For those of us who are super sensitive it’s easy to blow small things way out of proportion. A huge lesson I have learned this lifetime is that we cannot be responsible for others reactions to our actions and especially not taking these reactions personally. Nor can we dictate or control anyone’s lives but our own. We are just doing our thing from a place of love & if others don’t like what we do then that is their business. Just like it is none of our business what others think or perceive of us either.
It is hard though not to take some people’s reactions personally especially when we are coming in with pure intent. This comes up a lot for as a yoga teacher & metaphysical presenter. You are providing a service to people, if they haven’t enjoyed your class or workshop it’s natural to feel like a failure. People have paid good money & taken time out of their day to attend. For them to walk away unsatisfied from an event you were hosting leads to some major personal reflection.
This is what happened to me just recently I came face to face with an unhappy ‘customer’.
Here’s the story…
I was asked to cover a meditation class, as the regular teacher was sick. The call came in the morning for an early evening class so I had plenty of time to prepare, as I like to write/channel my own meditations based on the theme of the universal energy at that time. It’s exciting for me to have the opportunity to lead a meditation outside of my own workshops so I was pretty pumped up.
The class was at a yoga studio I teach yoga at but haven’t facilitated a meditation in before. This being the case there were a few logistics I had over looked before the session commenced.
To set up the space I created a healing crystal grid of amethyst, rose quartz, green aventurine & citrine for the theme of heart opening & connection. I saged, cleansed & protected the space. Instead of having a smudging ceremony I opted to place white light curtains over the doors so as people entered they were bathed & washed over in a white light-purifying shower. The was incense burning as well as cleansing essential oils in the diffuser. The healing space was ready to go with soft relaxing music in the background.
Healing crystal grids boost the vibration of a space.
It was a fairly small group that attended; some had stayed on from the previous yoga class so were already in place. Everyone else set up where they were comfortable in the room. I was in two minds whether to rearrange everyone to bring them closer to where I was set up but as they were already settled I left them where they were.
Skip to the end. The class went well from my perspective; it felt on purpose & flowed with the channeled themes. Above all it was beginner friendly (turning down the volume on my usual galactic vibes so it wasn’t too woo woo). However during the session I had picked up some uncomfortable energy bouncing around the room. I took this as normal because there were some newbies to meditation.
On the sessions conclusion the attendees started coming out the room looking blissed out & relaxed. Perfect, that’s always my intention. It’s normal if people don’t engage after a meditation & just want to leave quietly.
Apart from one. Not happy at all. A first timer to the practice & it seemed ‘I’ had let them down big time. I knew this as I was told so, “I am leaving here disappointed as it did not meet my expectations.”
Time to breathe. Let it go & do not start justifying yourself (my former bad habit in these situations). Instead I profusely started thanking them (maybe a little too much) for the feedback for which I am genuinely grateful. It’s the only way to learn especially in a new space I’d never facilitated a meditation in.
The main issue it seems was with my voice. The room is huge & the speakers I had the music playing through are awesome as they fill the whole room evenly. Except it drowned out what I was saying for those further away from me. Personally I didn’t think the music was too loud, but again I wasn’t under a speaker or in a corner. Ironically my music wasn’t loud enough last time I lead a meditation at a yoga studio!
As for my voice it was tuned to a soft level for the job in hand, after all I didn’t want to be shouting. However with the music & the size of the room this turned out not so good for everyone. I did have a heads up on this as the student in question got up & moved closer during the session. This was five minutes in so I couldn’t really start rectifying my mistake & move everyone in.
All valuable learning for next time!
It was hard not to take the feedback personally though when listening to ten minutes of in-depth critique of my voice & how disappointed the attendee was after having such high hopes. To then feeling even more deflated when I kept being asked if I was running the class next month as “if it’s a different teacher I will come & give it another try.” I just wanted to fly into defense mode after this but stood back holding space instead.
Even my personal astrology chart highlights this learning for me with Mercury in 3 Degrees of Aries –
“It is perfectly acceptable for you to defend your beliefs with your usual vigor, but try not to take the opinions of others as personal insults.”
My mean girl started to show her face too telling me that I’m not qualified enough, my intuition was off and I wasn’t connecting properly and all the usual self-doubting rubbish. ‘Okay mean girl (ego) go back to your room but thank you for being the positive resistance, shadow, dark side to balance out my light.’
Then I got it! The attendee said it themselves they had expectations.
Expectations lead to disappointments.
If this attendee had such high hopes & didn’t get what they thought they would get then that was their stuff to deal with. Of course it’s natural to speak out to the person who you perceived didn’t give you what you had paid for.
With healing clients, it’s not me who fixes them neither does the energy; it’s up to the client to fix themselves & be empowered to be the change. Intuitive guidance is a GPS, a guide, to assist us in taking a deeper look at our lives in order to heal.
Another part of my revelation was this attendee DID get exactly what they needed. Somewhere in the experience strong emotions were raised to the surface. Buttons had been pushed & issues were coming up that needed to be addressed. There were two learning’s here I feel:
- Number one – let go of expectations.
- Number two – take responsibility for yourself. (Because no one else is here to do it for you)
“Sometimes when people are confronted with the idea of taking responsibility for themselves, they become angry…very angry.”
Gala Darling, Radical Self-love, Hay House UK Ltd. Page 32.
Let’s look at the positives in all of this. It probably took a great deal of courage for the attendee to step out of their comfort zone in the first place & go to a new class. This was taking responsibility. Which is brilliant! Not getting the desired outcome brought up anger. This is a response, a reaction; something had to have shifted to cause this. I’d say some healing very much took place here.
The outcome I feel they received was fantastic. Okay maybe a little uncomfortable but isn’t it always when we have a shift 😉 My interpretation was they wished to be completely reprogrammed & transformed in one session to leave feeling like a new person. At that moment they may not have felt this but maybe once the emotions had settled they might of. (I haven’t seen this person since to follow up.)
They connected to their heart & released some deep-rooted emotions that needed to come up so they could move on. There may not have been the blissed out response others received but at least they felt something as shifts had occurred. It just came up as anger. (Which flipped on its head is love the equal & opposite so there had to be love in all of this too.)
This reflection has also been very healing for me. Not settling on the negative & digging deep for guidance on the situation as a whole. I’ve found peace & have learned from it all. Even looking back over the past year this situation has shown me how much I have evolved. If this had happened a year ago it would have eaten me up into a pit of self-worth issues. Now I am able to see all sides & find the positive from it all.
Gratitude.
I hope you enjoyed reading today’s post. Feel free to drop me a line in the comments below with your thoughts.
Much love,
