This just happened about an hour ago. I'm sharing it here because we've often talked about how the little things we do (or don't do) can make a difference in someone's life...sometimes the difference is small and seemingly insignificant, and the other person may never know the ripple effect she/he has left behind.

I was walking home, steps from my front door, when a friend of my neighbour two doors down came out that friend's front door. The neighbour and I waved to each other. The friend walked toward me. Then as we got closer to each other (I was about to turn into my little sidewalk to unlock my front door), this person got a weird look of fear in her eyes, and scurried off the sidewalk onto the road and scuttled away in pure panic. I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I'm practising the Law of Allowing, and that this had nothing to do with me personally. But when I finally unlocked the door and stepped inside, I just started crying.

I guess I cried for her, for whatever in her life has caused her to have such fear of a stranger (I don't think I LOOKED that strange or threatening...she was taller than me...), but I also cried because deep down, it DID hurt to see her not only ignore me (nobody ignores anyone on our little street) but take such pain to avoid me. It was so unexpected, and it really hurt deep down in my heart.

I'm okay now, I don't need any comforting or anything, I'm able to Allow her to be who she is and not allow her actions to make or break me, but it does bring home just how our actions can have an unknown impact and ripple effect on someone else. Compare the ripple effect of that action to the ripple effect of a simple nod of the head, and/or perhaps a shy hello in passing each other...

Are you like me in analyzing what could cause actions and/or reactions? Besides taking it personally, I'd be wondering what the heck was behind it - sometimes to avoid it again.
I can relate your story to a story my mom tells. When she was placed in the second of three homes, she was in a room which shared a restroom with another resident room. One night, she went to the restroom (without the light on) and found the other resident on the potty - a walker at hand. The one on the potty was startled by my mom coming in unannounced and hit her in the chest with her walker or fist (Mother wasn't sure of which). Anyway, the way my mom tells the story is that she was assaulted. I've tried over and over to get her to revisit the incident and forgive the poor soul trying to do her business. I think, in actuality, my mom startled the old woman and the old woman's immediate defense was to start swinging.

It's just a story, but out of trying to get my mom to calm herself, I came up with a cazillion scenarios...

Maybe your neighbor's friend was preoccupied with something she and your neighbor had been talking about, and wasn't fully aware of how close you were in you all's passing. I can so relate to how you are feeling... I stopped by the local college to pick up some paperwork, yesterday. The gentleman from whom I picked it up was acting strangely to me. Finally, after speaking softly and smiling outrageously big, I was able to get him to see me differently. If I wasn't there on an errand, I'd have scurried away myself, like your neighbor's friend. I was a bit frightened by his dismeanor, which was probably nothing more than being overworked and tired of college kids. I'm putting your 'allowing' into action, a bit at a time.

good example gims about your mom's (abit shocking) experience. Especially at her age.

Usually strangers or people who don't know me, but may act uncomfortably with me, don't bother me. However it can be someone who I have loved a long time..sometimes a singular, negative action can bother me.

people have told me that I'm cold/distant, etc., look angry. But often I'm brooding, thinking absentmindedly about something that has nothing to do with my outward facial expression. It's just me. My mother tells me I'm the grumpy child..and if you saw my childhood photos, I often to seem to have this pouty, grumpy expression on my face.


Remember this, if we ever meet Eagle.

My partner has chiselled, thin face which gives him that stern, austere look when he's not smiling. I've told him several times he looks "hard". And his children have misread his face.

But as soon as he speaks, he has a naturally soft (for a guy), tenor voice which would erase would one misreads his face. I think his voice and patience "saves" his hard-looking demeanor. He has apologized/explained for his inherited look.

I've heard Joyce Meyer say, often, "It's the little foxes that spoil the vine."

One good thing that came out of this wee encounter is that now I'm ready to be the first one to smile and nod my head, rather than waiting for greeting and/or acknowledgement from the other person. Because everyone in our neighbourhood comes from different ethnic and cultural background, I tend to err on the side of caution, not sure what the customs are. But I decided to stop that, and just be me...I like to smile and acknowledge people when we pass on the street, so that's what I'm doing now. Another baby step out of the darkness of fear & anxiety into the light of just living who I want to be...that Allowing stuff DOES help and is making a difference.

There you go Eagle. You are showing the world that life is good and it is simply what you make it. It's all about choices. How smart of you!

You've taken a situation that was initially depressing and turned it around into something positive. How cool is that? YOU GO GIRL! I love it when you do that. Wuhoo!

Eagle
that lady gifted you a worthy gift.Far better than she had hugged you.She "allowed healing " and just as children love "Boof" and being scared they settle when comforted.
Being depressed and grieving is scary.....you are a shining star and will reverberated to Scotland where I look to you for guidance.
Mountain ash

Thank you JJ and MA for your generous words. I'm really working on turning out of my grief and forward into my life. Yes, it's all about choice, choosing to move beyond the agony of absence and out of the despair of that "stolen forever". Every day I make the choice to move in some significant way, even if it's only to focus on one more "what is" or to learn more about this Law of Allowing.

Some of the other threads in these forums are helping...the thread on "what doesn't suit you anymore" is quite liberating, in that it's making me think, not just about what doesn't suit anymore, but what DOES suit me. One of the things I most loved about who I was in the past, before all of these deaths started (16 significant losses in 8 years), was my passion for the living the "golden rule", treating others the way I want to be treated. THIS incident of the woman running away scared reminded me that I still want to live by the golden rule; I don't want my own silence to leave someone else feeling the way I felt that day, so I have to be the one who doesn't run away (not that I would actually run, but maybe I do hide behind my polite waiting for them to make the first move.) Thus the decision to smile and nod.

Yes, it's a no-brainer for most people. But it's a symbolic turning outward and upward for me. I'm tired of living scared, this anxiety really does steal my joy and has become a suffocating prison. It's hard to force myself past that nausea and those mountain-sized knots in my gut, but it's time to move out and up. Saying hello is another baby step, but at least it's in the right direction.

Good for you!!!! EH, you make me proud.