The Rudest Customer of the Day
Hello Generous Soul,
I think it's easy to forget the good in the world.
So many of us get wrapped up in what's not working that we can't even see the beauty of life around us.
The news, social media, maybe our neighbors and family tend to focus on reporting fear, illusions, and scarcity.
BREAKING NEWS always happening, media manipulating the masses into mass psychosis who have forgotten reality and see through a fuzzy and filthy lens.
Then we take our annoyed, frustrated, and scared personalities into the world and project it upon everyone else we forget that the veil of fear is easily taken off so that the truth can be revealed.
The truth that love is only what is real.
I'm reading one of my favorite books, so far, by Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart, A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology.
It was recommended to me by my youngest's guide at school.
Does that ever happen to you?
That you are randomly recommended a book?
This has happened to me so many times.
Not too long ago a friend from high school, who I have not connected with in maybe decades, reached out to me via FB messenger telling me that she was called to share a book with me.
Of course I bought it and when I heard Ryder's guide talk about it, I knew it was calling me to read it.
Books will always find you.
I ordered right away.
It's by an author who is a Buddhist practitioner and a BIG time teacher of mindfulness.
At one point in his book he speaks to how generous Life is.
At one point he asks the reader to practice generosity.
These two paragraphs really touched my heart.
"As you go about your daily rounds, first notice the gifts of the natural world. Notice the way the gift of sunlight streams behind everything. It feeds the plants we eat and gives us the oil from ancient forests that fuels our cars and lights our lamps at night. Notice too the rainfall and the rivers, the water that gives itself to the blood in your veins, to the neighborhood insects and trees, to the interdependent collaborative in which we swim. Notice how generously you are held and supported by the earth under your home and your feet, by the air you breathe, by the warmth of the day and the coolness of the evening.
Now look at the unending care and generosity in humans around you: parents with children, teachers with students, healers and businesspeople, all serving one another. People stop at red lights so you are safe to go. They line up in the market, they share the parks, they cooperate in a thousand ways at the office. The shopkeeper and the mechanic, the bank teller and the cook, the healer and the engineer give themselves to their work, supporting others with countless hours of unspoken generosity and love. Of course people and disgruntled and disaffected. But most of the time, the people around you are giving: in conversation, in action, adding generosity to their life energy to the flow of the whole. Spend a day or a week just noticing, naming, bowing to this stream of generosity everywhere."
I went to the optometrist yesterday.
I was already super irritated that I had to wear a mask. Yes, they were requiring masks.
I fussed about it and to no avail it was wear or mask or leave.
I've been putting off getting my eyes checked to replace the glasses my puppy chewed up for weeks.
I was desperate and just had to get it done.
Thankfully I had one of my mesh masks in my purse.
I flew through the paperwork with frustration.
I took it up to the woman at the front desk.
She had told me to put the pen in the white box to be sanitized.
I put it with the rest of the clean pens, accidently and she stomped to the front of the desk to fix my mistake.
She asked if I had filled out the back of the forms.
Damnit.
She flipped them over and handed them back to me with eyes that told me exactly how she felt about me.
I feeling SO rushed as I needed to hit up Costco before I grabbed the kids and the appointment was already running behind by 15 minutes.
I stood there waiting with my arms crossed.
NOW this is where I noticed myself.
I felt ridged and frustrated.
I didn't want to be there.
These kinds of appointments are always the ones I procrastinate, until I just can't anymore.
I was in deep resistance and causing myself and the people around me unnecessary suffering.
I noticed it BUT I couldn't shake it.
I watched it all go down.
When I finally got into the exam room, it took a few minutes and the doctor gave me my prescription.
As I go to check out, the total was $70 more than what I expected.
"Excuse me, I just got the basic exam." I said.
"Oh, you didn't want the contact lens fitting?" the doctor said.
I was confused at exactly what part was the contact lens fitting.
"No, I didn't and I wrote that on my paperwork." I replied still annoyed and thankful that I checked the right box.
"Well you will need it if you plan to get contacts," she said sternly.
"I've been getting contacts for years without one," I said with a snark.
"Well that's against the law!" she said and continued lecturing me about how that is not supposed to happen and the law was being broken.
BLAH BLAH BLAH, I thought
I just stared at her.
I had given my card to the woman at the front desk and she had ran it for the full amount.
DECLINED
FUCK!
I went to my Wells Fargo app to transfer money and couldn't log in.
ARG!!!
I called my husband.
"Hey babe, can you transfer money into our joint account? I can't do it for some reason."
"Why?" he replied annoyed
I took a deep breath and the woman began talking to me.
She wanted to know what to charge me for and the doctor was walking away with my contact lens prescription.
I put the phone down to grab a different card to use and picked it back up. My husband wasn't on the phone anymore.
Did he hang up on me?
I just decided to keep both prescriptions and pay for them.
She gave me the papers and I ran out of there like I was on fire.
I ripped off my mask and dramatically gasped for air.
As I was huffing and puffing on my way to my car, another car wasn't stopping and barely missed me!
"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS," I yelled.
The driver just waved with an embarrassed look on her face.
I was hyper aware now as I didn't want to get myself run over.
It was too late to go to Costco and I was SO freaking upset.
AHHHHHHHHH!
I got to my car, turned on the AC and just sat there.
My whole body was vibrating with a negative and dense charge of energy.
My stomach felt sick and my throat was tight.
I literally felt like I had been out of my body and I just landed back in... and it didn't feel comfortable.
I put one hand on my heart and one on my belly (a go-to position to connect with my body).
I took some long deep breaths and spent about 7 minutes gathering myself.
I had to get grounded before I picked up my kids... they can sense it all and project it right back so I didn't leave until I felt better.
In the past, this experience would potentially ruin the rest of my day!
I would have picked up my kids with my bad mood in toe, and they would have reflected it 10 fold.
Have you ever noticed that too?
Okay, so let's analyze this situation a bit.
I went into this whole experience negatively because I was felt like I was being forced to wear a mask.
The truth is, no one was forcing me.
This was their policy and I had a choice.
Rather than respecting their policy OR deciding that I was just going to leave, I chose to resist and suffered for it.
I had my reasons, but what good did this do anyone?
These people were just there doing their jobs.
They work day in and day out helping people see better.
I was probably their rudest customer that day and that makes me sad.
Not only did it effect them, it had an impact on my husband and I because I was in such disarray that I couldn't "take care of my shit"... according to him. That's a whole other story.
The point is, we chose to resist life and see it with filters that make it hard to actually see life.
Life is what it is.
We may love it or hate it, but it's life nonetheless.
Life doesn't fit into our mental boxes, in fact, it's WAY to big.
How is it that we continue moving through it and expecting it to be so small and limited so we feel comfortable?
How much are we missing because we are so focused on what isn't fitting into our box?
If I could go back to that experience, I'd choose presence, gratitude, and kindness.
I'd choose to be in more acceptance.
From that place, I bet I could have been clearer in my expectations.
I wouldn't have been rushing through it in my mind and so rude to people I don't even know.
I may have had a few laughs and given a few compliments.
I may have connected deeper with these women in the brief time I was there.
Maybe I could have been the nicest customer of the day.
How we move into the world, determines our entire experience.
We can choose to move from love or fear.
It's pretty simple.
Yet, it feels complicated because we are not focusing on the generosity of the world.
We are focused on the scarcity, fear, and illusion being fed to us day and night.
Maybe by taking the challenge of choosing to see the generosity and beauty in the world, maybe just for day will give us a glimpse of the heaven that we sit in.
In generous love, light, and life,
Becky Wells
The Hippie Moms, LLC
www.thehippiemoms.com
[email protected]
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