Fact is that the way people act around us affects us, either directly or indirectly. We tend to take their behaviour very personally. Most of the time however, this is not the case. In reality it is just the way they act whether we are around or not.
When we react, be it angry, annoyed, invaded, or any other reaction, this speaks only about ourselves. We passively choose to receive others’ behaviour in our energy field, to take it into ourselves. This then reflects on how we respond; whether we give back the same energy we received, or we ignore and forgive, or understand that they are in a very bad place and cannot be kind right now, or we react with kindness and thus open their heart a little as well, is all up to us.
The way you react to rude people and any other annoyance speaks more about yourself than any C.V. you could possibly write.
How you feel about the behavior of others shows you your wounds, your shadow, what you do not want to see about yourself and what you deny about yourself.
I for one, can get very upset in traffic and I feel easily bullied by other drivers. One situation where this arises is when I have priority on the road and someone cuts me off from a merging lane regardless of this priority. This makes me angry. Instead of getting angry, I could just say to myself: “This is good because I let them pass in front of me and avoided creating an accident” or “I will be bolder from now on and I will avoid such situations entirely by not giving them the possibility to cut me off”, but I end up with the worst from both scenarios where I let them cut me off and get angry anyway. Again, there is nothing personal there, nobody does this to me intentionally because they do not like me. They would do this to everybody who is not bold enough to show presence in traffic. I am still learning and being aware of my choice is a huge step ahead!
Even really very bad experiences, losses of loved ones, illness, physical attacks etc. are lessons for us and our response to it is purely ours.
Sadly, a lot of us have had someone close to us deal with cancer and the awful things that are tied to this disease process, but the response to this situation differs from person to person even though the problem is the same.
Yes, we are all different, our path, our consitution, our talents, our behavior is different, while we are all one, we are all connected, not only between humans, we are connected with all there is on earth and in the universe.
We can change our response to what happens to us and around us, we can realise that even the smallest change of our attitude towards a problem has the potential to make huge waves out there.
Does this sound frightening? Maybe it seems so at the beginning but it is an enormous chance to become happier, healthier and more content with who you are.
Let’s consider the word ‘smallest’. The smallest stone thrown in a still lake makes waves that ripple out and become bigger than the stone was in the first place. Nobody can change over night, but one small step each day or every other day in the right direction will yield great results. One year from now your responses will have changed drastically and the waves you send out will differ and even if people do not see this consciously, they will re-act to you differently.
Many years ago, in communist Romania, I found a plant shop. There were not many shops you could find something to buy, which made this plant shop even more special. Most of the time there was nothing much for sale. Most of the plants were just for decoration. The young girl working at the counter was always very serious, almost rude. That might have had to do with me, because I didn’t speak romanian, I was clearly a foreigner, and it was difficult to justify to the authorities why a romanian would speak to a foreigner. My goal with her was to make her smile, not to talk a lot with me, I knew she would not, but I thought a smile would not hurt. I actually managed a faint smile once! I found a way to her heart and without breaking the rules, she could open herself a little. Then came the revolution, the shop closed and I never saw her again. She is probably in her fifties now and there is a slight chance that she comes across this article and that it touches her heart again!
Instead of re-acting to other people’s behavior the same way as they do, act in your own way: be generous with your kindness and with your smile and enjoy their reaction, their surprise. Then you know how much sadness, guilt and heavy energy is present in their lives and you will feel empathy instead of anger. This in turn will make you happy. Expressing or re-pressing your anger does not make you happy, empathy does.
Let us grow and evolve into happy, empathic and kind beings.
Where kindness flows – happiness grows!
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