One thing that almost always influences me to feel angry is when other "professional" people tell clients that things that other people did to them were not right; that those people were wrong. And also when these professionals tell the client that the client needs to forgive themselves for certain behaviors they have acted out. I am not saying that forgiving yourself is not helpful. What ruffles my feathers is when other people; professionals in particular, believe they know what is best for their clients and tell them what they need to do. I find it condescending and disempowering. Telling someone what you believe they need to do is not helpful. I learned that lesson very, very early on when I worked with people with addictions. The old adage, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," is not only true, but it is as it should be. We must understand our abilities, capabilities, options, and consequences not only from an intellectual level, but from the gut level as well. The deep, inner knowing. If not, we can expect to continue to find ourselves doing the same things over and over again.
There are a lot of people who believe in the black and white concepts of right and wrong. Who believe in punishment as a helpful and constructive tool. Who believe in justice masked as revenge.
However, for those of us who believe that we create our own lives; for those of us who believe that we are in charge of our lives and that we attract everything we experience in our lives; for those of us who believe that there is entirely too much punishment mentality in this world and nowhere near enough love and empowerment, punishment, and justice masked as revenge, do not work.
When working on personal development issues, there is no good, healthy, or constructive reason to find someone else's actions "bad." Making someone else "less than" provides a false sense of security and superiority that is not based in fact. And, as a matter of fact, I am not personally aware of any human being who is so "faultless" that they could say, "Well, I have never done or said anything bad or wrong, so I am the best person to find fault with others." Finding fault with others feeds an unhealthy ego and when our egos are out of balance, we are dis-eased.
The other more important point is that when we are working on our own personal development issues, we need to look at what WE truly have power over and that would be our own thoughts, our own words, our own actions, and our own feelings. That being said, what other people have said or done is none of our business. Putting any focus on them puts us in a place of disempowerment. Why? Because now we are focused on an area where we have no power at all: other people's thoughts, words, actions, and feelings.
So, if someone else is telling you what they believe you need to do, I encourage you to think for yourself. Weigh out all of your options, even the ones you believe are ridculous. Measure them against how they make you feel. If they make you feel anything less than wonderful about yourself, consider discarding them. If they make you feel wonderful about yourself, try to find the one that makes you feel the very best. That will be a clue as to which action to take.
It's your life and you know yourself better than anyone. What do you want? Does your environment, choice of friends/family, words that you speak and actions that you take, support the things you want in life? You have the answers and they are right for you.
