I feel the big G.O.D. has been sending a lot of excellent lessons into my life disguised as challenging people. And while I truly appreciate the opportunity to expand my soul’s spiritual knowledge to such a high degree, mustering love in a situation when a person seems to be purposely acting annoying or cruel can be hard, but I know it is ultimately rewarding. Therefore, I’ve been pondering the best way to find the love in the eyes of people who seem to be completely alien, but who I know, in reality, are just an extension of my soul and every soul on this planet.
Obviously this type of love is amongst the hardest to access. It can also be the most rewarding, because your love can inspire the same in the soul of the person you are challenged by. Therefore increasing the level of understanding, positivity, and elevated thought in the world. While it is difficult, it is something I have worked toward and managed to maintain several times in my life, so I know I can do it again.
One person I’m working toward this with now is my downstairs, stage Mom, neighbor who keeps coming up and knocking on my door because she thinks I’m walking too loudly, amongst other seemingly ridiculous complaints. While when she yells like a manic psycho (which, I shouldn’t even be saying, because I’m trying to increase the love, but I’m human so I need to get in a little jab before I heal the wound), I’m tempted to start calling her names and classify her as bad, I know, deep down, that this will not get me anywhere. The only way to counteract her feelings of anger, possible hate and frustration are with feelings and actions of understanding, peace and support.
Dealing with this type of person is good because it tests one’s love for humanity: once the initial annoyance or desire to hate is trumped by compassion and love for these difficult people, you are much more able to love all people in your life. If you can muster compassion and empathy for someone who seems to be intentionally making your life harder, just think of how well we can love those who work to make our lives better.
So a good method to find your way to love is to remember that we are only reflections of one another. When we have problems with another human being, regardless of severity, it is worthy to ask what it reflects in us that we detest a part of another human so much. Why is what they are doing so upsetting? Is it because we are truly doing something wrong? What is going on in their life that they felt the need to act that way and how can I be more compassionate? Etc.
Rarely do we question our reactions to the people in our lives; even as mature adults, it is fairly common to be ego-centric, so it is much easier to simply qualify other's actions negatively. However, sometimes if we simply examine ourselves we realize that the problem we held with that person was merely in our reaction, not their action.
Another thought to contemplate is the fact that you’ve probably made a person feel the way they are making you feel now at some point or another in your life. So you can either think back to that time when you may have done so, or engage in perspective taking to ponder why they might be acting the way they are. You could even ask them what is going on in their life and how you may have provoked them to act this way. Either way, once you recall or imagine it is easier not to hate, as you either have been, or could one day be in their shoes.
And if you are really having trouble seeing from their point of view, just remember that calling someone mean doesn’t make them nicer and sending someone hate doesn’t get you love. It is merely wasted energy. And since love breeds love, it is better to put that out there.
Here are my views. Take em or leave em. I’m still working out the details, but this is the outline. Feel free to express whatever tips you may have for me and my downstairs neighbs/any and all people like this in your life. Leave questions, too. Let’s make this a dialogue.
I leave you with this quote by Dr. Brian Weiss:
“I think that at the highest level all souls are connected. It is our illusion or grand delusion that we are individuated, or separate.”
^That explains it nicely, I think.
Love,
LO
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