When Loving Gets Tough: Loving People We May Not Like

Not easy, but something we may be called to do

How do you love someone who’s hard to like?

Last week I wrote about loving our enemies. Why to and how to.

But what about the people in our lives who, while not exactly enemies, are hard to love?

Church just finished.

Most of us file next door to our garden cottage for potluck brunch and fellowship. One of our members has cooked a huge and hearty egg, bacon, and potato casserole to warm our tummies on a cold winter day. I’ve brought a big bowl of broccoli kale slaw.

Others bring a variety of smaller side dishes, some prepared with care, others appear to be leftovers or afterthoughts. All contributions are welcome and appreciated.

When M spontaneously compliments the cook for the casserole, C, who brought sliced apples pouts and curtly asks why M’s singling out one person when she brought food, too. When M explains, C gets up and leaves.

That sets some of us buzzing. And judging.

A Course in Miracles says that everything’s either an expression of love or a call for love. C’s words and deeds are a call for love–-however prickly.

Sometimes it’s hard to get past those prickles.

We’re hurt from the barbs and pull back to protect ourselves from further jabs. Which reinforces their pain, and if they respond from that place, we get more barbs. So we pull further back. And so it goes, on and on.

Of course, we can be that petty and reactive if we want to. That’s our choice.

But we can do better.

Just like Jesus called us to love our enemies, we’re called to do better. To call on the better angels of our nature, as President Lincoln reminded us we all have in his first Inaugural Address.

Even though his focus was on preventing the Civil War, which he was not able to do, these oft-quoted words still move hearts today:

“I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” (Bolding mine.)

Such eloquence reminds us we can do better because we are better.

We’re better because we’re spiritual beings first and foremost.

Yes, we’re human, but not just. Let’s not let our humanity define or limit us in any way. We were created in the spirit and likeness of God. The Divine Creative Spark in each and every one of us. No exceptions.

“We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate one another.” ― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

If this Ultimate Source is all there is and there’s no spot where It is not, that includes us. It includes everyone. Even the ones we don’t particularly care for. The ones we find hard to like.

Those, especially, are the ones we’re called to love.

This doesn’t mean sending cards full of pink hearts or a box of chocolates, necessarily. It does mean giving them the grace we would like to be given when we’re less than our best.

How do we do that?

I can share how I do it when I’m turned into my Godself and grounded in the consciousness that tells me, I am them, too. I have prickles of my own. They may be different prickles, but I know I’ve got some.

A Course in Miracles teaches they’re a reflection of some aspect of me I don’t accept in myself. That’s why I’ve projected it onto them. Having them in my life, or in my face gives me a chance to heal that rejected aspect in myself as I connect with them. When I accept it in myself, it should no longer piss me off when I encounter it in another.

There with the grace of God go I.

So instead of ragging on C, I get to ask myself, how am I like her? Do I lash out when feeling unacknowledged? Or underappreciated? I may not say anything out loud, but when I take a compliment to another as a dismissal of myself, it’s not about that compliment.

That’s the trigger ripping a scab off an old wound. Here’s an opportunity to dive past the present into that wound and see what still needs to be healed. I learned from African Mystic Brother Tetteh to say, “That’s not about me,” ’cause it’s not.

“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally… Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.” ― Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

In the meantime, how do I respond with love to the prickly peeps in my life?

I’ve found it’s hard to make myself feel something I don’t. But when I treat love as a verb and do loving things, love shows up in my heart.

It starts with acceptance.

Accepting that how someone is when I encounter them is exactly how they’re supposed to be in that moment. Just like I am exactly how I’m supposed to be in that moment.

According to Merriam-Webster, to accept someone or something is to endure without protest or reaction.

That’s a great beginning.

Because it means we’re not rejecting or ignoring those prickly ones. We’re tolerating them without pushing them away or removing ourselves. But can we do better than endure or tolerate?

Another definition of accept is to make a favorable response. And to give admittance or approval to. This implies welcoming them into my group, my life, and/or my heart.

Acceptance means making a space for them. Setting a place for them at the table, and pulling out a welcoming chair. No matter how they present. And paying attention to them once they sit and eat. No matter how much they slurp, hog, spill, or spit–metaphors for more than how they eat food.

But does this mean anything goes?

If they hog all the food, knock over the wine, and spit at their host, do we have to accept that behavior when we accept that person?

Nope. We don’t.

But we owe it to them to let them know what’s expected.

There’s a developmentally delayed man who comes to our church. And boy does he love to eat. And if we don’t cue him, he loads his plate up, especially with the entre. This means there might not be enough for the ones closing up the sanctuary. Which includes yours truly.

Because he forgets, he needs those cues. He appreciates them. He’ll say, Thanks. I didn’t remember. But he values being included in our circle since making friends is hard for him. He wants to know what’s expected so he doesn’t wear out his welcome. We’re not scolding him, we’re empowering him.

Just like cueing is a loving thing to do for our church friend, cueing–AKA setting boundaries–is a loving thing to do with anyone we struggle to accept and love.

This might take a little more creative tact to express. But where there’s a will there’s a way.

Getting back to C and other pricklies, I like to set the stage to invite the better angels of people’s natures to come out and play. To that end, I put up a sign in our fellowship hall that says, Only Love Spoken Here. Blessing our meal before we eat goes a long way to set the tone of the room as well.

And while I’m engaging, I beam Love on them.

And if I can, we all can. Here are some ways I do that.

I Imagine Loving Energy beaming from my heart to theirs as I engage with or think about them. When judgemental thoughts arise, I bless the person with a thought or prayer for their best and highest. I picture them bathed in Love’s Holy Light. And do my best to look past appearances and actions into their heart.

The heart of a fellow Child of God.

I can’t guarantee these suggestions will work every time. Or work instantly. Give them time.

I share them to stimulate all of our creative thinking so we can approach folks with a yes/and mindset. Yes, they are the way they’re showing up, and we don’t have to put up with crap. We’re not their doormats. Nor should we be.

But with a bit of ingenuity and a lot of Loving Connectivity, we can be their doorways.

Doorways into the better angels of themselves.

Namaste!

Marilyn Flower is a sacred fool who writes fiction, poetry, and blogs, inspired by the practice of SoulCollage®. Her books: Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction, Creative Blogging, Bucket Listers. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!