Shrink the monster

As you focus on the experience of feeling healthy, joyful and sharing that, you extend this state of being.  When you focus on difficulties, you feed them, enabling them to grow.  Every unkind thought, word or self-criticism gives the inner monster energy and power over you. Buddha calls them 'anger-eating demons.'

How would your life experience change if you treated situations or people that evoke discomfort with love and kindness?  Imagine all the difficult people you encounter, those who mistreat you or trigger negative feelings.  What do they teach? People are often unaware of what they do.  Rather than get angry, why not view everything as a wonderful opportunity to laugh and grow? Then the world laughs with, not at you. 

What if the most difficult person in life is actually you? In order to learn to live with people who push your buttons, it is first necessary to gain insight into and grow more accepting of your true essence.  Then you realize how people relate to you does not always reflect how they truly feel.  Notice what happens as you show compassion, appreciate everyone as they are.  How you see shifts with your patience and kindness. 

Remember how to stop being your own enemy. Relax. Accept who you are. Knowing the causes of being difficult enables you to recognize how to shrink the monster within. You come to reailze difficult people are projections of your own rejection. Suddenly, difficulty is a figment of your imagination. As you come to understand true self, then nothing and nobody are difficult.  Be still and the source of irritation disappears.