You are in the grocery store. You approach a person and greet her with a warm “hello!” She hardly glances at you and walks on without a word. What happens next in you?
Maybe anger: “I can’t believe she just ignored me! What a jerk!”
Maybe embarrassment: “She must think I’m creepy!”
Maybe shame: “Why do people ignore me? What’s wrong with me?”
Maybe fear: “Scary! I wonder if she might follow me . . . .”
If you are human, you may have four or five thoughts and feelings that cascade through you in a matter of nano seconds. And, the emotional echoes of feeling snubbed can consume the car ride home and the conversation at the dinner table.
Here’s the obvious truth that can be so hard to grasp in the moment: Another person’s reaction doesn’t have to become your problem. As long as there really is no actual threat, the episode could just be one more of the thousand life moments that we have in course of a day. But what if someone’s reaction does get to you?
Your reaction doesn’t have to be a problem either. We are human and we react with strong emotions. It’s normal.
Emotional reactions don’t have to be sticky. They can pass through us just as thoughts do.
Such grocery store moments only become a problem when they get infused with a story of criticism. We make assumptions that put the experience in a box, and the box is full of judgments. We stew and analyze and try to figure it out, and more often than not we are just creating emotional and mental static.
But maybe you do read it right. Maybe the person does think you are creepy. Maybe she is a jerk. Does that need to become your problem? Does that need to occupy your brain space for the next hour? Her reaction is a story that she is spinning, and it doesn’t have to trigger your stories.
The grocery store moment is a typical event in the typical life of a human being. We are reaction machines. Our reactivity cascades into stories that become problems, and our problems blanket us with a heaviness that makes life hard.
The healing shift happens when our wise minds and hearts are able to sort out what is and isn’t a problem. The healing happens when we start to observe our reactions rather than getting absorbed into them.
And it’s often a simple deep breath that shifts us out of reactivity and into a relaxed awareness in which the so-called problem drifts away.
Want life to get easier? Remind yourself that most molehills are not mountains, and most problems are not problems.