Though I have found self-love and self-confidence in my adult years, the initial perception of “difference” between me and another person occasionally causes me to flinch psychically and emotionally as it did when I was a child. My unconscious thinking goes something like this—I am so different that people will reject me and find my experiences, thoughts and opinions objectionable. It’s an old habitual thought, but the hint of that knee-jerk reaction yet lives, even if only as a ghost, spooking me.
Each person I encounter is a unique spiritual gift.
Today, I know each person I encounter is a unique spiritual gift, teaching me spirit lessons I came here to learn this time around. The difference between me and someone else is something to celebrate rather than fear. I overcome the fear of difference by feeling it, allowing it, acknowledging it, examining it, and questioning it. I do not run away in fear of the other. I stand and face difference vulnerably and with trust. This is me. This is who I am. Because you are different from myself, you help me to know who I am by revealing to me who I am not. And perhaps you help me to know who I am because we are the same in many ways.
"To love is the greatest gift of all. I know this now. I understand it in a way I could not possibly have before. I want to demonstrate this understanding to those I know and to those who have helped me in other lives." "Your Soul's Gift" by Richard Schwartz, p. 162