Impatience & Rumi

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." -Rumi💓

I was not on a tight timeline as I found myself waiting to check in for a service. My expectations were that this check in would be its typical smooth journey. Just like all the prior visits it was usually just a couple minutes to pay, schedule and move into the service. Then, bam, I was reminded how expectations are resentments waiting to happen. The check in process took longer, way longer. I noticed someone was taken care of before me – or that is the story I told myself. My sense of injustice began to rise to the surface. I was irritated. It showed in a way that was less loving and kind than I would’ve liked. Then I was invited to observe how my sense of acceptable behavior was now being internally judged as yet another expectation. Sounds like a cycle, right?  Perhaps one that you might recognize? We set standards for ourselves and when these are not met, it shows externally and we also ruminate on this internally. 

I know the importance of standing our ground, and appropriately expressing when service is not delivered.  Yet, this experience was deeper, and I couldn’t excuse my behavior with the explanation that it was based on the prior high standard of service experienced. This was about a sense of self righteousness and I didn’t like it.

This serves for me as yet another reminder of the invitation to accept both the shadow and light of ourselves equally, without preference for one or the other. It is a humbling reminder. I didn’t like it. Yet, as Rumi’s Guest House invites us ‘The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes….’ as part of journey it was about embracing the teacher right in front of me, just sitting there waiting to teach me yet another lesson, to remind me of my humanness and that my journey is nowhere near complete. In that I can find gratitude for both my response and my irritation. It is also seeing now what might not have been recognized before, yet another layer rising to the surface. 

As the layers continue to be looked at, we can see how our irritations teach us. That rush of irritation shows us something if we can see that ‘each has been sent as a guide from beyond.’ 

Join me for an experience of allowing the inner dwelling to help us see light and shadow in the same light.