Have you ever had an experience which made you feel ‘humbled’?

Humbled, as in, the verb ‘humble’ and the not the adjective. Being ‘humbled' means to be made to feel less important or proud. These are moments when suddenly, our entire perspective of looking at life changes.

Imagine you have a close friend with whom who have shared a wonderful relationship of fun and openness. Recently, your friend has been behaving very strange with you. You feel that you are being ignored. Your friend seems to be quite normal with other people. You seem to have been singled out. And when you asked once ‘is everything okay?’, you got a very dull ‘yes yes, everything is fine’. It has been bothering you like crazy and now even you have started giving it back - ignoring back, not initiating meetings, etc. You find yourself filled with a little anger, irritation and even self-doubt - ‘what have I done wrong?’.

One day, you discover that your friend who has been ignoring you, is planning a beautiful surprise for your birthday! It is a grand plan that involves all your friends and family. She is making a video of everyone's statement of what they love about you!

Has something like this ever happened to you? Did you feel a sudden shift of perspective? Did your emotions and moods take an about turn? This, my dear friends is the experience of being ‘humbled’. It is an experience that suddenly makes me realise that I was completely wrong in some thinking of mine. I was unnecessarily making a big fuss which now seems irrelevant.

I had such an experience this week. I spent the night at the home of my carpenter, Ramji Sharma. He lives in a house that is the size of my bathroom. Four family members live there, and often there are visitors. They cook, eat, sleep, study, play, chat and entertain guests in the same room. I ate dinner at their house, we talked, and then I slept on the floor on a mat they laid out for me. They were so happy.

I felt ‘humbled’. I came back to my house the next morning and looked around at my 2230 sq. ft. apartment. It looked like a football field. I look at my children who were sleeping cozily in their bed. They seem blessed. I am blessed.

Complaints and excuses about a few things that are not right in my life (yet), seemed to just dropped away from me.

My dear friends, have you had an experience in ‘humility’? What did it do to you? We would love to hear your story.

With loads of Love & Gratitude

adi.

This is from the original article we published on http://dancingwithtigers.com/i-am-humbled/