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How to Stop Other's Irritating Habits From Driving You Nuts
"Will You Cut That Out?" Ever feel like yelling that at someone you spend lot of time with? Do some people's habits drive you nuts? Do your reactions to others get you in hot water? Or make you feel guilty? Well, here's the skinny: We can't really love and accept others and their habits until we forgive and deeply and completely accept ourselves first—past lives, warts and all. The more we feel shame, guilt, longing, emptiness, anger or anything negative, the more we project our negativity onto others. It usually comes out in criticism of others. We cannot change anyone else. We can change what we think of ourselves, consciously and subconsciously. For me, it took forgiving my mother at both levels before I could forgive myself. I wish it hadn't taken me so long to love and accept myself so I could truly love others. But better late than half-asleep. It takes a bit more than conscious thought to change ourselves. I used hypnosis discs and lots of writing with both hands before I discovered the Emotional Freedom Technique. My hand writing lead me to develop BRAINSWEEP, a six lesson course in hand writing to reveal your subconscious mind and sweep out the negative self-definitions that sabotage you behind your eyes. EFT, (Emotional Freedom Technique) is based on the concept that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body's energy system, that tapping on the meridians of that energy system in conjunction with conscious and specific expression of self acceptance frees the flow of energy and releases the negativity. Now, I know that's a mouthful. To learn more, click on the video icon at the bottom of this page for a short, fascinating show. To deeply and completely accept oneself is the only way one can love, tolerate, enjoy and work with another person year after year. To love oneself is the only way one can love, tolerate and enjoy anyone. If being irritated with your spouse is a habit, one you are used to because you grew up with parents who griped a lot, you may want to keep that habit no matter how much your spouse hates it and no matter how guilty you feel. Habits are familiar. EFT can easily make old habits unfamiliar and new ones of your choice, familiar. When I slip up and have a small, mean and petty thought about somebody, I know that I have to tap the pressure points on my meridian in conjunction with self-acceptance, despite whatever it is I feel at the moment is wrong with me. I can make insulting comments about politicians and other people in the news and would, probably, if I watched news, but that would not be projecting my negativity unless I did it excessively. But any negative comment or thought about someone I know personally is a dead give-away. How well I remember how I used to choose husbands and lovers . . . . and what I thought about them. Sun Magazine runs quotations every month on a theme. The April, 2007 theme is Prayer. Here are three of them: "Don't be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upward." Vladimir Nabokov "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn’t' work that way, so I stole one and asked for forgiveness." Emo Philips "If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day." Leonard Cohen "Sometimes I think that just not thinking of oneself is a form of prayer." Barbara Grizzuti Harrison I add this: When you give yourself the unconditional love that you give your newborn baby, you become the ocean, you become I AM, and you laugh when you say, "Will you cut that out?" Evy  
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