As for knowing the future…I think I’m going to have to make peace with living in the Void of Unknowing. I don’t believe in determinism, which this movie explores, but neither do I believe that life is random. What I do believe is that there is a Higher Power and a Higher Purpose, and my part in it is to live the best possible life I can in every moment and to listen for the whisper of guidance.

Go see this movie…here’s a link to the trailer in case you haven’t seen it…but it doesn’t tell you enough. http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK/video/imdb/vi3391554329/