"Please Leave Your Message At The Beep"
"I look forward to talking with you. Have a fantastic day."
With that last pleasantry, I pressed a button on my cell phone, comfortable with the voice-mail I had just left.
And then I continued, in a voice of annoyance and sarcasm, a disagreement that I was having with my wife Cathy. It must have been thirty seconds or more of an arrogant tirade determined to prove that I was right about something which seemed very important at the time.
Then I went to dial another phone number on my cell, but to my horror I discovered the voice recording was still going on. I hadn't disconnected! My discordant rant was now part of my client's permanent record of me.
I told Cathy what I had just done, and we both burst into laughter at the absurdity. But still I felt ridiculous, and also a bit guilty. Why is it that we have no difficulty behaving a certain way with a spouse or family member, yet when we learn that another less intimate person has heard us talking like that, we shudder at our behavior? How would our spousal or family dialogue change if we knew it was being recorded for all the world to hear?
Gandhi said, "I never let anyone walk through my mind with dirty feet." How often do we entertain behavior that doesn't reflect who we want to be? Where is the "ctrl/alt/delete" button when we are losing it? And what about our internal dialogues? I know I am as guilty of internal raving as I am of interpersonal raving. My embarrassing phone message is truly a learning opportunity.
It's not about ridding myself of anger, sadness, or any other emotion, I realize, nor about being afraid of negative thinking when it appears. It is about having enough centered awareness to recognize the emotions and the thoughts as they come - to pause, to feel and learn from them, and then to choose to operate out of my highest purpose. Identifying "anchors" - such as red lights, grocery lines, or waiting on hold during phone calls - reminds me to develop this awareness by providing mini-opportunities to re-center and experience life open-hearted, open-minded, and fascinated by the mystery.
There was a monk who was in a constant state of upset and depression. When another monk made a gesture of helping him out of his gloomy mindset, the first monk angrily replied, "Look at the Master. He has his outbursts of anger!"
"Ah, that is so", replied the other monk calmly, "but his anger is like lightning. It strikes to the heart of the target, and then it is gone, the sun shining brightly again!"
Thomas Crum
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