The world is a mirror. There are many books written on the belief that we are what we see and experience around us. Every person we meet is here for a specific reason, whether we understand that reason or not. They give us the opportunity to get a little further on our personal path of self-discovery and enlightenment. Sometimes the message comes through loud and clear; for instance we may be hearing the same thing from three different and unrelated sources. But other times these messages, or lessons if you will, are offered to us in disguise. What of those people we immediately have an adverse reaction to? The aversion you feel for them is a sign that there is something to be learned here for you.
We all have judgments that we put on other people. The easy ones are the physical ones we make of others, especially when we don’t know them. Too fat, too skinny, too ugly. Think of how we both criticize and idolize celebrities in our society.
Then there are the judgments that go a level deeper. ‘She’s selfish.’ ‘He’s arrogant’. Now it’s about personal qualities that other people portray which we feel are not good enough. Somewhere, usually in our childhood, we decided that each behavior has an acceptable and unacceptable level. And to live comfortably in society there need to be certain rules of acceptable behavior. What we often don’t realize is that we each have our own levels of what we find acceptable or not. And trying to live up to other people’s levels can become pretty confusing, not to mention the amount of energy it costs us. As a result we start hiding certain character traits, the ‘negative’ ones. We worry that if ‘they’ could see what we try to hide we would become an outcast… But what are we trying to hide? What qualities or characteristics are there in us that we wouldn’t want other people to find out about? In other words: Is there a monster in your closet?
My two young daughters, 3 and 6, are in a phase where they are afraid to go to sleep at night without the usual precautions. These precautions are for each of them to receive a ‘magic ring’, a ‘magic cage’ around their bed and a ‘magic sign’, all to keep the monsters away at night. It really doesn’t matter to them when I explain that there are no monsters. Often I get called into their room to turn on the light where they, with great relief, realize that the dress hanging over the chair is not a hairy monster lurking behind their furniture.
The same is true for what we perceive are our negative character traits. Interestingly, what we often judge other people on are things that we posses ourselves, but that we are not aware of. However, these ‘negative’ aspects represent certain qualities that actually have a specific message or gift to share with us. Something we can use to learn from, to integrate into our psyche to become a more whole person. In her book ‘The Dark Side of the Light Chasers’ author Debbie Ford offers us the wisdom that often these aspects contain an amazing wisdom and bring insights into our past that affects us in many different ways. Like the ‘monsters’ that my children tell me about, these unacceptable aspects disappear when we turn on our Inner Light for a good observation. In order to accept ourselves fully we need to look at these monsters to find the gift, or lesson, in them.
While I was working with Barbara, a client, I noticed in our conversations that she quite frequently brought up judgments in managing one of her employees. She’d managed many people over the years and never had any real specific problems, but somehow this person wasn’t ‘going along with the program’, as she said. This person was put under her leadership against her wishes and now she had to deal with him. The employee did things that were, to Barbara, unacceptable. He finished projects too late and did an abominable job with it… Not following guidelines and leaving suggestions and feedback unused. The more Barbara complained about this person, the more I saw the mirroring between her and her employee. A sore point in Barbara’s own work situation was the lack of communication and trust she felt from her upper management, which made her doubt herself. When I explained to Barbara the principle of mirroring aspects, she immediately drew the parallel between her situation and her issue with her employee. She, in fact, was not communicating clearly her expectations to her employee, whom, like Barbara, didn’t feel trusted by her to come and ask for input! Understanding these dynamics helped Barbara create new and improved relationships with all her coworkers, based on more open communication and trust.
In our own lives when we look at what our anger towards others actually has to teach us, we may find out that it helps us realize that someone oversteps our boundaries. Or if we, for instance, get very nervous before a public speaking engagement, we may realize that the anxiety actually aids us by making sure we prepare well in advance.
So next time, when you become aware of a ‘negative’ quality in yourself, instead of judging it as a flaw, turn on your own Inner Light and see how or what it actually has to teach you about yourself. You are, in fact, your own best teacher.
About the Author
Marije is a Certified Comprehensive Coach and a member of Coachville, 24/7 Coaching, IAC, Peer Resources and E-Women Network. She can be reached at (530) 274-7568 or visit her website at www.yourgreatestlife.com.