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Originally Posted by John Freestone  Angela, you talk about being loving and compassionate a fair old bit. If you want a tip on the practice, as opposed to the rhetoric, one thing you can do is refrain from taking people's words and abusing their meaning. Of course, you're free to interpret reality however you wish, and I know how important it is to expand your freedom, and I don't intend to limit it. But a big part of loving (if you are interested it that) is listening to and understanding what other people say, even if you disagree with it. |
First of all, I rarely talk about being loving and compassionate. You must be thinking of someone else.
But I don't see how my remark abused your meaning. You stated that your parents told you that you wasted your life and that in may ways they were right -- that's a belief. I didn't editorialize about the content of your belief. There is nothing personal about what I said about your belief -- it applies to everybody's beliefs. When you believe your thoughts, your experience of them is REAL. When you believe something about yourself, it creates your reality of who you are. I did NOT say what that reality is -- maybe that's what you are reading in to what I did say?
If you believe "I wasted my life," that belief will very powerfully the choices you make right now in this moment. Same would be true if you believed, "I have no regrets" or "Life is hard." Yours was just one example out of many; it doesn't mean anything about YOU.
But as I mentioned, if your buttons are pushed because of this, it is an opportunity for breakthrough! And if you feel neutral about it, then you'll allow it to pass into the past.