Eckhart Tolle's Guide to Navigating Relationships with Unconscious People

It is probably not possible to eliminate difficult humans completely from your life. Challenging humans, unconscious humans, whether there are degrees. Of course there are degrees of unconsciousness. There are some very extreme forms of unconsciousness, such as humans who are so unconscious that they, they, they perpetuate violence and so on. So the extreme forms of unconsciousness and then less extreme forms of unconsciousness, but it's still unconsciousness. So as far as extreme forms of unconsciousness concerned, yes, it would be probably advisable not to associate with humans who manifest extreme forms of unconsciousness. So not to live with a violent partner. It could also be just emotional violence or somebody who's the grip of deep negative emotions that, or pain bodies that almost never leaves. So but then there are other more regular forms of unconsciousness that you, the. That most humans that you meet will manifest. First of all, they are family members. Everybody has family members. And that in itself is challenging. Family is, can be a very loving and wonderful thing in some cases. And in other cases, family can be extraordinarily challenging and sometimes even both. You can have a, you can have a parent and you can love them, but they can also be very challenging. That reminds me, it's a very funny. Well, it's funny or maybe not. When I was a child, I had a dream once one night. And that was such a remarkable dream that I remembered it all my life. I must have been about 11 or 12. Now, before I tell you the dream, I have to add my dad was very much in the grip of his ego and prone to outbursts of extreme anger. Not directed, fortunately, not directed towards me, but usually directed towards my mother and sometimes other people too. So living with him was like living with an unexploded bomb that could go off at any moment. So I had this dream. I had just killed my dad and I had cut him into little pieces and put him into a sack. And I hid the sack under the bed. And after I had done that, the door opened and my dad came home from work and I ran towards him and I gave him a hug. Interested, amazing dream. So it means I both hated him and I loved him. Both emotionally existed because there was, there was a real being there behind the, the anger and his ego. There was a being. And I loved the being of my dad, but then there was the ego, which I hated. And so these ambivalent, both these emotions were there at the same time. And often it is the case that humans, especially some family members, you may have a very conflicting relationship, you feel drawn to them, and yet they're so difficult now, unless these are extreme forms of unconsciousness, their family members. You just have to accept that these are family members. You might maybe. Maybe you don't live with them anymore, but you see them occasionally or whatever. You have interactions. And that is a good way of practice. Unless they are, as I said, unless they display extreme forms of consciousness, it is better to contain you with and use them as challenging humans that help you become more conscious. Because you become more conscious of your reactions towards that their challenging behavior. So that your reactivity is for you to. You awaken by becoming conscious of your reactivity, whatever, so that you're able to accept them as they are without resistance. And that is a great shift that happened to me after I went through the awakening when I was 29. After that, the relationship with my father, of course, I was no longer living with him. I left at 18. One of the happiest moments of my life when I left home. Not just my dad, it's also his second marriage. And so I left. Wonderful. But I was still at these ambivalent emotions towards him. At 29, after the awakening, I was able to accept him totally. It was easier because I was known a child would not be able to do that. A child living, but was able to accept him totally. Allow him his ego. When he. Whenever we met, come together, it was fine and he even changed a little. His ego was not less and less extreme. It was still there. But Trunks broke off his ego. So in some areas of his life, he was actually quite conscious suddenly. And then in other areas of his life, the ego was still there very strongly. But that was. And then I. That was a wonderful liberation when I was able to accept him. Instead of demanding that he should be more conscious. That is a demand that nobody could meet. If you demand of another human, they should be more conscious. They can't. Because nobody can display behavior that is beyond their level of consciousness. So whatever behavior they display is a reflection of their level of consciousness. And many humans still have very little choice because they are totally in the grip of their conditioning, the mental emotional conditioning. And so that applies. Not, of course, not just your family members. They're also then other humans that you interact with in daily life in your work. Usually most people go. Many people go to work and there you interact with other humans and there you don't have much of a choice. You have to interact or you. You leave. You have to leave your job, but then you go into another job and you can drive other unconscious humans. So you might as well do it. There. Unless again, there's extreme forms. Some companies are totally toxic, then it might be better and more wise to leave. But unless they're extremely unconscious and toxic, then you might as well practice there. So you practice with difficult humans and you practice by first of all dropping the demand that they should be different. It doesn't mean that you put up with everything that they do. Sometimes you may have to state clearly, your behavior is not acceptable. And I don't want, I'm not, not having it. If you're able to do that, you can't, probably can't do it. If you do it to the director of your company, then it has to be associated with giving in your notice that you want to leave. Then you can tell him that your behavior is unacceptable. But if you're not ready to leave yet, then maybe better not to tell him that unless you want to be sacked. That's your motherhood possibility. But seeking out other humans who are more conscious, that kind of happens more naturally as you, as you grow in consciousness, you more naturally will come into contact and attract other humans who are also more conscious, who are also awakening. It could even happen that some people who are in your immediate environment become. Begin to awaken because of you. It's. There's no guarantee. It's not, certainly not everybody, but it could be that some, because they may notice, maybe not even consciously notice, but something in them registers. The you are not quite the same person that you were before. And so. And you do not reinforce or feed their unconsciousness because you, you bring in more presence. And then you may be able to, but not, not by thinking that I need to make this person more conscious. Because that's not how it works. It works in a more organic way. If you do not contribute to unconscious interactions, then perhaps, let's say a friend of yours is very much almost addicted to gossiping about others. And the main thing when you get together is that he or she starts gossiping about others. And in the past, you, perhaps you participated, and now as you are awakening, you no longer participate. Then it's possible that some of that presence, that the stream of gossiping, which is a mind stream of a particular type, may not, because you're not feeling it anymore. It may begin to dissipate because it needs. It's easier with two. With two people gossiping, one feeds the other. They feed themselves, mutually feed each other. But it could also happen that this person begins to lose interest in you and will then interact less and less and you don't meet them very much. Anymore. And finally you don't hear of them anymore. Or they say you're no fun anymore, so that could happen. But also, as I said, more conscious humans will most likely also come into your life. So you have both sa.