Sweet Miracles

Today someone made me really angry by lying, and then lying even more to cover up the initial lie. I was fuming about it on the way home. Well, not really fuming. I was feeling cross with this person, but my heart was still relatively calm, and i decided to talk to Spirit, whom i imagined to be this huge presence who was walking beside me.

Here was the dialogue I had with Spirit.

Me: How can i handle this dishonest behaviour coming from this person?

Spirit: Make less demands on him. You cannot demand a person to be honest. He must want to be honest.

Me: Why does he not want to be honest with me?

Spirit: He is not even honest with himself. If a person cannot be honest with himself, how can you expect him to be honest to others?

Me: How can i help him to be honest with himself?

Spirit: Be honest to YOURSELF. Lead your life with utmost integrity. Be a shining example of how one can be absolutely true to oneself and be happy and successful.

With that, i ended the conversation because i was busy recalling the conversation so i could blog about it. The part about helping others change by being an example is nothing new. What WAS new to me was the realisation that honesty to others arises from honesty to self, and the lack of one aspect only indicates the lack of the other. This does help to reduce the personal offence taken, and increase compassion for the other party.

It applies to other “crimes” as well. A person who cannot trust others, is a person who cannot trust himself. A person who cannot be generous to others, is also one who cannot be generous to himself (in terms of emotional nurturance). A person who abuses others, is one who abuses himself in one way or another - and very often has been abused by others early in life too.

A client who was filled with hatred with his ex-wife, after doing some EFT, recalled a recent memory of his ex-wife looking at him with eyes that were filled with venomous hatred, which he thought his own hatred doesn’t match up to. Then he asked me, doesn’t that mean she is suffering more than him? For her eyes to reflect such intense hatred, surely she must be living in emotional hell. This realisation helped him to feel compassion for her, for at least he is living more happily than she is.

It is true that whatever we give to the world, must be what we possess in ourselves. This applies to love and hate and everything in between.

So next time you complain about someone’s “ill-treatment” of you, you might want to consider that they are probably ill-treating themselves in the same way, if not worse.

Thanks Spirit, for the tip!