I did something last week that has caused me much consternation.
Driving on a narrow, winding California mountain road, I moved over to the left lane (ie the fast lane) to allow cars to merge from an on-ramp. I was traveling at the limit and it was my intention to move back into the slow lane as soon as I had overtaken them. Before I had a chance to do this, however, a four wheel drive came barreling up behind me and flashed his lights. Before I knew it I was giving him a one finger salute.
I have felt a level of shame ever since. This is not who I want to be, or what I want to be doing.
There was a time when, in these circumstances, I would have felt justified and vindicated. And there are no doubt situations where this sort of thought/action has its place. For instance, when someone is trying to set boundaries in the face of an aggressive external force.
This might have been right for me at some point in my past. But it’s not who I am today and I wondered why I did it. In fact I’ve agonized over this question for almost a week now. In my ruminating, Wayne Dyer’s analogy of the orange and the orange juice came to mind. He says that when you squeeze ( ie apply pressure) an orange, whatever is inside it (ie orange juice) comes out.
This is equally true of us. It is in moments of pressure and stress that we are often confronted with the emotions and tendencies that lie dormant and unseen in us in normal circumstances.
These so-called negative emotions exist in all of us. They are the tools of the ego part of our mind which it uses to keep us all separate and afraid. We all have the propensity for fear, anger and attack within us. It is helpful for us to acknowledge this, because acknowledgement and acceptance are the first steps to healing.
We often make the mistake of thinking that only certain people are capable of certain thoughts or actions. For instance, we think criminals and others on the social fringe are not like us; that their actions set them apart from the rest of us - we the ‘good’ people.
But it helps to remind ourselves, that given certain circumstances, certain experiences and a particular combination of the two, we may well find ourselves capable of the very things we thought only ‘other’ people do.
The ego resides in all of us, and the ego is capable of almost anything that would keep us separate and afraid. The ego has a set of tricks it uses to get us to act according to its dictates, and it strikes when we are most vulnerable. The only difference that seems to exist between us as individuals is not our basic ‘goodness’ or ‘badness,’ but the degree and frequency with which we allow our ego to govern our thoughts, intentions and actions.
In a way, these events are red flags for us. They bring our attention to the unseen and invisible parts of ourselves that require adjustment and healing. I think that’s why I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind. I needed to acknowledge my hidden emotions and set my intention to heal them, removing any residual fear and/or anger. I now realize it is time to heal these rogue parts of my psyche.
So that’s my task. Good timing, don’t you think, given the season for peace on earth, goodwill to all (wo)men that is now upon us?
