I’ve been asking people, for the past couple of weeks, why it’s important to them to open space for change. The answers have been eye-opening – and with the first space-opening call today, it seemed a good moment to try to respond myself.
Why’s it important to me to open space for change?
Because I’ve seen the difference it makes in readings – both in my own, and in other people’s. If I’m not open to the full reach and scope of a question, and to the possibilities for change that it might contain, then I will ask, and I might have a very good understanding of the answer with many exciting insights, but I won’t change. But when I am open – asking an authentic question, receiving the answer – then my way of being shifts and my whole experience follows.
Partly this is about being willing to spend time with the question and understand it on a deeper level – reach the ‘source of oracle consulting’ and find its momentum. And partly it’s about personal readiness to ask it. We’re only human: not all possibilities are thinkable for us, and so not all questions are askable. Part of the preparation for a reading might be just knowing what you are and aren’t ready to question.
In other words – what are you ready to know, and also what are you ready not to know? What kind of change are you ready to consider, and what kind of power?
As a working diviner, I sometimes talk with people who want to ask questions that seem to me quite radically disempowering – things like
‘Will I ever get married?’
The feeling behind their question is one of helplessness: that the experience of love and happiness comes from someone else, and there’s nothing whatsoever to be done about this except wait, and either hope or despair.
I’ve gently coached such people towards asking questions about themselves: what they draw into their lives, how they create, how they can change. But I’m asking them to make a big inner shift: it’s not easy, and not obvious how to do it.
Why’s it so important to open a space for change?
When I asked this question on the forum, Martin suggested it would be good to start by asking,
‘Why’s it so important for me not to open space for change?’
It’s startling how easy that question is for me to answer. Keeping things closed down creates the feeling that I’m in control and in charge: I plan things out, and things will work out as planned. Except that they generally don’t, of course. But if I want to keep living in that other world, the one where my plans and I are in charge, then I’d better keep my protection against the real world intact, and not open even a sliver of space for change. (I think this is the same mentality that leads some people to consult, fail to connect with the answer, and keep on asking.)
So asking powerfully is not the same as asking as if you were in control!
It really does mean asking openly: allowing as much of an answer as you can; being available to hear as much as you can. This can be clearly visible in the choice of question. Someone who asks,
‘Why do I keep messing up?’
isn’t available to hear that it’s not messed up, or that the mess-up is not her responsibility, or that the current mess isn’t part of a pattern. Someone who asks,
‘What do I need to understand about this?’
can probably hear much more, at least if she can really ask that question with her whole self.
As I was saying in the last podcast, this isn’t about taking away the passion, or anxiety, or whatever emotional drive is behind your question, and overwriting it with a nice, bland state of spaced-out calm. Even if that could be done (which I doubt), it’s not something I’d want to do. Some of the most powerful, far-reaching readings are those made in a moment of intense emotion. I know I’m not the only person who’s noticed this.
This is about being purely and completely in the moment of divination. It’s good to talk with an oracle in a space where the emotion, the question, and the intention behind the reading come together and are experienced to the full, and with complete openness to receive the answer.
Some people create focus on a reading through ritual, maybe by defining a particular physical place within which readings are cast and received. But whether or not it’s feasible to have a physical space, you can have an energetic space in your own attention: the inner equivalent of an altar or a sacred circle.
This doesn’t have to take long. (I had great fun yesterday writing a guide for Opening Space for Change participants to different ways of opening space, including a suggestion for each section that can be done in under 15 seconds.) It’s natural to ask swiftly and spontaneously: the question arises, there’s an inner ‘nudge’ and a sense that there’s more to be understood, and so you reach for the oracle. Taking a moment to open up is just a natural part of this.
And it’s important because the quality and power of attention you bring to the reading does make a difference to the answer. Divination isn’t a machine, where answers emerge just as fast as you can cram questions into the slot. (In fact if you think about what we’re really doing when we divine, what we’re really asking for and fully expecting to happen, it’s a breathtakingly, jaw-droppingly amazing moment.) It’s a conversation and a meeting – and like any other conversation, it works better when you’re present for it.
Some of this talk of Opening Space for Change has made me occasionally uneasy, and I notice it again here. You rightly point out the wide range of responses possible, and that deeper, more empowering change is only possible if we are prepared to receive it. I have no experience except my own, so I can only ask, “Are people actually capable of making themselves more open?” I suspect that there is an effect, but it is a small one, more akin to ceasing to speak than learning the skill of listening properly.
Don’t you think one of the neat things about all this is that the processes of change are themselves subject to a rhythm, an ebb and flow? I see it like walking. We walk by continually falling over in a disciplined way. At any point we need firm ground, a foot that can bear our whole weight. In those circumstances we can afford to let ourselves get out of balance; we don’t know quite how we are going to regain our posture but we desire to move forward and anticipate a field of possibilities for the position of our lifted foot.
