Life at the hotel

I can definitely relate to what you are saying about the grading system ... and handling people ... from time to time I STILL get an "F" but at least I catch myself, usually after the fact unfortunately ... and then I try to work back up to a higher grade.

One of the KEY tools used within the Toltec teaching ... especially Theun Mares ... is the concept of using people as MIRRORS ... in that like a mirror, which can only reflect back your own face, IF you use people as mirrors ... then how they act towards you is ONLY a reflection of yourself ...  and who you bring "into" your life, even as a passer-by IS a mirror ...

A very heady concept and one which I wasn't particularly happy to embrace ... often Theun would tell me that someone was a "perfect mirror" for me ... and I HATED that because the person he might refer to seemed NOTHING like me and was a huge pain in the arse (as Theun would say) ...

One has to dig very deep sometime to see how someones behavior IS an aspect of themselves but it's a damn good way to stalk one's shadow side ...

Two of his books cover this mirror concept:  "Cry of the Eagle" and even more in "The Mists of Dragon Lore" ...

I'd say, for me, my "love" of humanity has gone from neutral most of the time ... to yes, I do love everyone ... most of the time.  Can't say it's a deep all encompassing love but I have less disdain and less distrust ... a feeling of empathy and a growing feeling of love.

In any case, it's a process ... a continuing one. 

We all seem to be working hard ... and somehow I can't help but think it's making a difference.  Afterall, NR keeps growing ... always new "members" ... always new voices ...

Awesome.  Thanks for your post and updating how you are tackling this thorny subject of "personal growth."

Warm regards,
Christine B.

And on a side note:

In the past, I've actually quit a job just so I could go off on a crazy customer.  Yup.  I did.  !   Waited for them out in the parking lot and just let them have it, TOTALLY got into it, went ballistic.   Not one of the prouder moments of my life, more or less a case of "displaced anger", directed at the wrong source, but it happened.   (maybe should have directed some of that anger at my abductors....?  haha   but I digress....   )  So that's another one of my criteria for grading myself......not wanting to quit the job just so I can tell somebody off.    Not feeling that way anymore...so that's good!

And I also have to add that in all fairness, it's not like all the people that we deal with are horror stories.  Many of them are neutral, if not very nice.    But you know the human mind....it remembers the crazy ones more than the nice ones.   But the crazy do seem to be getting crazier, like wynderer noted, that's for sure.

My work has moved more into the call center arena.....tech support for getting on the internet at hotels.  We're about to take on one of the most exclusive hotels in the area that caters to the world's elite.  Hopefully I never have to talk to one of "them" as they use their hired help to do everything for them.

Yes...sometimes I still question why I'm even bothering to do this.     Seriously, I do wonder if I'm nuts.   But I kinda feel like I literally, have no choice.   I **have** to do this, I absolutely have to figure this out, work it out, get past these road blocks.  This sounds so dramatic and cheesy but I feel like my entire spiritual evolution hinges on it.   Like a fork in the road.   And I'm SO all about challenges and tackling the impossible.  The more impossible and difficult it seems, the more I have to take it on.   With every negative encounter where I still react in a flawed way, it makes me more determined to do it right the next time.    The only problem is................. these negative encounters happen out of the blue when I'm least expecting it and NOT prepared with the right mindset, at all.   They're literally like "pop quizzes".   Like going to class and the teacher starts handing out pieces of paper and tells you, "It's quiz time!" and everybody panics because half the class didn't read the assignment the night before.   That's what it's like, getting caught with your pants down, unprepared, not expecting it, not in the right mindset.   Because of that I find myself stumbling through these encounters in a spotty way, randomly nailing certain things and failing other parts miserably. 

And that's why it's so damn infuriating and yet exhilerating about it!   So that's part of my ultimate goal...................being in a state of mind that lasts ALL the time, and which is my new constant way of being.  Not something I have to "get in the right mindset" for or "prepare" for.   If that makes sense.

I will get there dammit.  I am stubborn!!!!!   

Soloflecks...haha    I bet you're part of the IT people we're always referring the guests in our hotel to call!   Wouldn't that be funny!   We have wireless internet in the hotel but it doesn't always work, and nobody there understands the technology.   So they just refer everybody to call the 1-800 tech support line who work for the hotel, and the tech support people in turn look up the hotel's signal and do whatever it is they do to get to the bottom of the problem.    That would be so weird if it was you.   You should email me, I'll tell you where I work, see if we're one of the hotels you work with.    

Oh yes, and I'm working at a "Thems" hotel as well, we were joking in fact that it's probably an "Illuminati Hotel!"    I've never seen so many famous people in all my life as I have in the only 2 months I've worked at this hotel.  It's nuts.   I lived in SoCal for 10 years and like, all I ever saw was Snoop Dogg and Antonio Sabato Jr.      oooooh!!     haha   

I REALLY recommend the Theun Mares material.  The reason being - it's so straightforward and to the point.  It takes all the main points of the Casteneda material and presents it in a way that's almost like a user's manual.    The Casteneda material meanders ALL over the place, taking forever to make its way through these long winded halluncinogenic stories and adventures just to get to whatever point he's trying to make.  It's fine, and has its good points, but the Theun Mares material just lays it on the line, boom, here it is, this is what it's all about.    I love the style so much better, and it's all beliefs that mesh with my natural way of being.   I must have been a Toltec or practiced some form of it in a past life because it is the only spiritual path that has ever truly resonated with me.   However, unfortuntately, I seemed to have forgotten some of it this time around   but, the fact I was guided to the material, resonated with it and enthusiastically soaked it all up says something I guess.   

I really do think it's important to learn how to control one's emotions and manuever, like you mentioned, because it's the only way to help free oneself from the system we're all embedded in.  If one can't get a grip on their own actions, reactions, thoughts and emotions, then how are they ever going to be free??   You have to learn to maneuver in order to start breaking free.   So for anybody out there who's interested in this, again, I really recommend looking into Theun Mares' material.  Start with "Return of the Warriors - The Toltec Teachings, Volume I."   It's an EXCELLENT, must-read.  If you liked Stuart Wilde but haven't read Theun, read it.  Theun lacks Stuart's humor, but the principles are mostly the same, they're coming from a similar school of belief.

Thanks....though like always, I worried after I posted it about whether or not I should have done so.   Oh well, what's done is done! 

Yes...the trick is to not have the decline in attitude....the trick is to (try) to just be detached and neutral.   It's hard though....especially when you're face to face, dealing with somebody who's acting irrationally, emotional, throwing a fit like a toddler, being rude, even getting personal and dishing out insults, or worse, threats.    But we have to realize....getting that grip on one's emotions and reactions is one big trick to freeing oneself from whatever control we're under.   The control goes by many names, and has many faceless behind-the-scenes controllers we'll never see, but we know it exists, we feel it, and we see indirect proof for it everyday around us.   And we have to make that choice about whether or not we're going to keep being totally immersed in it, asleep and reactionary, or finally pull ourselves out of it and rise above it. 

For me it's not just the customers I have to contend with.  They're actually only a small fraction of my "testing."   I've also got co-workers and the job duties itself.  !    The co-workers present the challenge of dealing with any possible conflicting personalities.....what I've noticed is that most of the women who work back in Sales, Reservations and Accounting are very miserable, very unhappy pissy women.  They've all been there a long time, have gotten comfortable and established, feel their jobs are secure, and (seem to) relish the opportunity to act pissy and "difficult" with the front desk staff.  Especially new ones.  They feel there's nothing these newbie front deskers can do to someone like them, who's been there for 3 or 4 years and is "manager" of their department.   They can be snotty, even decide to refuse to do their job when required if they get a hair up their butt and so desire.   THAT requires more "maneuvering" ( to use a Toltec term) then customers do, and is actually possibly more challenging than the customers, believe it or not.   

Then with the job duties........Stuart Wilde talks about eliminating negative internal dialogue, because the mind loooooooves to hear itself talk  (   very true, for everybody!)  and it mostly just has negative things to say.     So while I'm going about my shift, encountering minor obstacles and weirdness, I find that even though it doesn't generate a full fledged negative reaction, I still grumble about it internally.    Lots of internal dialogue.  Why?   Out of habit!   Because my mind has done it for 30 years now.   So even though I've actually gotten to that point where I'm no longer "feeling" the negativity, I still "talk" about it in my mind, purely out of habit.   So that's gotta go, whoooosh, out the window.

Also, at hotels everybody is relying on everybody else to do their job correctly...because if they don't, it affects EVERYBODY.   So you've got three shifts worth of employees, and if one screws up, it trickles down in some form or another.  And where I work, people screw up a lot.   So that's another challenging aspect.   Being put on the spot to apologize to a guest for mistakes OTHER people made.   Mistakes that I wouldn't have made, but they did, and now I (or others) have to be the one to deal with it, apologize for it, be the sounding board, be the one to fix it and make it right. 

We'll see how it goes.    !!   Good luck to you as well in the ER........that's far more stressful than a hotel.   If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere!

Yup, it does make sense.   I like that - the Babbler.    Think that's what I'll start calling it.  Yesterday was a nice calm quiet day at work, and no excessive internal dialogue either.  Believe it or not, when it's calm and quiet that's the best time for The Babbler to take over, to fill in the silence and the gaps.  "YAK yak yak yak YAK yak yak yak YAK yak yak yak...!"   Surprisingly, it didn't happen.   Instead, during those down times I was just standing there behind the desk, enjoying the setting sun coming through the front windows and doors, the green trees and flowers and grass outside in the circle.   The only sound you could hear was the big water fountain across the lobby.   And no Babbler.   It was nice!   

This is very true, at least where I work.   I've already had some mild success in the way I'm dealing with it.   In the most recent run in with a pissy accounting woman, I stood there listening to her go on and on about something, all unnecessarily hyped up and worked up about it ("it" being the fact that I needed change for a guest when she and the rest of department wanted to go to lunch.....)   I just stood there, silently, letting her prattle on and on......then when she was finally done, I continued to stand there, silently, just looking at her with this REALLY curious look, like I was thinking, "Are you okay?"   She even took a nervous breath, sounding unsteady after all that anxious blathering, all because I wasn't responding right away right back at her.   (I was practicing "NOT DOING" !  I was "MANEUVERING"   haha   )    I just let the silence hang there for a few seconds longer than it should have, looking at her with furrowed brows and concern, to make a point.   Then I calmly responded with that curious look, saying my response very slowly, like I was concerned for her mental health.      It was classic.    It was not the response she was expecting, nor the one that most people would probably give.   I still got worked up though inside, so, I lost points for that.   oh well.   Getting there.....slowly but surely.