When life hands you a pile of crap you....? I had to deal with this question recently. Literally. I came home after a long day of teaching and luckily saw this huge pile of crap on my doorstep before I stepped in it. I was shocked and curious more than angry, and had to laugh. I told Josh about it and said I wondered what it meant (Josh is my other half, if you don't know him) and he told me maybe it was just a pile of crap. I told some of my yogi friends and they, like me, started to look for the meaning in finding a pile of crap on my doorstep. One friend said fertilization, growth, another said something about taking care of my own crap, another said perhaps it had to deal with not taking other people's crap. I wasn't sure at that moment.
A few days later I received an email from a yoga colleague indicating that I had upset them with some recent wording of an event I was doing. I was very upset when I received this email as I had not intended to upset this person at all, and had instead used them as inspiration for something I was planning. I made a mistake, even with good intentions. And all of a sudden negative voices and emotions I hadn't heard in awhile got activated BIG TIME. My monster as Sue Jones would call it, was having a field day. Will this person forgive me? I never make mistakes! But my intentions were good! I don't want to admit I'm wrong! I don't want to take responsibility! How can I make this right? How can I sweep this under the rug? I want to be liked/loved!
I didn't want to admit that I hadn't taken into consideration all the hard work this person had done to develop their workshop. I didn't want to admit that I had acted hastily because I felt under pressure to do more since I'd had a recent change in my financial situation and was feeling stressed. I didn't want to acknowledge that I hadn't done enough of my own work to get the wording of the workshop to come from my authentic voice.
The old me would have taken this pile of crap and tried to manipulate it or throw it back into the faces of those I suspected had dealt it. I would blame and not accept responsibility. The old me would not have looked at this as an opportunity for growth and instead looked at it as another mistake I'd made and I'd make sure I felt guilty and ashamed about it. I would have cleaned this pile of crap up, but messily.
Instead I cleaned up this literal pile of crap with not too much complaint or frowning (ok, just a little - it did stink!) I emailed the person I had upset and apologized, accepting responsibility and chose to grow from the situation, and hold my head up high. So I ask you, what do you do when life hands you a pile of crap?
