Dealing With Difficult People

by Susan & MiltSanderford

ForwardThe following is a transcript of the live Tele-

Seminar by Susan and Milt Sanderford — Dealing with Difficult People — presented on Saturday, September 30, 2017, originating in beautiful downtown San Luis, Colorado.

Eventually all past and all future Tele-Seminars will be printed in this format and made available to the public.

Susan and Milt are Co-founders of Casa de Santa Maria, a non-denominational healing center in San Luis, Colorado. Visit the Casa’s website at www. casadesantamaria.org. and please sign up to receive our free monthly newsletter.

And now...

DEALING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

By Susan and Milt Sanderford 

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How to Deal with Difficult People and Situations

We’d like to welcome all of you who have joined us today! The subject we are talking about is a wide-ranging one because we all have, or have had, people and situations in our lives that are difficult to deal with. And for some of us this is an ongoing occurrence.

Whether it be a boss, co-worker, family member, spouse, child or some other person that has pushed our buttons. Or—as to situations—the loss of a job, a divorce, financial difficulties, health issues, etc. We all have had the experience of having to deal with difficult situations. Not only in our individual personal lives, although we might not be aware, we are also experiencing it on a collective level. (More about that subject later.)

The subject of this teleseminar really came out of a dream I had many years ago. It was a powerful dream that changed the course of my life’s spiritual journey. It was an encounter with Jesus. One of those super vivid dreams that really got my attention.

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Some of you may have heard this dream before, but for those that have not I will share it again.

In the dream, I was floating in a turbulent ocean, being buffed about by the angry waves. It was as if I was going to drown. A hand from up above me reached to pulled me out of the water. Suddenly, I was standing on the shore and in front of me stood Jesus. I knew it was his hand that had saved me.

He literally looked like the biblical Jesus. A long white cloak with a long burgundy vest all sashed at the waist. He had long, wavy shoulder length hair and a beard. And even though I took note of how he looked it was the inner beauty he emitted that drew my attention. Just being in his presence was all I could really focus on.

Now, you would think that if one had Jesus standing in front of them you could come up with all kinds of questions to ask. I could think of none. Just standing in the beauty of his presence rendered me speechless.

Finally, when I came to my senses the only thing I could say was, “How Beautiful!”

Later when I reflect upon the dream I realized that this was the beauty I wanted to become.

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As the dream continued, I suddenly found myself standing in a very dark place with a brilliant spotlight shining on me from above. I somehow understood this was the light of God shining down upon me.

As I stood there in the spotlight of God, a little heavyset girl wearing a pink tutu danced in front of me through my spotlight. This little girl so wanted to be a ballerina but she did not have the body that would allow her to be a ballerina in this world.

As soon as she danced through the light of the a little crotchety old lady, who was mumbling and grumbling about life, shuffle past in front of me. As I watched her the epiphany hit me!

“Oh, you want me to love these people!” I exclaimed.

I then awoke from the dream to realize that my mission in life was to love the unlovable.

To repeat, the two revelations I took away from this vivid powerful dream was: 1. That I wanted to emit the beauty that I felt in Jesus. 2. I wanted to be able to love the seemingly unlovable.

I gave the title of this dream “Standing in the Light of Love.”

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This dream has been the main guiding force for my spiritual journey. And, when I doubt or get lost on the way I go back to this dream to get back in alignment of who I want to become and what I want to give to this world.

Have you ever given yourself a mission statement in life? Putting your deepest spiritual desires into words can often help you get back on track when you feel disconnected from Divine Spirit.

Becoming Divine Love has been my personal mission in life. And God first showed me this kind of love when Milt came into my life and I saw Divine Love in action through another human being. He still inspires me today at his ability to move quickly into a loving space when life brings negatives his way.

Now, this is important to understand. I am still learning and I’m sure Milt would say he is still learning, but the lesson of staying or moving quickly back into a space of love is the guiding force in our lives.

So, we wanted to take these two revelations in our lives and apply them to one of the greatest ways to learn to become love—and true love in an often unlovable world—dealing with difficult people.

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So, let’s start first by exploring the subject of:

Difficult People

To set the stage of where we are headed on the subject of Difficult People, we will start with the reason we have drawn difficult people into our lives.

We have set this up with a series of questions to ask ourselves the moment we have a difficult person encounter. So hopefully, if you ask yourself these questions, you will move back into a more loving, peaceful space no matter the behavior or actions of the difficult person.

Because, after all, isn’t that what we are all looking for in life—LOVE, PEACE and HAPPINESS? And isn’t that what the difficult person is looking for as well… even though they might not even know that yet, or know how to express their need?

