I felt like a great weight was lifted off me, and that allowed a few other changes and realisations to come through.
One of those realisations was about the amount of stress I am under - largely around my day job (which I am very aware of, and have been seeking to manage through a variety of techniques), but also around completing my spiritual goals in this life. I felt, after that meeting, that I was finally able to move towards the position advocated in Rudyard Kipling's poem "If", of treating success and failure the same. That doesn't mean I don't continue to care, or don't take a professional attitude towards accomplishing my goals (i.e., if I don't accomplish the work, I have failed), but my attitude towards the issue of achieving these goals has changed. I have more equanimity around the issue of success or failure - despite having received a rejection slip for one part of those goals, which is publishing a book about regression-rescue.
I also realised more fully, as a result of reviewing that long past relationship, that the spiritual ideal of not being affected by events, of having equanimity, has even more value than I realised - particularly for those one cares about.
Now, I have thought about the issue of "how we train others to treat us", which has been an issue for me even since a period in my life two decades ago, in another ... life, almost, where I had a boss who believed that, if people were not upset by discriminatory behaviour (or even criminal behaviour, such as some forms of assault), there was no need to take action. He was wrong then, and still is wrong, but I have been crippled and scarred emotionally by that monster (who fortunately is no longer in my life) - and the lack of support I had from others above him.
The attitude I have taken in response to that was along the lines of BE upset, be outraged - SHOW that the behaviour is wrong, because that helps to get the message across to other people that their behaviour is wrong and strong action needs to be taken. I'm still going to do that when it is needed, but I've realised that I was letting that seep into other areas of my life, and setting the wrong example of what I expect of myself to others near and dear to me. As a result, I will be making sure that those I care about understand that, where I am showing my upset for the sake of achieving change, I am taking those actions I do for the sake of others, but I am - from now on - probably going to be OK in a lot of situations that previously upset me: I feel that confronting that set of past (psychological) demons has strengthened my equanimity.
This does not extend to things like my avoidance of hetero Aussie pubs though: I really do have better things to do with my life than put up with that sort of rubbish energy. :)
One of the other things this has strengthened in me is that I would be happy to move on from my day job without having achieved what I set out to (provided things like my family's level of income is maintained).
Love, light, hugs and blessings
Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
Tags: attitudes, discrimination, realisation, society,
First published: Sunnudagr, 21st August, 2011
Last edited: Sunday, 21st August, 2011
