I’m not so good at taking my own advice, she said,

but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s right.

Guilt. That’s what 5 minutes of reflection costs. Well, maybe that’s the price of temper… And the reflection is just… maturity? Buddhist empathy? Naaw… It’s guilt. I recognise it from childhood.

Here’s the deal: I write almost daily about learning beginner’s heart. About learning how to be more compassionate, more reflective. More alive within the moment. But sometimes, being alive in the moment means I blow. Up, to be precise. At … whatever.

Someone I love is sick. And thus cranky, as we’re wont to be when we don’t feel well. And both sick & cranky for several weeks. Now, we need to detour here to my lack of patience. It is NOT one of my strengths. I can cook. I can speak French. I actually have an ear for music and language. And I can write. But ask me for patience and I turn my spiritual pockets inside out, empty.

So I blew up. At this poor sick person, nursing a fever, a raging sinus infection, and a bad headache, to boot. YELLED. LOUDLY. Enough to raise if not the dead, at least any nearby zombies.

I can’t take that back. And within a matter of an hour or so I cooled off (I was pretty hot). And then? Well, beginner’s heart kicked in. And I felt terrible. Guilty. Like a total fraud. And a loud, hot-tempered one, at that!

It took me all day to day to forgive myself. Not the poor sickie. Myself. Far harder, isn’t it? But just as necessary. Because I don’t have to live w/ anyone else. Just me, on the inside of me. And that’s why beginner’s heart is so important. So we can practice it ~ inside out.