The first question to ask our self when a difficult person disturbs our life is…

1. What is the goal or desired outcome of this encounter?

In life, there will always be people that come into your life that yank your chain. The goal with dealing with

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difficult people is that you are able to raise your level of love to the level that your chain is un-yankable. That in a nutshell is the lesson to be learned when difficult people come into your life.

Now—to keep it REAL—I’m the first to admit this goal falls into the category of EASY TO SAY – DIFFICULT TO ACCOMPLISH! After all, as we walk this earth school as human beings, until we achieve a sufficient degree of spiritual maturity, we react to perceived negative people in our lives in a human way.

When our buttons get pushed, as humans, certain reflexes are triggered. We become defensive, argumentative—we’re determined to prove that WE are right and THEY are wrong. THAT is human nature, and difficult to fight unless we learn how to raise ourselves into a higher spiritual nature.

So, trust me, to gain what Spirit it trying to teach us with these encounters, let’s understand and agree—IT AIN’T gonna be easy. Which brings us to question two to ask ourself.

2. What is the reason I have drawn this difficult person into my life?

We draw difficult people into our lives to give us the

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gift of helping us come into alignment with our true divine selves. WOW! WHAT A CHALLENGE! Hey, REMINDER—we didn’t say this would be easy!

Let’s repeat that: We draw difficult people into our lives to give us the gift of helping us come into alignment with our true divine selves.

When you are only around and surrounded by loving, kind, compliant people, they do not give you the gift that the hard people do. The hard people give you the gift of helping you finding your own divine alignment… helping you to find your own vibration of who you are and then stand strong in who you want to be.

In other words, when we are around people that vibrate at our spiritual level we do not find our own alignment within ourselves because we have aligned with people that are just like us. They don’t challenge us to become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

When we experience difficult people, it shifts us into aligning who we want to be in the world of diverse people and their levels of spiritually.

Understand that everyone here on the planet is on a

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spiritual journey. However, most haven’t a clue that this world is about spiritual growth. And we light-workers are the ones that are aware, (or SHOULD be aware) that this earth journey is about evolution of the soul. The evolution to become Divine Love.

How does evolution work? If we look at it in material earth terms, the planet was formed with violent volcanos, earth quakes, dramatic weather events, floods, meteor strikes, fires, etc. and all of these events molded the earth into what it is today. And the pattern continues. This is the stuff of life. Violent actions and reactions

So, let’s apply this concept to our personal self. The emotional earthquakes, eruptions of our emotions that we encounter with difficult people are the cornerstone of the evolution of our soul here on planet earth. These encounters of difficultness are the catalyst of spiritual growth. However, that is, with this one caveat… IF WE CHOOSE.

The third question we should ask ourselves is:

3. How should we react when we encounter a difficult person?

With gratitude! REMINDER—No one said this would be easy!!! With gratitude and a “Thank You

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for what that difficult person is teaching you.” IF NOT IMMEDIATELY, as quickly as you can recognize and move into your spiritual being. Because the universe is loving you enough to challenge your commitment to spiritual growth—to your becoming a higher level of love and light in a world of brokenness and pain.

When you are in gratitude for the experience, you are not resisting the experience. You are embracing the experience as your teacher and friend. You have heard us say many times that pain is all about resistance—wanting life to be different. Not wanting an experience that feels bad. After all, who among us wants to feel bad or wants to have a bad experiences in our lives. THAT is against human nature.

Being in gratitude and letting go of resistance is, of course, easier said than done in the heat of the moment. But if we can get into the habit of embracing the experience when we encounter difficult people instead of going into a reactive mode, we are then able to shift quickly out of the ego self—that winning or losing an argument mentality—and into the soul self.

If you have a difficult person currently in your life then you should be rejoicing. Because the Universe

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is pushing you to evolve and change. To become something greater than you are now. Which brings us to question four.

4. Is it our responsibility to try change this person?

Understand the encounter with a difficult person is never about the other person… it is always about YOU! Your opportunity to grow!

It is NEVER your responsibility to change another person’s negative energetic field… it is only your responsibility to raise your energetic field to a level of love, peace and happiness. That is your only responsibility.

That’s important to understand and accept.

REPEAT!

It is NEVER your responsibility to change another person’s negative energetic field… it is only your responsibility to raise your energetic field to a level of love, peace and happiness. That is your only responsibility.

Now, if that difficult person, experiencing your loving and spiritual approach to the situation

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is somehow moved to see the truth in your approach, and is thereby elevated to a different understanding—that’s a bonus—BUT it’s not your responsibility to make that happen.

Also, become aware, if this encounter with a difficult person drags you down into negative thinking and into the energies of anger, hate, revenge, annoyance, judgment, ego, and the like. If it has, then you have just been challenged by the Universe to grow beyond those negative emotions.

