I have been meaning to reflect on this for a while. After a conversation yesterday with a dear friend Kiran, it felt like an Invitation – finally. It is incidental that The Invitation by Oriah Mountain dreamer is one of my all time Favourite Poems.
Definition: A written or spoken request for someone to go somewhere or to do something. : the act of inviting someone. : something that encourages someone to do something or that makes something more likely to happen.
This last bit was very interesting for me. An invitation in my line of work, often is an implicit or explicit request from someone for an “intervention”. Which would mean they want advice or feedback or some suggestion or just a bouncing board.
Earlier I used to be extremely trigger happy, when it came to “giving advice, feedback etc.” – often unwarranted. In the guise of “helping with good intentions”. I ran, like many well meaning people I know, “An ambulance service”. Rescuing people. Or so I would have like to believe.
As years passed, I realized, people did not want to be rescued. They just wanted, if at all to be seen and heard – and IF there was an Invitation – then give advice/feedback – “Intervene”.
We do this quite often, without knowing. And it can be quite violent. And a transgression. I also went from one extreme to the other for a bit. Until I discovered, the deeper meaning of “Invitation”. To “read” Invitation is a subtle art, and maybe a science, as my friend and I have been trying to explore. This is important because it has to do with felt Safety,
Because without it, it may be transgression of boundaries. How many times we have had the experience of giving some ”advice” to our friends, children, partner clients – which they did not ask for. And then when NOT taken, made us upset and angry at how “Ungrateful” they are. Ofcourse we won’t say any of this out loud.
My son has been a big teacher for me in this. He would let me finish saying and then ask, at what point do you remember me asking you for this? Often he didn’t. So I had to just gulp down.
I have been on the other side also. A friend would often offer to “help”, when I shared something I am struggling with. Often I just needed to vent out or think aloud. He would assume, with good intentions, since, I was upset, he needed to “rescue” me. So he would give advice. And then get upset with me, if I did not taken it. The result – I stopped sharing my issues with him. I din’t want to deal with the extra pressure of him getting upset at not taking his “advice”, that I did not ask for.
Sensing invitation is an Art of sensing the Timing. Listening to the Unsaid, beneath the said, and sometimes sensing what is Not said at all.
It is a sensing of the feedback of the intervention – verbally or energetically. Here are a few things I have learnt about how to make “the Intervention count”. And how to know what is NOT an invitation.
Sensing Invitation Instances
First instance: No and No
When someone just shares and is not asking for advice. And when given, keeps doing a yes but, or a no but. And you find yourself feeling drained in the process. Somehow it becomes your problem. It is NOT an invitation. It definitely time to STOP. – No Invitation.
Recently in a meeting of friends., One friend kept on giving a really well-meaning advice to another friend. And she unassertively kept hemming and hawing – this first friend increased the pressure in giving – when there was no readiness – and I had to gently nudge him to stop.
The second instance – No but Yes
When someone overtly says no, they don’t want advice and you still feel and urge to give it to them. Almost like an internal compulsion that you cannot stop. Then one has has to know it is Not an invitation from the other to you. It is an invitation from you to you. Meaning, you are saying it for yourself.
I have come across this phenomena in my coaching, and then in my post coaching reflection I have to note it down. And reflect what was going on. Who was I really giving that advice to. And why.
The Third instance: Yes but No.
Someone says tell me, but internally is saying NO. which means he/she is really not ready– the Timing is off. This when there is yes but and no but. One of my closest friend used to ask me for feedback – I would ask her if she was sure she wanted. She would sincerely say yes, but when I gave it – she would defend.
We often don’t know our own capacity to take in feedback. Even though we many want it. It is like going to the doctors for a checkup, some people know they need to but won’t because they are not sure if they can take in what the doctor has to say.
The Fourth Instance: No but yes
Sometimes verbally people will say no, but deep down they are screaming for an “intervention “or a push. This is the tricky one. Sometime back, I asked a friend to start learning singing from the same teacher I have been learning. He has a really nice voice, and I have been, for years nudging him to record poetry prose etc. He kept doing the yes but. And postponing. I still sensed his invitation. And at the third instance had to really put my foot down. And he did go, at that time he may have felt he is doing it for me, but quickly he found this was what he was waiting for all along – he just did not know that. He not only enjoys singing but often spontaneously breaks out into a song anytime . It is wonderful to see a dam being broken and the water gushing forth.
I don’t need to write about the Fifth Instance : Yes and yes.
“I’d learned enough from life’s experiences to understand that destiny’s interventions can sometimes be read as invitation for us to address and even surmount our biggest fears. It doesn’t take a great genius to recognize that when you are pushed by circumstance to do the one thing you have always most specifically loathed and feared, this can be, at the very least, an interesting growth opportunity.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert,
How do you know it, my friend asked me yesterday – the Invitation. And which is which.
The Art is in sensing the field, the space. One way is by extending your “energy field” to encompass the other. And so whenever there is a slight “movement” you will know it in your body.
It is like a spider web. It is wider than the boundary of the spiders body. But whenever something sits the entire web can feel the vibration. And the spider senses tingle
The other way to sense is, if when giving or holding back an “Advice” is there a charge. Meaning, if you feel “rejected or upset”, if someone does not take your advice or “listen to you”, then the Invitation is NOT clear.
If you give and someone does not take it – and you can drop it and move on – Then, it was about the other.
In a conversation while exploring these nuances, I got in touch with the exact instance when this became super apparent and important to me.
Almost 18 years ago, I was in panchgani, part of a 5 days program where I was volunteering with IofC. We finished for the day. And many of us were in the room with different music instruments. There are lot of songs that are part of these programs. I had my Djembe and there were guitars, piano cymbals flutes etc. We broke into a spontaneous jam and started to play we were about 8-9 of us. I got lost in my Djembe. It is after all a drum . My eyes were shut and I was flowing with the music inside and outside. We reached a crescendo and slowly started to ebb. After about 30 minutes or so, we slowly stopped. And I opened my eyes in the silence that often ensues such a moment. I looked around the group. In my mind replaying the music and now associating the faces with the instrument. My eyes suddenly fell on a French intern that we had, Etienne, who had a delicate flute in his hand. I was stuck by the fact that I could not, as hard as I tried ,to remember the strains of the flute.
I had a horrible feeling in my stomach, as I realized that my loud drums had drowned the gentle flute. I remember bursting into tears at this realization. I was so lost in my own music that, somebody else’ voice was not heard. Something very fundamental felt violated. And I made a promise to myself to always be on an alert for this.
I have not let my mind and heart forget this painful incident. After that I became super vigilant about the softer often unheard voices. My radar is often deliberately tuned to that.
Perhaps this sublet art of invitation is also an invitation from life, not just from people. In everyday living we have to make so many choices and decision, how do we know if it is the right decision the right timing – Invitation.
Perhaps, the delay the heartache the frustration when our actions do not yield the response we expect, is a function of our not being able to tune into the invitation and the timing.
Perhaps this is a “hack” in practicing interconnectedness of people and our invisible environment. Maybe when we are still, like the spider we can sense into the field and then know the right action, words from that place. Maybe this is the Invitation. To be still, vigilant and present.
The Journey
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice –
though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
“Mend my life!” – each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop. You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do the only thing you could do –
determined to save – the only life you could save.Mary Oliver
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