The conversation that has been brought forth into the collective awareness by Nanine McCool, Tony Robbins, MeToo and Tarana Burke has been pinging my core. I see it as a phenomenal event that has allowed tension and separation to emerge and create an opening into a new dimension where the opportunity for real change exists. A new space has been opened, but has not been acknowledged. The media statements are being posted in the arena and all of our attention focused on what is being posted is what prevents us from noticing the arena has expanded.
What I observed in the *video* demonstrates how we communicate toward each other, consider only from our own position and point of view, and brush right past the other’s thoughts to get back to our own. On the inside, we are hoping to be heard, recognized and understood. On the outside, there is some sense of demonstration that we must represent and throw down.
What happened here is exactly what's happening in the micro and the macro:
Both just want to be heard.
Each one is not listening to the other.
What follows is my humbling attempt to learn more about how Nanine, Tony, Tarana and MeToo are affecting me and what I can do.
Dear Nanine McCool, Tarana Burke and Tony Robbins,
I invite you all to come to St. Paul, MN to join me and take all the time in the world to have the real conversation that began to emerge in March. Literally, “middle ground,” seems worthy and wonderful for a meeting place; plus, the snow is finally gone here. Who am I? I’m still learning a lot about who I am and I think it will always be this way, but one thing that I have been learning is that I am more of an everyone than a someone or a no one.
I want to share with you what I experienced and am considering after observing some of the videos, articles and comments.
I found myself feeling sad and filled with a great urgency.
I felt small within the expansive vision of opportunity that I could see had been opened.
I felt desperate and far away from these people whom I do not know, but whom I care about and who are causing each other, themselves and countless others pain and distraction from purpose.
I know with certainty that if I could sit with them, we could show the world what it is to change and how it is a one-to-one process and practice, beginning with self.
It feels embarrassing to me that I feel these things so profoundly that I am losing my inhibition, but this is what happens when the message and vision of what we see is greater than ourselves and we understand it belongs to every one and every thing. Those are not typos. Those are carefully selected and written words.
You are every, you are one, you are every thing.
And, when you know what this means and you experience yourself in this way, you will know your part and your whole; and you will be able to recognize the same in others and all things.
There are many given truths at any given time. All the time.
There is Truth in Understanding and Understanding in the Truth.
At best, we are whole and complementary.
Now, let’s have a conversation.
For real, #alltheloveandnoexcuses
Join me in conversation and we will practice what this means in real life. I am here, so I’ll start by sharing what I am noticing and experiencing.
There is an opportunity to open up the etheric, larger conversation about what’s happening.
The urgency that I feel is that we cannot let this opportunity pass.
Especially, because people who are leaders are involved. Leaders who have this public opportunity to demonstrate change in the way that is aligned with their purpose and their mission, and will have massive impact now and in the future.
Full disclosure, I have attended Business Mastery with Tony Robbins and am inspired by his work.
I am a woman. I recognize, support and am inspired by the positive impact and work of MeToo.
I am a multi-dimensional being. I recognize the impact of my thoughts, sound and receptivity.
All this with my whole self. Imperfect as I am perfect.
Below, is what I wrote the evening I first saw the video as I was trying to understand the interaction and the reactions to the interaction.
I think that Tony should consider inviting Nanine McCool to sit down and talk through this with playback from the event on-screen.
This is something that Tony can do. He can listen to her and hear her in the way she needs to be listened to and heard.
In a sense it would be like Tony Robbins getting Tony Robbins’d.
And, the conversation with Nanine and Tony should go on as long as it needs to go until they work it out, because this is the type of thing people are not doing in real life and why everyone’s energy is focused on their own pain and suffering. We are all hurting, not just from our own experiences, but also from witnessing the experiences of others.
It is interesting to try and understand what Tony was trying to point out and why, because it did challenge my vision and understanding of him; which, in turn seemed to challenge my sense of myself and my experience. After much mental and emotional processing, I think I do understand what he was getting at and I do feel it is a very important part of the conversation that must be brought into our realm of awareness with more clarity.