If you are a light worker, then the tendency is to want to “help” the other person to become better. So, we go through our mind trying to think of things we can do to get the other person to see our point of view. And in most cases this backfires on us. Anyone been there?

So, keep in mind that it is noble to want to help another person be better. But, sometimes that helping is coming more from a space of wanting someone else to change so we can be happy.

Our choice is to be happy no matter how someone else behaves.

Question five to ask our self is:

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5. Who do I want to be in this encounter with this difficult person?

The encounter with a difficult person is the perfect opportunity to look within to discover who we are choosing to be in this moment. This encounter is ALWAYS about us! It is NEVER about the other person. Although our humanness has a tendency to make it about them. If we stay focused on the other person we do not grow.

If we focus on who we want to be in this relationship we are immediately moved into our soul-self. The place of love.

Here is a quick guide so that we can know if we are in our egos or our soul when we are dealing with a difficult person.

If we are in our EGO we are in blame, attack, judgment and running around trying to fix the situation mode.

If we are in our SOUL we are seeing this experience as an opportunity for growth within our self. And we are choosing to be the better person in the encounter, no matter how bad the situation feels.

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NOW—Why do we draw Difficult People into our lives?

1. One answer is Karma:

In our past lives, we have encountered people with whom we have created Karma. I believe there is positive karma as well as negative karma.

Karma basically means “you reap what you sow.” Getting what you give—if you’re mean, you get bad karma—bad things happen. If you’re kindly and nice, you’ll get good karma—good things will happen.

So, let’s say that in a past life you were married to your, this life-time husband, and you have had a battle of wills your whole marriage. Most likely you were married in a past life and you had the same issue that you did not resolve in that past lifetime.

In an effort to evolve your soul you come back together in another lifetime to try to resolve those issues. Hoping one day you are able to find love and peace with one another—or at least a positive mutually agreement settlement.

EXAMPLE of KARMA:

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My friend Kathy and I recently went out to Mother Mary’s Garden to do some weeding. As soon as we parked another car drove up and parked beside us. A lovely older lady emerged from the car and we introduced ourselves. We offered to give her a tour of the garden to which she eagerly agreed.

When we got to the center circle to stand in front of Mary’s statue she opened up to us to share why she wanted to come to Mother Mary’s Garden. Her husband had died this past February and she had not given herself time to grieve.

She went on to share that it was a very difficult marriage, even though both of them were on their spiritual journey. She said that both of them were very stubborn and willful and their life together was filled with difficulty.

She stated that she knew they had Karma to work out from past lives, and she felt that neither of them had done a very good job this time around.

Here she was looking for solace at Mother Mary’s Garden. She cried as she shared her story and Kathy and I lovingly shared a space of love for her.

So, you see if you have unfinished business with a soul from another lifetime, this lifetime could be

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about that unfinished Karma and the opportunity to heal the issue or issues.

Many people have very difficult marriages or partners. In most cases the reason is unfinished business from other lifetimes. The Universe is loving you enough to give you another opportunity to come into balance with one another. To be able to learn how to move into a loving space with one another.

And the same applies to children, parents, siblings or even co-workers or bosses. Could it possibly be that the difficult person is here to help you right a wrong, or vice versa?

As an example:

When Milt and I were given the mission from Jesus to build the Casa, we were visiting the John of God Casa in Brazil. We had travel there with a group who followed this particular Spiritual Teacher named Ron Roth. There were probably about 50 to 60 folks in this group. Of course, we had made friends with some of those folks during the two week visit to the John of God Casa.

When Jesus came to us with the mission to create the Casa de Santa Maria half-way through our visit,

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of course, we were going to share that info with the friends we had made. We even shared it with Ron Roth’s assistant as we were excited to begin our work that Jesus had commission us to do.

However, we later found out that Ron Roth had felt threatened by us sharing that information. He reacted as if we were stepping on his toes. We got an angry call from one of his team member that we were not to email or talk to his members about what we were doing. Of course, I was crushed.

Years, later we learned that our works with our Casa was to complete the work we had started in Egypt. Milt and I had worked in the temples of Hathor during the reign of Akhenaten. Akhenaten had brought in the concept that there was only one God and not multiple gods.

The generals of the day opposed this belief and came in and destroyed the temples and the spiritual work we had started in the time of Egypt.

We later discovered that Ron Roth was one of the Generals that had come in and destroyed the temples.

So, you see, we came together in this lifetime to see if we could release the past Karma from the life-

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time in Egypt. Milt and I were able to let it go and forgive. We don’t know about Ron Roth, he has since past away.

The second reason we may have drawn a difficult person into our life is that they are:

2. A Soul Family teacher

The soul exists before we come into a body. When we were back in the spirit dimension, before we made a contract to come back into a body to learn certain lessons in this 3rd dimensional world of duality, we chose what lessons we wanted to learn.

