Have you ever dealt with a seemingly impossible human being? Likely it was some coworker or a friend of a friend who always just immediately turned you off. Everything that comes out of their mouth hits you the wrong way and you seem to loath their very existence all they represent.

Soon you find yourself thinking negative thoughts about them or condemning what they do. Many ancient Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist traditions would say that with these thoughts you are only hurting yourself and I believe a kernel of truth to that. Christianity points to an eternal suffering in the likes of Dante’s Inferno.

Instead of looking at these thoughts as leading to some future suffering or requiring some repentance, I prefer to look at this as an opportunity for self-reflection.

Encountering a difficult person is simply an opportunity to find our authentic self. Let’s imagine you encounter this detestable person at a gathering and you are forced to interact with them. After the interaction you assume the usual thought patterns of insulting and ruminating over the negatives. At this point, you are not these thoughts. You, as a human, are not the negative thoughts being channeled through you. Sure, you are experiencing them and perhaps even encouraging them, although you, at your core, are not the thoughts. You are not the feelings, you are not the emotions or sensations or words or movements either.

You, you are much deeper than that. You, a beautiful seed of consciousness graciously observing the world turn, are in fact just interacting with a stimulus that is reflecting back to you information about you.

Really, interacting with this frustrating stimuli is a gift veiled in our own ignorance. So if you sit is this stew of anger and frustration realize that this stimulus is not the cause of the anger and frustration. They are simply a stimulus that elicits this response in you.

Own your response, don’t try and own the stimulus.