When someone drives into the back of your brand new car, what do you do ? Jump out and shout ? Or do you use it to make a difference ? What impact do you choose ? Do you choose ? This is my story …and yes, my brand new car.
It is pouring with rain and so I stopped to allow the dustbin man to get across the road with his bin. Not expecting the load bang as the lady behind me (who hadn’t been when I stopped), didn’t stop. I have had my car for 7 days. It doesn’t even have a licence plate so I was not exactly happy when I bailed out of my car, fully expecting to see the lovely, brand spanking new bumper totally crumpled up.
All of a sudden years of practicing kindness and acceptance and forgiveness seemed to no longer exist. I was angry. How dare she be so silly !! Wasn’t she paying attention. The urge to be right started to take control and along with it, the customary righteous anger.
Then another voice intruded – a quiet, gentle voice, one that belonged to a gentleman who had not become angry and aggressive when I accidentally reversed my rather large 4by into his parked car at night (it was soo tiny I never saw it until I heard it). He never got angry. Never got aggressive. Never blamed me and made me feel like a twit. He just kept saying, don’t worry, it was an accident! These things happen! It was a moment of forgiveness and acceptance that has stuck with me since. He even phoned later to say he had noticed how stressed I was and that it was OK! I was blown away. That feeling of dread panic that I normally get when I find myself in a situation where I am going to be blamed for something I didn’t consciously do subsided almost immediately. No-one had ever done that when I have made a mistake before.
As I reached my bumper I took a deep breath in and smiled and then turned to face the damage. Nothing. In shock I turned to her car, expecting to see that crushed. Nothing. Both cars seemed fine. I laughed and turned to her and said, no way could we be this lucky, all my ‘normal’, righteous thoughts gone and instead of seeing an enemy who deliberately drove into my brand new car, I saw someone who was as stressed as me, someone who had just and instead of asking the lady if she was blind, I changed tack, remembering that accidents happen. They are not deliberate attacks on me and mine, they just are.
The anger is still there, clamouring for attention and demanding to know why I am ignoring it. One day it will realise that I am choosing calm and joy for my life and that I no longer need righteous anger to give me the courage to stand up for myself and get me through my day. Until that day, I will keep on consciously owning my life and choosing myself. Until then, I will keep on practicing kindness and abundance and forgiveness, especially in those situations where it isn’t common. Some days I will get it right, some wrong and that is OK. The more I get it right the less I get it wrong. The more I get it wrong the more aware I become and so the easier it is to choose differently next time.
How can you practice kindness today ?
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