So, we shared with our soul family members what we wanted to learn. And because our soul family loves us, some of those members volunteered to come in with us in this life time to play the “bad guy,” knowing that the challenges of life are the experience that help our soul to grow.

Understand that when they chose to be the “bad guy” they were helping to evolve one aspect of their self as well. Both hopefully are benefiting from the encounter. Again, the choice to learn and grow from the experience is always a choice.

You will learn and grow from the experience the

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moment you embrace the experience and choose to learn from it, rather than resisting the experience.

EXAMPLE:

This concept of Soul Family teacher is an interesting one. This concept often shows up in some of my readings with parents who have lost children. The parent is wanting to learn the lesson of letting go of a child, wanting to learn to be a peace with death and is using it in this life-time as a catalyst for their spiritual growth.

A soul family member chose to come in with that parent as a child, knowing the possibility that they would leaving this earth life at an early age. So, while in the spirit realm before they both came in, they agreed to the experience.

We choose our soul lessons before we came into a physical body. We chose with whom we wanted to experience that lesson. So, the experiences we encounter, we have pre-created. Yes, we are the creators of our own experience and so, importantly, we are not victims.

As planet earth residents—the quicker we embrace the fact that we have, at some level, created everything that happens to us… the faster our soul

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evolves and grows.

The third reason why we may have drawn a difficult person into our life is…

3. To learn a Soul Lesson

When we each came into a physical body, we picked the soul lessons we wanted to learn in this particular life time. Each of us have different agendas for our current life-times.

If one of the particular lessons we wanted to learn was, how to not be intimidated by male-dominate energy, then we vibrate at the level of fear of male dominate people. And we will attract those male-dominate people like flies-to-fly-paper.

And we keep attracting them until we choose to step up into our power, learn to set boundaries and no longer allow that person, or persons, to disrupt our life. And we keep attracting those people until we have learned what we need to learn.

Let’s say that we work with a male dominate boss and that boss just rubs us the wrong way. So much, in fact, that when we wake up in the morning we dread going to work. We are miserable at work as well and can’t wait to go home.

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Now a lot of folks would eventually quit their job or look for another job. However, if you have not addressed or healed the fear of male dominant people then you will attract another, possibly at your next job or in your next relationship.

Our soul lessons follow us until we have learned what we need to learn. The difficult person may change but the lesson will still be there. Our life will be like the movie Groundhog Day. Negatives continually repeating until they are addressed and healed.

LIFE-LESSON-EXAMPLE:

Being afraid of male dominate people was one of the personal lessons I came to planet earth to learn. It was a few years ago that I realized that I was tired of being afraid of male dominate people. So, I specifically asked Spirit to help me heal this issue.

Of course, what happens when you ask for help? The Universe sends you male dominate people into your life for you to learn from. And I got two that came into my life that I was forced to learn to deal with.

This is how the universe works. It sends you the people or experiences you need to learn from.

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One of the male dominate men that came into my life was a man here in the town in which we live. His name was Prax. He was a strong male-dominate energy who walked about this little town as if he owned the town. However, he was a little bit off his rocker. He had been in the Vietnam War and had several heal issues.

I encountered Prax when I first came on as a member of the Town Board of Trustees. Prax lived on Main Street and he was keeping his horse in his front yard. Which according to town ordinances is a no-no. He had even cleaned out his kitchen so his horse had a place to go out of the rain.

So, when this issue was being discussed in the very first town meeting I attended. During the meeting I made the comment that when I walk by his house heading to the post office (which I do every day) I could smell the horse’s pee and poop in his front yard.

Well, this comment got back to Prax and the next day when he saw me at the post office he verbally lit into me. “YOU SAID MY HORSE STINKS! I’M GOING TO GET YOU THROWN OFF THE BOARD!” And, he kept going on and on verbally attacking me in the parking lot of the post office.

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I stood there stunned as I had never in my life encountered a barrage of male-dominate energy being projected at me. I finally said to him: “What is the matter with you?” and walked off. Of course, in tear’s because I didn’t know what to do with that ugly encounter.

A few days later, he saw me walking down the sidewalk and came across the street and started verbally harassing me again. Calling me racist and all kinds of other things. After that encounter, I was really angry. So, I called the police to cite him for harassment. By doing that, I was setting my boundary with this man.

He left me alone after the police cited him as, it is a felony to harass a public official. However, I was still angry. I was nervous about walking down the street because I was afraid I would encounter him again and he would verbally attack me again.

I kept asking Spirit to shift my anger. And the answer came. I got a shower message from Mother Mary and she said to me: “Well, build him a barn!” And with that one statement I shifted out of anger.

