Today when I went for a run, I came across
an older man walking with a bamboo cane. I greeted him and ran on, but in the
second that I passed him I took so much of him in. I saw the shape of his head,
his skin already glistening with sweat, the curve of his spine, his legs, the
ricketiness of the bamboo cane. It all flashed past me and was attenuated.
I understood once I had passed him that I
had been able to see him. I saw and felt for a moment his feelings, walking in
the early morning, a bit surprised to come across me. He was so human. It was as though I could feel the trajectory
of his life, still on-going, as if I could glimpse him as a child, a teenager,
a young man, all contained within this instant.
It struck me, as I could see the contrast
with how I used to see people and still do a lot of the time. I have been so trained to see, or rather
react to people defensively, that I have rarely been able to see them. Every
time I crossed a man when I was running alone, I would steel myself against my
fear. Men were threatening, regardless of who they really were. I couldn’t see
them, I could only react to my own fear as I mirrored it through them.
It is linked to the idea that I always
thought that other people knew more than me, were more capable than me,
stronger than me. I had something to prove, which swung me into arrogance, or
something to hide, that swung me into self-effacement.
If someone was older then they should be
more assured than I was, it would not occur to me that they might not be. I
wasn’t able to allow them their humanity and because of that I had many
personal relationships that were skewed. I worked on assumptions and
expectations based on my projections that did not really stop to quietly
explore the person in front of me. I could not feel people as I had been able
to do today and as I am increasingly more able to do. It is coming naturally
without my forcing it or trying for it.
But it begins with self-acceptance. To give
an example: about a year ago one employee stole from another and the one who
was robbed was devastated. It was a real betrayal. She had trusted her
co-worker, they had been real friends, and it was a huge blow. It was clear
what had happened and I didn’t doubt her. I sat with her as she sobbed and she
was very distraught, numbering all the difficult things that had happened in
her life culminating in this. I was empathetic and I felt compassion. She went
home and I dealt with the situation.
But in her absence, and the following days,
something started to happen to me. I began to feel increasingly suspicious of
her. It didn’t make any sense, but I was losing all trust of her. In the
following days my suspicions mounted and although I knew they had no
foundation, I couldn’t shake the feelings.
So I began to explore what was going on. I
started to track my conscious thought and to keep writing to see where it would
lead me. After a few days I realised that an event from my life had been
passing through my thoughts. We have so many thoughts that pass through our
minds that we treat them almost like white noise.
This time, however, I was able to hold onto
a memory that had reappeared and it was of a car crash I had had when I was
twenty-one. I started to write about it and I realised that it was directly
related to my current situation. I had driven the car into a tree and totalled
it whilst travelling in Australia. I had been sober, but exhausted. A friend
was with me. I had gotten out of the car and lost it, shouting and screaming,
jumping and swearing in front of the car. I was practically unhurt, but my
friend had very bad whiplash and was lucky not to have broken her neck.
It may have seemed totally unrelated, but
the common ground was shame. I was ashamed at having lost control, I was
ashamed at becoming totally hysterical and letting myself go in the surge of
the emotional release. I was still ashamed today and I had not accepted that in
myself. I was still, fifteen years later standing in very harsh judgement over
myself.
This was the reason I was losing faith in
this other person. Her reaction to the stealing was the same as my reaction to
the car crash. As I could not pardon myself for my loss of control, it was
simply not possible that I could treat her any differently than the treatment I
meted out for myself. The moment I understood what was going on and how unfair
I was being with myself, the moment I forgave myself, all conflictive feelings
towards her vanished
I feel that it is work like this that has
allowed my heart to expand. By seeking to understand and accept myself, without
forcing it, it spreads outwards to my perception of others. It is in these
moments of seeing another in such a way that I feel awash with appreciation
simply at being here.
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