HOW TO RESIST THE URGE TO PURGE WHAT YOU REALLY THINK
“Rise and shine and greet the day with grace and dignity. Just show up baby, just show up.”
This was Diana’s morning mantra salute to me, with her red lips curved in a half smile, and her long french nails combing through her jet-black hair.
Her profession as owner of a psychic shop in the city of Salem, Massachusetts, gave opportunity for rude skeptics and the I am a religious person who believes none of this, but give me an intuitive reading anyway, kind of folks, to challenge her daily.
Listening from my desk on the other side of the room, I heard it often. And, when she began, I payed close attention.
With a deep breath, she pulled herself up tall in her desk chair, tilted her chin down, and with her huge brown eyes penetrating over the top rim of her glasses, she gave the kind of stare that makes the air go still. Then she began speaking, slowly and deliberately, never breaking eye contact.
“Thank you, for once again, giving me the opportunity to practice grace and dignity.”
Then she would lean back in her chair, smile at them from across the desk, and continue her metaphysical work.
“Disarm them, baby.” That’s what she would tell me. “Disarm with your grace and dignity. No need to make them wrong.”
The truth is, we all have button pushers in our lives. But the extent of how far they push those buttons is up to us. Because here’s another truth: We can’t change the circumstances of someone’s wrath on us, but we can be responsible with our own reaction to it, setting an example to those watching the scene play out, and maybe even to the offender.
When we attract a situation into our lives that creates an emotional response, it is because we have a corresponding energy pattern that is connected to our dis-connected ego-self. And in that response, the ego works to prove them wrong, so that we can take the opportunity to prove ourselves right.
Upsetting situations and people are powerless without your reaction.
Here is my own, all-time favorite example of that:
I am on an Amtrak train traveling from New York to New Orleans with a friend. It is lunch-time as we make our way to the dining car, where we are guided to a booth. One side is occupied with a retirement-age couple, the gentleman sitting next to the window.
Even before my friend slides to the window across from him, I feel a wall of reactive tension coming from the man. As I sit down across from the woman, the gentleman blares out his greeting. “I’m the mean one, my wife is the nice one.”
“Alrighty,” I say in his direction, and nod to his wife, “Nice to meet you.”
Now, this would have been the time to stand back up and ask for another booth, however, there were none, and if there had been, I would have missed out on this powerful grace and dignity moment and what it was about to teach me.
Our joint conversation began with the usual, where are you from and where are you going? The man squirmed in his seat, obviously winding up with a story to share, and as I like to say, there are two kinds of people, those who listen and those who wait to talk. He was the latter.
By the time our burgers arrived, my friend and I had heard his life story of money made, people manipulated with his money, and how money was the driving force in his happiness. All of which had been strangely discharged in my direction.
With polite head nodding from my friend, eye rolling from his wife, and me taking small bites of burger, trying to tune him out, the man continues naming companies he had worked for and how indispensable he was to all of them.
“What do you do?”, he finally asks me.
Now typically if I am in need of a short answer, I will say, I taught dance for many years. But my friend, also a dance instructor, proudly adds, “Oh, Nancy is a published author. She’s an amazing writer.”
The man looks offended. “You mean you wrote a little booklet, right? Anyone can do that. What’s it about?”
“It’s a full-on book. I write about truth and perception,” I say matter of factly.
“Oh yeah? Well, who's your publisher, who's your marketer?”, he responds with his voice more aggressive.
Feeling no need to continue conversing with him, I say nothing, but he quickly shouts, “You don’t have one, or your answer would have been quicker.” Then reaching to his back pocket, he takes out his wallet and slams it hard to the table. “This is the only truth in life. I pay people for what I want them to do. That’s the only thing that matters in this world.” His face is red and heated.
My friend and his wife pay close attention and remain quiet, taking uncomfortable bites of chips and fingering the sides of their water glasses.
I push my burger away and wonder, how is it I sat down to eat a damn hamburger and in the twenty minute experience with this man it has turned so volatile. I remain silent. But still looking to be validated, he keeps going.
“What do you think of Trump?”
“I don’t talk politics.”
He leans toward me over the table. “Just tell me. What do you think of Trump?”
“I don’t talk politics.” I say again.
He laughs sarcastically. “I took you for an intellect. You mean, to tell me you don’t have an opinion?”, he says it again. “What do you think of Trump? Just tell me what you really think.”
So, I take a deep breath, pull myself up tall in the booth, tilt my chin down, and with my green eyes penetrating over the top rim of my glasses, I hold my stare to his as I begin to speak slowly and deliberately. “Okay. You want to know what I really think?”
His eyes are still on mine as he challenges me, “Yes. Tell me what you really think.”
I will not allow myself to get reactive to his egoistic button pushing. I lift my hands from my lap and fold them on the table in front of me and say, “I think you love to hear yourself talk.”
My friend and his wife take a quick synchronized drink. The air goes still between us. The man, silent for a few moments, then begins fumbling words, and finally with depleted steam says, “Is that how you answer my question?”
I lean back against the booth, smile at him, and take a drink.
His tone is softer now. He is disarmed. “You’re probably going to write about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I proudly say. “Actually, I am.”
By showing up for this power-packed vibrational match, what lesson did it offer? How did the disconnected ego-self and the non-emotional self, serve to teach each other?
Very well, I would say.
So, baby, once again...thank you for giving me the opportunity to practice grace and dignity.
