The Real Bill Ayling
Years ago in an internal staff review a valued colleague chose to share his assessment of me. The form encouraged contributors to keep their insights below 500 words and with a Twitter-esque brevity ten years ahead of it's time Mike simply wrote "Will the real Bill Ayling please stand up."
That phrase haunted me for years, and I'm sure I am not alone in having lost a lot of hours searching for that bit of content which defines myself...the real Bill Ayling. Is it the nice guy, the funny guy? Perhaps the problem solver, the patient listener, the healer? Or what about the liar, the cheat, the manipulator? The hero, the coward?
An objective stroll through my life story, at least through my version of it, suggests that I am, or have been, all of the above and none of the above. Like everybody else it seems I am a walking contradiction. I was, to Mike at least, an inspiration one minute and a disappointment the next. I know Mike was expressing a sentiment shared by a number of others both prior to and since his comment, a sense that there was something more to me than was being shown.
As frustrated as everybody else I decided this week to delve deep into my story in search of the 'real me'. The delving didn't last long as I found myself listening to an Adyashanti talk called the Stages of Awakening. In this piece he explains the mistake most people make in inquiry is they expect to find a piece of content called the "real me". At the centre of our being is awareness rather than a thing and this is something our mind struggles to compute. The mind defines self as the mind. The aim of much spiritual practice is to allow the mind to exhaust itself in this circular search for self.
Mike was obviously frustrated with the psychological or emotional content, the actions and behaviours which created his perception of 'Bill Ayling'. As pleasing or annoying as that perception was to him, it was still just his perception. The Bill Ayling which he sensed offered more was actually the essential nature of us all, that piece of us beyond the content, the stories, the perceptions. People are not what we 'think' they are. I am not Mike's perception of me, as Mike is not my perception of him.
My suspicion is that Mike recognised something of himself in me when I was, for whatever reason, courageous enough to be authentic and vulnerable in the moment. This is where real connection occurs. This is when one soul sees another rather than the usual exchange of one mind meeting another. Mike didn't really care how good or bad I was at my job he just wanted to see my authentic expression, and I believe this is what we crave in all our relationships, whatever their nature.
David Whyte explains this when he states "The soul doesn't make the distinction between the light and the dark. It doesn't care if you do something successfully or fail at it. It just wants to know you did it your way. Was it you who failed or were you trying to be someone else? If it was you, the soul was happy."
A happy soul invites authentic relationship.
So rather than wasting time trying to identify myself through an examination of content, a replaying of stories and circumstances my commitment has shifted back to authentic expression in the moment. This is unlikely to be consistent and will certainly not feel safe. I will fail often. There is no defining set of parameters to which I must adhere to and no predictable response to any given circumstance. Just what arises in the moment.
Scary stuff.
In the meantime, as David Whyte once again brilliantly observes, I will continue to "spend my life doing good things thinking they are bad and doing bad things thinking they are good", and hopefully remain present enough to have compassion for it all,
With LOVE
Bill