Learning and Growing

One of the hardest things to deal with after deciding that one is going to live in Truth occurs when other people confront you with “You should do” or “You shouldn’t have done” accusations. It is one thing to recognize Pit of Illusion thinking and counter the incorrect thinking when you are doing it to yourself, but when other people throw it at you it is difficult to know how to handle it. One of the things that makes it so hard is that usually the people who do this to you are people close to you—family or close friends or in other words people you love and who you want to love you back.

The automatic reaction in a situation like that is to think, “They shouldn’t be saying those things to me.” (If you aren’t laughing at the irony in that, read it again and have yourself a good laugh!) This reaction comes from the normal human reaction of “should and shouldn’ts” but added to it is your newfound resolve and knowledge about how that kind of thinking is Illusion. So you get a double whammy on this one.

It is also difficult to sit there and take the criticism as people catalog your failings and tell you what you should and should not have done especially because we are all human and we all make mistakes which often means that the very things the other person is telling you that you should or should not have done are things they are guilty of also. Therefore, knowing the other person has done the very same thing fuels the fires of Illusion thinking.

This is one of the areas I’m working hard on, but there are a few things that I’m discovering that help in these situations. One is to use the Truth Tool Humor and recognize how funny the situation is. I tend to take these kinds of confrontations much too seriously at the time, but when I step back and see how absurd some of the statements being made are I realize I can cry about it or laugh. Laughing is much more enjoyable.

Like I say, I’m still working on this one and hoping to grow and overcome more. That’s one of the wonders of life. No matter how old we are, we can still learn and change.