Stand your ground

This morning I ran late with my patient's schedules because of my first patient.
We got carried away in an interesting conversation.
She came in a bit frazzled.

She is a 70 something yr old lady with grey long braids, one on each side, dressed in a plain long neutral shirt and slacks, usually in black or grey. She appears to be one of those people that does not like to listen to conventional talk, questions what she is told, head strong, somewhat stubborn and has this underlying dry humor - that if you only focus on her seriousness, you will miss it.

She calmly explained how she tried to park just past College street this morning.
She was adjusting her car to park along the street and had to reverse to drive through and align up to the curb.
Suddenly a porche pulls up in front of her, puts the nose of his car in and tries to reverse to push her back, essentially taking the parking spot she was just adjusting to get into.
The man then comes out of his car, hands on his hips and yells at her to move her car back.
She did not budge.
Move. Move your car. Back your car up. Can you just move! Move it!
She explained she regretted rolling her car window down to listen to what he had to say.
She was trying to explain that she was just moving into that spot but he did not hear her.
He said things like "are you stupid, just move back you have space to move back"
She was still calm, responding "No, I am not stupid. Are you deaf? Did you hear what I just said?"
Anyhow, this apparently went on for a few minutes with the man getting into his car, trying to squeeze into the spot, then finally leaving.

Listening to this I became anxious as to what she was going to do, and when I heard she calmly stood her ground I clapped. Yes!!

Having just a few weeks ago, got caught up in some serious expletive road rage myself, feeling shaken and wanting to cry because of the shock of it all... I admire how she handled this.

She explained to me that this, was probably more than she usually engages in road rage.
Normally if she is in a parking lot and people are fighting to get a spot she was taking, instead of getting upset, she stated that she sees it as a challenge of the universe/God etc. She handles it calmly, believing that if she does not get the spot, there will ALWAYS be another one soon after. And she said she has always found one instantly after that.
I know myself, that I have left parking lots having spent a good 20 minutes looking for one and resolving to do shopping later, resenting the fact I wasted a good chunk of my precious time for nothing.

I admire her attitude. The Peace she strives for. It made me think twice. I can be very reactive in situations and have been trying to work at that. It also made me think - why do we force things we think we want? Is it because we think there will be nothing like it? We won't find anything else? That we will miss out? Is it about pride and not "backing down"? Is it about the idea of winning instead of losing ? Is it that we feel we are more deserving of this than someone else? Is it that we fear the feeling of regret of what we let go of, or a chance we felt we missed? Is it the idea of right-ing a wrong?
That feeling of truly believing that there will ALWAYS be another chance, another better option, and that the universe is working for you and that things happen for a reason is really easier than it sounds.

But I guess I realize I should trust in that more, than forcing things and becoming upset over nothing really.... My patient today said that in those situations her sense of Peace within, is more important than the external situation of winning/losing/ being right or wrong.

And randomly here is Corey Hart. Cause he was touring and I missed it. But heard good stuff about the concert and this is one of those songs where it plays and somehow I just knew the lyrics to.