I had one of those experiences the other day that makes you think “Where did that come from?” and, “I should have said ___ or ___!”
I was at the store Pink getting my girls some gifts for their 12 days of Christmas. I was at the counter ready to check out with all of my lotions. To my left was a lady who ran back to get one more thing and left her mentally handicapped daughter at the counter. This cute girl struggled to move over to me and hugged me and was trying to kiss me and I said, “Oh do you need a hug right now?” and hugged her back. I adore these people. She stayed right by me holding me and trying to speak and I couldn’t understand her. Then I remembered lip gloss! I asked the clerk who was helping me if they had any lip gloss- I hadn’t seen any. She said, “No, I’m sorry, we are completely sold out.” The lady to my right who I hadn’t really noticed before chimed in, “Not everything in your life is going to be perfect.” I looked over at her and it was if time slowed down and I noticed a bunch of thoughts whizz through my head, “Oh, you have no idea. Who are you? Did you really just say that to me? Do you always have a positive attitude like this? Do I look like my life is perfect?…” Then I simply said, “No, no it’s not.” I looked back to the clerks who all looked clearly stunned and I smiled.
Here I was with people I had never seen in my life- an angel on my left hugging me and then someone on my right who was spurting out negative energy like she had quite a bit to spare. It was such an interesting moment- the feeling was so strong-good and bad, all at once. It was me and 3 clerks observing this with eyes wide open! I have been practicing JOY this entire year and have tried to form habits of letting people who have negative energy go. The mom of the girl hugging me returned and she let go of me to go back to her mom. So I finished the transaction, thanked the clerk, and walked away.
I didn’t really think about this much until the next day when thoughts started coming like “you should have said this or that to the rude lady.” Then I stopped myself because I have also learned that I can’t teach someone a lesson that doesn’t want to be taught. She was in no position to be changed no matter what I did. For sure a negative comment back would not have helped. It would have taken me down to that negative level and that is NOT worth putting any energy into.
We are all in this world together, and I am going to try to lift people up as much as I possibly can. I am going to try to combat the negatives with positives. If we all did this, the world would be a much happier place, even though not everything in life is going to be perfect!
This happened and was first published on 12/11/17.