Chains of learning

As we begin to grow and work through our own personal issues, often we connect with others who are going through a similar process. The more authentic we are with ourselves and with more people, the more we start to see patterns of learning between people coming forth.

Here are some examples of these "chains of learning":

1) Clusters of learning: I found that I was working on the issues of trust, self-protection, and intimacy, in all types of interpersonal relationships. I talked to a friend of mine, who also happens to be working on the same issue, within the context of a romantic relationship. Then I found another friend who is also working on the same thing. The number of people, whether two or forty, doesn't matter. You unofficially loosely form a cluster, associated ad-hoc around this certain issue. You share experiences, stories, humor, frustration, and rants about your shared issues.

2) Fields of learning: Sometimes, the more people you talk to, the more you find that it seems like EVERYONE is working on that issue. We see things as we are, so it may be a bias to say that thousands or millions of people are working on it at once. I guess we can judge by the number of self-help books sold on whatever given topic... In any case, it seems that there are some big issues that our country and/or the world at large is working on right now.

For example, one of the largest, all-encompassing communal issues seems to be a current crisis of faith. People are scared of the economy, their health, financial survival, running out of time, not enjoying life, not finding love. Many folks, out of choice or necessity, are working on building their faith in some of these key area. Faith doesn't have to be a religious concept; it can comes clothed in other more technical, concrete, third-dimensional forms, such as the idea of abundance and possibility in all things: money, wealth, time, health; or in large yet personal themes and values such as love, success, happiness.

3) Chains of learning: This involves a few people in a chain. The basic idea is that you have a specific behavior that you keep doing to someone else, and then you find that that behavior is also being done to you by one or more people. For me, I found that I tend to inflict really long, compulsive, sometimes even fearful, desperate or grasping emails on multiple people. I didn't know how to stop it (still don't!), as I felt bad, but kind of enjoyed it too.

Then I found the exact same thing was happening to me. People were sending me lots of emails, often lengthy as well, asking for help, feedback, etc., and I was getting overwhelmed. I saw what it was to be like at the receiving end of that; it gave me empathy and perspective, and I was able to start reformulating how I wanted to approach personal emails. This can be seen as a type of karma, in which whatever you put out into the Universe will come back to you for your learning. We dislike in others the things we hate about ourselves, or won't allow ourselves to be.

4) Pairs of learning: This seems to be the most intensely personal and in-your-face learning chain. It usually arises within the context of romantic relationships, marriages, and close friendships. You may realize that you both have issues around trust, anger, guardedness, space and privacy, respect, being given a chance. Not only do you both have the same issues (like in clusters of learning), you also work on them directly with each other. You trigger each other's buttons and enter into confrontation, whether together or separately, consciously or not. You each confront your own issues, question how you feel to a degree, and decide how willing you are to be stretched and tested and change in that area. "How do I really feel about this?" "Is this something worth fighting for?" "What does this mean to me?"

5) Groups of learning: This is where groups are gathered together for a certain purpose - i.e. producing goods one's workplace, or an organization organized around a spiritual mission. You have one ostensible, discernible mission, such as making great art. But in the process of fulfilling that mission, many other lessons might come forth from the group field due to methodological differences and values conflicts. There's the idea of communication styles; the place of hierarchy; diversity; organizational values; isolation and out-of-touch-ness on the part of the leaders; lack of motivation and effort from the rank-and-file workers; integrity; issues with feedback systems; overwork; praise and rewards; delegating.

These are just preliminary categories that I have noticed. I'm sure they overlap and change, and that you have a few patterns to add as well.

The funny thing about lessons is that you may not always realize, at the time of conflict, what the lesson is about. You can tell when a lesson is happening in your life, when a lot of questions, tension, emotion, or confusion comes up! You may not realize it consciously either. But you still learn something from each conflict episode- even if it's that you don't know what you learned. Conflict and confrontation give us a very special opportunity to change ourselves- thus literally changing others and the world in the process.