Getting Upset at Other People’s Behavior

Often times other people can be the source of so much of our suffering. This can include friends, family members, celebrities, or even just random strangers. Like many other things in the world, sometimes people just really piss us off. This is a common experience for many people in life.

Making Your Happiness Unconditional

We have this idea that if someone else were to only change their behavior then we’d finally be happy, and this is true given that we’d then be focusing our attention upon something we do like and thus no longer offering resistance to what we see (and therefore not suffering), but this is actually tremendously giving your power away because it’s saying that your happiness and well-being is completely dependent upon another person’s behavior. You basically give someone else the keys to your happiness. Yikes! When we do this, it only makes us want to try and control the other because, well, our happiness quite literally depends on it!

We may try to play this game with a few people around us and it may work to a limited extent, but if we make this a way of life, this is really just not a healthy way to live, you know? It’s just not realistic or healthy to think that the whole world is going to do what you want.

Now this isn’t meant to excuse other people’s behaviors. Not at all. There are so many examples of unconscious behavior out there we can point out. Of course that’s there. What we’re talking about here is releasing ourselves from the suffering that we create for ourselves as a result of the unconscious behavior that occurs all around us. We want to release ourselves from our own self-imposed prison, regardless of what’s happening in the world.

This is about making our happiness and well-being unconditional. Literally. It’s taking down the conditions we have imposed upon ourselves for whatever reason and finding that freedom we so desperately seek.

It’s about changing ourselves and allowing others to change (or not) out of our/their own volition, not because of attacking or being attacked.

Let’s listen to a wonderful Abraham-Hicks talk that gives a hilarious example of this and takes a look at how we can allow ourselves to be in this world and have healthy experiences in our relationships without letting the little things in life tear us apart.

Closing The Gap

Have you noticed that the reason we suffer is only only only because of the story we are telling ourselves in our head, and even more importantly, our belief in our story as if it was actually true. That’s it! The negative emotions are showing us that our story (thoughts) about life has nothing to do with the reality. It’s not true. That’s why it feels so bad.

Most of us are familiar with practices like focusing on the positive aspects, loving what is, being present, being in the now, surrendering, and all the other wonderful stuff, and yet nevertheless there seems to be this gap between what we “know” on one level and how we live, as if this knowingness has yet to penetrate the totality of our being. We all have this gap and one of the games of the spiritual journey is closing this gap. It’s really LIVING from the truth of your being, living what your heart knows to be true. Your life becomes a living manifestation of your inner being.

From this space you can still make changes in your life, like getting a second tube of toothpaste as mentioned in the video, for example.

Loving what is doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything about life. Not at all. Actually, it’s not about doing or not doing. Loving what is simply means to truly love what IS and then FROM that space, you live your life, however it naturally arises. It means to live from the love rather than let the ego run the show.

How this love manifests may be laughing things off, making a compromise, expressing more gratitude, changing certain things, talking about your issues, or perhaps even leaving the relationship. Who knows? There’s countless possible responses. It’s not really a “if this then that” thing. It’s more spontaneous and part of the flow.

But the whole “demanding that a person be different than they are or else you will withhold your love/acceptance/approval of them,” yeah, not so much…

Transcending Life vs. Facing Life

Some people may also have this idea that when we have problems in our lives, all we have to do is simply raise our level of consciousness to the point where they no longer bug us and then we’ll magically fix our lives. Yet this can actually become a subtle form of escapism and avoidance.

Instead of actually facing life, facing what’s being shown to you in the mirror of life, we may try and spiritualize ourselves beyond our current experience.

Yet the interesting thing is that if we can face what life is showing us with sincerity and without turning away, life itself becomes the catalyst to our greatest transformations. It’s all right here, ready for us. As is often said, life is our greatest teacher.