We think we are making a new kind of history right now. From one dimension, we most certainly are, but from another dimension it looks like we are headed in the same old side-to-side tug of war. We’ve been here before and we are on our way back to this very place, with another population of precious, human lives — it is worthy of noting that this is something I’d like to elaborate more about in a face-to-face conversation to explain — please do not waste any time or energy imagining what I might be saying. YES, the pain and suffering is real and matters; YES, people need to be accountable; YES, people need to be heard; YES people need support and healing — I believe that Tony is whole-heartedly saying YES to all of this and more.
What I was able to take into consideration is that his point touches on the idea that the MeToo movement is a part or perhaps the start of a multi-dimensional healing process and this language and perspective is not from an intention to minimize any person or any part of the experience. In fact, it is actually acknowledging the depth and expansiveness of the process and experience. There is so much more that goes into the healing process and when a person’s energy and emotion is being directed at anything outside themselves (including positive support like MeToo), it eventually becomes a distraction and can delay the individual healing process. This is not to diminish the significance or importance of recognition, support, awareness and accountability. Rather, it is a wide-angle view of the journey that acknowledges how much one must go through to heal, as well as how much recognition one will feel for themselves when they do this excruciatingly beautiful work. It is huge. Eventually, the focused and more expanded views come together within, creating wholeness in a single point. Two points make a line. As we emerge. Connection emerges. We are making a lot of points. We are struggling to do the work of allowing the lines of connection to emerge.
This is why this conversation matters so much.
The beliefs, feelings and words that materialize during our time can live forever.
In the context of UPW or any TR event, Tony is always pushing people to look at more facets and possibilities of what else is really happening and what’s really going to help someone realize their full potential. To recognize one’s full potential is a part of the process of breaking through the pain and hurt to move toward healing and living one’s best life. Out of context and even in context, this can look and feel harsh and authoritative. If you look at it another way, you might see that the approach is giving a person the chance to mirror his energy and approach to connect with the strong person inside them who wants to live in full expression and doesn't let anyone or anything diminish their sense of self and worthiness.
We live in a world where people are desperate for relief, recognition and healing. MeToo sees this. Tony sees this. Everyone sees this. We all see it differently. Sometimes we see it the same, but not always at the same points in time. Tony is seeing things from a different point and he ought to have considered the choice of taking the time to explain more about this. Although, I see why he did not. What he does is beyond the realm of healing. I think that one of the major challenges with his interaction with Nanine McCool is that MeToo survivors are early in the healing process and you can’t really only partially recognize this or push through it too quickly or bypass it. Tony knows this, but he says a lot of truths before people are ready because he knows it might help them in the future and he’s not talking to the victim, he’s talking to the infinite you. Your infinite self can understand anything. Even the story about his rich friend. Is the powerful, rich man justified or to be pardoned for making a weak and discriminatory business decision for his company, because he questions his own ability to interact respectfully and professionally with an attractive woman? Is the point that discrimination and inequality will continue because of fear? It’s a tricky conversation, but I am curious if the point was to share information about what’s happening now to point out that in some cases we’re reverting to pre-women’s movement behavior. It’s not right, but it is a part of reality and we cannot ignore that if we really want change for women and men, girls and boys. In my vision, we want compassion, love and equality for all humans, all genders and races.
At this point, I do want to recognize that all of this is me trying to make sense of my own world. I have taken the time and consideration to imagine what Tony was not fully aware of or able to explain in the moment or even in hindsight, because of the dissonance and sadness I was experiencing when I listened with my whole self.
When I listened with my whole self, the unified message is this:
Men do not know how to communicate with women.
Verbally, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually or physically.
If we’re really honest, we’d recognize this as:
The genders do not know how to communicate with each other.
In essence, we ought to begin to know what we’re really dealing with is:
The humans do not know how to communicate with each other.
We are stuck in the deep grooves of these patterns together. We have not quite awakened to the idea that we are all attempting to learn something new and it’s going to take time, getting it wrong and a lot of compassion, forgiveness and practice to embody the change we really want to see. We also need to have a shared vision and this is part of the work that we must begin together, now.
