I love people. We are so awesome. So unique. So flawed. So perfect in our imperfection. We all walk around oblivious to the things in ourselves that others can see so clearly. That includes the excellent, brilliant and wonderful things. It also includes those things we would rather ignore.
The irony is that most of the things that bother us in others are things we have disowned in ourselves. What does that mean? Well, it means things that we do not like in ourselves and really try to suppress or avoid. We say I hate that characteristic in so and so. He’s so…insert attribute here.
For example, we know we shouldn’t judge people. The Bible says it. It feels very wrong when we catch ourselves doing it. Society says it is bad to judge. There are even laws to protect against it for certain groups.
So we label judging as bad. And we label those who we think are judging as wrong. We see evidence of this judging in them at every turn. And we seek to fix them. Then we seek to avoid them. Of course, we just judged them.
The issue here is that when we disown these things and label them as “bad” then they get pushed down. Or driven underground. Where they become more powerful and ugly, now completely out of our awareness.
This message might rub you the wrong way. It can be scary at first to see this in ourselves and we may want to reject it. If, however, you can brave a look, and love and accept yourself anyway, then you will find those things you have hidden away actually disappearing.
