“Do you feel that you cannot love certain people?”

‘Yes, yes, yes!’ was my response when I read this sentence in Opening Doors Within, a book by Findhorn founder Eileen Caddy that my spiritual mentor had given me at the start of our year-long course.

There are LOTS of people I cannot love and I thought that was okay. I try and avoid them wherever possible and refuse to be drawn into conflict. Eileen’s advice however, is to ‘ Stop hating them.’

I pondered on this a lot today. She also urges the reader to take time to get to know their enemies and find out what makes them tick. Why? We’re never going to be best buddies, so I what is the point?

Her advice is then to ‘Look within yourself and find out what has gone wrong with you and your relationship with them and never at any time throw the blame onto anyone else.”

They’ve been unreasonable, that’s what. If they’d done things my way there wouldn’t be a problem. But that’s not the point, the idea is that I face up to my own shortcomings.

As luck would have it, I crossed paths with one of my ‘enemies’ today. I made a point of conjuring up as much inner love as was humanely possible, smiled and said ‘Hello’. I was greeted by a look of horror. The person turned on their heel and ran off down the street. They really hate me!

I’ve always believed that it is none of my business what others feel about me, but perhaps it is worth examining why I loathe certain people. They are usually the bullies, those who put themselves before others no matter what. They are ruthless and slippery. Dishonest too. What sort of person behaves like that? Me as it happens. Not all the time, but those who are close to me will recognise these less than savoury characteristics. I get it now. If I make peace with those I hate, I learn to love myself warts and all. It sounds great in theory, but this is going to take some doing.