The Meaner the Better

Have you ever felt that many of the people around you don't value what you do, or even begin to meet your hopes and dreams?

Nearly every day the people in our lives do one or more of the following: belittle, show insensitivity or indifference, make us feel insecure, humiliate, frighten, abuse, inconvenience, demand, criticize, disappoint, lie, hurt, betray, try to seduce, misunderstand, resent, threaten, or attack us in some way.

The truth is, relationships are an opportunity for us to develop in love and personal happiness! How can we ever learn true, unconditional love unless we have a chance to practice it in the face of the opposites? Every disrupted relationship, whether in our own home or within a particular group or community, is a chance to forge and experience divine nature in ourselves, and to practice true happiness. . . despite what is going on in the world around us.

Is it possible that all the people in our lives are there for important reasons? That we stand in a sacred relationship to them because we and they cannot be made perfect without each other? With their help, it is possible to experience a much greater love than we would have been capable of in a situation where everybody agreed with us, everybody loved us, and everybody saw everything the way we do.

Perhaps the abrasive people in your life are really friends in disguise, there to teach you to perfect love within YOURSELF, not in them.