The weather was nice when you bee-bopped into the grocery store to get your shopping done.
You came across:
An angry man muttering to himself in the canned goods aisle.
An old woman scowling as she looks over the baked goods.
A woman trying to keep track of the cost of the items going into her cart while her kids are bickering and whining.
A man with hunched shoulders trying to not make eye contact with anyone lest they see the emotional pain.
The cashier whose smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
When that angry looking man stopped in front of the green peas was reading the labels on each brand of peas, did you get angry or put out because you couldn’t get to the green beans you needed? “Why can’t he see others are trying to get to that area, too?”
When you went to get a fresh loaf of french bread and saw the scowling old woman, did you frown and grump, “Geez. Who put a bee in that cranky lady’s bonnet?”
What about the harried mom whose two kids were loudly vying for her attention. “Why can’t parents leave their badly mannered kids at home with a sitter if they can’t control their kids rather than subjecting all of us to that noise?”
When the man with hunched shoulder accidentally bumped into your cart, did you demand, “Hey! Watch where you’re going!”?
You make it to the cashier’s line. You’re now grumpy, annoyed and can’t wait to get the heck out of that store.
It’s finally your turn with the cashier.
The cashier says to you, “Good morning, ma’am. Did you find everything okay?”
“Mm…yeah, yeah,” you say a bit brusquely. You don’t even look at her as you empty your cart.
Desperate to get away, you practically run out of the store. You return the cart after loading everything in your car. You sit in the driver’s seat, take a slow deep breath and say, “Thank God I’m out of there. What a mess that was.”
But did you ever stop to think that there’s always more to the story than what your brief snapshot told you of that other person?
The angry man muttering to himself? He was reading the canned goods to search for veggies that didn’t have sodium in them because his wife just returned from the hospital following a major heart attack. He wasn’t muttering, he was reading out loud which is what he does when he’s concentrating. He wanted to make sure he didn’t buy anything that would harm his wife.
The old woman scowling? She couldn’t afford to update her prescription glasses so had trouble seeing details; she was squinting.
The harried woman with two kids? Her husband left her. She’s working two jobs to make ends meet. She’s exhausted and doing the best she can.
The man with hunched shoulders? He just lost his wife this week to cancer.
And the cashier? She suffered from severe depression and killed herself that very night.
You aren’t seeing the bigger picture of each person’s life.
Not only that, but energy is contagious. On this trip to the grocery store, you absorbed the energy that others put out. Shielding can help in reducing what you can pick up from others. But even better yet would be to keep your energy positive. All it would’ve taken was patience and compassion and that could’ve changed the energy not only of your experience, but could’ve offered a change to other’s energy as well.
We tend to live in our own little bubble and aren’t too keen to have our space or thoughts intruded upon by others. And, we judge others…a lot.
It’s not your job to fix anyone. It should be your job, my job, and everyone else’s job to remember we are all carrying something with us. We all have a bigger story.
If we take the time to see – really see – outside of ourselves, we might have a better understanding and more compassion for our fellow humans. We’d also get an idea of why a trip to the grocery store – for example – can be taxing or exhausting emotionally and energetically; but at least we’ll know why.
We need to remember that energy is contagious. A smile, patience or compassion goes a very long way. Your light can spark another, who will in turn spark yet another, and it can spread.
What are you bringing into a store?
By Jan Toomer
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