The discomforts of others

     It occurred to me more clearly and in a new way earlier today why people are uncomfortable around me, with my prolonged presence in their daily live at times. It's for the same reason they go out of their minds being alone. In some aspects they are alone with me; they are alone in and with their own discomforts with themselves. They like to say disease = dis-ease; not being at ease in the body we are given to occupy. Someone like me who is comfortable within themselves, has worked out all their inner relationships and is at peace within them all, has no resonance with the abundance of discomforts within the average human being. Around others, there is a resonance, a matching or opposing aspect that gets them feeling excited. There is bonding and connection formed by mutual discomforts. It's almost a social requirement to be able to share sad stories and one-up one another with the amount of suffering within themselves. Their 'sad country songs' don't find resonance being experienced by me and so their normal means of connection and bonding is gone. They get frustrated. They are conditioned out of any other way to connect, to bond. We know it's a conditioning to forgetfulness because very young children bond and connect over what excites them. So it is with me again.
   I was just like everyone else. I became less authentic because my authenticity triggered people. I got ornery, but my ornery had rings of truth to it that triggered them. So then I softened my expression which exuded love on levels they couldn't allow in, so again, triggered. I tried every which way about it without success until I finally accepted the old phrase; "you please some of the people some of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time". May as well just be yourself. In accepting that, I gave up any resistance to being a catalyst and a trigger to people. Then I began to experience validation of my inner peace with people saying things like; "You're the only person I do not feel judged by", "Thank you for allowing me to sit next to you during this circle; your presence is comfortable", "I've never slept so well as when I slept near you", "the hauntings went away when you came to stay", etc. "Will you bless my flocks?" *laughing*
   Yet, even with those validations and an intellectual knowing pretty much all of the above, I still hurt when people were uncomfortable with me around. Over the past few days, with the dropping of baggage and "ain't got time for that", that, too is now gone completely. I know on a deeper level that it IS really them. That is a tough pill to swallow when we've spent so many years using the world around us as a mirror to pinpoint what they were manifesting that I was not liking yet being a hypocrite unawares about. The constant question to one's self is "How am I like that? What aspect of me is doing exactly what they're doing but in maybe a different way?". Then those questions became "What are they showing me that I need to be more like?" as we learn the mirror is also there to draw out inner qualities we refuse to express. A more forceful tone of voice gets thrown at us and instead of feeling attacked, we ask where we maybe need to raise our voice, be more forceful. That not feeling attacked dispels resistance and therefore stops drawing it into our experience. When we've gone and done a good deal of that, it begins to seep in; it really is them responding from their only 'highest' place of consciousness. They have lost the ability to conceptualize the levels of happiness and well being and comfort within self that have become our baseline experience. They become like the Native Americans who saw the waves but not the boat until their shaman drew the boat for them. They know something is different about me. They notice things happen differently for me. They just can't see or feel or sense the why it is so.
   "There is no try". There is seeing or not seeing and my trying to 'make' them see because I'm uncomfortable with their discomforts is violating their right to self determination and produces resistance to them not seeing or believing which only draws more resistance from them TO not see or believe. Kicking a dead horse, that. Or more like a dying dog who is prone to snap. Comforting the uncomfortable can be hazardous to our health. respect the discomfort, man. When we become more comfortable within ourselves, accepting our own discomforts, showing gratitude for what they are telling us; loving what arises (Matt Kahn's book), we love and respect the discomforts of others easily. Dropping the baggage and 'ain't got time for that' helps us reach "not my monkey, not my circus" point where we do not help others with their discomforts unless they ask with a depth of sincerity we recognize to be that of one who is not going to become a dependent and succubus. Only then will we honor a request for an explanation. Those are the only discomforts we want to address.