uh oh, that could be me I see

What type of person just really pushes your buttons? Do you know people who have some quality about them that just drives you crazy? Maybe they are too sensitive or emotional, or too stubborn, or too slow, or too selfish, or too critical, or too arrogant, or too bossy. The list goes on, and for each of us, it's probably a different quality.

What I have come to realize, is that whatever it is in someone else that drives me crazy, is actually a part of myself that I haven't acknowledged or that I want to pretend isn't a part of who I am. I remember when I was a teenager, my grandma telling me that whatever quality bugged me most about other people was a quality that I had myself. At the time, I didn't want to believe it. I mean, who would want to admit that they actually possess the quality they like least in someone else? But I have recently come to realize that it's true, at least for me. I used to get really agitated with people who were overly emotional. I would think to myself, "come on, does everything have to be so intense?" But the truth is, I am very emotionally sensitive, so much so, that I tried to pretend like I wasn't because it felt so overwhelming. I didn't want to be with people who were highly emotional because it resonated with the part of me that I was trying to repress. Now that I accept that aspect of myself, it doesn't bother me when someone else is emotionally sensitive. I've begun to integrate a part of myself that I had been denying existed, and so it isn't as agitating to be around it.

I would encourage you to start paying attention to which qualities in people push your buttons, and ask yourself, from the deepest place you can access, is that actually me I am seeing? If it is, I find two things helpful. First, ask yourself why you don't want to be that. It's probably that somewhere along the way, probably when you were young, you decided that to be that quality means rejection or pain. If you can find the feelings that keep you from accepting all aspects of yourself, it helps dissipate the beliefs that cause you to reject those aspects. If you can't find anything, that is OK too. Secondly, ask yourself, "what could be a positive aspect of the quality I view as bad?" For me, when I started looking at and accepting how sensitive I am, I realized that to be sensitive didn't mean "weak" like I originally thought, and actually, being sensitive is an asset in my meditation work and when I work with clients because I can feel what is going on with them much more than I could if I weren't sensitive.

Please email me if you have any questions or any stories you'd like to share. Also, if you have any friends you think would enjoy these Pearls, please send them let them know they can sign up to receive a free sample meditation and to start receiving these Pearls each week.