Uh oh. I had steam coming out of my ears last night when talking with perhaps my favorite personal spiritual teacher, my 14 year old daughter.
I think that would not actually be called talking. Yelling is more the description.
It can be discouraging when you notice something REALLY triggers you. One moment, we were talking about her third lost bus pass….then next I am crazed because I am upset with her attitude.
Who cares about the lost bus pass! If I say we’re going to look for it, then start looking! And don’t tell ME you already LOOKED!
Today I had a lovely conversation with a woman who is currently enrolled in Turning Relationship Hell to Heaven. She has been feeling discouraged about how much her mind repeats itself and whether she can really resolve her problems by doing The Work.
It feels to some of us like that busy, busy mind just thinks of something new and clever, and meaner, to say about our “progress” as humans every day:
- You should know better than to raise your voice or get angry by NOW
- You are a lost cause
- You are acting like a teenager yourself
- After all this work, self-reflection, listening to teachers, you would think….
- I’m going to be dead before I question all my beliefs and have peace
- This is one long journey into CONTINUOUS HELL
Woah! That last one was so harsh, it almost made me start laughing!
If I hold myself with compassion, which is ultimately what this Work is all about, then I can gently see what I’m so afraid of or resistant to in that moment, and stop attacking myself for attacking my daughter.
I take out a pen to write down what I was thinking in that moment when the anger rose up like a geyser, like a screaming crowd gone wild.
Martin Luther King said “a riot is the language of the unheard“.
So what is it that I was not hearing when standing with my daughter talking about her lost bus pass? What are my beliefs in that moment, that I’m sure are entirely true?
- I pay for the bus, and the money is going down the drain
- Replacing the pass is a hassle
- We HAVE to find it
- She should be just as concerned as I am about finding it (she is not concerned)
The demand, control, and desire to be the ultimate dictator and have things go my way in this small moment of communication is amazing! I see how frightened I am of losing money, the unexpected, losing “things” like passes, and frightened that I’m the only one who really cares (she does not, and she should).
Suddenly as I think of the benefits as I turn around the way I see this situation:
- I will get to spend time with my daughter if we go get a replacement pass
- I see how we’re fine without the bus pass in that moment…I mean really, there is no reason in that moment to have it except to stop the thoughts that it needs to be found
- We get to think of creative ways to hold on to stuff, and let it go
- I see what it’s like for the person who lost the pass, supposedly (my daughter) to not be that freaked out about it
- I ask for her forgiveness, and for my own
- I accept that I am a regular human being…..angry, then not angry, full of love for my daughter
- Nothing terrible really happened, there were loud voices and two people with red faces
Keep going, everyone! Even when you think you can’t inquire yet again on the same person, event, place, condition, or thought…
“To bow to the fact of our life’s sorrows and betrayals is to accept them; and from this deep gesture we discover that all life is workable. As we learn to bow, we discover that the heart holds more freedom and compassion than we could imagine.”–Jack Kornfield
Much Love, Grace