Teachers

WHO’S ON YOUR LIST?

"Boss, coworker, spouse, roommate, mother, father, child—who are the people you really dislike and wish would simply go away? Be grateful to them: they’re your own special gurus, showing up right on time to keep you honest. It’s the troublemakers in your life who cause you to see that you’ve shut down, that you’ve armored yourself, that you’ve hidden your head in the sand. If you didn’t get angry at them, if you didn’t get fed up with them, you would never be able to cultivate patience. If you didn’t envy them, if you weren’t jealous of them, you would never think to stretch beyond your mean-spiritedness and try to rejoice in their good fortune. If you never met your match, you might think you were better than everybody else and arrogantly criticize their neurotic behavior rather than do something about your own."

(Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change)   Pema Chodron 

Suffering

"Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering."
~Don Miguel Ruiz

Shadow

"We see the shadow most indirectly in distasteful traits and actions of other people, OUT THERE, where it is safe to observe it.   When we react intensely to a quality in another individual or group - such as laziness or stupidity, sensuality or spirituality - and our reaction overtakes us with great loathing or admiration, this may be our shadow showing.  We project by attributing this quality to the other person in an unconscious effort to banish it from ourselves, to keep ourselves from seeing it within."  Zweig and Abrams

Projection

"Taking back projections is the act of seeing yourself truthfully in relationship to others.  It involves taking responsibility for your difficulties instead of blaming others.  You no long3er rush to condemn another, nor do you put people on pedestals.  You see yourself and others clearly.  You are more willing to admit your own faults.  You are also better able to take credit for your talents and achievements.  Therefore, you develop an instinct  of when to give ground and when to stand firm."  Elizabeth Lesser

Projection

"The impurity of my associates is but the manifestation of the hidden wrong within me."  Gandhi

Projection

"If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you." ~ David Brandon

Shadow Work

"Until we recognize the shadow, we project the problem out.   They manifest too in the heartbreak of recognizing that if we accept the old-fashioned projection, our relationship can continue.   If we reject it and bring shadow to consciousness, the relationship may break.   Most painful of all perhaps is facing our shadow in the person of our husband's mistress."   Marion Woodman