Centeredness

 

It was a cool November day. I was travelling from Pune to Ahmadabad. My flight was in the afternoon. Airlines had texted us to be there at airport 3 hours prior to departure time because of rush at the security gates. I thought it was just a way of the airline to push customers be on time. Me and my wife reached the airport 2 hours prior to departure. I realized that airlines was right. There was huge queue at the entrance itself. After entering the gate we found that the queue for baggage drop was also a big one. It took considerable time for us to reach the baggage drop point. After that we stood in the security queue. It was long serpentine line which was moving at a snails' pace. I was getting worried whether we will miss our flight. After nearly half an hour I was near the security gate. Suddenly a man and his compatriots came from no where and broke the queue and went ahead. I confronted the person telling him that all people are standing in the queue and this is not the way. Probably I was little annoyed at his behavior and it was evident on my face. To my surprise he took offence and started using foul language and what not. I remained externally calm but I was angry inside. I did not say  anything seeing the unruly behavior of the person. I cleared the security and reached my wife. She asked me what happened. I just narrated the incidence. But it took me good amount of time to calm down.

On reflection I realized that just before this incidence a young man approached me and requested that as he was late for his flight, he may be allowed to jump the queue. To this request I agreed. But some how I was not able to understand behavior of the other person and his fellow passengers who just jumped the queue without assigning any reason. Probably that triggered in me a righteous anger. Which was evident on my face. I was annoyed / irritated for a considerable amount of time.

What could be a different way of handling this situation remaining calm? How could I have impressed upon him that what he was doing was not correct without getting emotionally disturbed? We face lot of situations like this in our social interactions. What you do to remain calm? I pride myself being self aware and in control of myself but such situations though far and few trigger me, I lose the grounded ness. What is the antidote for this? This may happen on the road when a rowdy driver is cutting you off dangerously. Or at a supermarket where somebody shoves you to break the queue at the cash counter. Or an altercation with coworker . Or an argument with a teenage kid about how she should keep her room. All these situations can become volatile if not handled from space of calm demeanor.

What are your hacks to remain calm and stable in such situations? Is there anything else we can do? Some people may would like to avoid these altogether. But I think we cannot avoid these.

What is required is deep self-awareness and grounded ness. How do we cultivate that? And how can we retain that? Any ideas?   

Jan Chozen Bays MD gives an exercise for centeredness in her book” How to train a wild elephant and other adventures in Mindfulness”.  The exercise she suggests is as follows.

“Become aware of your center of gravity. It is located in the center of the lower abdomen, about two inches below the navel, and midway between the front abdominal wall and the spine at the back. In martial arts this center of gravity is called the hara(in Japanese) or tan tien (in Chinese)

Whenever your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your center of gravity. Try to initiate all physical actions from this spot in your body – whether you’re reaching, walking, bending, and so on. You can even chop food in this way. Let each chop of knife originate in the hara, flow down the arm into hand , into knife, and through vegetable.

Any time you feel off balance, drop your awareness into your center. It will stabilize your body ,mind and heart.”