trying to send love to the man who keyed my pretty car...

[evandangie]

Hello,

Feeling sad tonight. I have been in a bad work situation for the past year- working for a freight company, all day dealing with problems and negativity. Very high stress. I have been faced with my anger issues time and again, and am not proud to say that I have lost my temper more times than I can count. In normal life, I am friendly, kind, funny, well-liked. At this job, there are people who hate me, to the extent that my car has been keyed not once, but twice. I know I have manifested this because I spend so much of my days angry.

I'm posting because I just need support. I am working on surrendering, because I know that's the only way through, but I am really struggling with it. I am so hurt that someone would do this to my car, to make it so personal. I have a strong hunch about who did this, and I feel so angry at him. I am unhappy every minute of the time I spend at work, but I do my best to help people. It feels so abusive that someone would do this when I'm working so hard to help. I do not want to point fingers at this man, I just don't want him to damage my vehicle anymore. I have been trying to send him love, but I don't want to because I'm still angry. I want to believe this is all illusion, not think about it anymore, but I see the key marks (the length of my vehicle) every time I fill the gas tank. I'm having a hard time taking the high road, but I also know that the more I dwell on this, the more negativity I'm putting out into the world.

Any insights, encouragement, support would be most appreciated. Feels like this is a little test of the ego, and I'm not standing so tall right now.

[rawxstasy]

A car is a material thing and not as important in the whole scheme of life. I know that can be difficult but try not to let a material thing have so much power over you. As time goes on, your car will get scratches and dents just from regular use.

Try to just accept what is going on at work. Change the things you can change ( your response ), and the things you can't change ( other people ) just accept.

Meditation can help with stress and anger. I also found that when I was more angry about a situation than I should be, that it was really about some anger from my past that I had buried inside. Take some time to pay attention to your thoughts and feelings. Try to find out what really is the root cause.

[The Cloud]

Are you trying to take the high road for his sake, or for your own?

[AaronB]

Send love to your car:

How to Repair Your Car Scratch - Popular Mechanics

[ChildOfNone]

You have made the first step - a rational decision.

Now comes the more difficult one - a choice of the heart.

You cannot hold anger and love simultaneously.
Practice feeling the love in your heart grow large.
at first do not direct that feeling of love - just grow it
then begin to direct it - towards yourself (anytime but especially when you feel anger) and towards those you care about and then eventually toward those who you have felt hurt by.

Give it a try. Why not?

[evandangie]

Great insight and support, thank you all for your responses

What happened with the car is definitely a symptom of much deeper problems. Work has always been a trigger for huge negativity for me. I want to do work that I love, and I've been moving toward this for a while. It's taking some time to get past the embedded "work is hard, working sucks, you have to do it anyway" mentality of my parents. This job is the opposite of who I am/want to be, opposite of how I view the world. But I have magically manifested my way into the situation, and am trying to find the nuggets there. What benefit? How can I grow from this experience? It has been great for getting a handle on how I react to situations, and consequently pro-act/pre-pave in my life for the better. Slowly, slowly, getting better every day.

The car is a material thing, just writing out this first post last night was good for gaining a bit of insight, and thank you for underscoring. More than anything, I feel sad that someone would do this, and therefore sad that I would manifest such a malicious event, that, on some level, this is what I'm expecting in my life... I want to take the high road for my own sake, because I can feel how easy it could be to spiral downward, wanting to be right, wanting to place blame... so easy to get caught up in that. I want to do it for me, but also because I see so much negativity in my workplace, and I genuinely do not want to engage in it. I have been there for a year, and realize that the level of hate I feel toward the situation has cemented me in.

The surrender, the surrender... read this last night by reefs and it really resonated. How to surrender without forcing it, which negates the surrender?

Letting go, allowing, surrender are all synonymous. It has to happen by it's own in the sense that you are not the doer, you are not doing it, it just happens. No one trying to do anything or trying to get anywhere anymore.

But if you are actively trying to let go, allow or surrender, then it's not different from trying to bang everything into place. It's a tactic. It's someone trying to get somewhere by doing or not doing something. It's like doing the non-doing, practicing wu wei etc.

Also, thank you AaronB for the link I think I can fix most of the scratches. ChildofNone, thank you too for the process... I know this is true, not being able to hold love and anger at the same time. I'm still going back and forth, but I think the love is winning. And yes, right now maybe not directing it at him, but getting there.

