Posts Tagged ‘Kindness’

The Girl in the Orange Jeans

October 29, 2014

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James

I was standing at the edge of the stone wall looking down at the courtyard.

I remember there was a young boy near me. He had been following me around that day, being nice to me, buying me candy. That was a first for me in my young 12 years… and I was both flushed with excitement and a bit of anxiety. We had come to the famous ruins of Baalbeck, Heliopolis, or the city of the Sun, on a church youth group outing.

I remember what I was wearing- a pair of brand new orange jeans and a white t-shirt.

As I stood there, I was aware of other tourists around, I could hear cameras snapping. Then I heard the words:

Don’t take a picture of that girl with the crooked legs in the orange jeans!

I remember freezing, then slowly turning around, my heart pounding. There was a woman trying to photograph the entire scene with the wall and beyond, and I was in the way. The man had spoken these words in a language he thought I wouldn’t understand, without realizing it was my language too. And worst of all, my young, attentive friend had heard it and understood it too.

I started walking away with tears in my eyes. My friend tried to reassure me that my legs were not crooked.. but it didn’t matter. I was shamed. My first venture out into the limelight, and I was shot down. The rest of that day was just a blur with the words crooked legs, crooked legs, crooked legs, pounding in my head. I kept it to myself.

This incident, although seeming insignificant, affected me all through my teenaged years and sometimes even later.

I inspected my legs that evening, they didn’t seem to be crooked… they were short in proportion to my torso, but not crooked. But that man had said they were, so they must be, right? This was such a tender time in my life, just starting to bloom, feeling so self conscious, different, awkward. The timing couldn’t have been any worse.

How could one unkind, unthoughtful comment from a clueless man have such an impact on a young life?

The girl with the crooked legs in the orange jeans was with me all my life. I had feelings of shame, anger, fear, resentment, pity for her. I chided her for putting herself in the center of that wall that day… as if it was her fault. I didn’t show it, of course, but it had an impact. I avoided situations and if I didn’t, I braved them with anxiety. Of course it faded away, but every now and then, on different occasions, it would pop up, speaking at a Nursing Conference, school board meeting, or a PTA function.

Then one day, I went back to her.

I went back as her older wiser self, I went back as her protector, her mother, her older sister, her best friend. I went back with deep love for her. I held her hand and walked her away from that stone edge and that man. I told her her legs were beautiful just as they were. I let her lean her head on my shoulder and cry. I told her she’s going to grow up and reach a stage where she isn’t going to care what others think or say about her legs.

I told her she’s going to help other people deal with such pains. I told her not to ever be scared to put herself out there because of what others might say, because she was too important, too special to hide. I brought her back home with me and showed her what her life was going to be like in her future. I took her into my heart. Then we acted out a better ending for the scene, where she turned around and took a bow and walked away not with tears but sticking her tongue out at the couple.

Only after I went back to her, I got over that hurtful comment. Now, if a situation arises where I get anxious about my looks and what comments they might draw, I think of the girl in the orange jeans and smile, inwardly sticking a tongue out at nobody.

How many times do we say something in public, without realizing that it could be hurtful?

By practicing being present in the moment, being aware of our surroundings, we might be able to stay true to the kindness in our souls.

So many of our fears and anxieties go back to traumas and hurts in our past. As children, we don’t know how to process them, and they remain imprinted in our brains. Research shows that there are ways to heal these old hurts. If you have encounters with fear, anxiety, anger, sadness sometimes, that don’t seem to have a rhyme or reason, maybe something that happened way back in your childhood is being triggered. It might be worthwhile to look into it. I can help. 🙂

Emotion Beads

August 28, 2014

What do you do with your emotions?

I asked a friend this the other day and she told me that was the strangest question she had ever been asked.

But is it really that strange?

My friend joked that she gathers them and makes a necklace out of them, but I loved that answer. Yes, a bead for every time I allow myself to feel an emotion, to experience it and let it flow, forming a precious bead on its way out.

Emotion Beads!

