The minute I start cataloguing someone else’s faults, I’m in tricky territory. The flaws I’m seeing in them are inevitably colored with my own shortcomings. Also? We are all expressions of the Divine, doing our best. If I forget this about someone else, I forget it about myself. When I find myself being critical of others, I breathe. I search for the reflection of my own shortcomings. And I give them to Spirit.
Weird thing I learned years ago in a history class in high school. The teacher was talking about stereotypes, what people hated in other people. Blacks in America and Jews in Germany were being discussed. All the things the Jim Crow people and the Nazis said about the people they hated were things they feared in themselves. Hmm, I look for things I really hate in other people and examine them and they are things I hate in myself.
Hi Linda,
That’s cool that you talked about stereotypes in high school. Yes, the examination of the hated aspects in others and the connection to the hated aspects in ourselves can be painful – but often liberating as well!
Thanks for you comment!
XOZ