Week 8 Reacting to Others

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The struggle continues.  My biggest struggle is dealing with those around me and their behavior and treatment.  It makes it hard to take the high road when you cannot escape the chaos that lives in your home.

However, funny enough, my reactions were more contained, level and calm despite feeling horrible upset inside and long afterward so I did see some change.

Instead of beating myself up and blaming myself I forgave myself and them, recognized that I did nothing and the problem was not in me.

I then said a pray for those involved, yet it took me awhile to shake the anger and feelings of injustice and being wronged. I’m still working on that, but I have more peace about it.

“I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge.” ~Og Mandino

I’ve noticed when I have a couple of really good days in this journey and let my guards down that it is followed by challenge, unexpected and hard hitting sometimes.  It is my reaction and thoughts during these times that I struggle to maintain.  I’m only human.  My first reactions are not what I want them to be, but I do see change.  I felt myself still inside.  In some ways this is huge for me.

“But how will I react to the actions of others?

With love. For just as love is my weapon to open the hearts of men, love is also my shield to repulse the arrows of hate and the spears of anger. Adversity and discouragement will beat against my new shield and become as the softest of rains. My shield will protect me in the marketplace and sustain me when I am alone. It will uplift me in moments of despair yet it will calm me in time of exultation.

It will become stronger and more protective with use until one day I will cast it aside and walk unencumbered among all manners of men and, when I do, my name will be raised high on the pyramid of life. I will greet this day with love in my heart. And how will I confront each whom I meet? In only one way. In silence and to myself I will address him and say I Love You.” ~ Og Mandino The Greatest Salesman In The World

This is not easy to do.  I see the work I’ve put in revealing itself in me, but the thought came after the incident.  I long for the day it comes during an incident, but I will forgive myself and begin again.  I will shake off the depression and hurt.  I’m searching for a way to build my own support system within and to love myself when it feels like the world hates me.  Controlling and rationalizing the feelings and recognizing and moving away from the feelings are the hardest battle.  I’m am wounded but not defeated.  My journey is not in vain.  There is a  deep change taking place within.  I felt and I experienced it.

The importance of this is well illustrated in the lives of Emerson and Carlyle.  Emerson loved the good and his life was a symphony of peace and harmony, Carlyle hated the bad, and his life was a record of perpetual discord and inharmony. 

Here we have two grand men, each intent upon achieving the same ideal, but one makes use of constructive thought and is therefore in harmony with Natural Law, the other makes use of destructive thought and therefore brings upon himself discord of every kind and character.

It is evident therefore that we are to hate nothing, not even the “bad,” because hatred is destructive, and we shall soon find that by entertaining destructive thought we are sowing the “wind” and in turn shall reap the “whirlwind.” ~Haanel  Week 8 Intro

I love peace, harmony, kindness, compassion and this life that I create by finding forgiveness in my heart for myself and others.

“I will greet this day with love in my heart.” ~ Og Mandino

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1 Corinthians: 13 (NIV)

13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

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