If we look at the people who irritate us the most as being loving friends, kindly holding a mirror for us to see ourselves, how can we hate anyone? That guy that just cut you off in his car - not an !@$#, but someone providing the opportunity for you to learn patience and control over your anger. The boyfriend who keeps cheating on you - maybe he's trying to help you to learn to honor yourself. He only looks and acts like a jerk. Maybe you mutually decided on a plan long before you ever met. It is said that the best teachers in life are the ones who hold the mirror for us to see ourselves.
Doesn't that lead directly back to all the great teachings - to love thy neighbor as thy self? Once this concept was understood wouldn't that end hate, bigotry, racism, corruption, greed, etc.? People would realize the profound truth - that they are totally responsible for how they think and act. Free choice gives us the ability to move forward, or move backwards, and all the people we want to blame for all of our troubles are actually here playing a role for our benefit.
I think this concept could changes things. What do you think?
33 comments:
Wow! Breakthrough thinking here! How clever and insightful to think of every encounter as a teaching moment. Yes!
How true! The trick is to figure out what the lesson might be. Sometimes it might be just not to act like the person who irritates you. Are some people truly soul destroying? Maybe the lesson from them is to run away from them as fast as you can.
i agree...when we look at difficult people and circumstances as opportunities it make a drastic change in how we live our life...
It is not up to us to fathom the lesson of others though...only our own. There are just too many variables. What if the driver is really a jerk, and he hits someone and has to learn responsibility, patience, care etc. What if the person he hit, has to learn how to be taken care of by others, or is destined to have a NDE on the operating table?
I think about this constantly in regard to my parents and their behaviour, but only God and they have the answer. I have to trust that there is a divine plan and it is all unfolding how it is meant to.
I think that is why the power of now is so important, we just have to 'be' in any given moment, listening to our inner voice for divine guidance. That guidance will either steer you towards someone, or away from them.It doesn't matter why, we just need to listen. ♥
You mean like that neighbor two houses down that has a sound system in his car that is rattling my windows and my mind right now?????
Seriously, I read a book once about the same topic. It enabled me to look at annoying people and relationships in a different light.
Hi Nancy...if only...but we only have to start with ourselves and our perceptions...
Happy days
I agree, as uncomfortable as I may find the concept. I've got a person in my life now that I'm struggling to tolerate and keep reminding myself that this is an opportunity for me to find a more compassionate facet of myself.
The problem with this truth (for I believe this concept IS a truth) is that it asks people to be accountable for their own actions/behaviors/beliefs. I fear that many people are simply too comfortable in their self proclaimed role of victim to make the effort to truly BE in each moment. Hell, I believe this and still need frequent reminders...
Hope you don't mind, Nancy, me back again.
Just popped back in to see some other responses. Gotta agree with Whitney, It is really hard, but all we can do is try.
"It is said that the best teachers in life are the ones who hold the mirror for us to see ourselves..."-- So wise and so true, Nancy! I love that! Hope you have a WONDERFUL Memorial Day!! Love, Janine XO
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, many of the world's major religions disagree vehemently with this concept.
I think you said it fabulously. great insights there... a very wise person once told me that the things you hate most about others are the things that you hate most about yourself and that pointing the finger at somebody only means that three are pointing back at you.
Hi Nancy,
What a good post, agree we need to take responsibility for our lives.
We also need to accept that we are all here together all from the same family and need to nurture and support each other.
My 'inner voice' is my intelligence and my understanding and empathy for this world and my fellow human beings.
The only viable plan is to encourage and support all iniatives that are based on tolerance and knowledge used to make a better world for all of us.
Love,
Herrad
Good food for thought. There is no doubt that many of the things we dislike about others also has a place of residence in ourselves. Many though, are not. It would take a fair bit of introspective and a lot of understanding to figure out those purposes. Yes, good food for thought.
Thanks for the reminder. I have found lately that I have trouble realizing the irritants of life are in my life for a reason. Everything happens for a reason and lessons are everywhere.
I agree with the concept of people coming into your life to hold the mirror to yourself... however, I don't agree with the fact that they're TRYING to do it. The cheating boyfriend is not TRYING to teach you to honor yourself... maybe his path crossed with yours to allow the experience to teach you to honor yourself, but mean, evil, thoughtless, careless people are not doing hurtful things solely in order to teach you something. It's up to YOU to take the lessons from their actions and learn from them. That's just my two cents...
This concept could change things! We are 100% responsible for our thoughts and actions. Or as Victor Frankyl said in "Man's Search for Meaning": "the last of human freedoms is the ability to choose your attitude in any set of circumstances." And he wrote that about his time in a concentration camp!
Not only do I believe in soul groups, but I also believe that certain people share individual souls. I know two bloggers, one in Australia, and one here (who I hardly ever see) with whom I share a soul. I think one of the reasons we can not spend a lot of time together is because it would be too weird to share souls and share space.
Excellent thread here. I could say a lot more about this. Thanks, soul sistah!
