Fear creates your foe

Enemies are often our enemies because our fear of them has conquered us.

~Hilarion 

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We know it’s not nice to dislike other people. We know we should think kindly of everyone, and often we try to be neutral, if not positive, about those who irritate and frustrate us. Sometimes we even succeed.

For many of us, however, there is a small group of people we simply detest. Try as we might, we just cannot warm up to these folks. We’re hard pressed to think of a positive quality they might possess. The simple mention of their name can set off an adverse reaction inside us.

We probably feel guilty about our intense dislike. We may even increase our efforts to overcome our seemingly innate repugnance. But somehow, it just seems so hard to like these people.

We struggle because we’re focused on attempting to like people we abhor. Trying to find their positive qualities may not help, because we are scrutinizing others instead of ourselves. In order to resolve our hatred, we need to look at ourselves rather than those we loathe.

When we understand the emotion that underlies our hatred, we have the key to viewing these folks neutrally. We may feel these people are stupid; we may be afraid of them; we may feel they have wronged us; we even may simply not like how they look. But the least common denominator of all our reasons for hate is fear. Their differences from us, their actions, or their beliefs threaten us or our worldview.

When we are not secure in our sense of ourselves as perfect and inherently divine beings, we live in separation consciousness.  We believe that we and others are flawed and broken. Since it we feel better when we push that feeling outside of ourselves, we project it onto others. While now viewed outside of ourselves, our rejected feelings still make us uncomfortable. Thus, we learn to fear the targets of our projection, and we use the fear and the dislike it engenders to justify creating further conceptual distance from them.

It’s all too easy to find a few choice targets to dump our self-judgment on, so we can reject them completely and pretend that we, by contrast, are good and okay. Separation requires a negative comparison of others to establish our self worth. We create enemies so that we can be protagonists, and fear is the resulting victor.

When we choose to recognize our own innate divine nature, we develop the understanding that all are perfect and interconnected in love. We acknowledge others as divinely encoded beings, too.  All existence becomes a single whole, displaying myriad aspects to our perception. There is nothing and no one to prefer or judge as more worthy, since all is one—equal and divine.

Let’s take a few minutes to learn more about releasing our fear and dislike of others. We will start by connecting with our own personal expression of inherent divinity—our sharing within. We will slow our breathing and let it become relaxed, even, and natural. As we inhale, we will picture our sharing within as a golden ball of light in our chest, fed by our breath to become strong and bright. As we exhale, the golden light flows throughout us and reaches out to bless our surroundings. We’ll continue the rhythmic breathing and light visualization until we sense conscious connection with our sharing within. We will feel peaceful, steady, and calm.

Next we’ll think of the individual we most detest, and ask our sharing within to help us see him or her in the light of connection consciousness. Perhaps a hated co-worker simply is shown to hold core beliefs that are very different from our own. In the light of loving understanding, it is easy to see that her beliefs can never invalidate our divine perfection. Life merely has led her to reach different conclusions.

Perhaps someone  we believe has harmed us is shown to be merely a player in a drama which we created, out of our belief that we are broken. Under the tutelage of the golden light, it is clear that we can choose different interactions based on our belief in the inherent goodness of life. The actors in our play don’t need to change; we  can write a new script.

Perhaps someone we have feared had power to harm us now is shown to be a bogie man, created out of our belief in a separate and dangerous existence. The golden light of divine wisdom now shows him to be merely a mirror which reveals what we fear is true about us. When we believe we are innately good and whole, he can be so, too.

Perhaps someone we dislike based on their different appearance, lifestyle, or values is simply shown to be another flavor of human. The loving light from our heart helps us to see that no one is better or worse, just different from each other. The variety in players on the stage of life gives texture and interest to our shared life experience. If no one were different from us, life would be an unending sequence of the same interaction, over and over. How boring!

Finally we’ll well wish our former foe and give thanks to her for helping us understand ourselves better. Our sharing within has helped us transform our perception of her. We have conquered our fear with divine love, and created an ally in our search for divine understanding.

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Divinely unique and beautiful reader, what self-belief might you release, transforming your enemies into allies? Please share…