The most difficult game of Volleyball ever and The lessons it taught me

The Power of Playing a different game

We are in the middle of a global pandemic, a crucial US election, Brexit, increasing national disasters from climate change, and heading into who knows what in terms of the economic outlook. So why do I feel surprisingly optimistic. 

I have the privilege of living with teenagers. They are fiery and passionate and so beautifully alive. I go to the supermarket and chat to complete strangers. (I always wonder about that, why is a person strange, just because I don't know them yet?) I have just taken part in an Embodiment conference with thousands of speakers from all over the world, and hundreds of thousands people logging in to learn.

So how is this possible? How is it that there seems to be two realities and why does it matter?

Two Realities

Take a moment to notice what happened when I said two realities? Where did you mind go? Who is your - them and us? Democrat Vs republican? Local Vs Foreign? Racists Vs Yellow Bellied Liberal? Christian Vs Muslim? People working on themselves or not? Blue Eyes Vs Brown Eyes?

Many years ago I had the privilege of getting involved in a game, where young people (including my young people) were divided into two teams based on their eye colour. One team was given all the advantages, helped win a game of volleyball, given nicer snacks, not asked to tidy up. The results were exactly as you would expect. Some of the privileged team chanted, believing they were actually better, some of the privileged team cried or were sad because it wasn't fair on the other team, and most just followed along, being grateful they were in the ‘better’ eyes. Meanwhile, on the other team - some shouted that it wasn't fair, some cried because it wasn't fair, and most just got on with it accepting the unfair situation.

But then it all changed. The rules suddenly switched. The two teams were swapped. The  kids with the privileges lost everything and the kids with no privileges suddenly got everything. What do you think happened? Obviously knowing what it was like to have been on the ‘other’ side the kids shared, and all became friends, and they lived happily ever after …. Not at all. To my shock and horror, it was exactly the same. The kids that had been most vocal against the injustice were now the most vocal, flaunting their trump, and then kids that were upset were still upset, and most of the kids in the middle, didn't really understand, felt something amiss but they didn't know what, and so ..  just continued on, stressed, confused and unsettled.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. And one of the most shocking. I can not verbalize the emotions I went through watching my children, watching all of these beautiful children as they played the game. 

Leaving the game, and finding your own path

But what did I find most starry about the whole thing? Right beside the volleyball court where the rigged game was being played was a playground with swings and slides and a sand pit. There was no fence, no barrier to the playground, everyone could see it, all anyone had to do was walk off the court and walk over to the playground. Some kids did walk off the court, but not to the playground. They simply sat or stood on the sidelines crying or shouting or just lying defeated in the grass. One child left the court and wandered over to the playground. In Fact, to tell the truth, until that child wandered over, I hadn't even noticed it was there. I was so involved in watching the volleyball game, my heart breaking. Once he was in the playground a second and third child joined him. They played together, oblivious of their arbitrary difference in eye colour that everyone was shouting about. There was no external reason for the children to stay playing blue eyes brown eyes volleyball, nothing externally stopping them from walking off the court and playing a different game. And yet they stayed.

So here is my question, Where in your life are you playing volleyball? When you argue with your partner how do you act? Why do you feel the need to win? Do you get upset by what your boss says? What do you feel or think while watching the news? Are you noticing what is different? Our minds have been pre programmed for survival. And somewhere along the way we have been programmed with the belief that there is not enough, and so we are in competition. In truth we can only survive together. If the pandemic has shown us anything, it is that it's pretty lonely to be alone, and we need each other not just to grow our food, and offer goods and services, but also to feed our soul. So once we know we need connection, then we get to challenge the stronger paradigm, the deeper programming, the belief that there is not enough. If there is not enough, then we need to take and hoard power, money and resources. If there is not enough / shortage we need to stop others getting ‘stuff’, in case there is not enough left for us. Remember the toilet roll hoarding at the start of the pandemic. I was so very proud to be Irish then. We acted, generally, from a place of connection, and care. We generally took only what we needed, and left the rest for other people. 

We get to choose

I'm inviting you to notice during your day, in your private thoughts, what is the underlying belief? What game are you playing? Are you afraid, thinking there is not enough? I've been working on this for over 20 years, and still every day, I am surprised when I find another instinctive reaction or action, which when I look, comes from the paradigm of not enough. (We need a second lifetime to look at why we assume not enough means we are not good enough to get the limited resource :() Because of this unconscious belief, have you stayed on the volleyball court playing Blue eyes Green eyes? We are no longer powerless children. We can engage our conscious mind to reject that paradigm, pick ourselves up and walk off the volleyball court, over to the playground, with lots and lots of swings, slides and a sand pit. We don't need to hoard toilet roll, or win every argument, or be afraid. We get to choose. In each moment we choose.