I realized I’m getting old today. While at my daughter’s school, I was supervising my daughter on the playground and talking with another mom when this large group of roughly 12 teenagers showed up and decided to sit on the playground. It didn’t bother me much until one of the male teens from their clan decided to walk over to the seesaw that my child and her friends were playing on. He proceeded to just stand there staring at my daughter and the “Mama Bear” came out of me. Mind you, I don’t hover over my child when she is playing, but stand a comfortable enough distance away where I can see what is going on, but where I’m not all in her business. I know I talk a lot about practicing a pause before acting, but I couldn’t catch myself quick enough today. My fear response took over and stole the show.
So as this teenage boy is standing there, I come walking over with the other mom and said something to the effect of, “What business do you have here?” To which, this kid decides to say something like, “I can stand where I want.” The other mom and I lost it a bit at that point and basically told him that our kids are much younger than he is and he could go stand somewhere else. After this, he then proceeded to say that he was going to, “call the cops because we have no right to tell him what to do.” To this, I’d responded, “You know what, I’ll call them for you and tell them that you are on a playground harassing little kids.” The mom I was with then told him that he needed to just walk away before it escalated to somewhere it didn’t need to be. He then proceeded to tell the mom I was with that he “hoped she would just die,” and then began walking back to his peer group. At this point, I’m thinking there is something off with this kid because this type of response seemed really erratic given the situation.
I felt my heart racing and my adrenaline going from the moment. I was definitely in “fight” mode. I was on high alert and felt really off center. I felt like this large group of kids sent this one kid over as a prank… a prank which I didn’t find funny in the least. I felt really unsafe in that moment and felt that this person posed a threat to my child, which I was willing to fight for. When we don’t know what a stranger’s intentions are and they get close to those we love, we can immediately assume the worst. I know this was the case for me today. I’ve seen too many news stories of kids getting abducted or other horrible things happening to sit back and feel completely safe in a situation such as the one that I’d experienced today.
Then another mom came over after seeing this interaction and indicated that she was pretty sure that specific kid had Autism or something to that effect. A couple of other teens came over to the fence and I questioned, “Did you think it was funny sending him over here as a prank?” to which they informed me that they didn’t send him over and he just randomly showed up in their group and then walked over to our kids. I apologized to them and told them I was under the impression that they sent him over to mess with our kids as a dare or prank or something and as a result got a little heated.
Sitting back and thinking about this situation, I realize I jumped to protection mode without taking a pause to come across a bit kinder with the teen who stood staring at our kids in a position that was a little too close for comfort with no mask on and no clear intention. I was in confrontational mode since I felt primal fear. Like a tiger with her teeth showing, I approached my threat. I went in to win and not to understand. In that moment, it didn’t matter what his reasoning was in my mind… he had no business standing over my child. I was in full reactive mode.
This is exactly the mode that yoga attempts to prevent. This is exactly the type of state that conflict, violence, and hatred arise from. Once I had all the facts, I was grateful that I didn’t overreact too badly, but my tone definitely went into the situation meaning business. I went in with the unconscious desire to threaten and not to understand. In my mind, this teenager had no business inserting himself into a group of 7-year-olds and I was on a mission to humiliate and make that known as I abruptly walked over to “scare the threat away.” I’m still not perfect and though I practice self-discipline and self-control… the ability to pause and feel into stress rather than react from it. Today, I was reactive.
I sit and reflect on these events, I realize I might not have responded so abruptly and with as much fear had it been one of the teenage girls standing by my child. I probably would have walked over to make myself known, but I probably wouldn’t have been as confrontational. Had he not come from a large group of teenagers and positioned himself directly in front of our children, I might not have been as prone to react. Yet, the circumstances really threatened my sense of safety in that moment and I reacted. It’s interesting how the same circumstance with a slight variation could potentially produce a totally different outcome. Why would I have maybe felt safer had it been one of the teenage girls? Why would I have possibly felt safer if it was just him coming into the same exact situation by himself or coming from a small group of friends?
This thought makes me question how biases we all have play into different situations out in the world. For example, someone who is racist, may be more prone to go into fight or flight with a person of color than with someone of the same ethnicity. When I question what, if any, bias was in this for me and where it came from; I can see that I don’t have a lot of trust in men. Part of this is from growing up with a single mother with no father present. Part of today’s reaction is the result of the news stories I’ve read detailing the awful acts men commit against women and children (in some cases). My experiences with men haven’t always been the greatest and so when I find myself in a situation where I am gifted with a crystal ball into my own biased behavior, I can see how the information that has been fed into my experience has controlled my reaction today.
We act from what we think we know at any point in time. We act from our experiences, but what if our experience isn’t the only experience (it’s not) and what if our experience is the wrong lens to view the current situation from. After finding out that this teenage boy I’d viewed as a threat had enough challenges and threats stacked against him in this world, I softened and realized my error in perception. He wasn’t visibly different and I reacted without having all of the information. It wasn’t until we engaged further in slight confrontation that I began to question whether something was different about him. It wasn’t until another mom confirmed that I knew.
Spiritual life is about letting go of our past experiences and perceptions so that we can enter each moment purely… just as it is. It’s about honoring the divinity within everyone and assuming the best in people, not the worst. It’s about pausing to be sure that what you think you know is actually what is playing out so that you act from a place of consciousness and not reactivity. Was there a real threat today? No, now that I know what I know, I don’t think there was. Did I perceive a real threat today? Yes, I did as a result of the groove patterns that had previously formed in my brain from past information. Because I’m on a spiritual path and pursuing a spiritual life, I can honor today and learn from my own misjudgment so that I have new experience and information that form new patterns making me a more peaceful and more loving person.
Side Note: When Eve bit into the apple in the garden of Eden, she inherited judgment. God has the power to judge all… “Only God can judge me,” we hear people say when accused of wrong or persecuted. Satan said, “you’ll be like God if you eat the apple.” What we got was judgment… we got the ability to color our reality with judgments based on the past. So often we become trapped by our judgment and lose touch with reality as a result. I believe we need to let the judgment go and give it back to it’s rightful owner so that we can live more peacefully and joyfully on this planet.
When have you misjudged a situation? How would you have approached the situation differently if you’d had all the facts?