A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure-and unexpected adventure-of hosting a guest on my radio show who is brilliant in her field, insightful, powerful, and quite provocative. I was looking forward to being with her again 15 years from the time we had first met, curious as to where our years had taken us. Little did I know that our radio show experience would have me living a blog I wrote a few month ago titled “letting go of figuring it out”.
For those who listened to my May 28th BlogTalkRadio show, you may know where I am going with this. My moment of truth came when my guest questioned me for throwing an herb into my compost pile, scolding me as wrong and insensitive to do so. This was one of many in a series of questions that had a cat and mouse dynamic to them…and I did not like being the mouse especially on a live show! By the time we got to the nettle question, I could feel my excitement about hosting my special guest morphing into irritation, and then into my body getting it’s armor up and ready for battle.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am an advocate of lively dialogue, knowing the avoidance of healthy conflict not only misses a creative opportunity, it often-times leads to an escalation of conflict and polarization between the parties. However, this cat and mouse game was not only irritating to me, it was not respectful to the listeners who had come to learn from our show and so I began to claim the righteousness of my anger.
Ahhh, the beauty of a daily meditation practice…As soon as I realized my body was girding up for battle based on my right to indignation, I smiled, took some deep breaths in and out, and asked myself “what is really going on here?” (versus my current thought of “off with her head!”). My soft inner voice whispered back “learning” and my body began to relax, my mind shifting from being surprised, then defensive into curious. Not much to my surprise, my guest then changed gears and away we went with the show that had been intended….grace exercised.
Instead of engaging in either the active conflict of whose is right/whose is wrong or the passive war of “she’s a piece of work!”, choosing instead to pause and breath graced me with wonderful learning and how I have grown. I was neither negating nor diminishing myself in the experience I was having, which I would have 15 years ago, especially given the dynamics of this guest playing her cosmic role so well. By making room for grace through the choice to drop back into my body through breathing, self-awareness became present, transforming my irritation at another into an opportunity to choose grace.
Grace for me is less about being passive and more an active choice to let go and trust in what is being delivered is for my best. Before the show, I had placed myself as the novice and my guest the expert; afterwards, I could appreciate my grace and my guest’s mastery. Through exercising grace, more of my guest’s brilliance could be shared with the listeners and I received understanding of the important of grace in how I live……less reluctance to live as a queen. But that’s a writing for my next blog.
You can hear me talk more about the matters in this blog by going to the June 5th BlogTalkRadio show.