Moldavite meltdown
The way we moldavite, I could make you a celebrity overnight.
With deeper degrees of awareness, we recognize that the voice of negativity in the head is the cause of all our suffering. We can only feel what we think. When we stop thinking negatively, we stop feeling negative. When we think positively, we feel positive. It’s that simple.
∞
I had the time of my life camping inside the Grand Canyon on the Havasupai reservation. My wife, my best friend, and I spent three days dancing with rainbows in the blue-green waters of Havasupai Creek, and chasing waterfalls in red rock canyons on challenging hikes with caves, bridges, ropes, chutes, ladders, stars, sunsets, moonbeams, and butterflies. It was magical.
Our adventure still had its bumpy parts. By late afternoon on the third day, we were sore, injured, tired, cranky, bickering, and possibly suffering from heat exhaustion in the ovenlike oasis.
My wife had been complaining all trip about a loose stone on the ring she wears on her left ring finger as a symbol of our unity, and after a dip in the creek, she set it down on a picnic table and said, “The stone has come off my ring. Good, I was tired of wearing it anyway.” At least, that’s what I thought she said. As if possessed by an angry spirit, I lost my temper, picked up the ring, and hurled it deep into the thick vegetation surrounding Havasupai Falls.
I looked over at my wife, and I’ll never forget the look of pain on her face as the tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked like someone had just ripped her heart out.
I had misheard her in the din of the nearby falls, and she wasn’t complaining about the ring. Instead, she expressed immense gratitude that she had noticed the loose wedge of moldavite barely hanging on before it completely fell out of its casing and into the creek. I heard the exact opposite of what she said.
My suffering had nothing to do with what my wife actually said and everything to do with what I thought she said.
Fortunately, my wife is the most forgiving person I know, and she accepted my apology on the spot. Later, we replaced her ring with a simple gold band better suited to her active lifestyle.
I’m not proud of how I behaved that day, and I’m still working on forgiving myself for treating my loving wife like that. But I’m grateful the experience allowed me to see that what people say doesn’t cause our suffering. It’s only what we think about what they say that causes us to suffer.
Since my moldavite meltdown, when someone says something that triggers me, I do my best to imagine them saying it in Ewok, Elvish, or some other funny-sounding, made-up language that I vaguely recognize but don’t understand (this is easy to do with my wife, who often speaks in galactic light language).
This silly mental exercise always makes me smile, and the negativity I feel about what someone says usually melts into Presence.
∞
Nonpreferred phenomena, including what people do and say, don’t cause our suffering. Rather, it’s what we think about what happens that causes suffering.
Once we realize that our incessant thinking is the root cause of all our suffering, our minds start to settle, and the voice of negativity that impersonates our real selves gradually melts into stillness and Presence.
Letting go of something we mistook for ourselves for so long can be scary. Even when we recognize that the voice isn’t us and only causes trouble. We can tell the pretend voice of negativity to go away. We have it in us to do this. We should treat the voice like we would a child who did the wrong thing but didn’t know any better: with love and justice.
