Today, I had a taste of a challenge in a different light. As you might have known, I have switched my perspective into a more peaceful one. If you have known me in the past to rush head on to a conflict, believing I would come out triumphant; well, I'm no longer like that.
The thing is, turning your back to a conflict makes you stronger. It's not the other way around, trust me. Dealing with the "explosive" emotion alone is definitely more difficult. Have you ever imagined taking a punch in the face, feeling the pain and deciding not to hit back? That's just how it feels--turning your back against a conflict.
Walking away, but showing empathy is an ever harder task to accomplish. How can you say sorry to a person who hurt you? How can you wish goodness and happiness when you are hurting deep inside? It is just not man's natural response, isn't?
Well, almost three months ago, I swore to be peaceful. Peaceful to others and to myself. I chose to practice kindness. After doing just that, I have found my "treasure house". According to David Michie, while reading The Dalai Lama's Cat, we might encounter something that always brings about our "bad" attitudes. Anger, irritability, jealousy, suspicion, dishonesty, etc. When we get to identify that, we have found our greatest opportunity. Consider it the best training ground to combat these negativities and become the best you can possibly be.
Yes, I found mine. And guess what, it was painful to accept that this person can teach me what I need to learn. It was happy though too because I have learned to protect my "treasure house" and watching through each situation, identifying what I needed to learn every time. Needless to say, I became peaceful and mindful of everything. I was always expecting a lesson from my "treasure house". My perspective was overturned for a better point of view.
And today, I see things as an understanding of how the painful things are teaching me something. Maybe making me understand how it felt when I did the same thing?
My day today is particularly "trying". When I say "trying", I don't mean difficult because how can I say that when I have had more blessings today? I also don't mean to say "bad" because I had one or more people shed some light and happiness to my day? I also don't mean "unsuccessful" because how can it be when I achieved everything I set to do today? However, it was looong and there were "pains".
Let me share my story today, and ask that I won't be judged critically. Your opinion are important, but never judge anyone for anything.
I woke up and got an update that the big project I'm currently working on went down because the database server was overloaded and got stuck. I felt bad because I deemed, it was a failure on my part. I was a bit emotional about it, but I took steps to see what could've been done differently (and that's what I just did today).
image owned by: UnitySanJose.org
Next, I got a weird message on IG. If you follow me on IG, you'll mostly see photos of my cat, my new perspective on faith, healthy food I'm learning to cook for myself and mostly yoga photos. I join a lot of yoga challenges because, it motivates me to practice on a daily basis and sometimes the new poses make me aware of new muscle groups and a sense of balance. Whether I do the poses well (or not) is not the important aspect of it, for me it is growth even if it only amounts to less than 1% growth at all.
Yesterday, I managed to post all my required asanas. However, I got confused that I posted today's asana yesterday along with the others that I haven't posted for. And then, I got a message from one of the hosts asking where I was in the world that I posted ahead of the hosts. She made it sound like I did something wrong but I didn't say anything except mention that I was from Manila, Philippines.
There were other messages in between, but I apologised if I made her uncomfortable or feel bad in any way. She told me that one of the hosts was also from PH (which I wasn't aware of before). I decided to opt out of the challenge because I felt bad that I made one of the hosts go out of her way to ask. I thought to myself, I must've really done something wrong. I deleted the poster and the two asanas that I already did for this particular challenge.
Couple of minutes later, I found the famous challenge by Carmen Aguilar and reposted it on my feed. I did mention that I opted out of other challenges because I may have offended someone; and that I think Carmen's challenge is what I would just keep joining in every month. Apparently, that lady didn't let the issue go immediately because even when she wasn't following me, she had to go back and visit my page and put a different color on my latest post.
I got a weird, seemingly distraught message that was with both the tone of "happy" and "upset". Namaste she says in her closing sentence, but you see, she labeled me as "Unyogic". In her words, it was "unyogic" of me to do that and that I should "find my zen".
Honestly, I cried a bit. I decided to opt out of the other challenge I was doing because, it would be unfair to this lady that I opted out of the challenge she was hosting only to continue the other one. However, I was shocked because she just threw at me a fireball with a confetti at the end. I don't understand my opting out of a challenge would be deemed "unyogic"? Had she put a different meaning to what I said? It seemed to me she wanted me to go on with the challenge despite my feeling that I have tainted the reputation I was putting on the gallery (if you get what I mean).
I think about it now, and I think she might have been feeling bad in her own way. I also think, this is how it must've felt (if ever I had pushed anybody to change their decision about something despite feeling a strong aversion towards it). I'm sorry to those I have may effected this same situation to. I'm sorry this lady had to do/say this to me too.
But thank you. Namaste to you too.
By forgiving and taking the blow by myself, I'm closing the karmic cycle. I wish that this situation between us wouldn't repeat again in our future, may it be in this life or the next.
PS: Aug 24, she still had to leave more messages that I had to block her. She just wouldn't stop. Sigh.
Cover image from https://pixy.org/1207020/