Whatever I Am Reacting to Has Nothing To Do With the Other

For some this will be no surprise. For others, this will be hard to accept. Here it is… whatever we are reacting to has nothing to do with the other. Let me explain with a personal story.

Last week I had to rush my partner to the hospital emergency. My partner was feeling very poorly, and had increasingly been feeling poorly for several days. My partner has been living with Parkinson’s disease for almost 20 years. During that time, we have paid many visits to the hospital emergency; too many to count. In each case the visits to the hospital results in a banter of tests being run that, with few exceptions, don’t reveal anything conclusive. Such was the case last week. That the doctors could not find anything wrong was, in one way, a blessing I suppose.

So as the events of that morning last week unfolded, a cornucopia of emotions ran over me like a mack truck! Everything from fear, worry, anger, frustration, anxiety, joy, love, compassion…you name it! Any and every possible emotion landed in my lap over the course of that morning and day. Perhaps you can appreciate that by the end of the day I was emotionally drained and physically exhausted.

It was only the next day that some clarity started to emerge over the events of the previous day. As the events unfolded, I perceived an ‘other’ in the unfolding events. In this case, the ‘other’ was my partner. I was seeing and feeling an ‘other’ person. As a result, I bought into the idea that the ‘other’ was causing me to feel whatever it was that I was feeling. If I was feeling fear, it was because the ‘other’ was causing this fear. If I was feeling worry or anxiety, it was because the ‘other’ was causing this worry or anxiety. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Every moment of that prolonged event—from the time we left our home to the time we returned—there never was an ‘other’ person making me feel anything. I was feeling something based on what I perceived was happening. My partner was not making me feel anything. I was ‘feeling’, full stop. I was feeling something. To suggest that something or someone was ‘making’ me feel something was abdicating myself of responsibility for what I was thinking, feeling, seeing, and doing.

In truth, whatever I am reacting to has nothing to do with the ‘other’. Anything I see or feel is my choice. No one or no thing can make me feel or think anything. I am 100% responsible for what I think, for what I feel, for what I see, for what I do.

Deeper than the preceding is the realization that whatever it is I am seeing, is only showing me myself. In the events of that morning last week, I was being shown some aspect of myself. It was being shown to me so I could learn about some aspect of myself. If I learn the lesson(s), the feelings associated with that event will not repeat themselves. If I don’t learn the lesson(s), then the event and associated feelings will most surely repeat themselves.

The implications for this teaching are far reaching. As I said at the beginning of the article, for some people this is old news. For others, this will be hard to accept. If you are in the former group, be glad. You have opened yourself to living in peace. If you are in the later group, and you find it hard to accept this truth, don’t worry. Life will end up teaching you, one way or another.

Robert Meagher has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and certified as a Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) Therapist. Robert is the Founder and Spiritual Director for Spiritual Guidance and Co-Founder of the Center for Human Awakening.