Many years ago, I was out shopping when I spotted a pregnant woman sitting by the side of the road in some distress. She looked up at me and I went over to see if I could help. Apart from the tear tracks of mascara down her face, the woman was well presented, fitting in with the people surrounding her on the smart streets of Battersea. She explained, through sobs, that she had just had a big argument with her partner in the car and that he had stopped on a busy road and made her get out, telling her never to come back. She told me how he had sometimes been threatening in the early part of their relationship and now was becoming increasingly violent. She didn’t want to go back, she feared for her safety and that of her unborn baby. But he’d driven off with her handbag in the car, containing her purse, her phone and the keys to the flat to which she never wanted to return…
My heart went out to this poor woman in her plight. She had a friend she could go to, whom she called from my phone. The friend was out but told her where the keys were hidden. The only problem now was that she had to get across town to a location nowhere near a tube station and her ankles were swollen, so I gave her £30 for some lunch and a taxi, as well as my contact details, should she find herself stuck. Grateful, and promising to keep in touch and repay me, she hobbled off to the taxi rank.
By now, you may have guessed what happened next. Having spent a night worrying about this woman and what would happen to her, I discovered she was part of a well-known scam which had duped many a fellow Londoner. Her pregnancy was so convincing it may have been genuine, but her motives were certainly not. The £30, which I could ill-afford at the time, was gone for good, but what was worse was my sense of betrayal and anger. How could she have tricked me like that? How could she sleep at night? She’d seemed so upset but she was just acting – why did I not see through her? How stupid I was for falling for her scam! Another night’s sleep was lost, at War with myself, this woman and the duvet as I tossed and turned.
My work with War to Peace had not started yet, so I couldn’t see what was going on and how I was feeding my negative emotional state further by imagining what she was doing now, the other people she was conning, and by kicking myself black and blue.
It took a wise friend to help me back to being at Peace again. He pointed out that it didn’t matter at all what the woman did with that money and that, if I hadn’t found out it was a scam, I wouldn’t have suffered at all. What I had decided to do had been my decision from the heart – it was, and remained, a ‘good’ action. What she did from that point was nothing to do with me and everything to do with her, and her lying didn’t change my decision’s validity and open-heartedness. Her actions were none of my business, and my actions were none of hers.
On the War to Peace workshops, we look at how our thoughts and actions affect the way that we think and feel about situations or people. We explore how we can’t change the thoughts, feelings and actions of other people and learn that, by changing our own operating system from being at War to being at Peace, we can have the greatest positive impact. This not only saves us a lot of time and emotional pain, but also rids us of the idea that we need to worry about the feelings and actions of others. Acting with authenticity from a place of being at Peace is our business; the response of others is their business – and theirs alone.
Over to you
Where are you spending emotional energy in a situation that’s none of your business?
Do you know someone who could benefit from War to Peace?
If you, or someone you know, would love to spend more time at Peace in 2015, our next open-access War to Peace workshop is on 20th March and we still have some space left! To book yours, click here.
P.S. Pass it on!
Found this useful? Then please share this article using the icons below and do leave us a comment.
Are you poking your emotional nose into someone else’s business?
Please leave your name and email address at the top or bottom of this page to receive more articles like this.
©Halcyon Global 2015
photo credit: K@ja via photopin cc
Leave A Comment