Again, thank you all for sharing your thoughts.

[AaronB]

Life is always expanding us. This expansion often feels uncomfortable and we often want to push life back into a more familiar place. But in the uncomfortable there is always an energy that wants to grow. If the intensity you feel, even when looking at the scratch on your car, is recognized as expansion in progress, than it becomes much more tolerable. For me this recognition alone places my sense of value towards the result of allowing myself to be expanded by life, rather than finding a safer way to contain it.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by evandangie

I want to take the high road for my own sake, because I can feel how easy it could be to spiral downward, wanting to be right, wanting to place blame... so easy to get caught up in that. I want to do it for me, but also because I see so much negativity in my workplace, and I genuinely do not want to engage in it. I have been there for a year, and realize that the level of hate I feel toward the situation has cemented me in.

The thing about the high road is that it isn't for your sake, it's for its own sake. When your focus is on selfish (or even altruistic) motives, you automatically negate any benefit the high road might provide. What you have to do is recognize the high road as a value in itself, rather than a means of attaining some other value. The high road isn't there to benefit you; the high road is the benefit, whether it benefits you or not.

[Self Exploration]

Yes, expansion is going on there but ...
You have every right to feel hurt and shocked by it.

You have every right to be safe and to expect respect and love from others.
When these things happen there is a natural feeling of anger, disappointment and sadness as a reaction.

Why?
Because a nice car, may be loved.

Beautiful things taken away will cause sadness.
No matter how insignificant they may seem to others, if you think it was beautiful, you have a duty to respect yourself and to honor your feelings around it.

You , your feelings are important.
That is at the heart of the experience of expansion.

[AaronB]

Originally Posted by Self Exploration

Yes, expansion is going on there but ...
You have every right to feel hurt and shocked by it.

You have every right to be safe and to expect respect and love from others.
When these things happen there is a natural feeling of anger, disappointment and sadness as a reaction.

Why?
Because a nice car, may be loved.

Beautiful things taken away will cause sadness.
No matter how insignificant they may seem to others, if you think it was beautiful, you have a duty to respect yourself and to honor your feelings around it.

You , your feelings are important.
That is at the heart of the experience of expansion.

I like this message pointing at the importance of recognizing the validity of our feelings, whatever they may be. The direction of expansion for me is one that would result in the same experience producing less of an emotional shock than it used to. Or perhaps we just learn to experience a greater spectrum of emotions more comfortably, which makes disturbing events feel smaller over time in comparison to our ability to allow the emotional energy to flow through us.

For me the expansion is the increased ability to feel more emotional energy without feeling overwhelmed by the intensity. The best way to achieve this expansion that I'm aware of is simply by allowing yourself to feel greater levels of intensity.

While we all have the right to be hurt by anything we like for as long as we choose, we also have the option to expand our own capacity to far outgrow the circumstances that used to weigh us down.

[James81]

I think the more important question to ask yourself here is why do those people hate you and what are you doing to feed that. The person keyed your car...they don't need you to send an imainary feeling in la la land. They need their ass beat and/or prosecuted by the law.

But the question of the hour is how you can get out of your own perspective to really see the emotional reason (from their point of view) that they dislike you.

[evandangie]

I know why they hate me, I know how I manifested this. Sending love isn't la-la land to me, it's about raising the vibration within myself to experience more love and nurturing in my daily experience, feeling love within myself.

Yes! Beautiful things (while still just things) are a source of happiness. I do love my car, and keying it isn't an appropriate response to whatever minor tiff I may have had with this guy.

I will say, it's been such an interesting week. I reported the car incident to my supervisor on Monday. That afternoon I hit a pothole and now need to have it towed to the mechanic (time to stop fixating on car problems, seriously!). Today, about 15 people were laid off today at work. They sent out an email yesterday alerting us that this would happen, and I did a lot of praying/meditating last night and realized that while I do want to leave, I want to leave peacefully, and of my own volition. I also started reading a book that talks about expressing gratitude for everything (good, and esp. bad) that is in your life. Started this 40-day practice this morning.

[Clint Cora]

I'll chime in here. First of all, you should be congratulated on recognizing that you have an anger issue and that the car incident is only a result or symptom of underlying issues. Many other people out there do not even acknowledge that they have a problem no matter how bad things get.

