How I Know the Mindfulness Is Working

I made a deal with Chris about the chores- we split the list and I am supposed to accomplish my part before he gets home at 7:30.  I have some more to do before my list is done but I already cleaned the bejeezus out of the kitchen and let's be serious, he's not going to be home by 7:30.

This Thursday in the Mindfulness class we were assigned our new homework: to sit down at the end of each day and document an unpleasant event and our reactions to it.  (We did pleasant events last week.)  I did not have to wait long.

On Friday I went to work and maybe an hour or so in, my boss brought out a flier he'd made.  I saw something on it that confused me and I asked a question to clarify.  His answer only confused me more and I made a remark that made it obvious to him that I had misinterpreted the flier.  Suddenly I found myself faced with a barrage of ridicule- not just from him, but from a coworker as well- implying that I must be absolutely retarded to read it that way.  I was stunned- horrified to be treated like this- as well as completely outraged.  Normally, my reaction would be to shut up and stew in the corner all day, then, hours later when I had reimagined the situation enough times, come up with the perfect retort.  Actually, that perfect response would probably come from Mom or Tracy when I called them to share my outrage. I would be left feeling ostracized and stupid with no way to resolve the issue in my head so it would just be added to the revolving file of poor reactions.  But not this time.

This time I felt outraged and dismissed, pissed off, hurt, the whole nine yards, but I was able to respond.

"Wait a minute," I said.  "If I read it that way, odds are that other people will too."

I didn't lose my shit, I didn't panic.  I still felt everything that I always do but for whatever reason, this time I was able to respond.  On the first day of the Mindfulness class, we were asked what we wanted out of it.  I know I said something, I'm sure it was as true as possible, but I am amending my answer.  THIS is what I want.  So did it work?

Not at all.  Not even a little bit.  He refused to hear what I had to say.  I was trying to be helpful, I got ridiculed, and I was STILL trying to be helpful.  I was not petty or spiteful to him- there was no retaliation on my part, no defensive smartass remark.  And he wouldn't hear it.  Ok fine.

Now, I did spend a while being pissed off.  It didn't help that he threw a jab at me less than five minutes after that, but whatever.  I talked to my other coworker (the one who also read the flier the way I did) and he assured me that the boss is an asshole to him all the time.  We talked about it for a little bit and then I went about my day.  Soon it occurred to me that I had an unpleasant event to document and did so.  That got me thinking about my response and I became really proud of myself.  It didn't work, but that was okay.  I am comfortable leaving this behind because I reacted in a way that I can feel proud of.

I did tell Tracy about it and she wondered why this guy is trying to argue with an English major ("Yeah. YEAH!") but this phone conversation was not about sharing frustration, it was about sharing an accomplishment.  Yeah!