It was so like Mother Mary to look at what he really needed, which was a barn for his horse. If he had a barn then then his horse (who he loved) would

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have a proper place to live rather than in his front yard and kitchen.

So, immediately I was back to Divine Love. Milt and I actually started talking about how to raise the money to build him a barn for his horse. Unfortunately, a few months later Prax passed away from diabetes.

Today, I will often thank Prax for coming into my life to learn to set boundaries with male-dominate men. The universe heard my request that I did not want to be afraid of strong male energy anymore. The univers brought into my life the very thing that I needed to face and to grow past that fear. Prax was a gift for growth in my own personal journey.

The fourth reason we may have drawn a difficult person into our life is…

4. Difficult people are reflecting back to you what is unhealed in you.

Now, most folks don’t like this truth. We have a tendency to want to blame the other person for our discomfort. In reality, as long as we are pointing the finger at the other difficult person there will be no growth.

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It’s like the old saying: When you point your finger at another person there are four fingers pointing back at you.

For valuable lessons the universe will always bring people into your life that will bring to light the healed within you. When a difficult person comes into your life and you are negatively triggered by them, then there is an active negative vibration within you that they are reflecting back to you indicating that which is unhealed in you.

When a person comes into your life that you judge, get angry at, annoyed with, wanting to change them etc., realize that they are just a mirror to what is unhealed in you.

This is the perfect time to go inward and ask for healing from Divine Spirit. Again, all difficult people are gifts. Even if all you learn is who you do not want to be.

As a real-life example of this type of situation Milt shared his experience of how this was brought about in a life-experience he had, only, MILT was the perceived negative person who became the gift who brought about a healing in the other person’s life.

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Milt was hired by a rather wealthy, but failing, business man to help turn around his international sales company. Within a matter of a year the company DID turn around with Milt’s help in gaining financial success.

The owner of the business became dependent on Milt, financially and emotionally. When Milt began to share hints he was planning to move on from the company, the owner panicked, made Milt president, even went so far as to offer to turn the company over to Milt if he would stay.

The owner couldn’t understand Milt’s insistence on leaving the company, grew angry at Milt and felt his generosity was being betrayed. He just didn’t understand why Milt would reject this great opportunity, causing the owner great anguish and fear. It was driving him crazy with fear that the business would go down the tubes again without Milt’s direction.

Milt’s answer to his dilemma was, “You have a son in New York, a successful business man in his own right, who is ready willing and able to join you to guarantee this companies successful future. You don’t ask him to join you because of a family argument that hurt your feelings so you became estranged.”

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“Heal that rift and ask Bill to join you in this effort!” The owner finally did just that and he finally realized that the act of forgiving his son was the key to guaranteeing his business success while at the same time reuniting his family in a major healing. This then freed Milt to leave the company and move on with his life.

This raises another interesting aspect of who, or what, is behind these perceived negative situations in our lives. All the while Milt was living that experience HE was questioning his OWN sanity for rejecting all this potential wealth being offered to him. It was only several years later that his AHA moment of understanding kicked it.

Once Milt and I got together, Milt realized that spirit was forcing him out of that business situation, causing him to eventually move to Florida. IF he chose the money and business success, WE would have never met, IN FLORIDA, thus leading to our reuniting to continue our positive Karma from a prior lifetime. You see, spirit (or The Universe) guides and manipulates our coming and going to learn lessons and/or to carry out our missions. It’s all interconnected.

Which leads us to the next reason difficult people are lead into our lives.

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6. To learn compassion

When people are acting-out, unconsciously, defensively, negatively and with dominance, in our experience—since they are projecting those negative emotions at us—we think we are the one they are targeting. But in reality, we are not the one they are targeting. What they are projecting toward us is an instant replay of how they were treated, dominated and belittled by someone in their past.

So, through their negative behavior the Universe says: Take a moment to feel what it feels like to be treated like this person was treated in the past. And by your encounter with them you have an opportunity to choose compassion.

And if you have the consciousness to respond with the opposite vibration that is loving and complementary to them, you are playing the role of helping to break the cycle of abuse in their life.

When you are chosen to break the cycle of abuse in their life, sometimes you are the chisel and sometimes you are the hammer. Sometimes you are there to counter people’s negativity with compliments and to chisel, chisel and chisel away at their negativity until one day something cracks and they wake up.

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The more you work at being the higher vibration in someone else’s life the more you are waking yourself up. So, what you do to help other people move past their negativity, the more you are helping yourself to move past your own negativity.

So, the question is: Why is this person treating you the way they are treating you? Because, as a light-worker you are an angel in human form here to hold a higher vibration for them by not dipping down to their level of negativity.

