This was a fantastic week of discovery, which I shall not forget anytime soon. The experience brought an analogy to mind. Once, when I was a kid, I took on the arduous task of tearing down a barn. The years of weathering, heavy use, and minimal internal and external maintenance, resulted in the structure being on the verge of total collapse. In it’s time; it was an amazing barn, built with the best woods and uniquely designed. Surely, it could be salvaged. I saw in it such potential.
It wasn’t hard bringing it down; it was primed to go and happened so quickly. But once on the ground, the real work began; pulling the boards apart, discarding that which was unsalvageable, and setting aside those that were. Of those set aside, I then had to remove the nails. With crowbar in hand, I easily removed many of the nails. But, other nails required some cunning and skill. In the end, the nails were finally removed or just hammered back into the board, out of sight. The boards would then be stacked, ready for the next grand design.
Everyone in the Power of Clearing Coaching Certificate Program had their own barn to salvage or renovate. The barn represented our ego mind and boards were the frame or structure representing our ego beliefs; our hopes, doubts, and fears. The nails represented our ego experiences; both positive and negative. The grand design was our spirit, the pure essence of what we could create out of the boards. Some of our ego experiences in life left serious damage to the barn, and some so severe, only razing and rebuilding would suffice. The nails left in the boards were those negative experiences that had to be removed before any rebuilding or healing could take place.
The work party met every morning for 9 days, along with the foremen and head architect. Everyone agreed to give 100% to let go of or remove those boards and their nails that no longer were congruent with our blue prints. With Love and Truth as our mission statement, we intended to help each other return their barn to their grand design. We allowed others to see into our barn, sometimes for the first time, and examine our boards and witness our damaged nails, and were accepted with unconditional love. Baring our boards empowered us. No doubt about it. We examined the reasons why our boards were damaged in the first place, to avoid a repeat. It didn’t serve us to assign blame for our deteriorating barn but learned to take full responsibility for it’s condition and initiate corrective action, it what ever way possible.
One foreman took us through a conscious breathing exercise and I was able to gain valuable insight into my pure essence. Others had received major shifts in comprehension from their breathing experience that gave them an appreciation for how those damaged boards may have served them even though they functionally appeared defective.
Listening to others talk about their damaged barn reminded me that we had so much in common. Many of their boards and nail problems resembled mine and it really put me at ease. It brought us all so close together as the result. I observed the skilled foremen in action and learned firsthand that I could actually learn and use these skills regularly in my work. We were effectively and efficiently trained in the use of a crow bar (clearing skills), in 3 different methods, so that we might coach others afterwards. However, I can only effectively coach those who have been first trained on basic nail removal.
Brian Nyenhuis
Sept 2006
