Rattling Your Soul Cages  Page Two-- by Virginia Lee
An Interview with John Welwood
Reprinted with kind permission from Common Ground.

What works for one person may only make another feel worse. Instead, my operative principle is to start where you are and learn how to be present with the difficulties that area already there, what feelings you're not able to open up to. As you begin to inquire about what lies underneath these obstacles, certain resources become available to you. That's the catalyst for growth and what allows you to be more present in a relationship. These inner resources are like rooms in a magnificent palace, whose doors have finally been unlocked.

I'm probably more akin to Thomas Moore than the others you mentioned. I share Thomas Moore's sense that there's no real fix-it approach, and that every difficulty is an opportunity to look within. I think that my definition if soul is a little different than his, which is more Jungian and has to do with the imagination. My view has a more eastern flavor. I see soul as a window to the divine and relationship as a path to recovering our essential nature.

CG: Do believe in karma or destiny?

JW: I try and stay close to my own experience when it comes to my belief system. Although karma is an interesting idea, I don't really have an experience of what that means. When you start talking about past lives, you are usually talking about something you believe. But I can really only talk about this life. I do see how karma operates in this life; it's the principle of cause and effect. Everything that's happened to you in the past does affect who you are and what you do in the present. The patterns in our relationships were laid down in early childhood; our relationships with our parents were our first relationships. All the blocks and fears were laid down like a template. And that's the karma that you bring into your relationships that needs to be burned up.

CG: Do you advocate any particular lifestyle?

JW: Once again, I avoid the trap where people try and live up to something they think they should be, whether it means being vegetarian or celibate. I am immediately suspect and any teacher or writer who says "Here's what you should do" or "Here's how you should live." They just become the next guru on the block. I don't want to be a part of that. I just try and help people relate to their own experience of life. The seeds of our wisdom, the answers about where we need to go in life are all contained in our experience.

CG: How can an obstacle become an opportunity?

JW: When a you are in a fight with your partner about something, there's usually a fight going on inside you that has triggered an old identity, an old pattern, an old experience. The bottom line is that you can't listen to someone else until you can listen to yourself. So the challenge - or gift- is the chance to go within and find out what's really going on. For example, a couple is fighting about doing chores around the house. She asks him to help around the house and he resists, because he feels like she's telling him what to do. He feels like a child whose mother is trying to control his freedom. That's the real issue - not who really takes out the garbage. If he can understand what is causing his resistance and she can understand why he responds that way, they can have a different kind of conversation about the chores. Maybe she can tell him how she feels abandoned when she has to do the chores herself. Then they can negotiate and find a satisfying resolution.

Another typical scenario is when one person is jealous of a partner whose role is to be the life of the party. Remember that we tend to project our own inner issues by criticizing the same in another person. So, when someone's jealous, what's really getting triggered is their own insecurity, their own lack of self-worth. The real message is: I have less value than others. This is the inner resource that's missing. So, it becomes an opportunity for the jealous person to recover a sense of value, instead of trying to change the behavior of the other person. If the jealous person can say, "When you flirt with someone else, I feel my own lack of value," then they're telling the truth. If their partner really cares, they'll hear that truth and can respond with empathy. Then there can be new understanding and greater sensitivity.

Ironically, the one who's the life of the party may really be masking the same insecurity. Perhaps the only way they feel worthwhile is to be outgoing. When you get right down to it, both are expressing a lack of self-worth. Although they're at opposite ends of the behavior spectrum, they are often working on the same issue.

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