If you can hold a higher vibration, and be conscious enough, strong enough, to respond positively, you then become someone who gives them the kind of encouragement and support that was missing from those past experiences.

If we can respond compassionately and in love, we are helping them crack open their own wounded heart. And if we can remember we should say to ourselves: “This person’s response had far less to do with me than it had to do with them.”

So, understand that difficult people are not talking to you, but they are appealing to the love and compassion within you which can help end the cycle of abuse within them.

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LIFE-LESSON-EXAMPLE:

Another encounter I had with a male dominate man was when I was serving on the Planning and Zoning board of Costilla County. The county had hired a new planning and zoning administrator.

After we had worked together for several months he called me up out of the blue one day and demanded that Milt and I had to get an occupancy permit, fire extinguisher, and fire alarms for our 300 square foot chapel we had just built out at the Casa.

Since I was on the planning and zoning board I knew good and well that there was no such ordinance for that small of a building needing an occupancy permit, fire alarms and carbon monoxide alarms.Especially since the building had no eletriciy or heating source. The more I tried to tell him that he was enforcing something that made no sense the more dominate he became.

He refused to listen to what I had to say, and said: “Well, I’m just going to have to insist that you get a permit.” And, I told him NO, you are not listening to me to get his attention because he kept talking over me.

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I stood up to his unreasonable demands instead of backing down. And I was willing and ready to take the argument to the County Commissioners to contest the issue.

After a few weeks of allowing both of our emotions to settle down. When I saw him at the next meeting I addressed him with some humor and said. “Hi Trinidad, are you still mad at me?” He responded with a smile and said, “Are you still mad at me?” I responded, “No, as long as you don’t try to enforce a code on me that doesn’t exist.” He just smiled and was the end of that and we were back on good terms.

So, you see, after our first heated encounter I chose to have compassion and approached him with humor. And it worked. But notice I did not back down and set a boundary furthering my soul-lesson of not being afraid of male-dominate people.

NEXT— Let’s talk about…

How to Deal with Difficult People into our lives?

One of the best soul growth catalysts in our lives is Pain and Suffering. These painful experiences help us grow if we choose to see the experience and embrace the experience as a teacher and friend.

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NEED I KEEP REMINDING YOU—NONE OF THS IS EASY FOR MOST OF US—and the truth is, it is not supposed to be. These are important soul-changing lessons we are being taught.

Byron Katie wrote a great book titled Loving What Is! I liked the book’s concept but not the title. I’d change the title to ACCEPTING What Is! LOVING all these difficult soul-growth lessons is a bit much to expect of we souls in a human body on this dense planet earth. Accepting is a bit easier—but still difficult.

Through our choice, life has put us here on planet earth. A duality planet of positive and negative emotions, feelings and experiences. Just like a battery that has a negative pole and a positive pole, both are needed to power forward movement in life.

The spiritually balanced person will see both positive and negative experiences as opportunities for growth. And the spiritually evolved person has learned to not get caught up in the pendulum swing of positive and negative.

Because each of us are embedded into this material world of duality, it would take a very evolved person to stay neutral when a person or situation comes

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along in our lives that triggers negative emotions.

One of the teachings of today’s spiritual movement is to throw a blanket statement on a negative experience and say “Well there is nothing good or bad, or negative or positive… there is only experience.”

That is a true statement, however, to the person that has just lost a loved one, or lost their home due to a hurricane, flood, or financial difficulties… believe me grief, loss of any kind, can feel negative. And the evolving soul will learn and grow from the experience.

The key here is that the pendulum swing of positive and negative emotions is what we are here on planet earth to learn from. And for us to deny those positive and negative emotions, being human, defeats the whole purpose of the learning experience here on planet earth.

Having said this, planet earth is filled with people who are trapped in the lower vibrational frequencies of unhealed negative emotions. And, I am sure that every one of you has encountered a person in their life full of unhealed negative emotions.

When we encounter these folks, it feels yucky and

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we have a tendency to shy away from or avoid that person because we don’t want to get slimmed with feeling their low vibrations.

Or, their negative emotions pull us right down to their negative emotional level and we want to respond back to them in a negative fashion.

It’s good to remember when we encounter these folks, the goal of our encounters with difficult people: And that goal is:

In life, there will always be people that come into your life that yank your chain. The goal with dealing with difficult people is that you are able to raise your level of love to the level that your chain is un-yankable.

If you are working on healing yourself, and raising your life to one of love and peace, when you come across people with negative thinking you are going to feel the discord of where you are and where they are on their spiritual journey.

If you are a spiritually sensitive person and can easily feel someone’s negative energy. Realize that the sensitivity is a good thing because it makes you aware of what you would rather not be feeling.

Sensitivity is the signal to alert you that your chain

is being yanked and your goal is that your chain is un-yankable.

