In explaining the Busting Loose model, Robert Scheinfeld asserts that, if you choose to enter Phase 2 of the Human Game, your Expanded Self will take you on a tour and show you specific ways in which illusions were created that convinced you, an infinite being, that you were limited.
I felt sceptical when I first heard that claim. However, I recently had an Aha moment in which the structure of one of those illusions was revealed to me. Actually, it had been revealed to me earlier, when I had viewed it through a Phase 1 lens. What felt fascinating to me recently was to look at it again through a Phase 2 lens.
The insight involved the creation that I had called my father.
ONCE UPON A TIME
In the storyline, my dad had dyslexia, and experienced a lot of shame around that. His sense of limitation was locked in by his father who never went to any of the sports events in which he excelled but who only lambasted him for doing poorly in school.
When my parents married, my mom colluded with my dad to hide his dyslexia. My dad, who managed a cattle ranch and sugar cane and citrus plantation, worked outdoors, while my mom stayed indoors and did the administrative tasks. My mom must have done a good job of downplaying her role, presumably to protect my dad's ego. As I was growing up, I received the impression that the important work was what my dad did outdoors. I received the impression that the administrative work was secondary.
Another element of this story that I find interesting is my parents' secretiveness. My mom told me about my dad's dyslexia when I was nearly forty. It had been the proverbial elephant in our living room.
From a Phase 1 point of view, this was tragic. Even in the Phase 1 world, enough progress has been made with respect to learning disabilities that this sort of thing shouldn’t be an issue now. But, in my dad’s day, it created “suffering,” not only for him but for subsequent generations of our family.
AN INSIGHT
About ten years ago, I remembered an incident involving my dad and my brother, William, when he had been about seven and I’d been about ten. My dad sometimes used to take one or other of us kids with him when he visited the sugar cane fields and cattle stations on the plantation and ranch that he managed in Swaziland. To do this, he drove his Land Rover for miles, sometimes through rough bush.
One day, when we were sitting down to lunch, my mom said, "Claude, where's Billy?" My dad turned around and said, "I don't know. I had him with me this morning. Oh gosh, I must have forgotten him when I was out and about."
No one said any more about it. My parents were amazingly casual about us kids. Mind you, even Canadian friends of my age tell me that, when they were kids, they would disappear for hours in summer. As long as they were home for supper by six o’clock, their mothers didn't worry. Be that as it may, when he was forgotten on that huge farm, Billy faced a walk of many miles in order to get home.
I remember a tired looking Billy walking up the driveway in the late afternoon. I remember my mom looking up and casually remarking, "Oh, Billy, there you are." I don't remember anyone making a fuss. I don't remember my mom running to Billy with outstretched arms and exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, Billy, you're all right!"
When I recalled that incident about ten years ago, it seemed to me that it was connected to Billy's intelligence. By this time, I knew about my dad’s dyslexia and his deep sense of shame about it. I remembered that my dad seemed to have been threatened by clever people. I recalled his habit of saying things like, "Don't be such a Smart Aleck," and, "You're too smart for your own boots." I also recalled how quick witted Billy had been as a kid and what a sharp sense of humour he had had.
At the time that I had this insight in 1999, my husband, sons and I were living in Melbourne during my husband's two-and-a-half year work assignment in Australia. William had emigrated to Australia several years previously. I saw William nine times during my two-and-a-half year sojourn in Australia. Seven of those occasions were weekends during which I participated in a series of self-development workshops that he ran.
During an early morning walk in the forest, I said, "William, I think Dad tried to kill you. Not deliberately, of course. I'm sure that, at a conscious level, it was an accident. I think Dad used to say, metaphorically, 'Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is smartest of us all?' I think that one day the mirror replied, 'Billy is the smartest of you all.' I think that explains why Dad forgot you during his rounds on the farm."
William said that that indeed was the sense that he had. He said it was felt meaningful to him that another family member had recognised the dynamic and was acknowledging his reality.
A FOLLOW UP INSIGHT
Fast forward to May 2009, when I participated in a workshop called The Wall. It was run by a company called Excellence Seminars. Although it was what I would call a Phase 1 creation, I got tremendous value from it.
