or how I nearly lost my courage altogether.
Just this weekend I had a pretty stark education in how easy it could be to succumb to fear and intimidation.
We own a piece of the land opposite our house. Its a steep banking leading down a beautiful river that runs through the village, it had no value to the developer so chunks of it were allocated to the houses adjacent to it. Technically there is a permissive footpath across all the pieces leading to a local beauty spot. No one ever used the footpath, preferring to walk on the rarely used tarmacked road instead, so over time, the land (and the path) became overgrown by brambles and weeds. This Spring, I decided to clear the brambles and plant wildflowers instead. On occasion I have popped out to kindly ask people not to trample on the ground as we are attempting to grow bee friendly wildflowers. Until yesterday my polite requests have been met with sheepish smiles and quick exits.
Unfortunately I was not so lucky on this occasion. In a matter of minutes, I was confidently accused being of being rude, patronisingly assured that I was lying and left reeling from a verbal assault that probably only took about three minutes.
Mostly what has astounded me about the responses I received, was how quick the accusations came. If I’m found to be in the wrong, inevitably I am apologetic. This pair were the complete opposite, there was no attempt at any sort of polite discourse, it was all nasty accusations.
I went indoors shaking. Whilst trying to take stock of the situation, I found my head whirring through various possibilities. Dare I go outside? What if they decide to come back and trash my little garden? What if they come back and attack my children? Dare I ask the next wanderer to please watch out? Why did I not just keep quiet (as a Psychic I knew they were trouble, but I still went ahead – seeing my struggling flowers heedlessly trampled spurred me on). More importantly though, on a wider theme, I realised that being on the receiving end of this sort of nastiness is a sure fire way to shutting people up. Stopping them from speaking out. Stopping them from saying ‘excuse me’ to someone in their way for fear of nasty retribution.
Just the other week, in a narrow exit route from the supermarket, I got stuck behind an older person. Someone coming from the opposite direction silently sidestepped the person, but clearly got within 2m. I chose instead to ask ‘excuse me, would you mind stepping aside as you are blocking my way’, to which I had the response ‘you only needed to say excuse me’. I can guarantee that if I had done that I would have received an earful about why!!
Returning to the latest incident though, it got me thinking … Is this why we as a Nation just put up and shut up? Are we too afraid now to speak out for fear of vindictiveness? Just how many people are there now too scared to speak their minds, protect themselves, their property, their loved ones for fear of attack? Is this one of the reasons why so many are struggling to live in a world where they are just putting their heads down and getting on with it because its too scary to do anything else? Or, more importantly, has this invective made so many people downtrodden in so many different ways that governments etc can just ride roughshod over people, knowing that they won’t be called on their actions. Also, what on earth has happened to those nasties that they feel they are entirely justified in behaving as they did.
I don’t have answers to those questions, but it certainly has made me wonder. For me, I had to take myself in hand, sit down and journal. Get myself back on an even keel. Meditate and then actively work on making sure I didn’t regurgitate the days actions. Deliberately making the effort to go outside and cleanse the air with my singing bowl. Actively turn my mind to positive things. Concentrate on sending the two nasties on their way with the best of wishes and handing them over to Spirit – after all I can do nothing to influence them. Thinking any sort of negative thoughts about them, entertaining any possibility of a return are all part and parcel of generating negative energy around a subject. I don’t think they will be back. I am fortunate in having my Spiritual ‘arsenal’, but how many don’t have inner self confidence or faith to help them out of a tricky situation. I was lucky, there was no violence or even bad language, but even so, it was scary and unnecessary.
I’m still pondering though, whether I should have just left them to it … but in the wider context, that way lies madness. If we don’t gather our courage to speak out and protect our thoughts, family, friends, property, flowers … what hope is there for us.