What gets us into trouble here is that we put conditions on the negative person that we need them to change so we can feel happy again. Anybody been there?

As long as we are wanting someone else to change their behavior, so we can feel happy or at peace, then we will not grow. We have put ourselves in bondage because we cannot control someone else’s negative behavior or what others are doing to make us unhappy.

So, we finally just have to say to ourselves “It’s my job to feel good, regardless of how someone in my life is behaving.” And when we consistently remember to say that to ourself, then that person will either eventually join you in aligning with how we positively feel or someone else will come and join us in alignment with our positivity and happiness.

This is a really good time for each of us to look closely at our friends and family around us. They are a marker of the vibration we are personally holding with our self.

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If we have a lot of negative people in our life…. Remember that they are only a reflection of our own inner negativity. If we have a majority of positive happy people in our life then they are a reflection of our own inner peace and happiness.

Now, most negative people are unconsciously (or perhaps sometimes CONSCIOUSLY) trying to pull you down into their negatively. If your inner world is healed enough, you won’t go there with them. You will be an observer to their negativity but stay in your happiness.

We’ve all heard the term “Misery loves company!” Negative people want you to feel the way they are feeling so you can validate their feelings. If you do go there with them, then universe is pulling you into a negative emotion that is unhealed in you. YAY!

Again, the opportunity this negative person has brought into your life is an opportunity to heal something negative within you or to act as a barometer to your own happiness vibration.

In all cases, if you want to get past this negative person disturbing your peace, you have to:

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1. Let go of trying to change their behavior.

2. Surrender to the fact that they are doing the best they can with where they are on their journey.

3. Look within to see what they have triggered that is unhealed within you. Find it and ask spirit to heal it.

4. Turn away from focusing on their behavior, because what you focus on, then you actually attract. If you do that, the relationship will only get worse and worse and worse.

5. As long as we are pushing against something we will always feel unhappy. We have to let go of the resistance that we are experiencing difficult people in our lives.

6. Reaffirm your journey to find Love, Joy and Peace within. Invite Divine Spirit to heal within you that which is preventing you from finding that Love, Joy and Peace.

7. Remind yourself what it feels like to be in alignment with Divine Source. Find a way to quickly move yourself back into Divine alignment through mediation, prayer, music, nature or whatever helps you to get back into alignment.

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8. You are never going to feel completely happy unless you are in alignment with the Divine Source within you. That is what is calling you when you run into negative and difficult people. You just have to go to Divine Source. And you can go there no matter what the circumstances seem to be.

The thing that keeps biting us in the butt with negative and difficult people is we keep wanting the other person to be the reason that we feel good or bad. And we need to cut that out.

Because if we make them the reason for us to feel good then we are holding them to a standard that they cannot keep and eventually we will come to resent them.

Anybody in that situation today, or have been there? I sure have been there?

Understand that it is never anyone’s job to keep us in alignment with our inner being and in alignment with Divine Source. It is our job to keep ourselves in alignment with our inner being.

As you claim your own inner being you will be amazed at how the sensitivity works both ways!

What you focus on is what you get in life. If you

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focus on the negativity that is what you get. If you focus on the positive likewise.

So, when dealing with negative and difficult people we just have to decide, “I want to be happy first and foremost.” And the negative and difficult people in my life are not going to be the reason I am unhappy.

As an aside:

Have you ever stopped to think that the difficult person you are annoyed with may think YOU ARE the annoying one? If you are in a situation where you feel someone does not like you. Understand you are not the source of their annoyance. Their relationship with who they are is the source of their annoyance.

What we have a tendency to do as spiritual beings is try to raise above the discord hoping that our higher vibration of love will raise their negative energy. Has anyone ever tried that and has it really ever worked? I dare to day NO.

The reason is that when you approach the discord with trying to change them, understand that that is not your responsibility, and trying to change someone will never work. It will backfire on you every single time. They will usually become needy,

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demanding vultures that will suck the emotional life out of you.

Lastly, on how to deal with negative people, one of the greatest lessons you can every learn is how to not care what other people think about you.

Realize that when negative people come into your life, the reason they are negative is because they are not in Divine Alignment. You can only get negative feedback from someone who is not in Divine Alignment with Divine Spirit.

When you look for validation or acceptance from someone who is not aligned with Divine Spirit, it’s just not going to happen. The only place you need to look for acceptance and love is from the Divine alone. Let go of needing acceptance and validation from those folks who are not even working on their spiritual journey.

You go be you no matter what anyone else thinks or feels about you. It is your job to stay in that place of Love and Peace.

LIFE-LESSON-EXAMPLE:

I love how Universe gives a topic to talk about at a tele-seminar then puts me in the middle of the very

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subject in real life so that I can learn and put into action what we are teaching.