Since you have recognized that something is most definitely there, I would suggest two routes that you can pursue in parallel. The first is to learn more about the field of emotional intelligence. The fact that there are things at work setting you off with your anger means that you can certainly improve on how you react to these things. Don't feel too bad here because it is estimated that 85% of society can improve in emotional intelligence or sometimes known as EI or EQ.

To get a better understanding of EQ, I shot a short video defining emotional intelligence to make things more clear.

The other route you can take is to take some type of anger management counselling - some companies might even have this available as part of the overall HR benefits package so it's worth checking out. Such counselling will help you ID the roots of the issue as well as help you keep anger in check better.

Both routes are worthwhile and I would think the combo would greatly benefit you, especially since you already acknowledge that there is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Good luck

[hamix]

Originally Posted by evandangie

Hello,

Feeling sad tonight. I have been in a bad work situation for the past year- working for a freight company, all day dealing with problems and negativity. Very high stress. I have been faced with my anger issues time and again, and am not proud to say that I have lost my temper more times than I can count. In normal life, I am friendly, kind, funny, well-liked. At this job, there are people who hate me, to the extent that my car has been keyed not once, but twice. I know I have manifested this because I spend so much of my days angry.

I'm posting because I just need support. I am working on surrendering, because I know that's the only way through, but I am really struggling with it. I am so hurt that someone would do this to my car, to make it so personal. I have a strong hunch about who did this, and I feel so angry at him. I am unhappy every minute of the time I spend at work, but I do my best to help people. It feels so abusive that someone would do this when I'm working so hard to help. I do not want to point fingers at this man, I just don't want him to damage my vehicle anymore. I have been trying to send him love, but I don't want to because I'm still angry. I want to believe this is all illusion, not think about it anymore, but I see the key marks (the length of my vehicle) every time I fill the gas tank. I'm having a hard time taking the high road, but I also know that the more I dwell on this, the more negativity I'm putting out into the world.

Any insights, encouragement, support would be most appreciated. Feels like this is a little test of the ego, and I'm not standing so tall right now.

You're not presenting the full picture.

Why do these people hate you? Did you do something to offend them? Are they envious of you? You should tell your bosses at work about this, and how they are making you feel uncomfortable. Use this as an instance to apply conflict management/resolution skills.

I would suggest calling the police. I would also suggest using your time at home to practice relaxation and mind-balancing techniques. Do something that relaxes your mind.

[elucidate]

It might be that a random stranger did this and not the guy you suspect. Have you considered this?

Walking around being suspicious and angry at someone when you don't really know they did anything in reality is very taxing on you. Unless you can prove it is there really any sense getting mad at him?

Also, as someone else pointed out, you can't really send love while being angry at the same time.

[faraway]

In Orthodox religion, which I belong to, there is a prayer for such cases. Many years ago my priest gave me this prayer when I hated badly one person and this hatered was eating me for a long time. The priest told me to pray for the health of this person and let God deside wheather he deserves punishment or not. This way if he gets punished I will not feel guilty for his troubles. Since then when I feel angry about someone I use this prayer. It always works for me, I cool down. I kind of delegate the problem to higher authorities

[evandangie]

I just wanted to share a little update. I'm not sure what kind of ju-ju I had going when I started this job, but I think this was one step further in an ongoing process. I had been working in a job/industry I was really unhappy in and left about a year and a half ago. I think this job and workplace was a little bit more intense situation (it can sometimes take very extreme situations for me to get the point...). As painful and difficult as this past year has been working in this job, I know I've learned a lot, and grown, albeit under negative circumstances.

I feel like I've released a lot of resistance in the past year, so that when I switch my focus, I see results and change in my life quite quickly. The incident with my car occurred on October 11th, and today, November 1st is my last day at this job. I survived layoffs 2 weeks ago and immediately upon leaving the meeting when I found out I was still employed, I was informed that the paperwork had gone through for a pending job. I will now be working under a good friend, for an environmentally conscious company, doing work I'm interested in. I had another incident with my vehicle (the lugnuts on one tire were loosened to the point that the tire would have come off had I driven on the freeway), but I know I am being overly paranoid and focusing on love. It's all a process, all learning. Thank you all for your insights.

@ Faraway, can you share the prayer?