by Linda-Ann Stewart

I know I’m not alone in the struggle between loving others unconditionally and loving myself. Many of the people I meet, and my clients, struggle with this, too. How can we balance our spirituality with insisting someone treat us with honor?

With God as a loving Presence, God accepts all that we do without judgment. As we try to emulate that aspect of God, we forget that God doesn’t protect us from the consequences of our actions.

If we step on a rake, we get to experience the rake hitting us in the face. We learn from that to be careful around rakes. God doesn’t stop the rake from hitting us, but if we ask for help in healing our bruised face, God is there to heal us.

That is why there is cause and effect. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is to help us learn from our mistakes.

The core of this is, God doesn’t enable. The Universe is constantly growing and expanding. Unless we do the same, we get prodded along. Cosmic two-by-fours whack us.

When you allow people to put you down, humiliate you, belittle you, then you are contributing to making their inevitable consequences harder for them. Universal laws will eventually pull them up short, and the more they’ve run roughshod over peoples’ lives, the harder their lesson is going to be.

By setting boundaries, you are growing in love. Love of self, and loving the other person enough to put a stop to their breaking Universal Laws of compassion. Love them enough to allow them to experience the consequences of their actions.

That’s the only way any of us learn. In that way, you are emulating high spiritual qualities and reflecting the unconditionally loving Divine Presence within you.

Copyright 2000, 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved