The one thing that people really want from you.

A fond farewell to one of my mentors

Today I heard that one of my dearest mentors has just passed.

I was truly blessed to have Chip Chipman as my mentor for several years and yes that was his name.

As a funny aside (since Chip and I used to laugh a lot together) his brother had the same name. Go figure. Mind you his brother was a carpenter so the name was more appropriate for him.

This name clash caused all sorts of issues not least at the dry cleaners where they were forever leaving with each others clothes by accident!

A natural ache of the heart

I notice my heart feels sad but it’s a gentle ache, it’s a natural ache. I will miss him in the world.

Chip wouldn’t want any of us to feel sad. He passed peacefully and had had an amazing life which surprised him daily.

Yet one of the things I most loved about him was that he remained so ordinary. Even if others projected specialness onto him he wasn’t swayed or seduced - he didn’t need nor want any pedestal.

When remaining ordinary can have an extraordinary impact

It made me think of how lucky we are if we have:

• someone like Chip who graces our life.

• someone who leaves their mark on our lives in a wonderful enduring way.

• someone who enables us to feel our own greatness.

• someone who lets us just be ourselves warts and all.

• someone who, even if they’re no longer present, lifts us up at the very thought of them.

• someone who makes us smile within and warms our heart.

That’s a pretty cool legacy right?

This was certainly true of Chip. He was one of the kindest, most generous and big hearted humans I’ve ever known.

When he was my mentor I went over to Salt Spring Island just off the coast of Canada to spend time with him. He never tried to be anything special regardless of what he’d seen about our true nature and how our reality is created.

Chip just let me relax into exploring not “I’ve got to figure this out” or learn something - we would just chat, laugh and he would share stories.

So what would Chip have me share today that’s helpful?

What came to me immediately when I asked myself this question was…..

We spend so much time, particularly in the West, trying to be someone or become someone, or achieve a certain status or just basically achieve or accumulate.

Whilst there’s nothing wrong with that, it occurred to me that what Chip taught me was that fundamentally what people really want from you is your heart.

Deep down they don’t really care how smart you are or what you have; they don’t care if you’re keeping up with the Jones’s - what they really yearn for is your heart because they yearn for their own hearts.

Chip gave his heart freely and unequivocally. You could feel it even when he was angry or frustrated.

When heart and a shift in consciousness stops gang violence

One of Chips stories I remembered today was about a time when he was working with a group of mothers who were sick of the gang violence in their area. Several of them had also lost sons and daughters due to the endemic violence.

Chip had flown to the US to run a workshop for these women who lived in an impoverished black American neighbourhood.

The project was being funded by a millionaire businessman and he’d asked to be present on this occasion to experience it for himself.

Picture this for yourselves….

So there they all are sat in a circle in the local church hall and Chip is taking them through an exercise about their innate human design and how they’re hard-wired to an infinite intelligence.

Suddenly the doors are flung open and in stride a bunch of aggressive gang members brandishing knives.

They have no interest in these women trying to become empowered to stop the violence and to end their gang culture.

The gang members are screaming at them……threatening them with their knives.

Chip stays relatively calm though he doesn’t know why. Chip notices that the millionaire businessman’s face has gone deathly pale and he’s obviously freaking out inside.

Then something amazing happens……..

The women stand up and form a circle around Chip and the millionaire. The women then turn outwards to face the gang members, link arms and start to sing gospel songs.

This really pisses the gang members off so they rant and rave even more.

As they get louder and more aggressive, the women sing louder and louder.

Chip’s in tears in the middle of the circle astonished at the bravery and power of these women. They will not move regardless of what the gang members are threatening to do.

Chip knows these women have connected with something powerful within themselves. They’ve transcended their limited selves.

And so they sing and they sing and they sing…….

Then another amazing thing happens….

After a while the gang members stop shouting…..they stop threatening……they start to quieten. They lower their knives and just stand there motionless.

The women keep singing.

Chip said it was like time stood still. Whether they knew it consciously or not they’d all gone beyond themselves into a collective spiritual experience together.

A sense of oneness and peace floods the room.

The women stop singing and everyone just stands there in silence.

After a few minutes the gang members leave (quietly) and the women return to their seats.

No one speaks.

These women had tapped into something that they’d never forget. There was nothing more for Chip to say. There was nothing more powerful in that moment than the silence and the recognition of what had happened.

That shift in consciousness upwards, that innate wisdom that had triggered the women to rise up and sing - that experience had done the teaching.

These women did go on to become leaders in their community. They did bring about massive change and the end of gang violence in their neighbourhood.

Final thoughts from Chip if he were here

“Just have fun. Don’t take life or yourself so seriously. Laugh. Love and be kind to each other.

Allow yourself to be amazed.”

RIP Chip - you will forever be in my heart.

With love,

Alison