Meet John Welshons, author of One Soul, One Love, One Heart
By John Welshons
Q: What are 5 tips that can be put into immediate practice to begin healing difficult relationships?
A: Well, let’s start with the most difficult first. That would be to do whatever you can to let go of your expectation that the person you’re having difficulty with should be different than they are. Now, of course, that doesn’t mean tolerating abusive, dishonest, or violent behavior. It just means standing back from the situation and taking the perspective that this other being – no matter how difficult they seem – is just being who they are at the moment. They are just working through their own confusions and difficulties. And - if it’s not too uncomfortable a concept – you might try to accept that they are just the way God created them – with all their blemishes. And you are just the way God created you – with all of your blemishes. So don’t take the other person’s difficult personality personally.
The second is to resolve that you won’t participate in making the situation worse. That is to say, in most difficult relationships each person knows how to push the other’s emotional buttons. Each knows what irritates the other, and the two people have usually become enmeshed in a painful dance in which – rather than seeking healing – they are going toward making each other angry, and blaming each other for all the problems that exist. So you – personally - resolve to not make the situation worse by deciding to step back from emotionally charged situations, and making a commitment not to use profanity or accusatory language.
The third is to learn to actually – actively - listen to another human being. That is something few people understand in this culture. But you have to set ground rules for the communication and you both have to agree to the ground rules. Each, in turn, gets an opportunity to express themselves and be fully “heard” by the other – no interruptions, no corrections, no defensiveness – just an open-hearted attempt to hear and feel exactly what the world looks like and feels like to the other person. It’s really the cultivation of empathy - the ability to stand in someone else’s shoes, the ability to feel their pain. And empathy ultimately leads to compassion. Eventually, rather than asking “why is this person such a jerk?,” you begin asking, “Why is this person suffering so much? What is causing them to be mean, or unpleasant, or disconnected?” That is an incredibly important step, because the truth of the matter is, it is not natural for any human being to be insensitive or cruel. Insensitivity and cruelty have to be taught. Or, another way to look at is to say that a human being has to be taught not to be loving, kind and sensitive . . . because love, kindness, and sensitivity are aspects of our true nature – and everyone has them, even if those aspects of their being have been nearly extinguished by their upbringing, or cultural training.
The fourth is to share your feelings – your truth – in a manner that seeks to convey what you feel and why you feel it. In both of these interactions, it’s best to try to avoid phrases like “you always,” or “you never” . . . you know, accusatory statements. It’s better to say, “When you do so-and-so, it makes me feel . . .” whatever it makes you feel.
The fifth is to try to remember that love and peace, and joy are all within you – and they are always within you. You can’t lose them. You can temporarily lose your ability to experience them. And you can temporarily lose your awareness of how to find them. But they exist in a place deep within your awareness that can never be damaged or lost. It is sometimes called the soul, or Buddha nature, or Christ consciousness. There are a thousand names for that place. You just have to know how to find it. It is not something another person can give you or take away from you. It is the essence of who you are – your highest nature. The light of love is always within you just as the sun is always shining – even on dark, dreary, cloudy, stormy days – the sun is always shining at the center of our universe, and the light of love is always shining in the center of your being.
Q: Recently we have seen celebrities and political figures run amok in the manners department. Where do manners fit in with the practice of being mindful?
A: Well, the practice of being “mindful” suggests living most of your life in a state of meditation, or meditative awareness. It is an integral part of our quest for inner peace. And inner peace ultimately translates into outer peace. In fact, there is no way to argue your way to peace in relationships, and no way to fight your way into peace in the external environment. You know, insulting another human being, or acting in a way that diminishes their value is not generally a good way to heal a relationship, or to improve the world. As Gandhi said, you must be the change you’re looking to see in the world. Don’t be so busy telling everybody else how to act – just see to it that you are acting in a manner that is most healing to relationships and to the world.
Now that brings us to the situation in our culture. We have become incredibly disconnected and narcissistic. So many people in the culture have gotten the idea that the only way to be safe and happy is to be emotionally disconnected – to think, essentially, that the world revolves around “me,” that “I” am all that matters. Have you ever noticed, for instance, that when someone is going to cut you off in traffic, or in the grocery store, they won’t look in your eyes? Because if we really look in each other’s eyes, our whole game of disconnection is over. If we really look, we see another being just like us in another body. We get a glimpse of our soul - our eternal, unbreakable connection. So if we want to feel free to be rude and self-centered, we have to keep up our sense of disconnection. Otherwise, we just can’t do it.
It turns out that the practice of good manners is not just some uptight, outdated, Emily Post system of etiquette for girls who went to “finishing school.” If you really examine “good manners” they are practices aimed at cultivating the awareness that there is someone in the world beside “me,” and that the other people in the world have an equal right to be acknowledged, to be valued, to be given opportunities, to be respected. If you are endeavoring to create a meditative awareness in your life, practicing good manners will help you. Because meditation is simply about paying attention to what is happening in the moment. It is about connecting fully with your experience of life in this moment. And the same is true of manners. So if your experience of life in this moment includes someone who is waiting for the same parking space you want, you simply acknowledge that and move on to find another parking space. That kind of consideration and awareness of others not only enhances your moment-to-moment awareness, but it simultaneously connects you to other human beings in a way that becomes very nurturing and nourishing to your soul. When you practice good manners, suddenly you feel less alone in the world.