It all comes back to listening.
We are not listening. We don’t really even know how to truly listen.
To ourselves. To others.
When you find yourself truly listening, you will know the difference.
#alltheloveandnoexcuses is what it feels like to me.
In my experience, it feels like I don’t know what I’m going to say next.
I have curiosity about what the other person is saying, how they’re feeling and where they are coming from.
I want to know what they truly mean and if I am truly understanding them.
I do the practice of seeing and listening past my own vision, past my own understanding of who they are to me and past my own meanings of the words they’re saying to me.
I do the practice of letting them be who they believe themselves to be and I do the practice of supporting them without worrying or judging.
I find joy in being surprised by my own free flowing expression and compassion when I do the practice of listening with my whole self.
There is a lot of good in this interaction because Nanine, Tarana, MeToo and the viral video really have disrupted Tony’s pattern as much as he has shocked them. That’s why my gut has been on fire with urgency.
An opportunity is being missed or avoided or shut down or concealed by corporate public relations fear, by leaders for which I have much higher hope and I imagine may actually consider what I’m seeing and sharing. I imagine this is a part of their life’s work and purpose, to face a challenge that simultaneously grows themselves and creates exponential change.
I’m here to say: We’re here. The time IS now. We need you.
It would be courageous and wise to consider my invitation as real and worthy. Urgent and important.
If you’re reading this and there are things that bother or offend you about what and how I’m sharing, it’s okay. I understand. I often feel bothered by what and how I’m experiencing and expressing myself, too. It is not easy to express ourselves fully because we really might bother or offend someone very deeply. Is it okay to make mistakes or to demonstrate how much we truly don’t understand in the midst of trying to understand? Where can we go from here? Is it possible to imagine there is an opportunity being presented?
You never have to consider or look at things in other ways.
You are always welcome to have your experience in your own way. [Read the sentence above more than once and you may have a multi-dimensional experience.]
This is the experience you will have — what you choose.
We are always choosing.
This is why I felt compelled to acknowledge the expanded space in the arena. It allowed me the choice to step back and focus on the things that I needed to try and understand. You’ve probably noticed that much of this has been about what Tony is saying and that’s because it was harder for me to feel like I was really understanding what he was saying and why he felt the need to share it in the way he did. I feel like I quickly had an understanding of what Nanine and Tarana are saying. And, I'll be honest that I had to work through the process of not feeling like I had to choose one side or the other.
There was a whisper: MeThree.
I shared this writing for some feedback with the subject line "MeThree," which I mentioned was just a placeholder title and that I would be changing it. It was the first thing that came through clearly about how I was feeling, but I also wasn't sure if it felt like a dig at MeToo, even though the feeling and the point for me was to complement and support. I wanted to be mindful of triggering more distraction in the arena.
One female friend shared: "My only gut reaction is, keep the title as MeThree. It speaks to the outside viewer in us in every situation. Whether it's listening to someone tell you a story and you having to give feedback; or in this situation, you seeing two sides to a story that's being played out in real time."
Thank you, my friend. I hear you and feel so grateful to be heard.
I believe that real change starts one-to-one beginning with self.
It would serve our nation and our world a lot of good to see people like Tony Robbins, Nanine McCool and Tarana Burke come together and transform the energy, the separation and the practice of retreating to the safety of the constructs of publicity and social media platforms.
What's clear to me:
The What = Let's break the collective pattern and have a real conversation to learn what we need to be learning at this time.
The Why = To learn and teach about how we can create connection and change in a way that is aligned with our purpose and mission by working outside of the current constructs and practices.
How = Accept this invitation to arrive together on middle ground with the intent to practice the art of listening and receiving understanding.
Are you listening?
What are you choosing?
All the love and no excuses.
Brightly,
Laura Peppin
![I am a writer + energy worker [without question]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/583a4efd1b631b80627997e8/1532841909868-ER89CO1QVQL7EOQJHT0E/IMG_2362.JPG)
