Our Yoga Blog » kindness

Ignorance is Not Necessarily Bliss

Sumedha — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:11:57 +0000

I haven’t worked in a 9-5 job for many years — for good reason. First, I’m an entrepreneur at heart; but more to the point, I couldn’t stand office politics. I also abhor the resistant culture many office environments adopt as they age. In my experience, when people have worked in the same office for a long period of time, they don’t like to have the pot stirred. Introducing change in the form of a new person or heaven forbid, a young person with different ideas on how to do things, is like dropping a fox in the hen house. Fur is going to fly and all hell will break loose … you can count on it.

As fate would have it, I occasionally have to fill in for someone in the office and it’s always difficult for me to make a smooth transition. I usually keep my head down and get the work done as fast as I can so I can get out again. But last week luck wasn’t shining down on me.

The “others” in the office got into a lively conversation about how much they deplore our current President. For whatever reason, the president’s polarizing personality incites some people to near violence. They all wanted to “punch him in the face every time he comes on TV,” or so they said.

I never enter willingly into a political fracas, so I just kept my mouth shut. Of course one of them turns to me eventually and says, “How about you, do you like Obama?”

Crap, now I have to say something. So I respond, “Yeah actually, I do. But more importantly, I think we all live in the same United States and we should learn to get along.”

Dead silence. They have to think about that for a minute and then the meanest one of the bunch rallies. She says, “But you are a Canadian aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” I reply.

“That means you can’t vote, right?”

“Yep, that’s what it means.”

To which she laughs hysterically and says, “That’s a good thing.”

Ugh. I’ve been around long enough and as a result, it’s normally pretty tough to hurt my feelings. But I was vulnerable and didn’t see it coming. I felt her negative energy rip at my heart immediately.

Everyone knew the comment was awkward at best because the room got really quiet. But no one apologized as is typical in dysfunctional ‘family’ relationships.

So my point is this, how many times do we say something from our ego that we think is right because of our political beliefs, for example, but is mean-spirited and mean and actually harms another?

If we all made an effort to act kindly toward others including considering other people’s feelings before you speak, this world would be a kinder, gentler and more peaceful place.

Make today an act of kindness.

Peace Knows no Anger

Sumedha — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 20:30:18 +0000

News reports from Europe suggest insights into why some of the Muslim population are angry with England and America.

With a better understanding of what makes them angry, I hypothesized, maybe we could figure out a way to deal with that problem.

As anyone who as ever contemplated the notion of world peace has discovered, I realized that changing another person’s point of view or response to life is not possible. They must first want to change.

It seems to me that this situation requires self regulation, for example:

1. It’s not possible to solve another person’s anger issues. Anyone experiencing anger also owns the ability as well as carries the responsibility to transform it into something positive. We must begin with the desire to change.

2. England and America as a culture and cumulative population are who they are; we must all learn to work together. Just as the acknowledgment that there are populations all over the world struggling with different areas of growth for their people such as hunger and disease; so too do these nations have their learning curve.

3. We must view each other as one human, spiritual race and give the same courtesies to all.

4. Peace is not possible with anger or hate involved. Everyone deserves love and understanding as a starting point.

Historic violence teaches us that killing in the name of religion is not only wrong thinking, it has not solved any issues between our nations. War is clearly not the answer. A woman who has long spearheaded the idea of a peace department with the United States is Marianne Williamson. Let’s align with her efforts. You can find out more about this movement at The Peace Alliance or www.thepeacealliance.org

We all need to learn to communicate safely. One of the best teachers of non-violent communication is Marshall Rosenberg. You can find his information at The Center for Nonviolent Communication or www.cnvc.org.

Here’s to finding our way to world peace in 2010. Happy New Year!

Spiritual Growth is in the Details

Sumedha — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:56:18 +0000

Spiritual Growth

Many years ago I made a commitment never to pass along any negative energy.

I live most days in peace and love, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get caught in a loop sometimes when things don’t “go my way.” Patience has never been easy for me and as a result, I still have to work on it occasionally.

The point of this story is that when you make a mistake, you need to make up for it; which usually entails an apology.

I had to call my bank Again (emphasis on the capital letter) as what had transpired since opening a new business account with them was a series of one hand not knowing what the other was doing scenarios.

Ok, maybe the bank (which will remain nameless) was having trouble with their sale and transition, or the bad PR they were getting from being a large part of the bad mortgage legacy, I’ll give them that. Maybe it was just my good-looking with no follow-up sales rep – probably more likely.

In any case, I transferred a checking account from one bank to another; to what was supposed to be a free checking account and as it turns out, it wasn’t. And so the bank is calling me to have me pay service fees with my credit card.

Aaargh!

My patience got shorter as the nice lady kept telling me she was “just doing her job;” Like I couldn’t figure that out.

But you see spirit is in the details. I should have taken a pause and called her back. But I plodded on and became more frustrated … no yelling, just bad energy conversation. I’m sure you know what I mean.

So I made it right the next day because I had made a promise to myself and to God. I called her up and apologized for being short with her and reiterated my commitment to never pass along anything but kindness and love.

After her initial quizzical reaction, we worked out the bank situation. She cleared out and closed my account and told me I wasn’t the only one that had a problem with this particular sales rep. She also asked me to come and introduce myself the next time I came into the bank. In other words, we made nice and brought each other’s day up instead of down.

It would have been easy to ignore the situation I had created, but you see I can’t.

Because Spiritual Growth is in the details and I made a promise.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!