This seems to me to be the proper order of things and it is perfectly correct to draw people’s attention to this so they can intelligently cooperate, making the most productive step. But some people (I suspect more so if they’re question is urgent enough that they are willing to pay) will want to be cooperative. When asked to open themselves to possibilities they haven’t thought of, they will try their best to be accommodating. I wonder how many of those are actually in the right point in their personal cycle and how many just manage to trip themselves up?
How many of your clients come to you asking about some situation (i.e. an event largely external to their psyche) and how many are asking because they feel “unglued” and sense (albeit unconsciously) that internal, liminal state which means a season for change is upon them? Am I right in thinking that the first group generally benefit less from “opening space for change” than the second?
If that is true then surely “opening a space for change” is doing nothing more than acknowledging the propensity for change that is already there. I suspect its not really something we can make happen, like a motor boat forcing its way through the waves; its something to cooperate with, like a sailing boat that cannot go everywhere it wants because it is limited by the need to work in harmony with wind and water. As you say, asking powerfully is not the same as asking as if you were in control.
You’re connecting to something important that I somehow didn’t manage to include in that post – that ‘coaching’ people towards a different question isn’t necessarily a good idea.
As you say, just because someone’s prepared to be ‘accommodating’ and go along with what I suggest doesn’t necessarily mean that’s a question they can or should ask. I learned this one some years ago – the key is to ‘listen through’ to the question the person really is asking. So yes, it’s a matter of finding what’s already there, and letting it through. The asking/listening-space can be opened, but not with a crowbar 😉 .
I think I touched on this in the call last night – the need to see what’s occupying the space, not necessarily to tidy it all up and put it all to rights, but just to know what’s there. Some things are unthinkable or unaskable, and that’s just how it is.
It’s not easy to divide people I work for into those confronted by externals and those who are inwardly ‘unglued’. The two seem interdependent, with the influence flowing both ways: usually there’s both the external trigger and the inner awareness that this is something significant.
This is fascinating… also midnight, though, so I’d better get back to tagging and uploading the call recording 🙂 .
Chris expressed well some of the reasons i have also felt some unease around this whole thing..
And did I manage to respond OK? Or have I left some concerns unanswered?
For me it’s pretty simple. I’ve sometimes asked questions I truly, completely meant, and sometimes asked questions I didn’t. Sometimes I’ve been willing to accept and change with the response, and sometimes I haven’t. I’ve noticed that when I’m present, available and honest in asking the question – not objective or calm, or particularly ‘spiritually evolved’, or even thinking about things particularly intelligently, just there – the readings are spectacularly clearer and more powerful.
Yes but being fully there isn’t something you can give to someone else is it, it just happens organically, within the person. Theres a difference between talking about it as an idea and marketing it as something to buy. Hard to get my head around buying access to my own inner space for change or even that someone else would be able to make that possible….theres something 44ish about that, sort of invasive even if gentle. I suppose thats the business of therapy of all kinds but perhaps what the nub of my slight unease is the notion of marketing ‘space for change’ almost as a product. Your product seems to be what the person already has and that no other can reasonably say they have access to so I felt a sense of unreality around the marketing . Of course thats an existing critique of all kinds of therapy…reifying a persons inner world, making a ‘product’ of the ‘healthy mind’ as if it were something tangible to buy. But theres another confusion..is this therapy of a kind ? If so doesn’t that open up new areas of responsibilty ? wouldn’t you have to deeply consider the kinds of relationships people make with you if its deeper inner work…but then again the kind of marketing done has made it seem very product like…as opposed to the intangible inner work it is..but if it was a product I’m still not really sure what it is and I’ve read all about it… fortunately for you I’m probably not your target client though lol
Chris managed to make certain points with out being wet blanketish about your endeavour so I was admiring him for that….
Anyway it seems to have been very successful so far so you can toss my comments into the wet blanket cupboard if you like..i won’t mind….
No, no – this is genuinely interesting – and not just from the marketing point of view, either. Besides, wet blankets should be brought out to air, not squished into cupboards. 😉
Chris wrote,
and you’re saying,
which is different, of course.
People are capable of making themselves more open. Not often in a dramatic, instant-makeover kind of way, but by tiny increments, definitely. I’ve done it myself, and seen other people do it.
No, this isn’t something I can give to someone else, but I can show them ways that make it easier to do it themselves. (So can Eliana – very different ways.) This is pretty normal for me – do people receive life-changing insights when I read for them? Well, yes, quite often. Can I make someone have a life-changing insight? Of course not.