It's an interesting premise and one used by Kim Stanley Robinson in his book 'The Years of Rice and Salt' which follows a small group of reincarnating souls through a thousand years of alternate history, from when the Black Death wipes out most of Europe to roughly the present time. We learn how the East forms history from this handful of individuals who live, die, and are reborn without awareness of their previous lives. Although their circumstances change, core aspects of their personalities persist across lifetimes - as does their connectedness and their chances to interact and influence each other. In each generation we identify our recurring characters and see what they must confront and conquer in themselves. From the patterns across lifetimes - and brief group 'meetings' between reincarnations - we absorb an Eastern perspective on the great wheel of existence.
I am totally fascinated by every one of your comments! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
everyone that hurt me was a family member. I can never agree that my mother who allowed me to be injured by her boyfriend is someone I should love and thank and all that crap. I forgive her. Its the best I can do.
It occured to me when I was visiting my dying grandmother that people can get to the end of their lives and not realize how badly they hurt someone, not realize their mistakes. Just never make ammends. You wait your whole life wondering if these people will ever "get it" They never do. I can only hope a mirror has been held up to them in the afterlife.
Nancy
This is what I like to call a very Buddhist concept...it is our attachment to our desires that bite us the deepest. What better than something we love to drive this thought home? As 'luck' or serendipity would have it, I am currently reading Beyond Death which is a compendium of interviews with souls from various levels of the 'other side' discussing life over there and how souls earn and rise to higher levels. It is all fascinating!
Always though, we have to focus on the change happening within us...this is really all we can accomplish.
Love this, Nancy! We attract people through both positive and negative emotions. All are teachers of some kind.
absolutely true, i believe, that EVERYone we meet is in our life for however short or long a time for a reason - a purpose or lesson - good and bad - makes perfect sense to me -
an eternity where outside influences have no affect, only direct interaction is the life you have... OK, I can deal with that
Hey Nancy, I've been sitting here trying to remember how long ago it was that I first was introduced to the concept of soul groupings...and realizing it was almost twenty-five years ago.
My understanding of them is a little different, that the groups people reincarnate with are about the significant relationships we form, not the casual encounters. For all I know, I've got that wrong.
While an intriguing concept, and one I do like, I think it is likely only part of an explanation. I think almost all of our "what's life, spirituality, religion all about?" stuff only ever contains a partial truth. I think people find and believe in what is right for them. The opposite of that is not, "Wrong" but just different.
I don't know if we reincarnate. I used to more firmly believe that it seemed likely, but as time marches on I've just become very comfortable with the idea that there are things I will never quite know the answers to as long as I'm alive. That we're limited, our understanding is limited. It's important to question, and it's even more important to learn to accept different paths for different people.
I'm just saying, there may be a lot of validity to this idea. I just don't think it is the whole of the answer for everyone, you know?
If the universe is vast, if there is a uniting presence, if we are all on a learning journey, perhaps the answers are just as infinite in number, and possibilities. I think when someone has a resonating feeling of "I recognize this as having validity within my life. There is truth here." that's legitimate, but that if someone feels something different, that is too. Their right answer might differ from mine.
All a round about way of saying maybe somewhere in the great mists of wherever, we all choose a path long before we get here. Maybe some choose reincarnation to learn, others might choose something entirely different.
I don't really know any mystical answers, but I believe in many possibilities. Maybe there is a time in life where soul groups are a huge part of our learning experience, and then maybe we move onto something else within that same lifetime.
I just don't know, but what I think is that if this has resonance for you at this time, there is purpose that goes with that.
Nancy, Reading these comments only makes the question more challenging. The great quote "love thy neighbor as thy self," says it all. I also refer often to the "narrow gate" as opposed to the "easy, broader" way to live one's life. The "narrow gate" affords more accuracy in hitting the proverbial target. I know we don't like to talk about sin these days, but I choose to think of "sin" as not hitting that target - how far off am I?
So, rather than making it more difficult, I'll choose the most common sense approach right now - BE HERE NOW! That solves everything, right?
I know I'm oversimplifying - thank you for the stimulating and always thought provoking post.
Wonderful, thought-provoking comments, everyone. You've left me with things to ponder - I love that about you!
I have learned, forgotten, and had to re-learn the points you so eloquently make here over and over in my life. I believe every one of them. Thanks for the reminder.
I believe life would a better place to live in... It's incredible to look at life in that light. I'll walk about to day romancing the idea.. :) Tell you how it goes.
Interesting concept, but I think it would be hard to convince a lot of people that people are mean, or treat you like crap to teach them a lesson. I believe what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so, in a way, I COULD thank my ex-husband for the worse year of my life back in 1982 when I didn't think I would survive, but I did, and my life is so much better for it!
I think that Rachael has the right perspective on this - not only do people not set out to teach one another "soul lessons", but we really don't have the right to. We go about our lives, more or less consciously, and inevitably rub up against each other. It's what we take home from this that makes the difference - whether we project our own crap onto them or take it as a window into some portion of ourselves that we hadn't seen clearly.
I wish everyone's mind was open enough to receive the lessons. I know I do my best to always view my experiences, good and bad, as an opportunity to be schooled.
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