Everything Nac

“Sitting in the fire” is an expression used to describe the process of being tolerant of being in an uncomfortable situation. This can happen in so many ways and circumstances that its use is ongoing and ever-expanding. I hope to introduce it to you in such a way that you will think about it as a way of muttering to yourself whenever things get tense and overwhelming, and it will be the mantra you use to help yourself get from point A to point Z, moving through tough moments and odd feelings.
In the area of work related circumstances, we often have not only differences of opinion but sometimes downright animosity coming from those around us who are seeking to show that they have some power in the world. Sometimes we meet these people as bosses. How is it that people who have little or no real people skills end up being in these power positions? It seems that the horrible boss syndrome is so cliché that they can even make a movie about it, and it does not phase them. They will look right at the logic of it, presented to them on film, and they will think that the employees deserve to be treated in subservient ways; after all, the boss is in charge, and whatever he says goes, and he can talk to others any way he wants, right? These people do not get it, and if they did, they would act differently wouldn’t they? You would think so, but probably not! They may even glory in the fact that they are tough as nails and half as compassionate. What can we do with people like this??
We run across these people on the roadway, these super-angry-road-raging-maniacs, right? Who died and left them God? All of us have had moments where we are forced for whatever reason to make unsafe or seemingly derelict moves on the roadway, and these road-ragers collect those moments like personal affronts and may even chase you down and throw you the peace sign and scream obscenities at you. And then you will see them somewhere else out of that context and think about how smug they seem now that they are not yelling and misbehaving. What is it that might really be going through these people’s minds? Why are they so unutterably offended by others? How can they take so personally something that someone does whom they will probably never see again?
This is where the healing begins. “Sitting in the fire” means taking a few more minutes or even seconds to think through the situation. Maybe we can bide our time and let it pass that we ourselves are so upset by their misbehaving. In the old days, we were taught to count to 10, or 50, or 100. Let’s make use of that time and try to analyze what it is that is really going on. Chances are a person who is a bad egg, who acts out, who panics and throws a fit, who is giving us hell, is in fact a very self-worrisome person. He is miserable from the inside out. We might not think anything about why that is important to us until we are the ones who are fuming over his having confronted us. Then we are all upset, and we rationalize our feeling upset; after all, he was unfair to US!
These people are in fact those who are here to teach us to not only sit in the fire but to walk in it, bath in it, languish and play in it. A person who can keep his calm under extremely difficult circumstances is highly revered. We think of him as a prince among men. I would love to be able to say that nothing ever gets to me, but I would be the biggest liar ever. Some people get so far under my skin it seems like they are in bed with me at night and tapping me on the shoulder, “Wake up, you moron!” Oh, I am all about, “When he said this, I should have said that.”

We can see how people got that way; they started out like us, rational and sane, and then they got fed up with crazy fools trying to push them around, and then the next thing they knew they were going off the chain crazy and losing it on the freeway of life. It is a rational insanity. People owe you respect or dignity or position or money or respect or trust or something because you are entitled, right?
After all, there needs to be fairness in the world. I know, because I saw some fairness one time in a dream. I heard about it in a book, or was it on the web? I know that there must be some fairness where if you work hard and always do right and never rip anyone off you will never have a flat tire, run out of gas, and no one will ever take advantage of you, right? Now, this is not a license to act like a monster, but it does really clarify the situation we are in. People are in pain, and they are hurting and they rationalize their behaviors, and they act out and then the act like horrible bosses, poor mates, angry kids, road raging maniacs, evil street thugs, or self-righteous pontificating fools. And those people are sometimes us. And this is why we need to learn to “sit in the fire.”
runningturtle87