We Are One

This movie is beautiful: http://www.weareonemovie.com/

Ironically, in December I had a very unpleasant exchange with its creator, Mary Robinson Reynolds, which turned out to be one of the most profound learning experiences of the year.

Why? I had seen several of her movies, and been getting her newsletters for a while. She's a sucessful coach, like I want to be when I grow up.
She held a free teleclass, and there were some technical difficulties and lots of noise on the line. Mary was getting kind of stressed and she started almost yelling on the call.

I had seen her as a wise and peaceful guru - so this was totally not my expectation. Impulsively I shot her a rather fussy e-mail saying basically that I was disappointed in her behavior. She e-mailed me back really letting me have it! Told me my ego was getting in the way and how could I teach her anything - she was just being human after all... She demanded an apology. She really chewed me out. I initially was thinking: "what a b****!"

But I meditated on it. I re-read my e-mail to her and yeah, I was acting like a little kid who expects her parents to be perfect, and saw how my EXPECTATIONS of people got in the way of appreciating their gifts and their light. So, I sent Mary an apology. I recognized my behavior and recognized her humanness and told her how much I appreciated her movies. She sent me a very nice e-mail back.

We all have our flaws, we all make mistakes, we all act out, get stressed, get upset, have bad days. When the people in our lives do this, it is our choice of how to react.

If the behavior is abusive, or inexcusable, we can and should walk away, but we can still recognize they are human, doing the best they know how in their limited belief system, and that they are full of pain and fear. We can and should and forgive them, for our own sake more than anything.

But if someone's behavior is just annoying, we can choose not to get annoyed. We can send love, we can look past the acting out and the flaws, and pay attention to the things we love and appreciate about them. We can allow them to have a bad day. We can see then as HUMAN, just like we are.

We really are ALL ONE. (And Mary's actually a pretty cool lady, albeit a feisty redhead :)