Seeing the Other Side

Last week I started watching the movie Twelve Years a Slave.  A few minutes into the movie, the main character is kidnapped and beaten.  As I watched, I felt like I was going to throw up.  Tears welled up in my eyes as feelings of outrage, grief, sorrow and agony overwhelmed me.  My reaction was so strong that I turned the movie off unable to continue.      

Then, a few days later I started watching Soul Sunday about compassion.  Compassion was explained as “feeling or enduring with another.”  Compassion basically asks us to treat other people as we would want to be treated.  

I pictured myself being compassionate to a friend who went through a divorce.  I saw myself being compassionate to my son after a friend was mean to him.  I saw myself even being compassionate to the made-up character in 12 Years a Slave…but I realized that I wasn’t practicing ANY compassion towards my parents whose behavior I often struggle with.   

Looking back over the landscape of my interactions with my parents, I asked myself how I would feel if my son treated me the way I treated them.  This simple question struck a nerve inside me and the push back was immediate, “Well, I would never do what they have done…They shouldn’t have acted that way…They hurt me…I’m right and they are wrong.”  Rationalizing? After asking myself such a simple question?  I knew I had irritated some part of myself so I pushed through interested in what was underlying my strong reaction.   

How would I feel if I were my parents?  If my past behavior was directed at me, how would I feel?  I started to cry as I realized how much pain and hurt I must have caused them.  For the first time, I didn’t focus on what they did to “cause” my reaction.  Instead, I thought about what it would feel like to have my son repeatedly burst out in anger (if I’m being honest, more like explode).  I imagined having my son tell me I couldn’t stay with him during visits or if he abruptly cancelled a trip to see me.  I asked myself what it would feel like to know my son was repeatedly hurt and angered by my behavior but have no clue what I did, what to do about it or how to fix it.  I sat on the edge of my bed crying as I realized I showed more compassion to a made up character in a movie than I did to my own parents whom I love very much.

This morning I received an email from my Mom asking me to place an online order for her.  Even though I told her I would place the order over the weekend (and it is Friday), this is her 7^th email making the request.  As I restrain from emailing her the smart-ass and irritated remark that pops into my head, I repeat the mantra: compassion… compassion… compassion. 

Oh Ye Have Little Faith

“Without faith, we’re frantically trying to control what it is not our business to control, and fix what it is not in our power to fix.”  Marianne Williamson 

 

I have to admit, I am not a great “have faith” kinda gal.  With every issue or problem, I need to DO something; I need to fix it or at the very least find a solution.  I go crazy if there is nothing that can be done.  I worry; I stress; I obsess.  How can things work out for the best if I can’t MAKE them work out for the best?  But, a few days ago I learned my lesson.

 

The night before flying home from a family vacation, my husband found out that there had been a glitch with our boarding passes and that we would be boarding the plane last.  Panicked that we would not be able to sit together and that our 8 year old would be sitting in a middle seat surrounded by strangers, we called the booking agent.  She informed us that the only thing we could do was ask for a boarding upgrade when we checked in the following day.  

 

At 3 am I woke up with a horrendous pit in my stomach and my mind in overdrive.  What could I do to make sure my family all sat together?  I obsessively looked at the situation from every angle searching for solutions that simply weren’t there.  

 

As my head swirled, Marianne Williamson’s definition of “faith” popped into my head.  “Faith is believing that the universe is on our side, and that the universe knows what it’s doing.”  Although I had little confidence in the universe at this point, having no other options I chose to have faith.  I remained awake with the pit in my stomach but each time my mind analyzed the problem or searched for a nonexistent solution, I returned to the simple phrase, “have faith.”  As I struggled to interrupt my well-established pattern of worry and obsessing, I told the universe, “I’ll give you one shot to prove to me that this whole having faith thing actually works.”   

 

The next day seemed to be one unexpected event after another.  We easily upgraded our boarding status for the first leg of our trip even though it outwardly appeared that would not be possible.  When we boarded, my 8 year old son who always to choose to sit behind the wing so he could see, adamantly chose to sit over the wing.  My son’s seat selection led me, an introverted and definitely not a chatty flyer, to have a friendly conversation with one of our flight attendants.  During this conversation we learned she was also going to our final destination (Reno, Nevada) and we discussed our boarding glitch issues.    

 

Later in the day, waiting for our connecting flight to Reno, we bumped into this same flight attendant.  Not only was she on our same flight but she told us she would be holding a row of seats for us until we boarded allowing our family to again sit all together.  

 

Each one of these events individually is out of the ordinary and surprising.  When you string them together and see the end result they become extraordinary.  As hard as it was, I surrendered and had faith; and dammit, faith won.   

“When we stop trying to control events, they fall into natural order, an order that works.”  Marianne Williamson.