From My Bookshelf — Day 62
When you try to control others, or make them act or believe the way you want them to, you are not respecting them. What you are really saying is that you don’t think they are good enough, or strong enough, or intelligent enough to make their own choices, and that you need to impose your beliefs on them. Of course, you may think that you are helping them, but it’s not true. I’m sure you can think of many instances in your own life when others have done this to you, thinking they were helping you , and that wasn’t true either. When you stop trying to push your beliefs and ideas on others, only then are you truly respecting them. You are letting them know that they are good enough, intelligent enough, and strong enough to make their own choices in life. That is being truly helpful. That is real love, and it is based on respect.
When we were born, we were programmed according to the beliefs of our family and our society. We didn’t have any knowledge, we didn’t know how to speak, we didn’t use the word in order to create our reality—we simply lived in the moment. But the human mind is a field, fertile for ideas and opinions, and whatever ideas and opinions are tended will grow there. Once knowledge came in and the story took over, we forgot that we are the artists of our own story. We are the ones who created it, and we are the only ones who can change it.
I keep loving and loving wherever I go, because that’s what I am. I am love, and because of this I don’t need love. The same is true for you, and for everyone, but so many people don’t know it. Nobody really needs love, because we ARE love. But if you don’t know that you are love, then you will go on searching for love.
The irony is you think you will find love in someone else, but when you feel love, it always comes from you—not from the other person. Love always comes from you, and what makes you happy isn’t someone loving you, it is the love coming out of you that makes you happy. This love could be for a person, an animal, a place, an idea, whatever. It really doesn’t matter. It is love, and it is you.
When someone yells at you, remember that this person is dealing with whatever he or she is dealing with, and it has nothing to do with you. It isn’t personal; it could have been you or somebody else. If you agree with whatever that person is saying to you, then you are taking it personally. If you don’t agree, then you can just walk away and continue with your life. The choice is in your agreement. The action of another person is not personal. It is never about you, even when you agree with it.
Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. — Little Book of Wisdom (pp. 39-69)
I had to include one more day of this gem of a book. There are so many great quotes to pull from it. So many common-sense life lessons to be learned. Today’s quotes are no exception. For instance:
“When you stop trying to push your beliefs and ideas on others, only then are you truly respecting them.”
We all seem to be experts on everyone’s life except our own. We look at our siblings, children, parents, friends, coworkers, and even the people we randomly run into from one day to the next and immediately assume we know what’s best for them. We can easily spot where their life went off the rails and how simple it would be to get their crap together.
But ask me about my own life and how to fix it—with the spotlight clearly blinding my eyes—all of a sudden I’m not quite the expert I thought I was a few minutes earlier. It’s easy to look at someone else and call them a bumbling idiot; it’s another thing altogether when I realize the bumbling idiot is me.
Being trained as a counselor gives a different perspective that most people don’t have the luxury of seeing. Everyone is doing the best they can with the tools they have at the time. If I were to treat a client as though they were a bumbling idiot they certainly wouldn’t be my client for long. Coming from a counselor’s perspective, I believe everyone has the answer they are looking for inside them, my job is simply to help them hear their truest selves—I want to hear more from their soul and less from their ego. In a safe, caring, and comfortable environment, most people are able to get back in touch with their highest good and make better decisions for themselves from that place. Oh sure, they may need some training or to learn some new skills that will help their cause, but they may never even get to that point when everyone is hurling opinions in their lap like hand grenades.
And then this. . . .
“The irony is you think you will find love in someone else, but when you feel love, it always comes from you—not from the other person.”
Love is one of the easiest—yet most difficult—lessons to learn in this lifetime. When we get to a place where we truly love ourselves, all the other drama surrounding love fades into the background. When we love ourselves unconditionally—this is one of the hardest things in life to accomplish—all our other relationships fall into place. We search the world high and low before we come to the realization that it’s our True Selves we have been looking for all along. We go from relationship to relationship asking—often begging really—for the other person to love us for who we are. Yet, we don’t even love ourselves for who we are so how can we expect them to?
My love comes from me! What an irony! If I can get that right, all kinds of problems in my life simply melt away. I’m no longer responsible for manipulating someone else into loving me the way I think they should. Instead, I simply love myself and allow that person to love their self the best way they know how. In the words of Alanis Morissette, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?” That’s a perfect segue into the next point. . .
“The action of another person is not personal. It is never about you, even when you agree with it.”
The world has gone mad by the actions of another person. We are all so consumed by what everyone else is doing; who they are talking to, what they are saying, the tone of voice they used, their aggressive driving style, the way they shut a door a little harder than we prefer. Our ego, if gone unchecked, scans our environment 24/7 just waiting to pounce on the first person who crosses their eyes at us wrong. Most of us are externally driven and are quick to fight at the slightest actions of others.
Our egos are clever! They give us more hard feelings and lonely nights than anyone else ever could even if they were trying. Beliefs, love, and our ego make quite the combo!
This is the part of your day when you breathe deeply for 5 minutes and listen closely to your True Self. Then, attempt to grasp that the love you feel (or don’t feel) comes from within you.
Have a blessed day.
Peace and Love,
~Travis
Mysterious Flow 