The Best Way Ever to Escape Negative People… Fast!
NASA recently unveiled the largest picture in the Universe; a panoramic slice of the Andromeda galaxy, the closest neighbour to our beloved home, the Milky Way. And it was awesome, depicting our soap opera that is Earth as about the size of a millionth of a speck of dust.
And then something puzzling happened. Hundreds and thousands of people commented on this photograph as it did its various social media rounds. Apparently it left most of them feeling pathetic, humble and infinitesimally small.
You what?
Am I the only one who didn’t get that from this image? I can only conclude that gazillions of us are missing a trick.
Disclaimer – the statistics used above are Pollyanna sized estimations for blog purposes only.
You see, I looked at that image in wonder and thought Wow! If that’s how immense the photogenic part of the Universe is, then how irrelevant is my fretting about getting the kids to school on time so we get the best parking space when it’s bucketing it down with rain? It also stopped my annoyance over the soggy bottom in my apple pie dead in its tracks. And suddenly the cost of an extra tyre on the car in the greater scheme of things seemed, well, frankly bloody inconsequential!
Yep there’s nothing quite like realising – I mean really realising – the Milky Way’s status to put all of the daily fear based crap into perspective.
And now if I crank this up to a spirituality meets science kind of level, my thoughts shift once again: Okay then, so if this is what’s ‘out there’ and there is an all-encompassing energy that’s effortlessly keeping it all going – call it God, The Universe, a Higher Power, All-That-Is, or You-Fill-In-The-Blanks – then the things I want to show up in my life have got to be not so much a piece of cake, as a piece of crumb!!!
But that would be a whole different blog… So today we will look at putting things into perspective.
I have regularly zoomed out of my life like this.
When viewed from above through eagle eyes, our ‘dramas’ can take on a whole new irrelevant look. When we get out the way of ourselves and our grassroots level of thinking we suddenly see the bigger and more beautiful picture. This is also life viewed as a journey and we can trace our fingers over the contours of the mountains we’ve hiked, the hills we’ve rambled and the crossroads we thought we’d mistakenly taken a left at. We can see that every path ultimately still led us to where we are. Even if it was in a zig-zaggy roundabout kind of a way. Life makes a lot more sense.
And that’s a whole other blog on yet another sub-heading of perspective…
But rambling to one side, zooming out is the most liberating game to play and the great thing is you can have fun with it just about everywhere. No limits!
Like around the extended family dinner table
When someone has annoyingly shifted the discussion to the list of friends, family, neighbours, and pillars of the community who have varying ailments. WTF? This was Christmas dinner at my Auntie Gertrude’s, and it wasn’t exactly complementing my Malbec! Which is why I sit on Mars until the conversation is ‘general’ enough to pick up from where I left off. So much more fun! I missed the cacophony over debt, the kaleidoscope of varicose vein comparisons, the latest scaremongering story making headlines on the news and the dialogue about the mold and mildew in the bathroom. I sat on Mars very happily and imagined the dinner table inside the house, on the street, in the town, in the county, in the country, on planet Earth. It all seemed like a speck of nothingness. I managed to eat my meal, enjoy my food, and devour my wine without feeling the effect of the words and the negative vibe of the ongoing conversation. It was bliss. I won’t say it doesn’t take some practice and you won’t occasionally think that ‘the others’ will think you are away with the fairies. But you can soon tune in and out of the topics of your preference easily enough. And really, wouldn’t you rather be away with the fairies? For me it’s a no brainer.
Disclaimer – okay, so sometimes getting up and physically leaving the room is going to be slightly easier, but in practice… can you imagine the fireworks? Another reason why I simply opt to sit on Mars a wee while.
Queues at the airport.
Am I going to get the jitters? I don’t ‘do’ crowds, much less standing without moving in one.
Or am I going to zoom out for a bit? Well of course (you’re getting the hang of this now, see I told you it was fun), I zoom out. My breathing steadies itself, sweat stops trickling down my hands and I remind myself that this will all be over in a fleeting bunch of milliseconds in time as I imagine the queue inside the airport, inside the city, inside the country, nestled on planet Earth. This time I went to Venus. Now how small and non-threatening does it all look from there? It’s nothing. And before I know it I am whizzing through security, walking freely and purposefully with a spring in my step towards the perfume and make up in duty free.
Work Deadlines.
Am I going to stress myself to the hilt over the article that’s got to be on the editor’s desk by 9am Monday? Or am I going to look at the triviality of a few paragraphs that will one day be nothing more than dust anyway, from a lunar perspective? I’ll park my arse on Neptune for a while.
Lectures/Preaching and Arguments.
Of course I totally know if I find myself the recipient of any of the above that it’s my being stuck in a crappy vibe for a little too long that attracted it to me in the first place. And all yea who beg to differ look up Newton’s Law or any book on L.O.A (Law of Attraction). Thank you very much. Still, even I slip up sometimes. I know, reassuring for some of you. But anyway, back to the situation in hand. Which I have to get myself out of. And quick! One approach is to stare my opponent out until I go cross-eyed and then there are four of them. Which would only quadruple the trouble. Alternatively I can foghorn my beliefs right back at them. But that will only bring more of the same right back at me. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but Thursday perhaps when the school caretaker shouts at me in front of all the other parents at the gates for walking across the playground. Oh yes. That has happened!
I digress
Where was I?
Oh yes, up on Mount Everest, where everything is clear. The caretaker, the guy who tried to push in to prolong my time in the airport queue (arse!), the pissed-off husband, the well-meaning friend – they all become children. Their rants are a scream for attention. In short, they are looking for love. All the easier to let it go in one ear and out the other.
I can hike back down my mountain and we can laugh it all off over tea and cake. Just maybe not with the caretaker…
