Happy Thursday beautiful hearts. The other day I had the good fortune of discovering a wonderful book, Awakening Shakti by Sally Kempton. As I dove into her book on the Transformative Power of the Goddesses of Yoga, I grew even more curious about this beautiful Yogi. I googled her and instantly began browsing her article section. I read through several and then got to this one, 'The Difficult People in Your Life.' I am only including an excerpt, but will include a link that you could read the article in its entirety. I find her work to be profoundly powerful.
May this excerpt assist you in growing the understanding of your heart!
May You Sweetly Seek:)
In Gratitude,
Sarah
May this excerpt assist you in growing the understanding of your heart!
May You Sweetly Seek:)
In Gratitude,
Sarah
~Excerpt from Yoga Journal January/February 2006
"Fran’s cottage on the Oregon coast should be the perfect meditative retreat. The only worm in her apple is Larry, her landlord, who also lives on the property. A local architect, Larry is an acerbic critic of just about everything—the government, the art world, drug companies, and Fran. He cannot believe that she’s so clueless about simple practical matters. For three days last month, he ragged on her for not putting gopher wire around her petunias, and he’s constantly reminding her about the time she put plastics into the paper-recycling bin. Yes, he’ll bring her groceries from town, and help her diagnose the weird noises in her car. But he speaks to her contemptuously, and the last time she came back from a weekend out of town, she found Larry sitting in her living room, surrounded by beer bottles and heavy vibes. As far as he’s concerned, the house is his property, so why should she mind his sitting in it when she’s not there?
Fran feels trapped, as in an abusive marriage. She doesn’t want to move, yet her landlord’s presence hangs over her house like a dark, angry cloud. Worst of all, his anger magnetizes her own rebelliousness, so she often finds herself talking to him in the same harsh tone of voice he uses with her.
We don’t always know why difficult people show up in our lives. There are some good theories about it, of course. Jungians, along with most contemporary spiritual teachers, tell us that ALL the people in our lives are mirroring what’s inside us, and that once we clear our minds and clarify our hearts; we’ll stop attracting angry girl friends, prickly co-workers and tyrannical bosses. Then there’s the view—not necessarily inconsistent with the first– that life is a school, and that difficult people are our teachers. (In fact, when someone tells you that you’re a teacher for him, it’s often a good idea to ask yourself exactly what it is about you that he finds abrasive!) One thing is clear, though: at some point in our lives, most of us will have someone around us who is show-stoppingly hard to take. Sometimes, it seems as if everyone we know is giving us trouble.
So, one of the great on-going questions for anyone who wants to live an authentic spiritual life without going into a cave is this: how do you deal with difficult people without being harsh, wimpy, or putting them out of your heart? How can you explain to your friend who keeps trying to enlist you in service of her own dramas, that you don’t want to be part of her latest scenario of mistrust and betrayal—and still remain friends? How do you handle the boss whose tantrums terrorize the whole office, or the co-worker who bursts into tears several times a week and accuses you of being abrupt when all you’re trying to do is get down to business?....
Click Here for the full article.
"Fran’s cottage on the Oregon coast should be the perfect meditative retreat. The only worm in her apple is Larry, her landlord, who also lives on the property. A local architect, Larry is an acerbic critic of just about everything—the government, the art world, drug companies, and Fran. He cannot believe that she’s so clueless about simple practical matters. For three days last month, he ragged on her for not putting gopher wire around her petunias, and he’s constantly reminding her about the time she put plastics into the paper-recycling bin. Yes, he’ll bring her groceries from town, and help her diagnose the weird noises in her car. But he speaks to her contemptuously, and the last time she came back from a weekend out of town, she found Larry sitting in her living room, surrounded by beer bottles and heavy vibes. As far as he’s concerned, the house is his property, so why should she mind his sitting in it when she’s not there?
Fran feels trapped, as in an abusive marriage. She doesn’t want to move, yet her landlord’s presence hangs over her house like a dark, angry cloud. Worst of all, his anger magnetizes her own rebelliousness, so she often finds herself talking to him in the same harsh tone of voice he uses with her.
We don’t always know why difficult people show up in our lives. There are some good theories about it, of course. Jungians, along with most contemporary spiritual teachers, tell us that ALL the people in our lives are mirroring what’s inside us, and that once we clear our minds and clarify our hearts; we’ll stop attracting angry girl friends, prickly co-workers and tyrannical bosses. Then there’s the view—not necessarily inconsistent with the first– that life is a school, and that difficult people are our teachers. (In fact, when someone tells you that you’re a teacher for him, it’s often a good idea to ask yourself exactly what it is about you that he finds abrasive!) One thing is clear, though: at some point in our lives, most of us will have someone around us who is show-stoppingly hard to take. Sometimes, it seems as if everyone we know is giving us trouble.
So, one of the great on-going questions for anyone who wants to live an authentic spiritual life without going into a cave is this: how do you deal with difficult people without being harsh, wimpy, or putting them out of your heart? How can you explain to your friend who keeps trying to enlist you in service of her own dramas, that you don’t want to be part of her latest scenario of mistrust and betrayal—and still remain friends? How do you handle the boss whose tantrums terrorize the whole office, or the co-worker who bursts into tears several times a week and accuses you of being abrupt when all you’re trying to do is get down to business?....
Click Here for the full article.
RSS Feed
