I celebrated my birthday recently. No major plans just the simple tradition in our house which is you choose your favourite dinner and someone makes you a cake and we all sing the familiar ditty in dulcet tones.
So I was set for the same. The cake was my favourite and looked delicious (That’s my actual cake! Chocolate hazelnut) and I was just deciding on dinner right before school pick up.
The next thing is I get another call from our extended family that had returned home from a trip. They wanted to see me for my birthday (lovely right), however they had rung earlier to say they couldn’t make it that morning as arranged. This call was to suggest we go to them with the kids after school. My immediate thought was, I don’t want to go. I just wanted our simple tradition, my cake, my dinner, my husband and kids.
However I didn’t listen to me. I let the memories run: “If I say no they may feel hurt”. “They’ve been away, if we don’t do it today we are busy all week and won’t see them until next week, they won’t like that”. The guilt rose up and I chose to run the program.
Inevitably we went and returned home at dinner time with no prepared dinner and half a cake. It was of course action stations to get baths, lunches and some food in our belly’s ready for school and work the next day. So it was baked beans on toast for my birthday.
I was grumpy and short with everyone trying to get the evening routine into action because I felt resentful that my dinner and birthday evening had been hijacked.
Then I stopped.
I had created this situation. I could have said no to the visit. However I let past memories, past feelings drag me into a negative state. And I chose to stay there. While ever I blamed others for the situation I was powerless. I had chosen that experience. I could have explained that I wanted the time for our simple tradition. That it was important to me. And my relatives could have understood or they could have not. And that is their choice to make. There is always a choice, we may not like it but it is there. We create our own feelings, no one can make us feel anything because it happens in our minds. We decide to feel it, often because of the memories of our past.
Once I took responsibility for my choice I could let it go. I changed my state from one of blame, irritation and anger to responsibility. Then I could just be present with my feelings and move on.
It became my best birthday gift- the gift of growth- changing old stuck emotional energy into wisdom. And I am always grateful for that.