This week I was reacquainted with a book I read many years ago and I wanted to share with you a passage from it:
You can heal whatever comes your way.  Whatever appears in your life, no matter how it got there, is up for healing simply because it's now on your radar.  The assumption here is that if you can feel it, you can heal it.  If you can see it in someone else, and it bothers you, then it's up for healing.  Or as I'm told Oprah once said, "If you can spot it, you've got it."

Not only do I believe this is correct but I would take it a step further and say that not only CAN you heal it, I believe this is WHY you are here, TO heal it!  Most our time is spent focused on stories that we make up about everyone, everything, what's going to happen next, plotting and planning and acting as though we know what is about to take place.  We are so remarkably good at living in our stories because that is where we live most of the time.  

Part of the stories that we make up are reactions to people and circumstances that we don't like or aren't going how we would like, big and small things.  It is because of this that when I am working with people individually or in a group setting one of the things that I teach is what emotional reactions are.  Low-level emotional reactions (anything that doesn't feel good like: anxiety, depression, stress, overwhelm, etc.) are the signal that something inside of you has been agitated.  Wait, what!!??

Yep, that's right it's all you.  It flies in the face of what we are conditioned to believe, but it's true.  Most people say/think, "That person said/did something and it made me ___________ (angry, sad, confused...)." 
What is happening when you don't feel good emotionally, is that an unhealed part of you is re-experiencing a past hurt.  This is where the, "If you can spot it, you've got it" thing comes from.  So, when you are pointing out how your spouse, friend or co-worker behaved and you are irritated, guess what?  It is you recognizing things that you don't like about yourself in another.

This may be a lot to take in so I want to encourage you to step back from yourself for a moment and just test it out.  The next time you complain about or point out a flaw in another I want you to ask yourself if there is any truth about yourself in what you are thinking about the other person.  Now, don't discount it right away because this is such a tricky exercise.  It is so ingrained in us to point the finger at others for making us feel bad that we can disguise it easily.  We can say someone is being rude and justify our feeling upset because they are being disrespectful, but that is still our emotions and the path to true freedom is to own them.

Just food for thought.
Peace, 
Erin "spotting it and gotting it" Mac