Yesterday, like most days, I was outside tending to my gardens. I found myself trying to wedge baby weeds from out of the cracks between paving stones in the steps down to the lower end of my yard. Right next to me, a big patch of Lamb's Ear Stachys was in bloom, and a couple dozen of hubby's bee Girls were busily rolling about in the flowers, doing their pollen-gathering selves proud.
Now, one of my neuroses about bees is their sound--that buzzing is like an air-raid siren to my synapses: it means that some flight-able creature that means me no good is on the approach, presumably to do me no good. I surveyed the situation, studying the Lamb's Ears for a few moments, weed fork in hand. I noted that these Girls were happily doing their jobs, taking little notice of me, and so I made a conscious effort to just do mine, and take less notice of them. I went about pulling up stones and eradicating weeds, while listening to the buzzing and progressively convincing myself that, contrary to my paranoid delusion, it did not in fact mean my imminent perforation. I was succeeding in self-pacification as I grew almost oblivious to the background buzz and went about my own crusade.
And then, suddenly, I heard a different buzzing; one that sounded like a B-52 with a bad carburetor making a bombing strife. As I whipped around to face my attacker, heart pounding and weed fork at the ready, I saw one of the Girls about a foot from my face, head buried deeply in a blossom, legs flailing frantically and beating her wings loudly in a weird staccato rhythm, as she tried to force herself further into the flower for whatever amazing treat lay at the very base of the bloom. I flashed on a picture of my daughters, chubby toddler faces covered with goo, as they tried to get the very last bit of something yummy from the bottom of a jar or bowl, and I laughed out loud at myself for being afraid of her. Later in the day, as I told the story to dear hubby, I realized that we're often a lot more afraid of what we think is going on than what really is going on. Lesson post-test: consult the weather report before declaring the sky to be falling. Check.
Then this morning, I had to counsel my younger daughter through a meltdown directed at her older sister. The meltdown was over the elder not turning on the clothes dryer, but it devolved into the younger's deeply held and long-term insistence that her beloved sibling thinks she is "nothing." Ah, yes--adolescent girl drama. And as I explained to her that her sister had likely just forgotten, or been too occupied with something else to bother--that we're all doing the best that we can at the moment--and that it probably really didn't mean that the elder held a deep and abiding antipathy toward the younger, the lesson came in again. We react to what we perceive, not what's there, and as often as not, that reaction says more about us and some unresolved issue we have, than it does about whatever or whomever is on the other side. Well, alrighty then. Onward and upward.
Then a few moments ago, I ran across the following lines in another blogger's post:
If you are being triggered, it will be helpful to realise that the ‘truth’ you are seeing is actually serving you in being revealed to you. Your emotional reaction is simply the ego thrashing about, still wanting to be engaged in an old story or drama.
However, if you stop for a moment and get back into your centre you can emotionally disengage for long enough to ask yourself a good question: “Is this truth I am seeing really bothering me, or is it actually quite liberating to finally see this?” If you are angry because certain people are acting a certain way, ask yourself: “Do I really want them to act the way I am saying I want? Or am I being given a gift here? If this is a gift, what is the gift?”
Our freedom lies in realising we don’t have to react, or at least we can consciously choose how or even if we want to respond. Our old karmic ties are ending and so we are not karmically obligated to continue playing out old roles or patterns, or engaging in old relationships and dynamics that are no longer serving us. If someone ‘makes’ you feel not good enough, or ashamed, or judged, [or irrationally afraid of a basically gentle creature the size of a raisin] know that it is you who is still choosing to stay plugged in to an old story. There is no value in choosing to stay plugged in anymore. It is time to consciously remember that others do not define us.
It's going to be a busy day. Apparently, I've got some unplugging to get to. I'll keep you posted.
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