Notes From The Awareness: 297

We are more what we think we aren’t than we might wish to be.

Please discuss. How does this play out in life?

I’ll start us out. Most of us have the conscious belief that we’re basically good people. This is a functional and protective mechanism. It takes are rare combination of self-honesty, confidence, and nerve to admit to doing unethical or unkind things and feel comfortable with it. Most of us probably are good people, but we tend to gloss over our less-than-stellar actions and beliefs.

We may even try to disassociate ourselves from our shortcomings through projection—seeing our own faults in others while denying them in ourselves. Projection can be a dandy way to feel righteously good about ourselves, but also can leave us stuck in a cycle of anger and resentment as we regularly encounter our unadmitted behaviors in others. The projection/anger/denial loop will be repeated until we achieve the clarity needed to see the despised traits in ourselves.

Today’s message reminds me that we’re all interconnected, and that other serve as mirrors for my own beliefs and actions. When I’m irked at another, I’ll want to repeat my beloved teacher Nancy Retzlaff’s words: “Spirit, please show me how I do that.” Having recognized my own undesired behavior, I can proceed to try to understand why I behave as I do, forgive myself, forgive and mentally thank the other person for teaching me, and move on to happier experiences. Creation is ingenious in revealing to me my inner workings.

How about you? How do you deal with seeing your own faults reflected in others?