So Selma and I are at Barbara Sher‘s retreat in North Carolina.

It’s about biggifying your work through writing and speaking, and it’s fabulous because Barbara is even more Barbara in person than you think she’s going to be.

Man. That is one smart, loony, insightful, creative, magnetic lady. With sharp, sharp eyes and a dirty, dirty mouth.

And I love her.

If I’m that cool when I’m seventy-freaking-four, the world will be a good place. She’s hot.

And this thing happened that I really need to talk about with you guys.

We did a very interesting series of exercises yesterday.

The first part involved embodying someone who totally disagrees with our message in a loud, obnoxious way.

Channeling Dr. Laura, as Barbara so perfectly put it.

So we each stood up in turn, on camera, and gave a shout-ey fist-shaking rant — a rant about why anyone who teaches the stuff we’re trying to put out into the world is a moron, a reckless maniac and a selfish bastard who should be ashamed to be alive.

Fun.

You really got to feel the essence of what Barbara calls the anti-message. And it just makes what you know that much more clear and powerful. Good schtuff.

And then?

The second part was an opportunity to refute everything your evil preachy Anti-You has said.

To talk back to those arguments. To speak your truth and all that stuff.

Each person gets up (again, on camera) and imagines that the room is filled with his or her people. Well, the people who need their specific message the most.

Except that — oh no! — your people have been listening to the bitchy, authoritative doomsayers and assorted loud-mouthed “experts” who have been convincing them how wrong they are to want whatever it is they want.

And now your people need you to show up so you can say it like it is and remind them why it’s okay to be themselves.

Powerful, right?

But that’s when it all went weird. For me, at least.

So I’m thinking, oh this will be brilliant.

This is where we get to speak to our people and meet their pain.

To be the antidote. To show them what is false about this anti-message and to remind them about what they really need.

To turn it around so that their people get to be met where they are again. You know, bring the compassion back. The empathy. The love.

Awesome.

And I know people have different approaches, blah blah blah, so of course I figured that my version would be probably include more of a hippie-ass thing than most people’s.

I mean, my whole thing is about meeting the pain first, so yes, I’d probably end up acknowledging the stuck before getting around to talking about why not to listen to the dream-killers.

Fine.

But I was not even slightly prepared for what actually happened when it came time for us to speak to the people — our people — who have just gone through some really crappy brainwashing.

What actually happened.

People did show up with their messages, yes — with power and conviction.

But then somehow they stayed in the role of the yelling, accusatory, finger-wagging authority figure.

Once they stood up to talk to their people, they dished out the same kind of abuse they’d delivered in the Dr. Laura role — just with the message flipped around.

So, example:

Instead of the (fake) message being “you’re wrong and your dreams should curl up and die”, the (real) message became “you’re wrong and the people who try to kill your dreams should curl up and die”.

Instead of the message being “it’s not okay to be yourself, who do you think you are, anyway”, the message became “it’s not okay to not trust yourself and how dare you listen to anyone who says otherwise”.

When people in the audience (still in character) raised tentative questions, fears and what-ifs, they were pushed aside with sarcasm and maybe even derision.

It was as if taking on a Dr. Laura persona automatically shut off all possibilities except for “I’m right and you’re wrong“. Like, the sweetest people in the world were totally yelling at their people.

And I got scared and ran away.

Here’s my thought on this.

I absolutely get why we have this desire to just shake someone until they get it. To “spit the truth in their face” as we say in Hebrew.

It makes sense. You have a message. You want to get it to the people who need it before they lose themselves.

Double especially when you’ve seen the people you want to help most — your people — be abused like that by someone whose advice is not only not helping, but actively harming them.

That is a scary, sucky, frustrating feeling (I have it too) — you just want to set things straight. Completely legitimate.

And at the same time, I really, truly believe that it’s up to us to meet them where they are — where they are now.

Think about what someone goes through when, instead of meeting their pain, we push it aside.

We negate their experience.

And if we’ve done that, the essence of our smartnesses is lost in the rant.

It’s not helpful at all.

Not. Effective. Trust me.

You don’t actually get anywhere by being mean to your Right People. Well, that’s not completely true.

You do if you’re a dominatrix. You do if your Right People happen to love being ranted at. That could totally be a great fit. And if that’s the case, awesome. Yell away.

But let’s assume for now that your Right People are in pain because of where they are right now, and you’re screaming at them for not doing the thing you want them to do that will resolve that pain.

As far as I can tell, that’s not giving them a much different experience than the one they got from the people who burdened them with abusive advice to begin with — or that they’re getting from themselves.

I really, truly believe this:

Our various Right People aren’t there to be yelled at and chastised.*

*Unless, again, they’re consenting adults and they’ve told you that this is what they really want — and you’re okay giving it.

Bottom line: there’s really nothing wrong with respecting the pain of the person who happens to be in it.

Your Right People are the ones you want to help.

Obviously your dream, whatever it is, is born of truly wanting to help people who have or have had your pain.

So your Right people are the ones who share that pain. They’re the ones who need your ways of interacting with that pain and moving through it.

You’re not really going to make them see the light by yelling at them for having pain.

But even if that worked? Even if that were the most effective approach in the entire world? It still makes you look a lot like the abuser. Even when you’re totally not.

The whole point of giving the world what we know is that we get to be the ones who meet their pain and honor their pain.

It’s pretty freaking hard to give people ways to recover and heal from that pain if you’re inflicting more of it by insisting that they’re stupid for not understanding that you’re right.

Finding the way to your Right People.

So yeah. The key thing about meeting people where you are is (annoyingly!) … meeting yourself where you are.

So … instead of talking about that, I’m just going to do it.

This is me, meeting myself where I am.

I feel tired. That’s where I am. Permission to feel tired.

I feel disoriented because I’m a huge introvert, and spending three days in a row with people and practically no alone time is tearing me apart. That’s where I am. Permission to feel disoriented.

I feel frustrated and helpless when I see people yelling at their supposed Right People (even in an exercise) when those people express their pain, because I need my environment to reflect the things that are important to me. Like support, kindness, patience.

I feel anxious when I see some of the people I’m retreating with yelling at their Right People because they (my fellow Retreaters) have such amazing, loving things to give to the world and totally deserve to be all biggified.

And I feel concerned because I suspect that it’s not going to work. Maybe because the kind of people who need their messages most aren’t going to be open to a violent message (even if it’s about something cuddly like self-love or whatever).

Anyway. That’s where I am. Permission to feel frustrated, helpless, anxious, concerned.

Permission to not want to feel frustrated, helpless, anxious, concerned.

Permission to take my time to work through this, to find out what I need, to ask for what I need, to take it to the Whine Bar.

And to practice cursing like a sailor because I want to be like Barbara when I grow up. Only me. And with a duck.