Thursday
6-28-07
Your impact on the world
Posted by Frank DeMarco under Stray Thoughts | Tags:
[5] Comments
Some while ago I had this exchange with my friend John King that seems worth passing along, because it applies not just to him and me, but to us all.
It started with him quoting something I said in a blog:
> What was true for him is true for us. We don’t necessarily know what we are here to do. Maybe the work of someone you have helped will become so important to the world that your help will be seen as the most important thing you did in your life. It’s a funny thought, for if true, probably you will never know it.
He said:
Sometimes we get ourselves positioned in life so we can Know it…
For example for several years I found myself doing what could best be described as motivation speeches to small groups of people…
At times I was so sure I was being so profound and deep that I was likely healing everyone in the room.. :=)
I smile but at the time even though I would never have admitted it that is exactly how I felt…
After some time passed – perhaps a few years – some person would approach me after I finished giving a talk and thank me for something I said at another talk I’d given anywhere from a few months to a few years previously…
Often they’d remember the exact words or phrase I used that helped them so much And INVARIABLY I wouldn’t even remember what the hell he or she was talking about that I had been talking about….:=)
What was so earth shaking to them seemed completely “unprofound” to me – nothing I would ever have felt could ever have been even remotely important…and here they are going on and on about it to me…!!!
And all the things spilling out of my mouth that I thought so important..? Damn Frank, they never ever mentioned one of those times in all the years I did the public speaking…! :=)
At first these extraordinarily revealing events used to slightly demoralize me but over time I learned to take in stride and finally to see the wonderful irony in it and appreciate it for what it was which to me was proof positive that what I usually thought AKA believed about situations weren’t, it seemed, really all that accurate… :=)
John…
I replied:
Actually John, it doesn’t surprise me at all. The same thing happens to me. Well, not quite.
It used to be, I would say something that came straight into my consciousness and sometimes I could hear it go clunk as the other person heard it. Other times, it would be as you said, someone would later tell me that I had said something that I could hardly remember saying, or could not remember at all saying, and it had a huge impact upon them.
As I have come to better distinguish between what is coming from downstairs and what seems to be coming through me from upstairs, I have been less surprised in that way. I often now know that something I am saying is going to make an impact.
In either case, it stands to reason — and stands to experience — that what comes from our downstairs ego-bounded mind (knowing what it can know of this time and this place, only) is not going to have the impact that we expected to have, because we are such poor calculators, so to speak. I would bet that you are finding that as you speak more from your intuitive certainties, the impact you have on others is greatly magnified.
I have never thought of having impact, though the experiences that you mention above resonate with me as well. I am often told about how I “changed” someone and I am confronted with the dumbfounding question of “What?” The gist of the long discussion that normally ensues always ends with the same kind of revelation: That I live by my own set of beliefs, which encompasses all things, and that, as such, my actions speak volumes without my ever having said a word. I am always blown away.
This brings up another interesting point. I am often discovering that someone — for no truly explainable reason I have to offer — will suddenly begin relaying personal information to me and I find myself offering information of which I am totally unaware. I hear the words coming out of my mouth, but it is as though I am somewhere inside my head(?) listening the words and not understanding from where they are coming. Eventually, there is a sort of “that’s done” and its as though everything is just back to normal — whatever that is!
You say, “I find myself offering information of which I am totally unaware” — and boy is THAT a familiar experience! In fact, it deserves an essay and perhaps I shall write it. The short version is that when that’s happening, we are being used by Upstairs to deliver a message to someone else that the other person wouldn’t pay enough attention to if it were “merely” his or her inner voice saying so. I am beginning to think that this happens MUCH more frequently than we are commonly aware.
I agree. What is funny, at least to some, is the odd expression on my face when I regain my senses so to speak. Based on what I have been told by others, my demeanor changes, my voice levels out and the words spoken taken on a depth. It becomes a complete polar opposite to my quick wit that I think those listening must be captivated by the stark contrast. As I make small steps forward, I can only imagine where it will take me.
Explain to me why you say “upstairs” and “downstairs”. Is it a distinction between good and evil or what is it?
Sherry
Years ago in my book Muddy Tracks I distinguished between ordinary perceptions, ordinary life, ordinary consciousness (Downstairs, I called it) and information, perceptions, consciousness from another part of me outside of time and space (Upstairs). It’s just a shorthand expression with no connotations of Upstairs being good and Downstairs being evil.