I have a journal I keep and I love having it in a Microsoft Word file, so I can do a word or phrase search to find particular passages when I want to.  Reading the journal is always a stroll down memory lane and an exercise in seeing how my personality has progressed through the years.  I’m pretty mellow now but I used to be very intense. I used to think I had to let everyone know what I knew because then they would be as happy as I am.  It was for their own good, darn it!  Yeah, pretty aggravating, I know.   I also used to put people up on pedestals and berate them for falling.  I do far less of that now.  Below is a passage I found that surprised me with how aggressively I was snapping at my friend.

In the 90’s, my friend Mick and I were emailing back and forth.  Mick and Sarah were good friends of Don and Marlene, who’d been long separated and were getting divorced.  I was doing the divorce paperwork for Don and Marlene.  Mick and I did not discuss the divorce.  Once Mick told me he was shredding my emails so Marlene didn’t get hold of them, which I found odd on many levels.  I was dating Don but that had not been a problem before. Mick and I were emailing about completely other topics.  So I wrote Mick:

You said, “It is hard being friends to both sides of an argument.”  I didn’t know there was an argument going on.  You didn’t offend me, I just don’t get the connection between me feeling free to write anything I want to a friend of mine and someone else (Marlene who shouldn’t even be reading it) having an emotional reaction when she reads my email to you.

If you were so concerned with her not reading something, you wouldn’t print it out.
Why would she read mail that’s not hers?
Why would you leave anything around that you think would upset anyone?
Why would you bring up any subject designed to upset someone?

If we think we’re so conscious, why can’t we screen every word we say to make sure it’s necessary, uplifting and meaningful?   Why can’t people just ACT responsibly and BE responsible for their own reactions without friends feeling they have to intervene?  Why can’t everyone live their lives the way they want to without others insisting on butting in to remind them of any emotional baggage they feel they’re supposed to be carrying around with them, just in case they’ve forgotten?

And this is obviously NOT directed just at you, Mick.  We’re all supposed to be waking up together here, right?  So if our little group here is supposed to be the conscious ones, why don’t we act like it?  Half the people I know in town that expound on and on about sweetness and light live their own personal lives in a constant state of emotional upheaval and don’t even see it.  They criticize and backbite everyone they know and then give classes on unity and brotherhood.   They hold in resentment and bitterness over “unfair treatment” from people they’ve neglected  or treated hatefully for years, and then talk about forgiveness to people they do bodywork on. Physician, heal thyself.

That’s why I don’t let people bodywork me unless I’ve seen them in action for years and know they walk their talk.  We take on what those around us give off, especially those who touch us.  If we’re always interpenetrating energy fields with people with “negative” attitudes, sitting with them and talking to them, being hugged by them and eating food prepared by them, what are we bombarding our physical and subtle bodies with?

Most people I know profess to know and understand the mechanism of the subtle body and yet the way they act in every moment belies that big time.  I know dozens of people who say they meditate daily, yet you know by their surface personality and emotional reactivity that they don’t do it to that altered state where change occurs.  Just closing your eyes for 20 minutes doesn’t do it, if your mind is going over daily dramas rather than sitting silent in a receptive state, praying for guidance and clarity, then listening for the answer.  People tell me they fall asleep while meditating.  That’s impossible because in a state of meditation you are as awake and aware as ever; if you’re bored or falling asleep then you’re letting your mind get the best of you, which is no big deal, it’s just not meditation.

If everyone around us is critical and dissatisfied, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in it, but it IS possible not to let it touch you.  That’s what detachment is all about.  I haven’t had an argument or a health problem in years.  I try to keep myself surrounded with people who live their lives consciously, and let the others come and go.  All it takes is:

(a) a sincere desire to be freed of emotional pain and attachment;
(b) the 10 seconds a day it takes to pray and ask for it;
(c) heartfelt forgiveness to all – all – and gratitude for what you have, no matter how little; and
(d) the decision to be conscious in all words and deeds from this moment on.

How hard can it be?  I’m not a saint by any means but I live a happy life and that’s all it takes.  I refuse to hide what I do from others, I have nothing to hide, my life is my message and I’m proud of me and who I am and what I do, no matter what I do.  I make a difference.  I go out of my way to try to.  I’m no different than you or anyone else.  I’ve been blessed in this lifetime to have what I have and I acknowledge it and thank Goddess for it every day.

If someone else has a problem, they need to resolve that themselves by asking:
What about this irritates me or upsets me?
Who is the cause of my upset?
How am I feeling right now?
If I feel it’s someone else’s fault, what do I think they did that caused it?
What would I have them do right now to correct it?
What would my advice be to them right now?

Then they need to re-read the above list and everything they’ve written, then take their own advice. This is a powerful exercise.  So powerful that people think it’s too easy and they don’t do it.  It’s like meditation.  People talk about it and don’t do it and then wonder why they can’t get a grip on their lives.