Touchstones

I was touched by the discussion of Eckhart Tolle’s quote:

“What you react to in another, you strengthen in yourself.”

When I first encountered this way of looking at things, I thought it was silly. If I am upset with you because you aren’t reliable, how does that reflect back to me? How can you say that I am unreliable? With the help of stillness, I began to see parts of myself where I sometimes do not follow up, and I am unreliable.

Somehow, the more I sit with this, the more it rings true for me.

So, when I get impatient with people who seem very structured and attached to their views of the world; the suggestion from Tolle is to use this as a mirror to see if this structure and desire for control lives in me. Once again, I see that it does. I’ve always striven to be in charge and for almost my whole professional life I have been the ‘boss’.

What a great tool to use to see ourselves in a new way. Tolle says that the strength of our reaction is an indication of how much the behavior may live in us.

The next time I feel a surge of negative judgment, I will use it to trigger some inward reflection; for I believe it is a mirror of something that is going on…in me.

pete