A lot of our discussion tonight centered on the roles that we have taken, or choose to take, in our lives (Questions 5 and 6). We started by noting that some people put on a facade of being "nice" when in fact they have underlying anger or resentment beneath the surface. That means that when they are being nice, they are not being real, and that can cause the hair on the back of our necks to bristle. What we like is for people not to be mean, but rather to be balanced in dealing with the anger that is inside of them; not to simply hide it, but to deal with it in a way that helps us trust that what we see is what is really inside them at some real level.
Towards the end of the discussion we delved into how the work we have chosen has been a role that may have either limited us (by taking time and energy that we wish we could put into other things) or freed us (by providing finances that allow us to do what we really want).
One person shared that he had spent a lot of his life prioritizing his time over money, and that since his brother died he now thinks that maybe he needs to be more "responsible" and start prioritizing money more. Someone else shared that his younger brother had been focused on his high-stress, high-paying job, and just last week had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. For him, that experience made him put less emphasis on money and more on the quality of his time.
I was especially impressed that even though both participants recognized that they were essentially coming from opposite points of view, they could understand what the other person felt and appreciated what they had to say. That's the kind of emotionally-healthy community that we try to build here at the Center, and my heart felt warm when I saw it being lived and put into practice.
(This video was reviewed by Bob McGarey)
Feel free to come and share your own personal insights sometime; the Saturday Night Video and Discussions here in Austin, Texas are a lot of fun and fascinating. (They're free, too.) Here are the questions the group came up with, based on the personal growth themes in the movie: