A few weeks back, I was set to spend the weekend with someone who I love very much and who I care deeply about. While at first read, you may think that sounds wonderful, the problem is that this person and I often fail to see eye to eye on how to spend the time that we have together. We are very different people and as much as there is love there, there is also a deep amount of conflict which can cause us both to be miserable.
I won’t lie…this often makes me have a deep feeling of anxiety as I think about how to approach the so called quality time.
For one thing, this person loves to shop. I hate it. What makes it worse is that she loves to bargain shop, which I hate even more. I’m happy to shop once a year and have a few nice things rather than surround myself by clutter. This person once dragged me around a place called ‘Savers’ and I felt like I needed to take a shower after. I guess that makes me an elitist snob, but going into that place reminded me why I get my ass out of bed and go to work every day.
So, as our weekend together approached, I had a grand idea which I believe may have come to me through meditation. How about we take a class together? Surely that would help us to avoid controversy. I happened to find a class on making soap – perfect! We ended up having a wonderful time together, learning about how soap can be made naturally. In fact, I don’t know that I will buy store bought soap ever again.
At the conclusion of the class, I ended up with probably enough natural made soap to last me until the end of the year.
But there is so much more to it than that. Taking this class created a sense of harmony, a sense of bonding, and took the wild card of anxiety about how we would spend time together out of the equation.