As a culture, unfortunately, we have become increasingly tolerant of rudeness. In fact, we have turned rudeness – and its eventual counterpart, violence – into entertainment. Rudeness and violence have become acceptable behavior because the news media, and the entertainment industry feed us a steady diet of it. It causes our youth to idolize and want to emulate some of the most self-absorbed people in the culture. The problem with that is that self-absorption can never lead to happiness. In fact, it leads in the opposite direction. Our cultural values are so askew that our children wind up worshipping and wanting to emulate some of the most unhappy people in the culture. Isn’t that bizarre?
The current situation in our government, in television journalism and in political commentary is really quite tragic. When conservatives and liberals demonize each other, and refuse to engage in meaningful, civil, rational dialogue, both sides just keep getting angrier and angrier, louder and more irrational, and less and less inclined to work together for the benefit of the country. There is little inclination to want to compromise, and come to a consensus because each side has decided that the other’s ideas are so repugnant and wrong that they shouldn’t even dialogue in a civil fashion. I read a survey about a year ago in which conservatives were asked to define liberals, and liberals were asked to define conservatives. The study showed that over eighty-five percent of the respondents on both sides used the word “evil” to characterized the other. Now when you start from that vantage point, where do you go in terms of working together for the common good?
Q: What are the 3 biggest roadblocks that get in the way of our ability to love others and how do we get around them?
A: Well, I’ve already mentioned the first, and that is having the sense that other people should be different than they are. It’s like saying, “if I were God, I would have created the world better than this!” But the highest spiritual truths have consistently stated that “it’s all perfect.” So, if “it’s all perfect,” how do I find the perfection in this person I find so annoying?
One of the suggestions I offer in One Soul, One Love, One Heart, is to learn to see everyone you meet as God in human form. Admittedly – some of the forms are mighty weird! But, you know, when Mother Teresa was asked how she was able to do the incredibly difficult work of caring for humanity’s poorest, sickest, and dying people, she said, “It’s easy. All day long I am with my Beloved. I am with Jesus in his ‘distressing disguises.’” Now that is a very high statement, because – from the spiritual point of view – every one of us is God in disguise. That’s why it is usually so difficult to harm someone – or take advantage of them – if you look in their eyes, because you get a glimpse of the Inner Light, the Divine Light, that exists in all of us. It exists in you, too. It’s the place where we are all One . . . and in that place you realize you don’t want to harm someone else because you’d be harming yourself.
The next roadblock is self-absorption. It’s thinking that the world revolves around “me,” and that the only people who matter are those who are in my life to make me happy. That causes a corresponding disconnection in which you want to divert your eyes away from anyone you don’t like, or anyone who is suffering, because the situation is just too big and too overwhelming. What if you noticed that a fellow human being is starving, while you are focused on buying a fancy new pair of shoes. You know, another of Gandhi’s most potent quotes was, “Before you take your next action, bring to mind the face of the poorest person you’ve ever seen, and ask if what you are about to do will be of any use to him or her.” You really want to live in love? Then that’s the kind of awareness you have to cultivate. Ultimately, you have to let go of the cultural model that happiness is something we can buy, or achieve in a new relationship. You have to realize that you were born with all the happiness you could ever want installed in you as standard equipment. You just have to learn where and how to find it. Recognize that it isn’t outside you. It’s in you. And – ironically - you can only get to it when you begin to give it away to others.
The third roadblock is fear – the fear that “I’m not enough,” or “this person won’t like me,” or “they may hurt me in some way.” The beauty of love is that it’s the only thing which – the more we give away – the more we have. Real love is given without expectation of reward. That is another incredibly challenging practice. And, unfortunately, because of our cultural training, many people hear that and think it means giving whatever to whoever until you’re depleted and there’s nothing left. Unfortunately, in nitty-gritty day to day relationships, this idea is often distorted to suggest that we become – essentially – an “enabler.” That’s not what it means. It means that you give love because life is just more fun when you live in love. And you can only have the benefit as long as you don’t decide how and what you want in return for your love. You give love just for the sake of giving, and living in love. What other people do with it – how they respond or don’t respond – is their problem. Just loving people doesn’t mean they will treat you well. And if they don’t, sometimes the most loving thing to do is to say “good-bye” . . . with love. I’ve actually gotten to the point that I feel compassion if I offer someone love and they turn it down. How sad, you know? I mean, what we all really want is to live in love. But if you are loving people with the hope that they will love you back, and therefore help you to get rid of your sense of unworthiness, or “un-lovability,” both you and the people you love are going to get exhausted, depleted, and frustrated, because you are loving conditionally, and that’s what causes you to burn-out.