NEW BEGINNINGS
An Interview with Guy Finley

By Dr. Ellen Dickstein

Ellen: So first we cause our own pain and then this makes us insensitive to the pain of others.

Guy: That’s right, and the key here for anyone interested in real growth is to understand the dynamic of the cycle itself. “Win at all costs” seems the average mentality. People may say, “No, that’s not true of me,” but think about it: Don’t you defend yourself to the bone when someone questions the validity of something you may have done or said? We’re isolated in a kind of protectionism that we believe keeps something good in place, when we’re really protecting the hidden fear that we won’t be “winners.” Because of this mentality, instead of doing what we’re here to do, which is to realize ourselves, we become lost in trying to win ourselves. You can’t win yourself. It’s impossible. But you can realize both the nature that is caught in this cycle of conflict and the lack of compassion that it causes. And you can realize by the very fact of this discovery that something has always existed—real winning, real self-growth that appears when we are in relationship with the source of all things good.

Ellen: You call relationships “the least understood, most valuable resource on Earth.” What do you mean?

Guy: There’s a tradition in all spiritual disciplines that holds that every relationship is a special kind of mirror. The minute I understand that when I look at you I’m standing in front of a mirror, it makes it possible for me to realize that what I see in you is related to something within myself. Now I can use my moments with people to learn something about myself through seeing myself in this relationship. Presently we don’t really see ourselves in relationship; we see what we say is the cause of the way we feel. That is not seeing relationship. That’s blaming someone else for a bad relationship.

Ellen: We don’t see what we do that contributes to the bad relationship. In fact, we are the relationship.

Guy: It’s true. Imagine a man who looks in a mirror and doesn’t like what he sees (which is one of the reasons we don’t want to look in mirrors). If I’m with someone who I think is being judgmental of me, I don’t want to be with that person.

But one day, if we’re sincere in our wish to grow, we’ll realize our negative experience of any moment has nothing to do with what that person is doing, although he or she may be judging us. Our experience of that relationship belongs to us, and it reveals what we have brought with us into that moment, including a nature that believes unless someone approves of it, it’s unworthy.

Now, here’s a fantastic idea: If we were able to look into this mirror properly, we would actually see a ladder. That is, if we were conscious we would realize everything we see in the mirror of life offers us a way up. A ladder is hidden behind every person’s face, behind every event that transpires. As we begin to wake up to the fact we are being shown something about ourselves, and we’re honest about what we see, we rise above the self that met that moment the moment before.

Ellen: You say that “trying to elevate the quality of our relationships with others without first rising above our own self limitations is like trying to shake the dust out of the carpet we’re standing upon.” That’s an intriguing picture that points to where the real source of responsibility for the quality of our relationships lies.

Guy: And it ties into what we were just talking about. Most relationships are founded in “what I want from you.” But relationships should be founded in “what can you show me?” When relationships are based on what I want from you then the minute I’ve defined this, I’ve closed the door. The only thing that occurs to people to want is something they’ve already had. Now someone could say, “No, that’s not true. I’ve never had a million dollars and I want a million dollars. I’ve never had perfect love and I want perfect love.” Well, you have had more money than you thought you would have, and it didn’t change you, otherwise you wouldn’t still want more. You have had some relationship, otherwise you wouldn’t want more relationship. When we meet people with the thought, “this is what I want from you,” we’ve closed the door. They cannot give us what we really want, because what we really want is freedom. Strange as it sounds, relationships are literally created to grant us freedom. The way we use relationships causes us to be captives. But we can use them to find freedom.