Don't Clean Other People's Pants — Mirroring, Boundaries & Authenticity

Today I was planning to continue the thread of the last episode, which is about healing and I would have elaborated on the key elements of healing and their effects on ourselves and others. However, I decided to postpone writing about this topic because of new and important insights, that I believe might be valuable to others as well. The reason for that, is that this week I experienced multiple communication events that taught me about mirroring in our interactions, exposing flaws in my character that I have always been aware of half-consciously, and apparently, they fully emerged into my conscious awareness as it was time for them to be addressed.

The most visceral lesson I experienced was that I used to become too much involved in other people’s issues trying to correct them, when I shouldn’t. The effort that it takes to correct those issues is overwhelming, because I am not in charge of the affairs of these people, and what would work for me, might clash with their interests. Also, the value system that I subscribe to may not be the same that others subscribe to. It doesn’t matter in the least that I have their best interest at Heart. It’s like jumping the gun, trying to pre-empt assisting others before these people actually requested such assistance. I have been under the impression, that people need their mirror reflection from me when they interact with me. Wrong. They don’t. Mirroring within any kind of relationship or even interaction, is something that is guided by our true Self and the mirror itself (the other party of the relationship) is required to be just that and not to enhance or intensify or reinforce the mirror image, based on the value-system or standard they subscribe to. Observing boundaries is proportional to the degree we respect each other. I concluded that I should not enhance the mirror-image I project to other beings that interact with me without being asked to do that, by that being. Mirrors show the limited self how it comes across in a relationship or interaction, whatever that relationship may be. This is one way we can passively serve others and that’s by being fully ourselves. Beings may or may not become aware of the mirror image they observe in the mirror of another being and they may or may not ask the mirror-being for clarification regarding an aspect of the mirrored image. The mirror-being should then respond with compassion and kindness as well as the utmost honesty, restricting themselves to the scope of the request, guided by their own true Self. It takes two to mirror. One is the mirror-being and the other one is the being who looks into the mirror-being. Often mirror-beings exceed their mandate and offer a stronger mirror-image than it actually is. The result is miscommunication, that is compounded by the conditioned mind. Instead of leaving a being to observe and reflect on the mirror-image from the mirror-being on itself, many times we take it upon ourselves to enhance the mirror image. We don’t know how the other being might react or respond to this, based on their own perspectives, which we don’t fully know and even so, they are constantly being amended by their own ego. Life is being needlessly complicated this way, and nobody needs more aggravation in their lives.

After some deliberation with myself, I vowed to focus on my own business from now on and avoid meddling in affairs that aren’t conducive to my own efforts to advance myself on any level that I need to – no matter how selfless my offer of assistance is. If I’m asked for my opinion then I will offer it without bias, carefully and with compassion and kindness. The world doesn’t need saviours who sacrifice themselves for others. The world needs people who can look objectively into a mirror and change aspects of themselves that they don’t like, for themselves. If we try to change others by enhancing the mirror-image we project to them, the result would be dubious and ineffective at best and might illicit a negative reaction at worst. A change that is enforced externally is not a change. It is interference. Real change comes from within and is the result of our own deliberations and experiences from the mirror-images we observe without external magnification. For the mirror-being, seeing something it doesn’t like, or something that doesn’t fit within its worldview it is easier to spot than to become aware of a flaw within itself. Furthermore, this observation can be viewed through the eyes of the ego either as a nuisance or through the eye of the true Self as an enlightening experience and insight. The first is limited to the ego and the second is teaching the ego. How we look at communication events ultimately defines how we handle and relate to them. A stain on our pants requires cleaning. A stain on somebody else’s pants also requires cleaning but is not something that falls on us to do that cleaning. It’s not our job to clean other people’s pants. Our concern should be our own pants.

If we try to meddle in other people’s affairs, they might react to it negatively in ways we don’t always understand due to the different perspectives we might not share. Sometimes there is deception involved, because the element of trust is often not present. Our values are different. We are still separated from each other, and this will continue until all of us choose to be open and vulnerable with nothing to hide. There is a saying from where I come from, and it goes “one swallow doesn’t invite springtime when it appears”. In this context, it means that if one person is acting honourably or ethically or whatever positive meaning you want to substitute here, it doesn’t mean that others will necessarily do the same, for a multitude of reasons. They might be compelled to do so, because our behaviour is not conditioned in this sense and acts like a beacon, but it’s up to them and their own level of conditioning to either react negatively or respond positively to it. Again, this is the result of change and transformation coming from within, which cannot be enforced externally.

For people to appreciate each other and outgrow separation, they must first appreciate themselves. They must think and act based on compassion and kindness, for it is the only way in the universe which will reset synchronicity based on universal law and bring about people and events that are inclined to have open and vulnerable communication with each other. Without true compassion and kindness, we are doomed to continue being separate to each other, to deceive or gaslight each other, to misunderstand each other or outright disrespect each other. People don’t usually function with their emotional intelligence, because they are preoccupied with their own mind and their own perspectives.

