I forgot my training bag. Crap! I am already at the high school dropping off my kids, at least 20 minutes away from home, and I am meeting a friend to go run. The cell coverage by the high school is nil, so I’m going to have to wait until that ‘sweet spot’ close to my house to call my friend to let him know I’m running late. Never mind the fact that the roads are dicey. By the time I start running, I’ll have wasted over an hour of mine (and my friends) time.
First world problems, I know. But being angry, frustrated, and ‘kicking myself’ for mistakes are universal emotions, whether I am ‘judging’ my situation to be worthy of them or not. Not respecting or being mindful of my emotions because I feel my situation ‘shouldn’t’ (always a dangerous word) be that big of a deal, usually leaves me in the middle of a HUGE pile of emotional crap… I’ll explain (because, unfortunately, this isn’t my first emotional crap pile).
I head home, and my mind starts to create a story. The story blames anything outside of myself for my anger or frustration over my forgotten bag. Here’s one…
“Blank” (seriously, fill in a name of a family member of your choosing) was chatting away to me while I was trying to focus on getting my stuff together, and NOW I have to go back and get my bag!
Another version? Sure…
There was so much stuff all over the living room left by (again, it can’t be your stuff in the living room, that would mean you would have to take responsibility, SO… choose a family member), that I had to move it all just to find a place to sit to get my stuff together. My mind was completely set off track by having to find a place for it, just so I could sit down. That mess totally threw off my routine, and NOW I have to go back and get my bag!
I could keep going, but I think you get the point.
But herein lies the problem with putting out my crap onto others: Turns out people don’t want my crap either (stunning revelation, I know), and by not taking responsibility for my crap early on, well… you can fill a dump truck with the amount of crap I can create for myself. Any ‘story’ that I create, allowing me to put the emotional responsibility for my anger or frustration somewhere other than where it belongs (with me), will ultimately create a much greater pile of crap (uncomfortable emotions) than I originally started with. The problem is, while I’m in my crap, I have a bit of trouble getting to my ability to reason this out (darn frontal lobe being fogged by my crap). And, seriously, my crap is well… uncomfortable, and I don’t want to feel it.
Let’s play out what happens as a result of allowing myself to accept the ‘story’:
I get home, one of my stories in mind, and the first person I see when I get my bag (which I’ve been victimized into having left at home) is my wife. I start putting my crap out on her, blaming her for what I forgot. What do think happens in this scenario? Let’s do a multiple choice:
A. My wife gets angry, gives me some good ol’ fashion crap of her own (therefore there’s more crap to be had), because she doesn’t know what the heck I’m talking about (since she wasn’t even awake when I left)!
B. My wife is completely confused about what I am talking about, and, when I leave after taking my crap out on her, has time to let the anger of the situation simmer, until someone else get’s home, say, one of the kids. She proceeds to dump her crap on them maybe by getting after them for this or that – something completely unrelated. By the time I get home that evening the house is filled with crap. It has multiplied by great dividends, not just to my unsuspecting wife, but now my kids.
C. My wife cries tears of repentance, drops to her knees and begs for forgiveness for her grievous wrong doings (it’s actually even funny to write at this point).
D. Both A and B.
If you went with D, you are correct. Basically, by not just acknowledging and owning my own mistake and dealing with my uncomfortable emotions I’ve created much more crap for everyone, including myself.
The funny thing is, I would have come home later on as if all was well with the world, forgetting about the crap I put out earlier. I would have been completely bewildered as to why all this crap was there! Stepping into the crap upon coming home, I might find myself throwing a big old ball of crap right back at them. It’s not like there’s not always ‘new story lines’ to create (my wife is always nagging; my kids never pick up after themselves… None of this is true, but it feels true with all the crap being slung around). All of this will leave the house under such a heap of crap it would just be easier to move than to fumigate. All because I didn’t bother to ‘stop and think’ for a moment. To take a breath. To be mindful about how I was feeling. To accept the responsibility for my uncomfortable emotions, my crap, and allow time for all of it to just pass through me, instead of blaming others for my uncomfortability.
In the end I decide, on the long ride home, to just allow myself to be upset, not create a ‘story,’ and not throw my crap at anyone. I’m going to own my uncomfortable moment, my anger and frustration, and not to put it on anyone else. What I find most of the time is that people will usually just have empathy for me and my situation, no matter how angry or upset I am if I just tell them how I am feeling, instead of acting my emotions out on them. So… I think I’ll just cut the crap and get my bag.
