the other person isn’t the problem
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“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” { rumi }
i once read a meme that said “measure your growth by how you see others.”
everything and everyone in life that triggers us is a sacred mirror. >> gaze deeply
everything that upsets us about others can lead us to a greater understanding of ourselves, if we choose it.
i’ve been hurt in my life.
there have been times when others have caused me great pain.
i sit in it. it feels like suffering.
ego pulls me this way and that. it’s so easy to assign blame, shove the pain outside onto something else.
but that never really does the trick does it? somehow it makes me feel even more distant from what i ultimately want -- a sense of wholeness, healing, forgiveness, care.
i ask myself:: where do these things come from? the answer …
>> they must be self-sourced to be deep, true, lasting <<
i believe this is the great lesson of pain. to drive us deep within ourselves in order to discover our inner wellspring of power. our innate ability to heal, grow, forgive.
if everything on the outside makes it easy for us, we will never experience the necessity of going within, becoming our own healer. our mirror will never be polished.
strength doesn’t come from lack of difficulty.
“the pain
it will leave
once it has finished
teaching you.”
- pavana reddy
“all my enemies are turnin’ into my teachers.
because (lights blinding) no way dividing what's yours or mine when everything's shining
your darkness is shining, my darkness is shining
have faith in ourselves --
truth.”
- alex ebert
(please listen to his song “truth” —- sooo profoundly good)
i thank the other for being my mirror.
this sentiment alone is enough to trigger lots of people.
what about genuine abuse? what about corruption? what about the real wickedness in the world?
radical accountability is * not * about justifying others’ bad behaviors.
it’s recognizing that blaming others for our circumstances places the full responsibility upon them. they get to choose what happens to us. we are helpless, forsaken.
fixating on others’ fault diminishes our own responsibility (response-ability)… our power to change the circumstance (and we always possess this power).
victimhood & blame = imprisonment.
feelings of bitterness, helplessness. disengagement. anger
“anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored
than to anything on which it is poured.” - mark twain
radical accountability = freedom. every single time.
//full engagement with life as it comes at us.
this doesn’t mean we take the blame it means we take full responsibility for how we respond. we reinvent the situation without needing the other to do anything at all.
#artistsofconsciousness
“everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” { victor frankl }
if frankl (a prisoner in nazi concentration camps + holocaust survivor) can choose emotional autonomy // mental sovereignty, so can we.
we hold the power to choose what we focus on when we’re triggered / hurt / wronged --
what we choose should define who we are, not who they are.
this is why the other person is never the problem.
our triggers are reflections of our inner landscape.
they point to where we are not free.
”as is the feeling so is the experience, for everything is a reflection of the inner being.” { sai baba }
our experience is filtered through our perception // our perception creates our reality.
>>>> we can consciously change our perception at will <<<<
buckle up. the path of transformation is a fiery furnace of alchemy that burns away everything that isn’t truth = isn’t soul.
it guts us, then it heals us and refines our consciousness, our compassion, our forgiveness, our love.
if we let it.