Why do you react?

[DivaVillage]

On page 74 Eckhart Tolle writes, "Anything you resent and strongly react to in another is also in you."

What does this mean to you?

[fashionlove]

I think he means that we wouldn't react to it if it wasn't a part of us. If we react to something that someone else did, it obviously struck a chord within us ... but if that thing is something that is not a part of us then we wouldn't care about it, we would float right over it.

that's hard to explain, hopefully it makes sense?

[Jessica]

I think that is why our families are the hardest things to get past emotionally, because we are so much like them by nature. My Mom and I have always had such a hard time with one another, and it is only because we are so much a like and we feed off of that.

I think this way of thinking is so powerful because it really allows people to take responsibility for themselves.

[Monkie0317]

i think it is the fear of realizing that which we hate or dislike is alive within us that makes us react negatively.

[blue332]

I think we react strongly to the things we see in others that we subconsciously know are in ourselves. It's not just that we recognize it in others and dislike it, but Eckhart uses the words "resent" and "strongly react to." We would only have this strong reaction to someone who has a characteristic that we also know we have because our ego suddenly wants us to look better than that other person by saying "look what he does, I don't do that!"

[Jessica]

It is also interesting when Eckhart speaks of how we recreate situations with people that are in ourselves, because we mirror each other. I see myself shape shifting situations because of some latent fear that begins to surface and bring about situations with others that are negative because I need to fully see things that are inside of me. I can't blame the other person I can only blame myself, because I hold the power to create my situations.

[kylie]

He also says that the human ego in its collective aspect as us against them is even more insane than the me, the individual ego, although the mechanism is the same.