I’ve been thinking about the Holiday Mathis’ quote I posted a few days ago (see Response). I’ve had some judgements thrown at me, and I had to look at how I reacted to that.

I mentioned to a friend that chemo brain was helping me to feel like a ding-dong and they said, “I’ve always thought you were a ding-dong”. I was taken aback at that comment, since part of my post-chemo struggle is the change in my cognition. I was in the top 10% of the nation on my SAT score, studied college-level physics and calculus, was recommended for MENSA, was regularly in charge of high-stress medical emergency situations. Now I have trouble following a recipe. So, I have not always been a ding-dong. My friend is entitled to their opinion, but I felt offended and defensive at the remark.

The next day someone said to me, “You are intense!”. It did not feel like a compliment, it felt like something they found difficult. I had a personal reaction, I felt angry. ‘Intensity’ was a bitter insult often hurled at me by my emotionally abusive ex, and my friend’s comment hooked into that history. A few days later, someone else claimed that I was an incarnated angel, and I felt very uncomfortable with that. This person doesn’t know me or my personal history very well––I am definitely human!

I don’t know exactly what any of these people meant. I was too busy being surprised at my own emotional reactions––feeling offended, defensive, angry, uncomfortable. It doesn’t really matter what was said. My reaction is the educational part. Because it is just that––a reaction. I took the other person’s vibration and interpreted it through my own lens. I chose to have a negative reaction.

But what if I took my ego out of the equation. Maybe I am a ding-dong, maybe I am intense, maybe I am an incarnated angel. Any of these could describe my typical energy state on an average day. By functioning within the greater context of transcendence, I am following the Teachers’ directive to live outside of the Known, to immerse myself in Unknowing. This space is outside of the five-senses anchoring of reality. It can appear weird to others, precisely because it is not the usual. Oh, well.