Watching, Not Reacting

My favorite guru Byron Katie says, “Until you look forward to criticism, your work is not done.”

If you break that down, it means, “If something upsets you, then that is exactly what you need to work on spiritually.” After the amount of “beatings” I’ve endured in the media over the years, I thought I’d mastered this lesson. But it seems the universe was holding out on me. This week, a gossip website reported that I was losing my job based on info from an “inside source” at “The View.” I didn’t even know about the story until the higher-ups at work called me into a room to tell me the report was completely false. Barbara then asked me if I wanted her to make a public statement about it, because she was upset that it had ever happened.

This was the moment I had to reach inside my spiritual toolbox. I noticed my ego wanting her to do just that — to go on and defend me. Then I heard Byron Katie again: “The first act of war is defense.”

If I started defending lies, I would be in a constant state of defending myself — and the haters would win. I knew I had to focus on doing what I love and stop defending what doesn’t serve me.

Then, I moved on to the next spiritual step, which is always the hardest to master: finding the truth in something, even if it’s false. I ask myself, “What if it were true?” I imagine the worst-case scenario and play it out in my head. You know how it always ends?

It ends with me surviving.