We can follow the thinking with which we were raised – perhaps home or school or both—the way those in our culture around us think. How about this one? Ring a bell? “Someone messes with me I fight back. Push me, I push you back.”
Or we can choose another path.
This is a story of someone calling on the Power of Good for its own sake. It felt better and offered survival in sanity. Then wow it had impressive pay off extending into the future
Morley worked in a bureaucracy. The man two levels above her—her section chief—seemed to not like her. She worked along anyway and enjoyed the program areas for which she was responsible.
Her immediate supervisor went on to another job, and he was replaced with Wanda. Of course, Wanda wanted to succeed, wanted to please this section chief and prided herself on being a tough administrator.
Once in place Wanda seemed to go out of her way to create difficulties for Morley. How was Morley going to handle herself? Surely it occurred to her to search for another job. She kept her eyes open, and her gut told her to take her time, no rush to flee a bully. After all she did enjoy her subject matter area. M had good working relationship with others outside her agency where they jointly planned initiatives and were getting some good works in place.
At this time Morley attended a number of spiritual groups and read extensively master texts containing foundation principles of high morals and integrity. From there she got some advice with which she decided to experiment. M would imagine a cone of light raying down on her during her work day. She wanted to be contained within this protection. Her part: mindfully focus on Good as much as she could.
This meant not entering the atmosphere of bitterness, strife, petty grievances, revenge, gossip and other versions of ill will—even when barbs and even un kind assignments were directed at her. This took some discipline because after a while many parties wanted to gossip and complain with her about Wanda. No, she kept off those topics and led conversations on constructive topics.
After half a year of this, there was a crisis. One day Morley was informed she was being removed from this unit and would be given a job in another department.
As the details of what happened became available, it sounded to our heroine that two department heads had a fight and Morley was the lamp that was picked up and thrown at the other department head.
This change felt abrupt and jostling to our star. Even after the transfer it turned out that it was disruptive to the department where she was now assigned and a couple of months passed when she did not have a substantial assignment.
Meanwhile she kept looking for the good in her new situation. Turned out that circumstance had been a major strain and with the “out from under” Morley got several flu episodes in those months to wait, with plenty of sick leave.
Then she was given a project that had been an agency stepchild, others had failed and it had been abandoned. So she started to research it and create a paper for how to approach it for the Commissioner.
Long story shortened: This new project turned out to be the best work of her life. A juicy and rich policy area where others had not succeeded—she created an environment of interagency cooperation, new resources from foundations, a dramatically improved relationship with outside stakeholders and other innovative solutions. It took years but Morley was a success.
Meanwhile after about a year, Morley was approached by Wanda. Wanda had been asked to leave by the Commissioner due to poor management. In this conversation with Morley W convened that indeed yes she had been asked to make M’s work life difficult. Profusely did she apologize for the way she had treated her. Wanda had realized to her deep chagrin that M was an excellent employee, smart, professional, competent and also a good person.
Morley saw what had been created and it was Good! What wonderful outcomes had been manifested from the discipline to keep her mind on high principles and behaving accordingly.
Do you have stories of holding Good in your mind and heart that you would enjoy sharing? Please comment with them! We all relish inspiration!
About the Author
Janet Pearlman is a spiritual teacher, counselor, healer and artist. In these posts composed of true stories, she inspires others to know themselves and compassionately to develop skills of empowerment. In her forty-five year journey of self-discovery, she has deeply studied the teachings of Abraham-Hicks, Ernest Holmes and more. Janet offers individual sessions by phone and in person. Please contact her at jpearl555@earthink.net to arrange an appointment.