Magnifying

I heard quite an interesting sermon yesterday that further confirmed what I discovered last week. Recently I had a brush with the police. I discovered a puddle of water (smell like urine) on my mom’s slippers just outside my house. It was not raining that day and my neighbour’s cat was walking along the corridor. It must be the cat again, I concluded. (Though I didn’t see the actual act, but this is not the first time it had occurred.) Being the very vocal me, and someone who would always seek for justice, I went knocking on my neighbour’s door, asking them to come and take a look at it, while at the same time taking photos of the cat loitering outside and the puddle, as evidences. (Pets are to be kept indoor and not outside, according to SPCA, I called up to check last year, asking what I could do to solve this issue.) The neighbour didn’t come to take a look. What surprised me much later was that the police came knocking on my door, and I felt as if I had done something really sinful by vocalizing the urine issue, and “disturbing” my neighbour, who made a report on me. Selah.

I spent almost 2 hours resolving this with the police, and when I sat down before my laptop last week, I complained it to the first available person on msn who tried to chat to me. I got a listening ear from my niece. One thing I did notice was that the more I talked about it, the more frustrated I was. (For the last 1.5 months since I started working, I was really happy and thankful to God that I had not erupted in temper at work, a breakthrough, when a few months back, I was constantly at the brink of erupting almost every single day. This event marks the first such occurrence for a pretty long time.) For half of the next day, I was still sort of sulking over the issue, felt much injustice being done. Over lunch with a colleague, I was pondering if I should complain again about it to another person, just to get some sympathy. (Though right within my heart, I heard a very clear voice saying to me to stop talking about it and let go.) Yet, I still chose to tell my colleague, but much to my disappointment, she said I should just let go. (Because if I would to complain to SPCA, the cat might be put to sleep, which was not what I wanted to do.) Sigh, this time a totally audible voice almost jumping out of my heart, from my colleague’s mouth.

I am not taking this channel to complain about the cat incident or what, but to point out a truth, a very powerful phenomenon I noticed since, that is, when you are angry or frustrated about something, the only way out for us for not pondering on it, is to stop talking about it altogether, this is the way to let go. I realized the frustration increased as I talked about it, verbalized it. This incident brought me a few months back when I felt burn-out. I actually fell into the trap of self-pity when I vocalized my stress to my friends. The more I shared with them how I felt, the more I felt I was stressed out and burn out, and the more I felt I was doing the right thing with my lousy attitude, thinking that I deserve to behave like this. How powerful it is when we vocalized something, it seems magnified several times. This can be used for both good and bad.

If you don’t believe me, try it, talk about something you felt mistreated or angry with, see if you become less angry or actually more frustrated after talking about it. Trust me, one tends to feel worse. People who are hurt tend to repeat their stories, although many a times, they said they had already let go and forgave, yet, the fact that they were narrating their misfortune again and again actually suggest otherwise, that they have not fully let go of it, to set themselves free. The way to let go is to stop talking about it! And vice versa, talk about those things that you want to magnify, for example, our beloved Shepherd, and He surely becomes bigger in your sight! Cheers!