Have you ever thought about why you either love or hate some people? What is it about some people that creates such a strong reaction from you? Why is that some relationships are more difficult than others? Now what if I told you that these people are mirroring the parts of your personality and life experience that you either love or hate.
Author Deepak Chopra teaches us that what we hate most in others is what we deny in ourselves and what we love in others is what we wish for ourselves. People are mirrors into our soul, reflecting back what we are unable or unwilling to see within ourselves. Our relationships are reflecting back our deepest thoughts. Our relationships with others are an opportunity to look within ourselves and discover what we need to work on. We can learn to use these mirrors as a starting point to accept the parts of ourselves that we try to deny and heal ourselves.
Think about that thought: The people that we hate or dislike are mirrors reflecting whatever we deny in ourselves. This teaching struck a cord of truth with me right away. I thought about a difficult relationship that I have with a family member and what it could be mirroring in me. I love my family member, but I dislike her outlook on life and how she lives her life. My family member has always lived her life as a helpless, powerless victim who believes that she can never have what she wants in life. She heavily influenced my outlook on life as a child. Her negativity about life and her victim mentality reminded me of how I used to think. I could see that I disliked her beliefs because I did not like my past as a helpless, powerless victim. I had not forgiven myself for who I used to be and for my old limiting beliefs.
My dislike of my family member's beliefs was showing me that I needed to love and accept who I used to be just as much as accept who I am now. I needed to forgive and make peace with the past. There was no need for anger and regret. I had to experience a segment of my life as a helpless, powerless victim, so that I could learn how to overcome that way of living and become an empowered person. I truly believe that my experiences will help me to uplift others who are not fully empowered yet. I can speak to them because I know what their life experience is all about and I can share with them how I transformed myself and my life.
My work with making peace with my old limited self includes forgiving myself regularly. The more that we forgive ourselves for who we used to be and what we used to think, we are giving ourselves permission to keep growing. As we learn bigger and more empowered ideas for living, we are going to outgrow where we are. Naturally, we will move on. If we make the place where we were seem wrong, then we are really telling ourselves that it is not safe for us to grow. If we can make peace with where we have been, then we are freeing ourselves to move on for the future.
Mirrors are here to help us to evolve. We cannot evolve until we embrace and accept all the aspects of who we are and who we were in the past. There is no need for any shame, guilt or blame about who we were. Our past self and the way we lived helped to learn how to grow into who we are today. There are no lost opportunities or time wasted being who we were and the way we used to live.
Think about your relationships. Who do you dislike and why? The answers will help you to determine what you need to heal or accept within yourself. It is okay if you have found areas that need your attention. Finding something is not an opportunity to criticize yourself or make yourself wrong. We all have issues to work on within our lifetimes. Your journey in life is to grow and evolve as a person. When we find an area that needs some work, it is a wonderful opportunity for us to grow. The more that we grow, the more we can do with our lives. We can love and accept ourselves more. We can allow ourselves to go after bigger goals in life. We can have a better relationship with ourselves and others. There is always an opportunity whenever we find something to work on within ourselves.
Your relationships can be powerful in helping you discover more about yourself. An abusive relationship may reveal that we need to work on loving ourselves more. A relationship where we are doing all the giving may mean that we need to set boundaries with others. The qualities that we have difficulty accepting in others may be the very qualities that we cannot accept within ourselves. What we find irritating in another person may be something we refuse to accept within ourselves. There are no right or wrong answers.
Be patient with yourself as you analyze your relationships and discover new insights. Some issues may be easier to work on than others. Just committing to working on your issues is an important first step. Making peace with my old limiting beliefs may be an on-going process. Give yourself the space and time to work through whatever you need to without pressuring yourself to do it all right now and right away. It is okay if the issues resurface again. Just keep working on them. Just be willing to look into your mirrors and see what they are reflecting back to you.
Copyright©2007 Jeannine Robinson All Rights Reserved