The agenda of The Wall is to assist the participant in identifying his or her driving needs. Armed with that information, the participant is equipped to identify his or her life purpose. The workshop is comprised of a number of exercises that help the participant to tease out those insights.
During The Wall it emerged that my driving needs were connection (with others and nature), understanding (in the sense of unraveling what made human beings and society tick), and recognition (for my accomplishments). One thing that mystified me, though, was why I had done so little to achieve recognition. If anything, I had gone out of my way to avoid it. I had married a man with a strong personality, and had lived in his shadow for 35 years. This did not jive with the hypothesis that driving needs are those needs that a person will fulfill no matter what.
On the last day of The Wall, I had an epiphany experience. I realised that the threat of death hadn't applied only to William, as I originally had thought. In one way or another, all four of us kids had received the message that it was life-threatening to be smart.
I recalled the period in August / September 2008 in which I had separated from my husband, invested in Pacific Gardens Cohousing Community in Nanaimo, and driven from Calgary to the British Columbia coast. I remembered the exhilaration I'd experienced as I'd driven westwards through the Rocky Mountains in gloriously sunny autumn weather.
But I also remembered the terror that I had felt. Yes, I had been afraid that I was taking financial risks during a period of my life in which it would be difficult to recover if my investments went sideways. But the fear of the potential economic consequences was not enough to explain the existential terror that I had felt as I had driven away from my old life in Calgary towards my new life in Nanaimo.
During The Wall, I realised that, in separating from my husband and creating a new life in which I would have an independent identity, with opportunities to shine, I had broken a taboo. A parallel example in mythology was Bluebeard's bride, who risked murder when she unlocked the door to the forbidden room in the castle.
No wonder I felt a level of terror that was disproportional to the risk I was taking when I moved to Vancouver Island. If you look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the drive to stay alive trumps the needs for achievement, respect, creativity, etc.
DOUBLE WHAMMY
Now, if you think that was a dandy of a Phase 1 set up, it was only half the story. While my dad felt threatened by intelligence, my mom despised stupidity. I remember her saying in a tone of contempt, "Oh, for goodness sake, stop being so stupid!"
Actually, come to think of it, that may have been another reason for my mom's colluding in hiding my dad's dyslexia from the world. She may not have wanted anyone to find out that my dad was "stupid." In fact, my dad was very far from stupid. He was brilliantly innovative in the arena of agriculture, and later went on to become a consummate statesman.
But, to return to my story, I recall my childhood as one in which I walked a fine line. I avoided being clever enough to annoy my dad, and simultaneously avoided being stupid enough to annoy my mom. Wow, even from a Phase 1 perspective, I had to have been pretty slick to manage that.
Still, when push came to shove, the threat from my dad felt greater than the threat from my mom. I wanted my mom's approval, to be sure. But, if she disapproved of me, all that would happen would be that she would despise me. When it came to my dad, however, the worst case scenario might be death. That seems far fetched in the cold light of day, but I'm relaying how I experienced life as a small child dealing with a bad tempered man who appeared to me to be a giant.
THE PLAYERS TODAY
William's training has some similarities with Robert Scheinfeld's Busting Loose model. I did not make the ultimate breakthrough when I studied under William in 1999. However, I believe the work I did back then prepared me to be receptive to the Busting Loose model when I encountered it in 2008.
I’m delighted for William that his book, The Magician’s Way, which already is the best selling metaphysical book in Australia, will be available from Amazon on October 1st, 2009.
What about my dad? Even from the Phase 1 point of view, I feel as if I have come to terms with his memory. At times he was angry. But he also had some wonderful qualities, and I loved him very much.
Now that I view my parents from a Phase 2 point of view, I marvel at their Oscar-worthy performances as they enacted the scripts my Expanded Self handed them. Boy oh boy, were they ever supportive in locking in the illusion of limitation and helping me to pull off my Phase 1 Miracle.
In the storyline, my mom still is alive. My Expanded Self continues to hand her some "interesting" scripts from time to time. But she increasingly is playing that other role that our creations fulfill, which is to provide us with opportunities for fun in the Earth Amusement Park. There are occasions now on which I experience her as a delightful creation.
I deeply appreciate the creations called my parents. I also appreciate my Expanded Self, who created (and still is creating) simulations that make the Star Trek holodeck look amateurish by comparison.
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