In ways we aren’t fully conscious of, we attract in life the tailor-made circumstances for our evolution. We attract what we judge until we no longer judge what we attract. We attract what we resist, until we no longer resist what we attract. We are drawn to the qualities of our shadow—the traits and characteristics we reject in ourselves—so we can learn to accept, embrace and integrate them. On the other side of this lies freedom.
When other people upset us or hurt us, we attribute the emotion we’re feeling to their behaviour. We hold them responsible for not keeping their word, for being inconsiderate, or letting us down. We see the feelings they’ve triggered in us—fear, sadness, hurt—as an extension of their actions, which turns us into victims.
A more empowering way of thinking about the dynamics between us and the external world, whether external refers to people or circumstances, is to consider that we project onto others and life what we need to overcome. This turns our relationships on their head—as instead of blaming the other person for letting us down, we can recognise that we’ve attracted that situation because there’s something in it we need for the evolution of who we are.
Being with fear, sadness or anger can be disempowering. We can feel under the weight of the emotion—at its effect. And when we resist it, we are. What we resist and deny has a grip on us. When we accept it, the balance changes. Being disempowered becomes powerful when we surrender to the lack of power, as we’re then no longer controlled by it and in the absence of its hold on us can think and act from a space of freedom.
It’s easier to hold others responsible for our emotions. We hope that they will change, so we don’t have to. But, this is also a form of victimhood. We have the freedom to change any situation we don’t like, or to accept it as it is. And there’s significance in the fact that we are in a circumstance which creates this kind of friction.