Spirituality

It's amazing how - even when we're working from a "higher vision" - we still see the people, the events and the circumstances in our lives with the same perspective: our own! It's "only human" to always be able to see how right we are in any given situation, and it's always difficult - and sometimes impossible! - to look at ourselves and our actions through the other person's eyes. But if we really want to grow - if we really want to know who we are - then we have to be willing to look at ourselves a little more objectively - a little more realistically - then we're used to doing, and we have to be willing to accept responsibility - both for the way we express ourselves emotionally, and for the effect we have on other people through that expression.

Seeing things only from our own perspectives is a pretty emotional stance in itself; it's an easy way to protect ourselves from other people's thoughts and other people's feelings. Whatever emotion we may use to justify our behavior, life is always easier if we have someone else to blame when things aren't running smoothly. Whether we blame the other person, or fate, or life itself, it "feels better" if whatever is happening isn't our fault!

We've all heard that "we create our own reality," but do we really understand what that means? If we did, then we'd also understand why the most difficult part of "being aware" is being aware of the reality (or the working environment) that we create by the way we respond to the people, the events and the circumstances in our lives. Once we truly realize that "what goes around comes around," we see our own anger, our own resentment, or our own frustration coming back at us, and we realize that the only light at the end of our emotional tunnel is the headlight on a train coming straight towards us, fueled by our own negative energy.

It is at this point on our personal path that we begin to see - and accept - that most of the crisis, problems and "less than positive" relationships in our lives are created by us for our own emotional needs, and we can begin deciding which of those crisis, which of those problems, and which of those "less than positive" relationships we want to eliminate from our lives in the name of "growth."

Before we can move past the "crisis" and into "positive problem solving," we have to be willing to admit that our conscious thoughts can justify almost any behavior. We've spent our entire lives feeling that we have the right to be angry, that we have the right to seek revenge, to prove our point, to make our egos feel better if someone else makes it feel bad. We can justify being downright hateful if someone hurts us, or rejects us, or disappoints us in some way.

Perhaps earlier on our path, we chose - as so many people do - to learn through negative experience because we didn't trust ourselves to pay attention to the life lessons at play unless they were really uncomfortable to be involved in. The more "emotional crisis" we worked our way through, the more confident we became that we were strong enough to survive the storms of life. It's when we realize that we can not only survive but actually live without the storms that we realize that our path has taken us to "the sunny side of the street," and we begin to enjoy the rainbow as much as we used to enjoy the storm.

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