How Am I That?

Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. This one's called How Am I that? So, speaking of shadows, as we just talked about in the last mini chapter, another really powerful way to deal with that disintegrated, murky stuff we project onto others is this little game I often play. Think of someone who recently annoyed you. Identify what it is about them that really bugs you. Are they greedy? Hyper ambitious? Impatient? Do they cut people off in mid sentence and never really listen? Do they act like they know it all? What is it about them that gets you all wound up? Got it? Sweet. Now ask yourself, how am I that? And make that a practice. What you'll notice if you're like me is that we tend to be most annoyed by people who are demonstrating qualities that we are still working on. Debbie Ford says it's kind of like having electrical sockets on our chest. If we've recognized and accepted our own greed and selfishness and impatience or whatever, and it's as if we've put one of those childproof covers over the socket and no one can plug into that energy, we may notice a certain quality in people, but we're no longer triggered by them. But run into someone who demonstrates qualities we haven't integrated in our lives and yikes, they plug into that open socket and we get all pissy again. The solution is relatively simple. Notice when you're being super critical of other people and know that you're just observing something within you that you need to address. Then celebrate the opportunity to grow as you count how many fingers are pointing back at you as you point at them and attend your own lectures and ask, how am I that big idea? Pick this one up from the great book the Power of Full Engagement. You can check out the philosopher's note on that and the book is fantastic. How am I that really cool game to integrate some of the stuff that we might not be very conscious of into in our lives. How am I that? Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another awesome day.