I wish I would have paused and read your words again last night…

You see we had friends over and were playing a game. She was winning but landed in a lose 2 turns space along side of me. I cheered but not overly so at all. This must have triggered her as the next thing out if her mouth was, “your’e an Ass!” Three more times she refered to me this way throughout the evening and even commented that it would be unwise to do business with me in real life after I made a mistake calculating her game card.

I was hurt and embarrassed to be called a name in public. I know, no opinion should have been my montra but this stung and I was hooked. Waking up at 3am I couldn’t sleep so I got up and did Zazen. When I went back to bed She was up and I told her my pain. She said she was only teasing but because I’ve been very clear about not calling me names I felt she wasn’t sincere. I was hoping for an apology and some loving embrace but she pushed me away.

Feeling like awful about the whole situation, I went to the Zen center for the morning practice and to recharge. Back home I’m reading the kind words from all of you again and trying to open my heart even though I would rather go be alone.

I’m practicing much of what you all have said, reading Ruiz, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tara Brach and others which has helped me so much over the past few days to come back to being present in who I am.

Let me tell you how this is playing out in real life. This morning I was preparing breakfast and lunch for my sweetheart when she came out talking about how I haven’t gotten so and so done and how we never finish anything and so on. After a few minutes her voice was quite raised, what I would consider yelling and she was obviously frustrated. Lately I would have felt attacked and a little taken advantage of, after all here I’m doing something very generous while being told I’m inadequate. I thought, “How interesting” Thanks Matt! Then I looked out the window and saw that there were clouds in the sky that had not been there yesterday and also thought, “How interesting”

What I saw was that I was just doing me and the sky was just doing the sky so there is no problem. She may be upset and frustrated with what we are doing but who is the problem with? I feel that as long as our intention is to give loving kindness even if we are not moving as fast as others want or in their chosen direction this is right practice and we can take refuge within our true nature.

So is she a teacher as Matt suggests? I would say yes as I have learned something about me. Is she loving and supportive when behaving this way…? I’m not sure how to answer that.

Thank you Mark for those heart filled words. I do realize that I’m somewhat stuck in my own feelings of unworthiness and not finding that the story of my life is only a story. This moment is the truth and here is where I become myself, truly love myself.