Every relationship is a great opportunity for growth. Every encounter with another person is a reflection of what we need to see within ourselves. When human interaction between us is painful, it is an invitation to look within and evaluate our own beliefs.
Do we agree with the way people treat us? Does the same behavior exist within ourselves? In order to answer this question honestly, we must be open to ourselves and willing to accept that there are some things within us that need to be seen.
When someone presents to us a point of view that makes us uncomfortable, that makes us feel angry or confused or judgemental, this is a red flag indicating that there is some thing we need to see. There is something about this interaction that is reflecting to us a need to feel this way.
Throughout our lives we create a personality based on our perceptions of our experience. We create an identity based on the things that happen to us and how we chose to view those things at the time. If our childhood was spent with parents who were unkind, who did not meet our needs or were mean to us, we will develop a perspective that the world is not a safe place, that we must fight to have our needs met and sometimes they won’t be met at all. This creates within us a feeling of lack and a feeling of powerlessness. This leads to feelings of fear and anger. If, as children, we are made to feel that it is not safe to express our feelings to have our needs met, we will learn to suppress them and pretend that they do not exist. This behavior makes us suffer because our outer world will not match the way we feel inside. We are living a lie and doing this will cause us to suffer emotionally and eventually physically.
Because our reality is based on what we create with our feelings, we will begin to manifest unfortunate experiences and wonder why these things are happening to us. We feel like we are a good person but everyone around us is mean and misunderstanding. Why does this keep happening to us? Because in some form or another, way down deep inside, we agree with the treatment we are receiving. We believe we deserve to be unhappy, in need and suffering.
The only way to disagree with the experiences we have is to honestly address our own feelings and to begin to set boundaries on what kind of behavior we will tolerate from those around us. We must learn to protect ourselves like we are our own children. We must learn to appreciate and support our own emotional needs. At that point, others’ behavior and their treatment of us, will no longer resonate, and will then only be reflections of their own feelings rather than arising out of our own issues. Once this happens, such experiences cannot persist in our reality for very long.
Eventually we will resonate away from people who are abusive because we will decide we deserve better and we will give them permission to feel what they feel without our judgement of it.
When we detach from the behavior and feelings of other people, we will become free to feel our own feelings authentically. This puts us in touch with our emotional guidance and clears the path to joy, happiness and success in this life.