After a yoga class the other day, a woman went up to our teacher and said,
“I was kind of surprised that you referred to us as hippos. It seemed mean and unlike you.”
Our teacher was horrified. “What? When??”
In floor bow, you said “arms up, legs up, everything up. Only hippos are still on the floor.”
Our teacher smiled and reassured her that she had said “only hip bones are still on the floor. Not hippos.”
And everyone laughed because it was a cute misunderstanding and we went on our way.
But something startling occurred to me. How ready are we to hear something terrible about ourselves? How quick are we to assume the worst and only hear the negative?
I am guilty of this. Give me 100 complements and I’ll only remember the one thing that was not so glowing. That’s the one that will wake me up in the night and leave me cringing and sweating at 2AM.
This is something that I am trying to change. It’s easy to go out of my way to see the best aspects of other people, but when it comes to myself, I tend to be deaf to any praise that might be aimed at me. I’m much more likely to assume someone just called me a hippo.
I love the Three Jewels and it’s part of my daily meditation and gratitude prayers. I especially love this part:
I take refuge in the dharma, the spiritual teachings. I commit myself to the truth as it is.
Because dharma can mean the words of the Buddha and it can also mean the absolutely clear nature of reality. We can make up all kinds of drama to go along with life, we can imagine that he gave me a nasty look or she called me the third largest land mammal on the planet. We can put a negative spin on experiences and get all worked up about them – or we can remove that lens and see the truth as it is.
Acknowledge, accept and then let it go.
It’s a choice.
And when I’m being mindful, I chose that joyful surrender to the truth. It’s way better than being called a hippo.
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Just here. Just now. 
Sadly I am the same way. I admire the lady for saying something so it could be corrected. I wouldn’t have said anything and would have just beat myself up silently and not returned to that teacher’s class. Thank you for the link to the Three Jewels too. I have missed your postings here.
Isn’t it amazing what our minds can do to complicate things? Thanks so much for reading!
A few days ago, thought my teacher said evil pose when she said eagle. I struggle with eagle a lot….
Ha! I love that!
I loved this but it also made me nervous because here in Scotland we’re not so direct. So if someone thought I’d called them hippos in my class they almost certainly wouldn’t call me on it at the end…instead they’d go home, feeling like a hurt and angry hippo…
I think many people here in the US would not have said anything…it’s sad to think that people get unintentionally hurt like that.
Lisa, it is exactly the same here. But some times I wonder whether this is a result of some expectation of an acknowledgement from people around on what we do, and how we think? And that rather leads to hearing what we fear … fear of doing something wrong or fear of someone finding our mistake or something similar? We do not want to give chance to people to find mistakes in our behavior, however end up hearing our own subconscious thoughts (or fear?) of being at fault.