Self-mastery involves mastery of our speech.
I think we all have made the experience that other people’s words have hurt us and we ourselves have hurt others with our own. So let’s have a look at this for a moment because communication is such an essential part of our everyday life.
Is there a way to say what needs to be said without hurting one another?
Yes, there is! And the only way to do that is to identify with the other person, to tune into the inner life of the other person, to feel as the other person feels, and then communicate from that point of identification.
When we forget to identify with the other person, we end up giving advice only from the outside – „I am here, you are there, I am so perfect, you are not“ – and that’s the kind of advice that hurts.
However, when we remember to identify with the other person, to tune into the feelings of the other person, we can give advice from the inside – and that’s the kind of advice that does not hurt.
And why does it not hurt?
Well, when we identify with the person and feel as he or she feels, we touch their emotions in a sympathetic way that awakens a higher aspect in them that inspires them to correct the deficiency. We help them get in touch with their own divinity. Whereas, when we don’t do that, when we go about pointing out people’s deficiencies from a separative point of view – „I am here, you are there“ – we don’t help them, we just hurt them.
This being said, unless it is our duty (for example as parents towards our children) unless it is our job to point out the shortcomings of another person, let’s not draw attention to people’s shortcomings at all. If anything, whenever we see something in another person that we don’t like, rather than pointing it out, let’s look within, and let’s see whether it exists in us and if it does, let’s correct it in ourselves.
As a matter of fact, it is a law in nature that whatever upsets us emotionally about another person exists within ourselves or we could not get upset about it in the first place. The only reason why we get upset about something is because there is something within us vibrating in resonance with it. If we could not get into resonance with it, we would not take notice of it. For example, when we feel that someone treats us in a disrespectful way (and we then feel hurt as a consequence), we can be sure that we ourselves were disrespectful in the first place, that we have a self-worth issue whether we realize it or not. The outer world is a perfect mirror of our inner world. Nothing can come to us from the outer world that is not first a part of our inner consciousness.
So in conclusion, let’s not be so busy judging others, let’s get busy fixing ourselves. And let’s start paying close attention to the way we communicate. Let’s focus on people’s strengths and let’s just disregard other people’s deficiencies. We all have plenty of deficiencies ourselves that will keep us busy working on ourselves for the rest of our lives. And when indeed we need to communicate an issue, let’s be sure to do so from the point of first identifying with the other person so we can give advice from the inside … the sort of advice that never hurts and always uplifts …
