Love Them Anyway, Even If You Don’t Get On With Them

It was only when I was in my late forties that I had a chance to really to talk to my Dad about how I grew up. Living in a different country meant our time together was limited to short holidays and flying visits when I was in England on business. This and the fact that until I was well and truly on my journey of understanding, I didn’t want to go back to that time anyway.

I still haven’t gone into as much detail with him as I do with you on this platform, if he reads it here its OK and if he doesn’t that’s OK too. There were times in my life when I knew I hadn’t seen him for some time and when I asked him about this it was because he was stationed out of the country with the Royal Air Force. When I provided snippets of what I had endured he was desperately shocked and devastated, he had, had no idea. I have a wonderful loving relationship with my Dad, and in turn with my Step Mother, she and my Dad met and married after I moved to South Africa. She had been nothing but supportive and loving towards me over the years and I am truly grateful for that.

I have my two wonderful aunts and God Mothers, my mother’s sister to whom I was very close as a child, and my Dad’s sister too. My mother’s sister probably knew more than anyone else as we saw her the most when we were in England. So much was always hidden though. We talked a lot over the years and she always answered my questions. I could never tell her, even later in life what it was really like though. Whenever my Dad and I visited with my Grandparents my aunt would come and see me there, I have the best memories of doing her hair. These are the familial relationships that I hold very dear, and in whatever way they could they have been my constant all these years.

My daughter and I were estranged for a little over a year, for reasons that neither of us really know. I haven’t mentioned too much about our journey together and it features very prominently in my upcoming book. She taught me my hardest lesson, which was, that I count. We have recently reconciled and although it isn’t the same as it was before, it is new and we are both finding our feet together.

Although my relationship with my mother and half-brother was fraught, painful and dramatic there was never a time when I didn’t love their position in my life, and over a very long period of time I learnt that it was ok not to like them. I always did the very best I could for them both with the resources I had available to me at the time.

I shouldered lots of guilt around my sons, about asking my ex-husband to let them live with him and the many years of acrimony that followed as a result. I have only recently found solace with my relationship with them both in that I now understand this; my relationship with them, is none of their business, it’s mine, and their relationship with me, is none of my business, it’s theirs.

You see, if I want to great relationship with them I have to act like it. I have to behave towards them the way in which I want the relationship to be. As such I want everything that is good for them, and everything I want for myself too. I want success, health, wealth, happiness, peace and love for them, and in that way I know that I have the best relationship with them. I have no idea what they want for me and that is OK, because that is none of my business!

Having read the article Love Them Anyway you may still find yourself a bit out to sea with this concept. If that’s true for you right now then know it’s perfectly fine as that’s how I felt when I first encountered this approach to life. If I looked around me I certainly didn’t see people, who didn’t like other people, sending them love and good tidings. Quite the contrary. Deep down they wanted exactly the opposite for them, they wanted to see them crash and burn, and, if they happened to be around to see this go down, that really would be the cherry on the cake.

Question:

Do you live The Golden Rule, which teaches “Think and do unto others as you would have them think and do unto you?”

Exercise:

1. On the screen of your mind, call up a picture of someone who who has done something awful to you which still has lots of “unresolved business” attached to the event.
2. How does thinking about them make you feel?
3. What are the most significant emotions you’re feeling right now? Name them please.
4. When you allowed yourself to really connect with these powerful feelings, could you feel the associated physical change or shift which your body underwent, in a negative, unpleasant kind of way?
5. Are you aware of the Law of Vibration and do you know how this law works and relates to what you’ve just experienced in terms of a physical state shift?
6. Are you aware that The Law of Attraction, which is a sub-law of the Law of Vibration, is also linked to this and that you attract what you are, not what you want?
7. Are you aware of the Law of Connectedness and that your thoughts, feelings and actions toward others are mirrored back to you, hence the teaching that “Hating someone is like drinking from a cup of poison and hoping the other person will die”?
8. Are you aware of the Law of Cause and Effect and that if you want to enjoy a spectacularly prosperous life, you have to live at cause and not effect?
9. What if you were to decide to release all this in a loving way, knowing that loving someone doesn’t mean you have to like them?

My profound lesson:

I am the only thinker in my universe therefore I am responsible for the way I think and feel about others. Now, because my thoughts carry with them creative energy, my thoughts are reproduced, which means, my become things. My subconscious mind is the equivalent of a recording machine the reproduced habitual thinking. Given this, what I think and feel about others I am bringing to pass in my own life too. Therefore, choosing to think good of someone else means I am actually thinking good about myself. So, I can love someone and show them respect, but this doesn’t mean I have to like them! People universally demand respect, love, and appreciation, whether they deserve it or not. Jesus, who taught us The Golden Rule in his Sermon on the Mount, understood this desire and used it to promote what we today would refer to as “godly behaviour.” What this means in a nutshell, is that if I want to be shown respect, then it is up to me to respect others. And, if I craved a kind word as I so often did when I was growing up because they were so few and far between, then it was duty to first speak words of kindness to others. This led me in to the profound understanding that, contrary to how the world works most days, I am more blessed to give than to receive and therefore I should constantly be seeking out ways through which I can be of tremendous service to humanity. Suzanne.