Yesterday was the birthday of a person I am in awe of. She is a colleague, one can say, as she is in the same profession; but someone who I regard as being \u2018ahead of\u2019 me~ in terms of capability and perhaps in knowing herself. I met her at a retreat where she was my teacher.<\/p>\n
So in the morning yesterday, I thought to myself, \u2018Let me call and wish her\u2019. But by mid-day the resolve flagged, perhaps I could resort to the much convenient but diluted version of sending her a greeting on Facebook. For there was slight anxiety- What shall I say? After saying hello? What will she think? I didn\u2019t know her THAT well. And, why did I want to call her? To express my affection and regard.<\/p>\n
Incidentally, the dictionary meaning of to be in awe of is to have mixed feelings of reverence, wonder, and fear. So yes, the fear is also there as I have seen her becoming impatient with someone who gets stuck, doesn\u2019t see reason, or is not willing to move on.<\/p>\n
So there was this tussle between a spontaneous expression and on the other hand fears of \u2018appropriateness\u2019 and being \u2018judged\u2019. If one looks at it with logic, it\u2019s a no brainer -there wasn\u2019t that much to lose in making the call. And, it was I who was judging myself.<\/p>\n
I also thought about how I (and probably many others) put people in hierarchies. Of less than\/ more than: competence; wealth; social status; organizational designations; being well read; articulate; smartness; being well informed; achievements; attractiveness; how well the kids are doing; well dressed (yieeks, how much more superficial can one get!) etc.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Instead of going through life experiences getting caught with reactivity or inadequacy, can we just be present \u2013 and observe the phenomenon of the mind making the comparisons. And how gullible we are in believing whatever the mind concludes. Because that what we are comparing with is a part of the other person which is visible to us from the outside. We don\u2019t know what is their inside story. As Steve Furtick explains, \u201cThe reason we struggle with insecurity is that we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else\u2019s highlight reel.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mind likes to make sense of the world by putting things in slots and categories, and then evaluate where the self fits in it. It\u2019s almost a default process to check standards and even raise them. Instead of trying to combat this natural (compulsive?) thinking pattern, what I discovered is -use the comparisons- but with your own past self. Am I a better person yesterday than I am today?<\/p>\n
And the truth is that we are all on our own journey of finding the statue inside the block of stone. (Remember Michelangelo said, \u201cEvery block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.\u201d) Instead of worrying about others\u2019 blocks of stone, lets honour our statue within with love and compassion. By just BEING who we are. Without apology or arrogance. Without guilt and shame. In the celebration of our journey of the slowly transforming statue inside.<\/p>\n
And yes, I did call her and had a lovely exchange. And I\u2019m totally in awe of myself!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was the birthday of a person I am in awe of. She is a colleague, one can say, as she is in the same profession; but someone who I regard as being \u2018ahead of\u2019 me~ in terms of capability and perhaps in knowing herself. I met her at a retreat where she was my [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/26"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rashmidatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}