Jamaica Is Irie
First of all, I would like to apologise for having gone MIA. I don't normally stay away for such a long period of time, but taking that the film I was working on, #Yardie, was kidnapping me from life coaching and my writing tasks, I felt necessary to give it a priority for the best part of six weeks. Kind of the Stockholm effect.
Yet, MG is back, tanned, renewed and full of ideas.
So, here I go... By the time I landed in Kingston, I had been working an average of 13 hours a day, six days a week and replying no less than 200 emails a day.
So for those two weeks I was in Jamaica, it felt as if my personal growth and research came to a complete stop. And that clearly, had a knock-on effect on how I related to people, to myself, and ultimately, managed stress.
I don't want to get lost in the details of the stories I'm about to share with you, but I would love to show you how easy it is to become a temporary @rsehole.
Despite meditation, good intentions and my firm walk on the path of kindness, the job got the best of me and I lost my true North.
In two separate occasions with, thankfully, two very different people, I tested the temporary @sshole theory. The events left me deflated for about 10 hours. I went through the script of what I should have done and said, which it would, ultimately, given me an advantage on the negotiations I was facing and, more importantly, would have helped me sleep better at night.
I don't want to blame the fact that we were tired, or that one person was drunk and the other very stressed. Neither do I want to make excuses for myself because, despite my better judgement, I could have kept a cooler head.
What I want to share is that in the spirit of emotional maturity and good work ethics I turned to the people involved and said the following phrase: "I don't think I handled the situation very well, I hope you can understand I didn't mean to upset you. I am sorry".
Both of these people reacted very differently.
The first one looked at me straight in the eyes and said: "Apologies accepted"; turned his back on me and left.
The second one was covered in shame and it felt as if all she wanted was for the conversation to be over.
There is a technique to say sorry and another one to forgive. This is nothing to do with being right or wrong. This is to do with a deeper sense of awareness.
It is very challenging to forgive ourselves when we wrong or judge another person. It is, literally, impossible to turn back time. And undoubtedly we run back to our shame huts, get the armour out and use language like: you are uneducated, you are common, f@ck you, you’re just there judging me and so on. Once all that’s out, there’s no way to put it back where it came from. And trust me, I haven’t been insulted like that by one person in my life time. He absolutely went in with all his might.
I haven't been exposed to stress like it in over a year. But, Jamaica is irie man, when I thought that I was stuck, tired, not writing, not reading nor learning from authors of the like of Tim Ferris, I got given this jerk peace treaty. It was a test. Strictly speaking there was no reason for me to apologise to either of them, because the fact I didn’t insult them. But I did touch their shame boundaries.
I didn’t react as my old self which would have been, turning around and never speaking to them again. I didn’t want to play the good-bad guy game and find something or someone to blame. There is antagonism in life, judgment and misplaced pride.
I want kindness and true understanding to be my guide. And frankly, the pool at the hotel was way too cool to miss out a chance to have fun if I left early.
Saying sorry was a great step in the direction of courage, because I am responsible for the arguments I participate in. But I couldn’t have foreseen their reactions. Although, I knew I could have prepared better in order to maintain peace. Back to the drawing table, back to meditation and to my books, Jamaica was full of spices, long days and sunny encounters.
May there be more trips like this! Yeah man