Guest: What do I do when I have to be diplomatic and allow people who make comments that make me feel criticized? They say I’ve done something wrong, or I’m not being responsible enough, and I didn’t do this or that by a certain time…
Abraham: Ok, so someone criticizes you for a certain behavior, and as you are criticized, you feel bad.. Now, why do you think you feel bad?
Guest: Because it is not the truth?
Abraham: You see, this is the thing.. You think you feel bad because they’re misunderstanding you, and judging you, incorrectly. But the reason you feel bad is because you are judging them about their judging.
Lets go after that again.. Lets say someone is having a bad day, you don’t know why but they are, they usually do.. And you are interacting with them in some way - and now their bad day is spilling over into your experience. And you were feeling good till their bad day spilled over into your experience, and now you aren’t having as good of a day as you were before - well the reason you feel bad, is because you gave them your power. You’ve said, I can’t feel good as long as your feeling like that, and I can’t control the way your wife treats you, or that you’re deep in debt, and your children don’t like you. I can’t control all those things in your life that are spilling over into my experience, and so, I feel bad cause you feel bad.. And we are saying to you, the reason you feel bad is because you’re letting that condition run your life. A condition of which you have no control..
Step back and say, WAIT a minute! I’m not feeling bad because you don’t like me. I’m feeling bad because I don’t like you not liking me! I’m feeling bad because I care more about you than closing my gap! I’ve trained myself to care more about YOUR response to me, then MY response to ME.
What does my inner being think about YOU? My inner being wants your life to get better, and my inner being understands that your having a bad day, and my inner being knows that in the bad day your living, you’ve put a bunch of stuff in your escrow, and our inner beings are both over there.
You are a lover. YOU MUST LOVE! So say, inner being - I must know what you think about this.. SOURCE will say: I see not that. We do not give our attention to their negative aspects. We always give our attention to the progressive being that everyone IS BECOMING! YOU my dear, are stuck in the contrast. You see, you wanted the contrast to help you expand but you never intended to beat the drum of what is not wanted in order to defend or justify the having of what is wanted. You’ve got no choice if you are to feel good, other than to go to where the good is.
Workshop: Fort Lauderdale, FL 02-04-2008