Your life and relationships are a perfectly polished mirror for what is in your consciousness. One of the unpopular concepts having to do with this is, "When you don’t like something in someone else, it’s reflecting something within yourself that you don’t like." You might have heard about this spiritual principle, and wondered about it, as I did. How could it be? I didn’t like people to be deceptive or cruel. Did that mean that somehow I was being that way? Try as I might, I couldn’t see that in myself. It took many years of observation and contemplation be-fore I finally made some sense out of it.

Some years ago, I was involved with a couple of men who were deceptive and manipulative. These are two characteristics that immediately offend me. However, while I was in the relationships, I wasn’t aware that they were expressing these traits, even when they lied to me. After the second relationship, I decided it couldn’t be a coincidence that I’d attract the same type of man one right after another. So I began to explore where I might be deceptive and manipulative. What I discovered was that I was deceiving the world about who I was. I was hiding great chunks of myself, afraid of being criticized or rejected. I wasn’t lying to others, the way these men had been. Instead, I was lying to myself.

That’s when I began to understand the principle. A person doesn’t have to be expressing the disliked attribute in the same way. For instance, two friends each have an issue with time. One of the friends is chronically late, and the other is obsessively early. The issue is the same, but they are presenting different facets of it. I know this to be true, as I’ve had friends who are always late, and I’m almost always early. Whenever you don’t like a trait in someone else, it’s usually reflecting something within you that you’ve concealed from yourself. It also may be that you recognize the potential for that trait within yourself, and don’t like it. I don’t like people to belittle others, or are cruel. When I hurt someone’s feelings, even unintentionally, it hurts me. In the past, I would even avoid confronting someone who’d been mean to me because I didn’t want to hurt them. What I finally realized is that the potential to be cruel is within me, as it is within us all, but it’s well hidden. Since I acknowledged that, I can now respond appropriately to someone who is nasty.

You don’t have to act on those attributes you don’t like. But when you find out how the qualities you dislike are expressing in you, and accept them, the energy around them melts away. You no longer have to attract people who reflect the parts of you that you’ve masked. The Universe simply sent them into your life to teach you to accept yourself. All of yourself. Once I began to be true to myself, and convey that to the world, I attracted friends and a partner who were more open with me. The Universe accepts you unconditionally as you are. Wouldn’t you want to accept yourself as much as the Universe does?

Linda-Ann Stewart is a nationally known hypnotherapist, writer, speaker and leads seminars on stress reduction. Her website is www.cedarfire.com. Email linda-ann@cedarfire.com  or call (928) 639-3335.