Another person sent me an email that was obviously drafted with the help of AI. It made me uneasy. If this person reached out to me respectfully with an email drafted using their own mind, containing their own thoughts, expressing their own wants and needs, I would have felt much better. Initially, I thought that it would be best to add the sender’s email address to the spam list and to move the email to the spam folder. However, I decided to give this person the benefit of the doubt and see what they wanted. I cannot tell others how to conduct their business, but I feel that connecting with others has a human aspect that AI cannot replicate. People who abandon the old-fashioned way of crafting an email, thinking that AI is the future of email communication, will eventually realize, that the recipients of these emails might be able to notice a perfection and symmetry of words that only AI is capable of and invite a natural mistrust as this could be construed as deception. Human beings are naturally imperfect. If an email reads too good to be true, then the sender appears to be obscuring their nature by presenting themselves in a different light, which is not conducive to open and Heart-based communication. Well, I think of myself as a writer or at least try to be one. Not everybody places the same value in authentic communication as I do and frankly, they don’t need to if they don’t want to. However, those who don’t attempt to reach me halfway by using AI to draft an email risk not reaching me. The human element that’s present in authentic communication is missing, and it severely restricts the possibility of connecting with me. Also, it’s none of my business to respond to connection requests addressed to me in this way. I have better, more creative things to do with my time.

So, what can we take away from these experiences? I found out that the experience of communicating with others can be either an emotional ordeal or an enlightening experience. Forming an attachment to the outcome of an interaction is not only detrimental to our evolution, but it also creates friction within ourselves. Trying to change others will always result in pain and suffering to various degrees. Trying to help others without being asked to help will have the same effect. Trying to help others by exceeding the level of help that they asked for is even more painful, because it may harm the ego of the helper. We need to evaluate if we can provide exactly what is being asked of us – no more no less. If for some reason, we cannot provide it we should respectfully decline the request or offer what we have in mind. There is no middle ground here, no ifs, buts and whys. Period. Either we do it the way others expect us to do it, or we don’t and provide a valid reason as to why we won’t. They say that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. This is absolutely true. Once we realize that, we will throw over-board all our good intentions and deal only with facts and universal values – a blended mind-and-Heart approach.

Earlier we concluded that all events are neutral. We assign value to them. I don’t know how many times I realized that so far. I guess I’m a slow learner, but at least the essence of this insight is now becoming clear. Sometimes I catch myself wondering about something and asking myself, “what would Bashar do?” Inevitably, I would answer something along the lines of “Follow your highest excitement”. Although this might be a joke in spiritual circles, that are aware of Bashar’s teachings, I realized the profound meaning just recently. If we follow our highest excitement, then miscommunications like the ones I experienced this week would not occur in my life. Why…? Because what I attempted to do had nothing to do with my own excitement. Falling into the trap of offering unwarranted help sets us up for disaster. I think I will file the insights that I discovered this week under “Don’t clean other people’s pants”, “Don’t craft emails with the help of AI” and potentially under “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”. No, I’m not Jesus, but it’s good advice anyway. Sometimes, people don’t know what they’re missing, by rejecting one’s help by placing more importance on the way it is offered. It is a double-edged sword.

But I digress. At times like these, I notice yet again, that best thing we can do is follow our highest excitement as much as we can, without expectations whatsoever. These miscommunications I mentioned are just hindrances, annoyances and most importantly distractions from our purpose in life. They don’t allow us to stay firmly anchored in our passions in life. We deal with these distractions in life and before we know it, we’re done and leave Earth. That’s how fast life is over. Five years ago, the COVID pandemic began. It has been already half a decade where we made all the wrong decisions as humanity and chose to stay separate and not unite in the face of grave danger. One might say “humanity did not die off. The virus is under control now, because we invested in vaccine research.” Yes, we did, but in the process, we wasted a great opportunity to end separation and to come closer together as human beings, countries and social systems. We haven’t done that and in the meantime two protracted wars exist now on our planet. It is sad that we cannot even decide that wars should be a thing of the past and act on that decision, as people still polarize with war, like it is a baseball game on TV. No offense baseball fans, it could just as well be a basketball or an ice-hockey game. There is a name for what it’s causing us to continue behaving like this. It’s called “business as usual”. Well, it’s increasingly becoming an expensive business for us all, as we’re asked to pay the price of aggravation, conditioning and separation, by focusing on distractions. We are too afraid of stepping out of our comfort zone and trying new things in the ways of advancing what is important to us collectively and should be higher on our priorities.

This is why we need to continue following our highest excitement and not allow these distractions from our purpose in life to add more conditioning or sustain it further. It’s just not worth it. Here I am, remembering what occurred earlier this week and instead of filing these events under enlightening experiences, I had to file them as lessons. Life can be so much more meaningful than learning from our mistakes. It’s time we outgrew our impulsive adolescence as an intelligent species and reached species adulthood; by relying on the wisdom we gain from the lessons of life on Earth.