Have you ever noticed that when you are the least comfortable with yourself that everyone around you shows up like a complete asshat? Fools! The whole lot of them!
This is usually my first clue that I have some serious shit to sit with/deal with/ process when I start to find fault with other people’s choices as though there were some type of conspiracy the universe has created to make me miserable through the speech and actions of others.
It doesn’t help matters that our culture celebrates rudeness and pointing out with barely restrained glee on social media (with numerous hashtags,) the faults and failings of our fellow human beings earns more likes and hells to the yea than a heartfelt compliment. One can go far down the rabbithole here.
My own understanding of my experience of this is that we cannot bear to be uncomfortable. It is way, way too challenging to sit with our own shit. It is far easier to look at everyone else’s and deflect attention away from the need to do our own work. The irony of this is that it doesn’t take us out of the cycle of fear and self loathing. It only digs us deeper.
I will be learning this the rest of my life, but thankfully with a grounded practice of yoga and meditation where I am compelled to walk my own walk grounded in compassion and truth, I can increasingly sit in this space with my uncomfortableness. I can witness myself with love and learn to recognize the needs that often prompt unskillfull action.
I can breathe and release the need to be right. The need to be validated. The need to be heard. The need to be loved. All of these needs are legitimate, but when I am attached to what that looks like and how it plays out, it sure ain’t pretty. My actions come from this rather small place rather than from that boundless, grounded space of compassion and truth. It becomes about me rather than being in the flow with God’s purpose for my life.
When I actually can lose that sense of “ME”. Instead of asshats, I see light. I see the light that exists in all beings without exception. I recognize part of my role as a healer and a child of God is to hold up a mirror and reflect back to someone their essence of light and beauty.
“Look!!! You are created in the image of the Divine! You are part of a whole. You are loved. You are being illuminated and blessed. All the time.”
The beautiful paradox here is the sense of fullness, the experience of knowing love is here all along. We just have to let go to receive it.
So cultivate kindness. Start with yourself. Extend freely to others. The world is more than a little messed up. Be a light. Reflect back to others their own light. Repeat as needed!
