A Smile to Stop the Spiral

I am trying something new in my life.  It doesn't really matter what it is, but this morning I realized that I had messed it up.  I messed up unintentionally, but the consequences seemed sort of big and I was mad.  A little belligerent about the whole thing.  My husband wasn't home, so I text him to tell him how upset I was over an accident.  Thereby potentially passing my crap-tacular mood on to him.

This was his totally unexpected response to me: No beuno.  Keep being awesome though - mistakes will happen as you keep trying this.  Hearts!

This heartfelt response was totally unexpected.  Not because my husband is a pillar of unfeeling stone, but I had already grumbled at him before he left the house and I expected no response from him.  Instead, I got just what I needed - a smile.

He didn't try to fix it for me, offer an excuse, or encourage me to give up.  He simply acknowledged what I had said and gave his love.  He provided an amazing answer, in perfect form, the kind of answer I have spent the last couple of years trying to develop with all of my self-improvement books.

The smile propelled me back out of bed.  What a wonderful day created by a smile.

Letting Others Influence Your Experience...

Stopping other people from influencing your experience is pretty darn hard.  In my path to figuring out life and how I want to live it, I decided pretty early on, that other people and their negative behaviors/attitudes/worldview/you name it, was going to have less impact on me.  Just setting that intention has allowed the little things that others do, more easily slide off my back.

I want to be that spiritual duck, everything runs off my back. It passes over me, touching me, but not ruffling my down.  Yea know, spiritual duck.

Because of my diligence in this area I find that traffic doesn't bother me much anymore, I don't feel impatient with slow people in front of me, I don't feed into strangers bad moods by adding fodder to their negativity cannon, and other such things that have made my day-to-day life a little brighter.

Lets jump ahead to earlier this week.  As part of my journey, I have signed up for some life coaching classes, where I learn different tips and tricks to be an effective life coach.  I am pretty excited about it, I get to be surrounded (over the phone) by people of a similar mind set. Other spiritual ducks in training if you will.

So, imagine my surprise when one of my fellow spiritual ducks is a total dud!  He has openly told the wonderful woman running the class that "Well, to be honest, I didn't really learn anything new today."  First of all, there's a difference between an honest comment and an 'honest' comment that aims to attack and belittle.

Without even realizing it, I have been berating this person off and on all day.  I just can't believe someone would speak that way in front of others.  Then I think, in my haughty spiritual duck tone, "Well, that person must have some pretty serious issues to work through!"

HELLO! I am gossiping about this guy, to myself and letting him mess with me.  That's crazy!

"Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison" p.37, Ch. 2 - The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz

I poisoned myself and am waiting for him to feel the anguish of being poisoned.  Crazy.

All I can do is try and let it go.  What I should do (with my amazing mind powers) is send him some positive vibes..... done.  Now to see if I can maintain that.

Crazy Train

When you feel like someone is hiding something from you, how are you supposed to handle that? It doesn't really matter what they do, it just feeds into your... Mistrust? Judgments? Misgiving? Frustration.

They (those really smart people) say "you see what you are inside reflected back to you in others." So, how does that really play out? Does it mean I am hiding something? Does it mean I am untrustworthy? Paranoid?
Tonight I just couldn't let it go. I couldn't, I tried. Then, it all bubbled up. "I'm not sure I trust you. I don't think you're sorry, etc."

Back story to the bubbling up moment:
My husband went out with buddies two nights ago. I was going to pick him up afterwards. Well, my phone wouldn't work and I couldn't reach him to see if he was ready to be picked up. So, I left to go pick him up at the bar estimating I would get there right at closing. Except, he wasn't at the bar. He was at his friend's house. I know this man and his wife, vaguely. I don't know where they live. No clue.

Now, I'm upset because I was sure he knew that be was going to end up at their place and didn't think enough of me to let me know. Plus, had I shown up at the bar and he wasn't there, I would have lost it. I finally got through to him, 5 min before I got to the bar. He had tried calling several times (ditto on my end), but couldn't get through. Those calls started once he'd been at his friend's house for over an hour.

Two days later I'm still miffed, but he's perky and tells me that they pre-gamed at this friend's house and that his wife drove them to the bar and then picked them up. Which infuriated me. Why would they call her to pick them up, if I.was.supposed.to?

So, I tell my husband I've got some trust issues around that. He doesn't like it or understand where I'm coming from. After some more "discussion" he says I'm treating him like a child, which I was and he doesn't like or need that kind if babysitting. We rarely drink apart, so I can only assume he acts the same way in every drunk situation, which can be very childish and always overly amorous.

So, then it hits me. I'm upset that I didn't get the attention I normally due from drunk husband. That coupled with a few recent fights is what sent me over the edge.

I have my minor epiphany, but now he's mad. So, I've ruined both of our nights because I can't seem to figure this all out internally, so I sound like a nut job.

Now, I'm over it, he's not and I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm kidding myself with this whole journey to being a better person. It's seriously starting to feel painful.

On the whole my life is much more even then it has been in the last ten or so. That sounds really nice until you realize that it makes the valleys seem more extreme. I also feel like I'm missing the peaks. It makes me wonder if a tumultuous unaware state isn't more pleasant.

Ignorance is bliss?!

I'm frustrated that I know I fight less with my husband. I mean, we used to be volatile, not physically, but loud and mean. Not so much anymore. Especially when I decided to stop screaming about a year ago. I don't scream anymore, but I occasionally yell, but it is generally short lived. I also used to be waaaaaaaay more sarcastic. I now make a conscious effort to not be sarcastic and make sure I follow up statements that could be said sarcastically with, "I'm not being sarcastic."

I also heard on NPR, that research has shown that our brains become addicted to extreme feelings. That when we don't experience them, our brain will help create experiences that elicit those feelings. That's why teenagers are addicted to drama. And why apparently people like me are too....

Then, tonight, I didn't intend to fight (honestly, not my conscious intent), but we did. Not much of a fight really, but I felt so much better after I got mad.

I.sound.so.crazy, like I needed a hit off those old bad habits. I can feel myself wanting to be mad at him, but my brain is not keen on the idea, but damn if it doesn't feel good to be irritated and smug. Total crazy train.
I used to walk around unaware that was what I wanted or felt, just as surprised when I blew up as he was. How to break from that cycle? Apparently, awareness and a little effort aren't enough.

On top of it, I just want to blame my husband, get mad and be a crazy person for a few days. At least before I wouldn't have know it was coming, instead of trying to plan the crazy outburst at the most convenient time.
Guh, being an adult is hard and convoluted, as this post clearly demonstrates!