We are very interesting creatures. As I grow in my spirituality and more deeply into myself I’m coming to understand this journey more each day. Yesterday, I stumbled. I acted reactively when confronted with a frustrating situation. Traffic was at a standstill on the highway I was attempting to merge onto and this man a large truck simply refused to allow me on. My car was right next to his and he purposely maneuvered his car so that it would hit the side mirror of my rental car. I’m driving a rental while my SUV is being repaired. In that moment I saw red. I rolled down my window and initially calm, I said, “Really? Was that necessary?” When proceeded to tell me that I should “Fucking learn how to drive and that I shouldn’t be trying to pass people in that lane.” I lost it and responded, “I’m fucking trying to merge and you’re an inconsiderate asshole.” He responded by flipping me off and then pushed his car back into his lane and traffic moved forward.
My rage welled within me and just looking at his truck and it was one of those moments where I fell back into my old self. I couldn’t shake the incident for about 10 minutes as I drove into work. I was cursing the dude in my car wishing that he would flip his truck over on the side of the road. I know, I know… not very holy of me. The anger was real in that moment and it was spewing out of me like venom. I was pissed off. My fiancé called and I ranted to him about how I couldn’t stand humanity and how awful this world can be sometimes… so full of selfish people with their big egos and lack of love toward others. I felt as if my belief in the general goodness in humanity and the world in general was crushed in those moments.
It was very clear to me in that moment that I still have work to do in the area of cleansing my spirit. I was disappointed in myself for having let that guy get the best of me and cause me to lose my peace. I prayed on the way to work to “return to love” and come back to center because I was fuming. I knew that I was not behaving very Christ-like with my words and emotions at that moment and asked for forgiveness. As usual the forgiveness came quickly.
As I got to work, I shared my experience with a coworker and then as I sat down to work, I realized my focus eluded me. I was still carrying the incident about an hour after it’d happened. I got up to look out the back window and as I did I saw a chipmunk scurry toward the building. As I looked longer, hoping to see the chipmunk again, I watched the snow and ice melting from the trees and it was miraculous. It all looked so sparkly, so shiny, so new. As I stared out the window, I felt at peace. Nature had worked her magic on my spirit and cleansed the residue from my soul.
This experience made me realize a rather large truth. As cliché and cute as it sounds, life is always full of duality. At any given moment we can choose to see the world as full of pain, suffering, madness, depravity, and insanity or we can choose to see the beauty it contains. The miracle of snow and rain falling from the sky, the beauty of breath so freely given in each moment, the animals scurrying about in harmony, etc. In that moment I realized I felt so much better and I hadn’t actually tried to do anything. I simply shifted my focus to something else. I intently stared at that tree glistening in the sun and somehow it healed me and lifted the burden of anger and injustice from me.
In hindsight looking at the situation, I realize that I too fell victim to my own ego that morning. The more the man refused to let me go, the more I inched forward trying to stake my claim. My frustration with his lack of kindness made me unkind. Instead of taking the Jesus way, I took the Old Testament way… An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This is not who I am any longer and yet this morning, I’d failed. I fell back into the pattern of ego and allowed the auto-response to kick in instead of being mindful and treating the man with love. The cursing and name calling was not necessary and even though I knew better, I didn’t catch myself quick enough to act in a higher capacity.
I’m sharing this with you to illustrate what reactivity looks like. It happens so frequently in this world that we live in and leads to negative results… more anger, sadness, devastation, loss, hurt, suffering, etc. I’m fortunate that the man I had the encounter with this morning didn’t have a gun or more serious mental health issues and that we parted ways without too much injury. As I write this, I realize this week I hadn’t prioritized my self-care (meditation and yoga) which is probably what had me a little more on edge than usual. Meditation and yoga allows me the opportunity to practice awareness, which gives you more choice in your actions. It allows me to distance myself from heated situations and be the witness, which allows me to maintain control over my emotions and make a logical choice as to how to respond when high stress situations occur. When we lose this ability, we become reactive and often make decisions we regret.
While this experience was not desirable in the moment, I’m grateful that it occurred because it allowed me to reinforce within myself why I want to teach yoga, mindfulness, self-care, stress relief, and be an active participant in healing this world. It allowed me the opportunity to practice letting go. It allowed me the practice of constantly choosing to return to love. It allowed me to be grateful that the outcome of this morning’s incident wasn’t too dire. Lastly, it gave me the motivation I needed to continue to believe in the healing path I’ve embarked on and the strength to journey forward.
Have you been reactive lately? Can you think of a situation that you could have handled differently if you’d only allowed yourself to pause before reacting? How has reactivity impacted your life?