Awareness gives back your power
A story about awareness: This simple truth
While boating on the lake one day, it became extremely windy. Windy enough that it was becoming difficult to control the boat. We decided to call it a day, head into the dock, and go home. When we arrived at the dock, another boat was getting ready to enter the water on their boat, and a person from our boat hollered to them, “Hey, are you guys just going in? You may want to rethink it..” It was said out of concern for the rough water we had just left. Becoming aware of your emotions is a robust process and can truly change how one may take control of a situation. An excellent example of this is as follows:
The other boat had around six people in it, and none of them said anything and continued to load their boat into the water. We then let out our driver, and he went up to get his truck so we could load up our boat onto the trailer. As the rest of us waited for him, we started to exit the boat onto the dock and unload a lot of the towels and things to be ready to leave.
The people from the other boat began screaming and telling us how rude we were out of nowhere. They were screaming profanity and saying we don’t own the dock.
The adults in our boat were confused and didn’t understand what they said. It dawned on us that they thought when we asked them if they were going into the water that we wanted them to leave and take their spot on the dock. We were trying to warn them that the water was rough and too windy and was trying to be kind and maybe save them some time going out in the water, only to have to come right back due to the stormy wind.
The other boat would not back down as we tried to get control of the conversation and let them know that they were way off and that we were trying to save them some time. It escalated so bad that our boat just stopped trying to explain our true intention. They were fuming, and we realized there was nothing one could say to change their minds or get them to listen and that we did not need their spot on the dock.
Their minds were made up, despite how wrong they were. We continued to load our boat while they shouted profanity and rude remarks.
We were stunned at how this was playing out and how off base the other boat assumed our thoughts and entirely opposed our true intentions. Becoming aware of what was happening became more interesting. It did not bother us as they continued to scream at us. We were mindful of our intentions, and that is all that mattered. The other boat eventually left in anger that continued to escalate because we would not engage in their madness. The awareness in our boat of the actual situation gave us all the control we needed to stay calm and rational. It was mind-blowing and incredible to realize that because we knew we were not in the wrong and we were completely aware of the truth we knew, we did not have to try and defend ourselves or let their words rally us up.
On the other hand, the other boat was fuming and is probably still talking about this today and holding anger that should have never been there in the first place.
The awareness of our truths gave us complete control and helped us to remain calm in what could have been a very contentious situation. Being aware gives us back our power that sometimes is taken by not being aware.
Awareness is a powerful emotion that we overlook at times by our fears. Sometimes it is easier just to be ‘mad’ than to learn the rest of the story and become aware of what the truth is. By having awareness, life has the possibility of being less stressful and less wondering by simply being truthfully informed.
Author: Tammy Threlfal
For additional posts about self-awareness, visit https://selfawareness.blog/blog/