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A few years before children and my beloved minivan, I sit behind the wheel of my red Acura TSX in a line of cars waiting to enter a parking garage.
Yet another opportunity to practice patience.
Soon enough, I am next to the man in the booth.
“$10,” he says.
I give him a twenty and an “I thank you.”
He adds my money to the large stack of bills in his hand. I wonder how it feels to hold that wad of cash. He hands me a ten and a receipt and presses the button to lift the gate.
Before I press the gas, I notice the sign behind him.
$8 FOR THE FIRST TWO HOURS.
“Hey, I’m not going to be here longer than an hour,” I say.
His gaze is fixed off towards the distance. Silence. He says nothing.
I try a more direct approach: “Can I get the $2 back? I’m not going to be here longer than an hour.”
“You didn’t tell me,” he says sharply.
I counter, “I’m telling you now.”
“You didn’t tell me when you came. No refund.”
He points to the sticker on his booth: NO REFUNDS GIVEN.
“Come on,” I say. And I wait.
He is better at this game than I am.
The car behind me, seeing that no transaction is happening and that the gate has already lifted, gives a polite honk.
“I’d like your supervisor’s number,” I say.
Nothing. He is stone-faced. He knows that I’m probably not going to spend the time to call, even if he gives me the right number.
A chorus of beeps and a shout come from behind me.
“Asshole,” I say, as I punch the gas and leave to find a parking spot.
I chastise myself for losing my cool, remind myself that I am human, and then chastise myself again for not being able to just let it go. It’s just $2. And my outrage seems ridiculous. After all, I had just given $5 to a woman standing on the freeway off-ramp.
A phone call to Marla (ROTB’s longest-serving board member) sets me straight. She says, “You have every right to be angry. You were ripped off.”
And that’s when I realize it: telling myself that I shouldn’t be upset when I am upset does not help.
In fact, it makes it worse.
I would be horrified to hear a parent tell their upset child “Just get over it.”
Yet I do that to myself.
It is spiritual-religious self violence.
Do you also tell yourself that you don’t have the right to be upset when you are upset?
What if, instead, we trained ourselves on compassionate self-talk?
What if the self-castigating voice in our heads was tempered by another voice, a softer, gentler one telling us that it is all right for us to feel exactly as we feel?
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_button button_url=”mailto:?subject=Of%20interest&body=I%20think%20you’d%20find%20this%20newsletter%20by%20Rabbi%20Brian%20a%20good%20read.%20%20%20https://oldrotb.wpengine.com/2021/06/04/spiritual-self-violence/” button_text=”SHARE VIA EMAIL” button_alignment=”right” admin_label=”Button” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][/et_pb_button][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.8″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.29.3″][et_pb_image src=”https://rotb.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/1b235169dbeb4bfe98882eecf2142f02-1-1.jpeg” align=”right” _builder_version=”3.29.3″][/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.29.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.7.3″]Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer resides in Portland, Oregon. He is the founder and head of Religion-Outside-The-Box oldrotb.wpengine.com, an internet-based, global group of 3.3K+ digital-age seekers. ROTB produces excellent spiritual content.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.25.3″ background_color=”#195f79″][et_pb_row column_structure=”1_2,1_2″ _builder_version=”4.4.8″][et_pb_column type=”1_2″ _builder_version=”3.25.3″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ text_font=”PT Sans||||||||” text_font_size=”18px” text_line_height=”2em” header_font=”Open Sans|800||on|||||” header_text_align=”left” header_font_size=”50px” custom_margin=”|||” text_font_size_tablet=”” text_font_size_phone=”16px” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|phone” header_font_size_tablet=”50px” header_font_size_phone=”40px” header_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” locked=”off” inline_fonts=”Noto Sans”]

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