One of my favourite sayings is that you can always choose to feel happy.

Sometimes it seems so easy to put this theory in to practice. Sometimes it’s not no easy. Recently I had a great opportunity to try out if I could choose to feel happy and content or to fester in self-pity and anger.

Just before this power full moon, I had a sneak preview of how my emotions can still flare up and I have to remind myself to choose happiness. I was triggered by the behaviour of the daughter of my husband. Like a red-hot flame, anger cut through the peaceful day I had experienced until that moment. I was at a party, happily chatting away with a lady when my husband’s daughter walked in, interrupted me without glancing at me, hugged the person I was talking to and pulled her a bit away from me.

We do not see this girl often, and to my knowledge we never had any problems in interacting with each other. She is 17 years old so not really a little child that has no clue what is going on. I stayed seated and picked up a book to start reading. Then realised I was at a party and not being very sociable either. So I decided to cool down the red hot anger inside me and deal with it later. I stood up, walked over to some other people, and started chatting away to them. A similar experience happened a year before with my husband’s son and we had a big argument when I brought up the unkindness and awkwardness I experience when people walk into a room and ignore me completely.

I was flabbergasted this time just as the first time. It was a new experience to me and I had no idea how to deal with it. I realised I am a conformist and still put importance on social skills. I thought I was more liberal and not so stuck up. My husband and I had a huge argument about politeness and why I find it is still important that people have a minimum of social awareness and acknowledge other people when they enter a room. Call me old fashioned or conditioned, but I believe it is important.

The day after the party I spoke to my husband about my issue and he said he saw his daughter snubbing me. I wondered why he did not intervene, then I realised he would not want to jeopardise the relationship he had with his daughter. He knows I can deal with any curve ball life throws at me, so there was little need to come and rescue me from Little Miss Awkwardness. Being considered a strong person can sometimes work against you. I know no one will stand up for me because they see how I perfectly can stand up for myself. However, it would be nice occasionally if someone would stand next to me.

My ego has very devious ways to slip in through the back door. I was feeling too smug that nothing triggered me lately and boom, out of the blue, I got a nice big trigger leading up to a full moon.

I kept saying to myself, ‘what is my lesson?’ What can I learn from this?’ I looked at my calendar and guess what the affirmation of that day read, ’Forgiveness is a gift to myself. It is easy and rewarding for me to forgive.’ Point taken, I started that week by going deep into forgiveness.

At the bottom line we are all a little messed up in the head and we can all use a little bit of forgiveness. I will look past my ego and be grateful for all the things that are so great in my life. I thought deeply about the situation and came up with the idea that forgiveness is not the same as condoning and in the future I need to stand up for myself. I must find a way to clearly and lovingly tell people when they are unkind to me or overstep a boundary.

I found my way back to my happiness by looking for all the good things that surround me in my every day life. One little glitch of the ego, one little lesson in forgiveness made me realise how lucky I am and how much there is to enjoy. How others react to me is not my business, how I react to it is. I made a conscious choice to be happy and I hope you do too.

I would love to hear your thoughts about how to deal with unkindness