How to Handle People Who Drive You Nuts
And come out smiling.
This was a huge challenge. Ten years ago, my friend’s daughter, then eight, accompanied her father to see his family. She never returned. Rain fought hard to get her back. But an unmarried, Western woman does not get far in some foreign courts.
Before taking off, Kale, the father, had forged large checks and official papers. Rain had dropped her plaints in exchange for visiting rights. (One hour a day supervised by armed guards.).
The attorney general pursued the cases anyway and they disappeared into the courts. Until this year, when a guilty verdict surfaced. Interpol is looking for him now. Good news!
You’d think so. But Kale blamed Rain for his plight (totally tefloning the fact that he did commit the crimes) and started to menace her. He’d put the girl into hiding. He’d send someone to deliver ‘justice’. We all know what that means. And he has the wherewithal to do it.
When Rain told me all this, outrage, disgust, fury roiled inside me. I wanted him… well, it wasn’t pretty.
My intense reaction flew up the nose of my precious self-image. I’m supposed to be spiritually advanced or some such thing. Ha. All those years of meditation, self-exploration, teaching, reading? Out the window in the flash of a crystal.
Worse, I’m exactly like him. Condemning, raging, violent. Sobering. Righteous anger is very seductive. And destructive. What we think and feel affects a situation. There was more than enough malevolence in this one without me.
Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love… Martin Luther King.
Set your intention and see what arrives.
Well, folks, meeting hate with love was too big a stretch for me this time. I searched for what I could manage. “Best go for non-judgment,” thinks I.
That day I came across this.
Allow each person to walk their path.
Something about this let in some light. In this crazy hall of mirrors called reality, we hardly know the why for ourselves let alone someone else. I could not condone his behavior, but did I know what the deeper meaning might be?
No.
This helped me shimmy away from murderous rage but I didn’t get very far. I still wanted to nail the guy. Ack. What to do?
Turn to a master and search within yourself.
A memory of Thich Nhat Hanh floated up. When asked what he would do if he met the men who’d flown the planes on 9/11. He responded, “I would listen to them,”
I could not speak to Kale. But having worked with people for 30 odd years I know beyond a doubt that pain begets pain. There had to be a back story to this. There’s always a back story. And I did not know what it was. Then medium.com brought me a gift.
For even the dishonest, the lost, the greedy, the sick, the forgotten, the broken, the evil, the ignorant, the victim, the perpetrator all were once someone’s baby.
Samantha Lazar
We all started out as clean slates: open, connected, joyful. Then the world stepped in and started writing on our blackboard. What had been written on his? Where was all this pain coming from? I didn’t know.
And he probably doesn’t either. He’s stuck in reaction mode, run by his wounding. The sad and awful truth is everyone is doing the best they know how. And most people will continue to do it until something makes them change. Like having Interpol on your ass. I’d call that a major wake-up call.
But he didn’t see it that way. Instead, he displaced the blame and fault on Rain. So, he’ll get another chance to learn.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King
Remember what you put out comes back.
I do believe energy begets energy, so my going around guns blazing is not an option for long. You never know who or what that you’re going to hit. Knowing me, I’d plug my own foot.
Or I might fire up someone else and they’ll explode later on some unfortunate, unsuspecting person, animal, or inanimate object. Or my Debbie Downer Dance will pull another soul into it. I might make my friend more upset by stirring up her feelings with mine instead of listening to hers.
Nope, no good is going to come of me mounted on my high horse. I cannot condone what he did, but I can’t perpetuate it either no matter how justified it feels.
I needed to have my moment of rage. Once an emotion has hit the surface, stuffing it back down is useless What it showed me though, is I have work to do. I need to find out where and why that anger lurks in me and clear it out. His stuff triggered mine, I need to clean up my side or find an Interpol equivalent on my ass one day too.
Turn it into gold.
Finally, I had an idea. I would hold what was best for all. Feeling it in my heart, sharing it with others, while I meditate. A kind of mutual blessing.
OK, I can’t bring the father into it yet. It has to be honest and I’m not ready. But I’ll try to get there.
It’s called the loving kindness meditation. I recorded a short version for you.
It’s helpful to write down the words so you glance at them during the visualization.
May you be free of suffering. May you be happy. May you love and be loved. May you find the healing that you seek. May you find peace.
It’s a process.
It can take searching, waiting, noticing, releasing, feeling, transforming or any number of other steps to work your way free of charged emotions. Because that is what difficult people do, they stir us up and our muck that’s been lying on the bottom is now on top!
Some steps I used here are
- Realizing I had been swept away.
- Setting the intention to come back to myself and not add more harm to the situation.
- Staying alert for messages coming from the outside world.
- Finding someone inspirational to guide me.
- Remembering whatever I contribute will mix into the situation and affect me directly.
- Know that people are who they are because of history, including myself.
- Digging into my own dirt. (Not included in this article.)
- Doing something to myself and transform the situation, like this meditation.
Let me how you feel if you try this. [email protected]om