So on the one hand I’m very clear about where my responsibility ends. (And that’s a much stickier question with readings than with anything else I do.) On the other hand, if there’s anything I can do to make it easier for readings to have their full effect, I’ll do it.
Hence we’re not marketing ‘space for change’ – obviously impossible – but help with opening it. Of course it’s already there, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easily accessible. I’m not selling water, I’m selling well-maintenance techniques.
Am I making sense yet?
Trojan’s comment reminded me of a book I read years ago about a westerner in a Zen monastery. And then Hilary made it even more explicit! The title was “Selling Water by the River“. For me that describes all this stuff, and is a kind of touchstone for the truth of it IMO. There is a sense in which something is wrong if we don’t emerge on the other side thinking, “Of course! Why couldn’t I see that before?”
Where trojan saw marketing, I saw preparation or focus. It is very easy to fritter an hour away, especially when the group is disparate and the task nebulous. So building anticipation publicly, rather than confining your preparation for the event to whatever you needed personally, I thought was both wise and helpful. The Facebook event page was a particularly good idea, I felt.
Of course, simply reminding people doesn’t hurt either. I remember from my evangelism days that people need typically four or five exposures to a message before they will consider it seriously: the reason for repeating advertisements on TV, perhaps? It’s just the way we work.
And yes, Hilary, you make sense to me at least. Thanks for pointing the way to more possibilities. I find particularly intriguing the idea that being “unglued” can trigger events that require a consultation. Perhaps this utilizes the same dynamic as those who teach luck? It sensitizes us to opportunities that otherwise would have remained unseen.
P.S. How did you get the quotes in your 10:29am post ? This blog edits differently to the others.
Yes Hilary you make sense, you always made sense, yet I think my view remains the same…but thats just my opinion
Thanks, Chris! I call the preparation ‘marketing’, but I see marketing as a process of sharing something useful in itself. Getting the conversation underway and becoming more aware of different perspectives ahead of time helps, too.
Trojan – so long as I make sense, I’m happy 😉
The blog comments here take some basic html, including ‘blockquote’ for quotes – also bold, italics and links.
It is a hard trick to make marketing sound sincere. But when a person wants to make money from their activities, which are sincere, it drives them — at least for a while — into the arms of other people who want to make money from the web who may have advice, whose activities may not be so sincere. And things that start sincere, can easily become insincere, if they have too much marketing applied to them.
I recognise all the techniques in use here. But I also sense the desparation. Marketing is necessarily desparate to attract buyers. This means finding a way to get people to buy, who are not that ‘keen’ to buy.
Probably it is best when one weans oneself off desparation tactics, because when sincere people try to use them they reak of inner conflict, and the only way to solve that is to find your own way to ‘sell without selling’. And that would be akin to wuwei, ‘doing without doing’.
Ironically, when you are yourself, and leave behind those who are all about creating an impression without much content (you’ve seen those stock formula sales letters, I’m sure), you feel happier about your ‘product’. Perhaps you even know what it is yourself for the first time. Until then, you are always standing in the shadow of the used car salesman, but you’re not selling used cars, you’re selling ‘knowing yourself’. To sell that well, you have to remove yourself from the inner conflict you yourself have. This, I expect, is something to do with Trojan’s reaction to your activities. And, I expect, you share this unconfortableness about certain aspects of your marketing. I am sure of this, because this is what comes across. Constantly.
Just my view from the sidelines. Also can be ignored. But I think there’s some truth in it.
Learning to sell to those who are embarrassed to see a sincere person trying too hard to sell to them is a great art. I think it is acquired when you no longer care too much. When you want your privacy and retirement, then they will be queuing round the block. At last, mastery!
It is good not to want. Better to have wanted. Then let time work it out.
You know, I saw I had a comment from ‘Marketing Guru’ and came over fully prepared for a post from an intelligent keyword-seeking spambot. It’s really nice to find a human being instead. Hi 🙂 .
Without going into a point-by-point discussion, I think our basic difference lies in our idea of what marketing is.
For you, it’s always and only ‘desperate to attract buyers’, and basically about getting people to buy when they don’t really want to. Such a thing can’t help but be insincere and generally unpleasant.
For me, marketing means a conversation, one in which I give a lot away, so people can get a good idea of what I’m offering and decide whether it would help them.
This can feel pretty awkward – my habit since school days has been to stay as inconspicuous as possible so as not to attract ridicule or hostility. So maybe if you notice signs of ‘inner conflict’, it’s that I haven’t yet quite broken the habit. That would be my best guess at an explanation, anyway.
Anyone who has a problem with that m___ word should see this article from Havi, which is brilliant.