I’d wear them with pride!

Today I observed several emotions rise up in my body. There was sadness, confusion, anger, contentment and joy. I noticed them all and smiled at them.

Sadness, when we talked to my husband’s aunt and realized that she has dementia. She remembers the old days but forgets what she said a minute ago.

Confusion, when seven beautiful eggplants disappeared from my garden with no trace, no damage to the plants, no half gnawed pieces scattered around. Gone! Darn eggplant thieves!

Contentment, when we went out and worked in the yard quietly for an hour.

Joy, when I sat on the deck in the sun, reading a book and watching the birds, squirrels and butterflies.

Anger, I’ll elaborate on the anger.

This morning, I made a quick trip to Whole Foods to buy halibut for a special dinner my husband and I would enjoy. It was expensive! $26 a pound, but I still wanted to splurge on it. It looked slightly darker than usual, so I asked Mike, one of the regular fish guys there, if it was fresh. Whole Foods has a three day policy; whatever you buy is supposed to be good for three days after the purchase date. Mike went into a speech about how fish vary in color, depending on what they eat and how we can’t control what they eat when they’re in the wild, and of course it was fresh, he had just put it out today, and on and on, until he was finished double wrapping it.

Later, when I opened the package to start preparing it, I almost fainted from the smell. That fish was not fresh. It was far gone. Rotten. Decaying. That fish was hopeless. Almost decomposed.

I told my husband I wouldn’t cook it because we would get sick eating it. He said, we probably wouldn’t get sick but it wouldn’t taste good. So the fish went into the trash.

Oh well, I thought, the eggplants I was going to roast to accompany the halibut had disappeared anyway, so I might as well figure out something else for dinner. As I got busy making a spaghetti sauce and washing spinach for a salad, something stopped me in my tracks. Wait a minute! It screamed.

Now that I’m learning to be aware of my emotions, I sat down and paid attention to it. Where in my body was this feeling coming from? There was pressure in my chest and my jaw was clenched. Aha! I investigated further and sure enough I was angry but instead of processing it, I was making jokes about the fish being deader than dead and disappearing eggplants! This has been a known pattern for me, get busy, joke and ignore emotions. This was not the first time I had brought home rotten food from Whole Foods! Last month, the baby cucumbers looked firm and fresh from outside, but underneath the plastic cover, their bottoms had disintegrated. The packaged organic chicken a few months ago smelled even worse than today’s fish. The expensive, organic cashews were moldy. And now this.

So what did I do with my anger? I felt it. I let it fill my entire body and breathed space around it. I imagined it changing shape and color. I took it out to the garden and walked around with it, talking with it until it gave me clear messages and gradually flowed out.

Karla McLaren writes in her book, The Language of Emotions:

The questions for anger are: “what must be protected?” and “what must be restored?”

My time and money must be protected. My trust in the store where I buy my food must be restored. My boundaries of fairness and not being lied to must be restored. Once I worked through this, I was calm, determined and knew what I wanted to do. I picked up the phone, not in anger anymore, but in kind action. Kindness towards myself and kindness towards the store.

Manager Scott was very apologetic for our dinner being spoiled. He took my name and left a refund and a gift certificate at the service desk for me to pick up on my next visit. He promised me he would talk to the meat department management about the issue. I was able to respect him, trust him and be kind. (He also pronounced my name correctly. I notice these things.)

All was well again. Substitute dinner was delicious, prepared with love and creativity, not angry energy, and my boundaries were restored.

This of course is a very simple example for anger. There are much heavier reasons for this emotion. But they all can be treated the same way, with respect, not by suppressing them or expressing violently, but finding out what their benevolent message is.

So I ask you, dear reader, what do you do with your emotions?

~ Do you suppress them? Shove them under a rug? Grind your teeth and ignore them?

~ Do you express them inappropriately? Creating more conflict and stress?

~ Or do you feel them and process them? Do you listen to your inner wisdom’s input? Maybe make a emotion bead necklace?

If you don’t know how, I can help.

emotion beads