In Bloom
We went grocery shopping in Birmingham recently. We have a Publix here locally, but in a bigger city I can find more diverse options of produce and organic groceries.
Since Covid became a thing and people started losing their minds (…even more than usual), I hadn’t really taken the kids out much. But I’ve found that grocery shopping can be a great homeschool experience, and they love helping pick out what we are going to buy and identifying harmful ingredients to find better alternatives. Super fun!
We went to Trader Joe’s first, with a plan to hit up Whole Foods next. We didn’t find any organic coconut milk at TJ, so our next stop was pretty important. We use coconut milk in a lot of our soups and Indian dishes.
As we checked out, my 5 year old asked for some candy. I reminded him that we still had to run into Whole Foods and could get one of their chocolate bars. They carry a brand that is fair trade, organic, and super healthy. Another reason why I prefer to get groceries in Bham— they have the best options for ethical brands.
The cashier at Trader Joe’s heard me tell my son where we were going next, and his demeanor completely changed. He was still friendly and helpful, but his energy shifted to one of covert combativeness, almost imperceptibly. He saw my son brandishing a bit of trash, “Here, mama. Trash.”
The cashier (almost) jokingly said, “Just take that with you and throw it into the floor at Whole Foods.” In a stick-it-to-the-man, conspiratorial kind of attitude.
I was taken aback. What was his issue with Whole Foods?
I read his energy further.. He glanced knowingly at his co-worker and continued to make off-handed jokes about stealing items from WF and putting them into our pockets on the way out.
There seemed to be some kind of feud between these two stores, and I had no idea why. As I watched these cashiers interact, it dawned on me that there must be some kind of superiority belief, possibly because TJ goods are not mass marketed, or are perhaps more ethically sourced? I didn’t know But I definitely felt their energy and it made me feel awkward.
However, instead of closing off my own energy field to their contrariness and telling my 5 year old that those actions would be inappropriate and it was all a joke, I fed into it. I adopted their attitude of underhanded superiority and chuckled at the jokes. I immediately absorbed their energy as my own!
I felt gross afterward. I was not proud of myself for the example I had set for my 5 year old. But I pushed it from my mind and continued my errands. Now, weeks later, I am facing strong, transformative Scorpio energy and this particular incident has popped back up into my awareness. Many lessons have come my way this morning:
There is a serious duality mindset out there. About everything. Covid reactions, vaccination viewpoints, the prices of gas, all the huge daily monstrosities that we are bombarded with in our media intake. But also the smaller scale moments.. the tiny, insidious beliefs that worm their way into our energy fields if we aren’t careful. My teacher, Liana Shanti, has been repeating this ever so patiently. And I am finally starting to get it. I was SO permeable in that moment. In the space of a heartbeat, I made a choice. And I gave up my beliefs to fit in with others. Why? So they wouldn’t be mad at me? See me differently for shopping at “that other store?” So many fears to sit with here. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from this situation!
It was ridiculously easy for me to fall back into my daily life, rather than to sit in the discomfort of the choice I had made. I knew, sitting in my car afterward, that something wasn’t quite right about that situation. I thought about it for a moment, thought about how wrong it was for that cashier to be bashing Whole Foods like that and telling my FIVE YEAR OLD to steal from a store. And then I shook it off. “Oh well, he’s just 5. He won’t remember this. He won’t actually learn anything from it.” Oh, but he will. He felt that vibrational energy of something being “off.” He felt his mom falter for just a second and squash her own instinct down. He felt the anger emanating from those cashiers and he didn’t understand why. He absorbed it, too. He took all of that discord and he brought it inside himself. To take root in his deep subconscious, and possibly sprout seeds later in life, blooming up from the depths of his soul in ways that I can’t even fathom as his mother. I cannot protect him from everything. But I CAN set an example for him by being aware of my own disharmonious choices and making a conscious effort to make better ones.
That cashier was NO better or worse than me. We are all that cashier. We are all Trader Joe’s. We are all rising gas prices. We are all in a state of disconnect, as long as we keep feeding into this draining black hole of duality. We all make our own choices, millions of them, in tiny milliseconds, in grocery stores and bowling alleys and public restrooms and our bedrooms and kitchens and innermost private sanctuaries of who or what we believe we are. We act that out. We decide. Every moment is a sacred interaction. Think of every single choice you have made in the last 10 years. You probably can’t even remember all of them. That would be pretty impressive, considering the vast amount of information we take in daily and navigate life with. Those choices have all added up to get you exactly where you are now, to have the exact awareness you are making decisions with. Have those last ten years treated you kindly? Have you treated you kindly? How about others?
Big realizations for me today. I feel so humbled by this learning experience. I just had a long talk with my daughter about some of her big feelings. I took a break from writing this post and I helped her navigate a disagreement with her little brother. My instinct was to be impatient and cut her down because she was mean to him. But, thankfully, I had the presence of mind to look at it from her point of view. I didn’t want to take on the role of a random cashier in a random city, representing a random store, spreading disconnect and anger. I also refused to play the role of a mother who isn’t grounded enough to speak up and show her children the way out of this mentality. I made the choice in that moment, that was best for me and my family, and came from a state of total love.
I can’t take the credit for this change of heart, though. I write this as an offering of gratitude to the universe, a plea sent out from this blessed, transient state of peaceful awareness, that my words might convey this incredible realization.
Sit in the discomfort for a moment. Let it wash over you. Forgive yourself for those so-called moments of weakness, those actual states of unknowingness, and allow yourself to feel the energy that your body is reacting to. Your body knows. I doubted this so heavily, and I still have days where I fall apart and I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. But my body knows. It has known for many lifetimes. I believe that this moment of peace will blossom into so many more beautiful moments in my future.
I am so grateful for the lessons of this lifetime, and the ability to feel these things so deeply. What a beautiful journey.
