She said, "It is a shame that you have retired."

Greetings!

A long time spiritual seeker once said in a gathering that he lived in the moment of now.  His mind was often clear and calm.  I thought 'Wow!  That would be great!' 

Unlike the brother / teacher, my mind was busy except when I was really focused on doing something.  Otherwise, it was like a recorder that played naturally yet randomly of what it had recorded, e.g. chanting / affirmation that I learned,  the music that I loved, and the silly, uplifting short songs that I created.  Once in a while, a past event or incident might pop up in my mind too.

Quite a while back, an incident came to my mind.  It happened over a year ago.  I had put it behind me.  Therefore, I did not think much of it afterward.  As time went on, more experiences that had something to do with that incident surfaced in my mind.  Eventually, it caused me to take a good look within and examine my pattern / the way I went about in life.

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Last year I was excited to learn that a new holistic center would be opening in a city near me.  In the months before its grand opening, the center held some promotional events.  I had gone to a few of those events.

One day I went to its pre-opening celebration.  The parking lot was almost full.  After listening to a couple of presentations by the professionals that had leased spaces in the center, I visited different rooms in the building.  It was a rectangular building.  The size of rooms varied.  The hallway was narrow.  At one point while I was in the hallway, I stopped walking so as to let people walked out of a room.  A woman that came out of the room looked me up and down.  

She said, "What profession are you in?"

Caught by surprise, it took me a while to process what she said.  I said, "I am retired."  

She asked, "What do you do before you retire?"

I pondered what do say.  I said, "I was a caregiver."

She seemed to be puzzled by my answer.  She said, "But, you know healing, don't you?"

Ah, she could see, I thought.  I said, "Yes, I do."

Immediately, I could feel her disapproval of me.  She walked away saying, "It is a shame that you have retired!"  

I saw her walked into another room.  I decided to go to that room because I wanted to talk to her.  A few people were inside looking at the display.  She did not look at me as if she did not want to talk anymore.  A young woman walked in.  I recognized her.  She was one of the professionals that gave talk earlier.  She and the woman greeted one another as if they knew each other well.  They talked quietly for a while.  The young woman looked at me.  She said, "It may be we can work together."  It seemed she had other thing to attend to.  She said 'bye' to the woman, and left the room.  Soon the woman left too. 

Sometimes I did not know what to think after an experience liked this happened.      

This kind of incidents happened from time to time.  I believed I had written about an incident that happened while I was with the small church.  One Sunday I took part in the quarterly healing service.  When it was over, a woman walked to me and said "You are a healer!  Why are you working in a cafeteria?"  I stood there thinking "Who is she?  She looks somewhat familiar?  How does she know I work in a cafeteria?"  Before I said anything, she walked away.  In A Strange Conversation with A Professor , the professor seemed to know a lot about me while it was the first time we met.  In The Lesson of Importance , I found it challenging to take in what others said of me.  "You are important to the church and the community."  I never thought I was important or not.  When people said things about me out of nowhere, the human I needed time to process.  Did he / she really say what I thought I had heard?  Why did he / she say that?  Could I have heard it wrong?  He / she often walked away before I could respond.

I wished I was quick to respond, but I was not.  Afterward, I had to deal with the unsettling emotion.

In the above case, her words "it is a shame that you have retired' kind of bothered me.  She did not know me.  How could someone that I had not met before said that to me!  I would have appreciated if she sat down and talked to me.  It might be I should have taken the initiative to ask her if we could talk.  

I share my experience 'as is'.  I shall share with you my introspection in later post(s).

Love and Light,

Q of D