Question: Without reverting to their lower level, how do you get people to stop making their hurtful, cut-down remarks?

Answer: One of the reasons people pounce on or attack us the way they do, is that they are feeding off of us in many different ways, especially when we return a negative energy. For an amazing experience, try sometime consciously refusing your own negativity in the face of someone else’s. Just go silent, and then watch what happens to the person who attacked you. The odds are, you will watch this person have a change of heart right in the middle of their attack. And even if they don’t change their behavior, your new behavior will leave you feeling better about yourself.

Question: In a world where people seem to become increasingly more rude every day, how does one cope and act or react when people seem to be so cold and basically indifferent to each other?

Answer: One of the important aspects of our spiritual work is beginning to employ its principles in our everyday lives. What does this mean? Any condition we meet that is unwanted, such as a rude person, is not the cause of our stress. All conditions simply offer a momentary mirror for us in which it is possible to begin seeing what we have brought with us, within ourselves, into that moment. There is no sense in trying to change people without first changing the part of ourselves that believes our very sense of self, of well being, somehow depends upon how others treat us. Step back from your own reactions. Don’t give them your life, and you’ll discover they have a life of their own… and that you want nothing to do with it.