Gratitude For The Petty Tyrant

Gratitude For The Petty Tyrant If there is someone in your life who drives you to distraction but with whom you cannot or will not sever ties, then this person is your "petty tyrant" (PT) in the words of Carlos Castaneda. One way to work on your relationship with this PT is to deliberately seek out what this person does for you for which you are grateful. Every time you have a resentful or violent thought about the PT, deliberately seek a reason to be grateful to this person. Initially this will be take effort. But overtime, you will find it less of a struggle and you will find more and more reasons to be grateful to the person. Eventually, the gratitude will become more effortless and spontaneous and it will wipe the grime of resentment from your vision. And most amazingly, you will find more and more things the PT did in the past as well, for which you are grateful to them -- things that you had never seen before. In other words, your gratitude in the present will transmute your resentment and not only change your present but also change your perception, experience and narrative of the past! Even if this person continues to irritate you, the intensity of your emotion will be milder, you will find it easier to restrain yourself during a trying interaction, and you will get over your irritation faster. You will find your heart filled with more and more love for this same person. SubhanAllah! image: with thanks via Maarten Maarten Appel on facebook