PERSPECTIVE

The other night I spoke with a friend online and the moral of the conversation was PERSPECTIVE. He gently told me I needed to consider changing my perspective about the subject we were discussing. I got it perfectly after he told me a short story which I want to share with you.
Every first Monday in December my friend takes this day off work and goes Christmas shopping. He admitted he was not ever excited about fighting the crowds and quite frankly he often dreaded this day. Well, last year he headed to the mall in my town, the largest mall! The closer he got the more agitated he found himself as he thought about the parking situation that was in his near future. It was then he remembered what his therapist had been trying to get him to understand; PERSPECTIVE. He needed to get a different perspective and fast! His first thought was that he was greatful he could walk. Then another thought; he was greatful for the beautiful day. Then another, he was greatful he could shop for his friends and family. Before he knew it he eyed a parking spot right in the front row! When he came up to it he simply smiled and drove all the way to the very last parking spot in the lot. He got out of the car and thoroughly enjoyed his half mile walk to the mall. All the way he was greatful for the fact he could walk, that he could shop, and Wow! What a beautiful day! He said he had never enjoyed shopping for his friends and family as much as he did on that day!
He changed his PERSPECTIVE. A few days later I found myself in the most uncomfortable situation at my job. Long story short there is a lady at work that pretty much went off on me because I am gay. I also work with my partner which evidently discusts her. The confrontation was one sided, her side. After she vomited all her darkness towards me, I suddenly gained a different PERSPECTIVE. I saw her suddenly as a woman in great pain. I saw her as a woman who needed to be released from the fear she had accepted about people she didn't understand. I saw her as a woman who needed to grow beyond the judgement she was hurling at me.
I WAS SILENT AT EVERY TEMPTATION TO STRIKE OUT AT HER.
This is called; love. I loved myself enough to continue on my journey. I was asked by management to write my statement about the events that took place and to include how she made me feel. When I came out of the managers office, I smiled to myself because I realized I had just been given an assignment that I had refused to do many times over my 48 years... forgive. I had heard of how people go to therapists and have to write letters to their abusers and they called it therapy. I was the first one to say that was the most rediculous thing I had ever heard. As I began writing the events that took place over the last two days I began to shake, I took several - numerous breaks actually in order to get the truth confronted on paper. I not only wrote everything she had said to me but to other coworkers and I wrote the truth about what I felt. I faced my pain like I had never been able to. For the first time I was able to identify my true pain. I understood where it came from...even from my past. I identified why I am so uncomfortable with confrontation and why I respond like I do physically, emotionally. What a learning experience! How much more insight I have gained here on my journey.
Today I stand greatful for this experience and I can only hope that the lady involved will learn from my statement of truth and also grow on her journey.
today I can say I have truely forgiven her and I affirm that from this experience only healing and light will come to her.

Living with a new perspective,
kathryn