Are you carrying a heavy load?
How to deal with difficult people, inflammation, and experience peace
I’ll start off with this powerful short story from a children’s book called Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth:
Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.
The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing, and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk, she just shoved him out of the way and departed.
As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then she didn’t even thank you!
“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”
Just as injury to the body can lead to inflammation, so too can undue emotional stress. Considering the tumultuous world we live in today, it’s quite easy to find ourselves in a chronic state of undue stress, and therefore with chronic inflammation, both physically and emotionally. We turn to things to combat it: sometimes to comfort-food. Sometimes alcohol. Sometimes we go into hyper busy mode so as to distract ourselves from emotional inflammation. And sometimes we scroll, procrastinate, or zone out.
There are four things you can do instead to mitigate stress in a way that doesn’t feed inflammation:
Breathe down past your diaphragm and expand on the inhale instead of on the exhale. This turns on your parasympathetic mode, which helps you rest and digest.
Take a moment to feel your inflamed emotion in your body instead of ruminating on the drama itself. This will help you acknowledge and move your pain body through and out more effectively.
Practice letting go. This allows you to get light, agile, and present; out of your head and into the moment, which provides you with clarity.
Practice meditation. This pulls you out of the drama to see the broader, more compassionate and responsible view.
It’s difficult enough to control ourselves let alone others. While we can learn to control our own thoughts and actions, we can’t really control what’s outside of us, so let’s not try. The truth is, the most effective way to affect others is through inspiration. Have you ever heard an inspirational or motivational leader complaining or pointing out other people’s wrongdoings? No. Yet through anecdotes and attention to what’s possible, they are influential. They change lives by shifting mindset. On the other hand, someone that points out bad news and criticizes only serves to spread fear and division. Be careful how much of the latter you take in, it creates inflammation in mind and body.
It’s important to note that when someone is being difficult, cross, impatient, or downright mean, it’s a reflection of what’s going on inside of them at the moment. It really and truly has very little to do with you. The level of suffering a person dishes out on others is at least equivalent to the amount of suffering they are experiencing inside. They may not even realize it; they may be operating on decades-long habits that have helped them survive during the period of time they started those habits. We all have them, and sometimes we fail to recognize that they were temporary survival mechanisms for that time, and that they now hold us back from experiencing richer connections and better health.
This internal suffering, and the points of view that causes it, puts people in their own hell, so there is no need to feel that you must exact punishment on them, they are already there. Instead, compassion is called for. Remember that we have stuff too, and our stuff is what triggers us to theirs. This is not to excuse bad behavior. While it may not be your work to school others, it is your work to learn to calmly, firmly, kindly, succinctly and directly say that you don’t accept inconsiderate behavior.
Mostly, check in with your own triggers. It’s not other people’s job to dance around yours. It’s your job to mend yours. Do your own work and let them do theirs. Instead of lashing back at them or dumping on friends about someone else’s bad behavior (and spreading dis-ease), check your own reactions. In making this your practice, you will become more influential and at peace. If that inflammatory person is someone you see regularly, you are more likely to have a positive impact on that person over time. Depending on them, they will either shift with you or they will keep their distance because your vibes just won’t align. You are both blessed either way.
Practice this way of being, and you’ll find yourself surrounded by less inflammation and more peace.
Love, Savitree
This was very timely for me. Thanks 🙏