Have you ever had just one of those days when you feel like you don’t fit in? Not with your friends, not with yourself, not with life. Is there one thing, you ask yourself, that I can do that will rekindle the passion for life that was mine last week?
Oh the perversity of our existence. Just when you thought you’d got it taped, your whole world falls apart and, with steam pumping out of your ears, you want to scream “Get me out of HERE.” Only no one is there to listen, let alone respond.
So what started this maelstrom of emotions, this bubbling volcano of negative expletives? Actually, I think it began with power. I was losing it (my power, that is) because I thought (assumed) someone else was stealing mine. This, of course, made me extremely angry, though I suppressed that response, instead of expressing it. How noble of me to swallow the anger. After all, there is already too much out there. Right? Not so, you foolish one!
Carrying a burden of self-pity, or disguised anger, I ventured into the wild world and bingo, got tested by another hapless human, who pressed all my buttons in the field of tolerance, patience and compassion. Yet more anger to add to the bonfire!
The net result was a huge wave of depression, eating away at my self-esteem and taking the wind out of my sails. Staggering along, intent on gaining nothing from everything, the prophesy of self fulfillment was realized. Only this time the anger was even greater, and the depression far deeper.
Now that I come to think of it, or write about it, I realize, these experiences were all there to test my ability to use the tools I have been teaching in my workshops. Well! There is nothing like grounding your learning in self-exploration to prove the tools actually work!
Rule #1: Don’t take things personally
Rule #2: Don’t make assumptions
Rule #3: Nobody deliberately sets out to hurt you. They are only doing the best they can with the tools they have
I obviously forgot all 3 rules. In hindsight if I had remembered those rules I would not have been so upset by the power issue and would have felt compassion instead of anger for my perceived aggressors or those poor misguided fellow “in-human” beings.
Of course, my response came directly from my EGO. That dreadful character who is always behind my miserable moods. How is that? You may ask. It’s simple really!
I only take things personally because my EGO wants to be top dog and everything revolves around ME. Secondly, I only make assumptions (usually negative ones) because I don’t have the courtesy to ask the other party about their intentions. I, therefore, make my own judgments without any other evidence. Surely, that would not stand up in a court of law! And lastly, my EGO is always on the defensive, and I immediately assume that whatever they did was deliberate. Of course, all of this is completely MAD when you look at it in hindsight and it hurt me far more than the other person, who is probably wandering around completely oblivious to the havoc they instigated.
Now that I know what is going on, I can only laugh at my folly and dispassionately release all attachment to the moods I myself created; and get on with living in the NOW – with a brand new and positive attitude to life and all its annoying little tests. Excellent! Now that’s settled. What’s for tea and who wants to join me?
Feb 2010
