To the best of my recollection, it was during the warm months of 2003, and I was driving around a traffic circle in Brooklyn with my older daughter. My desire was to enter the gas station at the top end (like 12 o’clock on the dial) but a man in a car blocked the entrance. A red light stopped him even though he had room to move closer to the signal.
My car windows were open as I gestured (without speaking) with my shoulders and arms to ask him to move up. The man started yelling and cursing at me (you know the female dog in heat one) with such aggression that it shocked me that a mildly-frustrated reaction of mine could produce such a hateful response from someone I didn’t know! His negative energy, carried by the warm, summer air, slammed into my body. (As I write this I wonder if my daughter remembers the incident. I’ll ask her…)
I had an unintended response to my behavior. This was a defining moment: “I’m a lover not a fighter.” (“The Girl is Mine,” Michael Jackson with Paul McCartney, Thriller Album) I felt hurt and misunderstood. It was not my intention to spark rage. What became crystal clear is that we have an effect on others. Of course, they have an effect on us, as well.
We are all connected; there’s a ripple effect which moves the collective consciousness like a pebble dropped into the water. Remember the one about the butterfly who flutters its wings in the Ukraine and affects the weather in the U.S.? This is the same principle. (I didn’t know this in 2003)
My wish is to share lovingness not angriness. Of course ten years have passed. I’ve done considerable soul searching and emotional work. Two weeks ago, I sat with my laptop at a high countertop in a coffee shop. No tables were available. The manager pushed a covered cookie plate onto the counter, into the path of my computer saying, “This is important.” I had to move my beloved, technological device toward me out of the path of the moving cookies! Very mild, angry feelings sprang up. My first thought was “And I’m not important?” My next prompt became, “Linda, you are important.” With this internal statement, I let go of my negative perception of this interaction. What I did was to go from my primitive brain to my evolved brain; from my childhood ego to my heart-ego (D’Onofrio, 2005).
Each of us is loved beyond our imagination by our Creator. Some of us have wealth and position while others live modestly; or in poverty. It is essential for us to understand that we are all important. The café shop owner and I are equally valuable, and so it goes…like that…
Linda
