One of the lessons I have been focusing on recently is Love. In another of those pivotal, innocent requests a while back I asked Spirit to help me expand my capacity to love, to learn to love like Jesus loved.
You know, I should have known or suspected what I was getting myself into. I know that when you ask for patience you receive experiences that require patience in large measure. In dealing with those experiences, you develop the patience you asked for.
So, what did I receive after my request to expand my capacity to love? You got it. I found myself in a situation so full of unlovingness I nearly succumbed to despair. And of course, at first I did not connect the dots. In my frustration and despair I forgot that I had ever made the request in the first place.
I went through the lower responses first. Fear, anger, frustration. The ’Fight or Flight’ response unconsciously kicked in big time. Looking back I see that I started first with ‘Fight’, trying to push back against the injustice and callousness. But things only got worse. I was simply shunned and made to feel invisible and meaningless. Greater depression set in.
Then I tried ‘Flight’. Looking for any way to escape this place, this job, these people. But no door opened.
Finally, the lightbulb began to flicker in my head. Oh. How better to expand one’s capacity to love than to be put in an unloving environment. This was not punishment. This was exactly what I asked for.
With that new awareness, I began to shift inside. I stopped trying to run away, stopped fighting the situation. I accepted the lesson and allowed myself to simply be present with it. I narrowed my focus to just the day before me. Sometimes just the next moment. Committing to do the best I could each day regardless of how I was being treated. In this I found my power again. My choice. A more positive attitude.
It took time, many days and weeks, to move from anger, hurt and disdain to neutrality and indifference. I found I was no longer in a defensive energy. I was just me. I released the need to be acknowledged and accepted. Instead began to acknowledge and accept those around me. I began to remember that everyone has challenges, drama and trauma in their lives. That we all are trying to do the best we can under the circumstances we find ourselves in.
I began to realize how unhelpful and needy I had been only seeing that which had been denied me. I finally remembered that to receive a thing is to first give it. If I wanted the situation to change I had to change myself. Ho’oponopono. Nothing new. All lessons that I have learned in the past. Nestled along with many other forgotten memories the corner of my consciousness.
Ah. Bright lightbulb. I am so slow to connect the dots sometimes, but once connected progress quickens. In meditation I chose to hold each person in the Light, sending love and strength not to make my life better, but because I know it would make their lives better. I reinforced these intentions with music on the way to work. Josh Groban’s song “Thankful” over and over, day after day. Lighting a sage leaf before leaving home.
I cannot tell you the ending to the story as it is still writing itself. But I can tell you that there has been a shift. I am curiously content. Although extremely busy and putting in long hours at work I am happy. There is a softening, if ever so slight, in those I had perceived as my enemies. Now they are just guys trying to make a difference the only way they know how. Experts in some areas of business, but rookies in others. Kids in a little over their heads. But aren’t we all?
The angry drivers – all of them – must have pretty frustrating lives to be like that. And that’s too bad. Maybe they could use some Light. Here you go….
And so the lesson continues. My brother Jesus, my friend and Teacher, is showing me his tricks. But they are actually quite simple. He already showed us a long time ago. But he is kind enough to give me some private tutoring since I asked.
And in Asking it is Given.
