My personality has a problem where I try and “fix” people. When I witness bad behavior, especially hypocrisy, I feel the need to get involved and expose it. This leads to triggering someone, and then a series of back and forth responses escalate. This exact situation happened recently, and I found advice in a waking dream. For those who don’t know, a waking dream is a reference to guidance received through the waking state of situations. In my case it was in the listening to AI analysis of this very blog.

A few days ago I created an application that goes through my writing here, performs some research on the topic, and then returns analysis in the form of a script, which I then use AI to turn into human speech. Here I was listening to this analysis of my last post “Man in the Middle” and it had a situational example. It came up with a situation where two people were in conflict and one man in the middle of it. While I listened, something profound was said:

You remind yourself: “I am not here to fix them. I am here to listen, to love, and to be true to my own boundaries.”

What have I been doing? I’ve been trying to change people, to fix people, to modify their behavior. I’ve been trying to lay the seeds of reason in them, so they abandon their biases and exposed cruelties. The real question, though, is if I should have been doing that at all. As these words “you remind yourself, I am not here to fix them. I am here to listen, to love…” came through the speaker I felt the trueness of them.

What does this mean of my ongoing dispute? It means I need to take a step back. I need to reflect on the fact that they are on a path right now, at their own pace. While they may cling to beliefs I find cruel and hurtful, I need to let go of any idea that I can change them to what I feel is right.

After all, this world is temporary. This world is a training ground, not a permanent residence. If I loose my peace of mind to fight against what I perceive as cruel, am I accomplishing anything? My work may just cause someone to spiral out of their own beliefs and give up on the small fragment of spirituality they currently cling to.

The analysis further advised:

…you bring in nonviolent communication principles. Nonviolent communication invites us to move from blame to needs.

This is really useful. Instead of blaming, I should see what they need. Listen. Maybe it can’t be agreed to, but in the least I shouldn’t be demanding someone bend to my will of thinking or my philosophy.

Most importantly, as I write this, think on it and agree to it, I feel the rightness of it. I feel the Mahanta, the spiritual guide within, agreeing with these ideas as well. This is correct for me and I will work harder at accomplishing it in practice.