A few months ago, our mayor resigned when we had to address an issue of whether he lived within the town limits. By law to be mayor you must live within the town limits.

We had a citizen complain that the mayor did not live within the town limits. And, when we looked it was true. And according to the ordinances this made his whole tenure as mayor null and void.

In the end, after our discussion with him about his residency he voluntarily resigned.

A couple of weeks ago the ex-mayor came to our town hall meeting with about 20 of his family members to protest his own resignation. And let me tell you it was ugly. People were yelling at us that we pushed him out, which was not true. And, the ex-mayor kept saying he did not resign. (Which we have on a recording that he did.)

Nothing we could say would appease the angry crowd so the new Mayor just closed the meeting and asked the Police office to escort everyone out.

Talk about negative energy, it was a lynch mob

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mentality. Not one person in that group had ever come to us to ask us what really happened with the mayor.

This was a wonderful experience for me as I was amazed that folks could get so ugly when they didn’t have the facts. And, I got to practice how to stay in a peaceful place no matter what goes on in the outside world.

So, although the upset people are still upset, I am learning to realize that everything happens for a reason. And, I have chosen to see this as an opportunity to love the unlovable.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happen at the next meeting as unfortunately it seems the ex-mayor committed election fraud by running when he does not live with the town limits. So, the plot thickens.

However, that is not my problem but his… It is my job to not let these mean-spirit folks to yank my chain.

Let’s move on to… How to Deal with Difficult SITUATIONS into our lives?

As with Difficult People, Difficult Situations are

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also in our lives to help us. Everything that happens to us is there to help us grow into love. If we choose.

Let’s take the example of being in debt, out of employment and down to your last few dollars. Has anyone been there? When you are in that situation it is hard to stay in a place of love peace and Divine alignment. Fear can easily grip us at times.

And, if you are encased in Fear and are not able to stay in a place of love, peace and Divine alignment, then nothing can change.

When you are viewing life from a Fear place the answers to the lack of money situation will never come. It is only when you are in the peaceful and loving place that the answers to the situation will come.

Having money issues is like having an unpleasant friend who walks around with you and talks to you all the time and won’t go away. And they keep talking to you in a negative state of mind and you want them to go away. And you have to make a decision you are going to sever that friendship because it is not helping you.

So, when the fear thought about money comes up you say “Hey, I told you I am NOT talking to

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you! I’m not going to talk to you anymore because you are a downer and you take me out of Divine Alignment.

We have to stay determined, focus and have will-power to stay in the positive Divine Alignment frame of mind.

Staying in alignment matters way more than the physical reality, but boy is that ever a hard sell to ourselves. But the more we stay in the negative thoughts the more they come and pile on.

However, the more we stay bound to negative thinking we will never be able to move or shift the money issue. Whatever is more active in our mind is what we are going to create in life.

As a matter of fact, this also applies to relationships, health, the house we live in, the car we drive, the body we walk around in. When we think about any subject and constantly think about what we don’t want and only focus on the negative we are closed to the space that will allow our life to move forward.

So, we have to find a way of breaking the habit of negative thinking about the situation we are in, and as a matter of fact, importantly—we need to stop thinking negative of the negative things that

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are happening in the world.

We have to stay off the subject of negative situations and negative world events because we are not helping to change our self, the situation or the world by being locked in the negative mindset.

We have to stop telling our negative situations over and over to people to get sympathy because are perpetuating the situation to become reality, rather than being able to shift the situation into the positive.

So, in the case of money, start looking at the abundance you already have and focus on the abundance of other things, NOT the lack of money.

Celebrate when you have a money victory. Perhaps a bill comes in and it is less than you thought it was going to be. Celebrate.

Or, perhaps you get an unexpected refund. Celebrate your abundance.

Maybe a friend picks up the tab one day. Or, you find an extra $20 you stuffed in your coat pocket and forgot about. Maybe one day you are getting into your car and there laying right by your car door is a $10.00 bill. Celebrate your abundance.

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The more you stay in the positive the more the money will flow back to you. Key is to want to feel good more than you want money. And from this place you will find the answer of how to create more money and abundance than you will ever need.

If you are out of a job and you are telling yourself “I’m too old, I’m not smart enough, I don’t have enough training” and so forth. Then you will never get the job you need. The reason? Because you are in the lower vibration of thought where you cannot create a positive outcome.

But what if you focused on knowing the Universe will help you find the perfect job that fits you perfectly and held that thought continuously? It is from that place you will manifest the job you need.

So, what it comes down to is learning to hold in your mind the highest vibrational thought with any situation you find yourself struggling. It is only from that place you can find the highest vibrational answer of how to move forward.

If you want clarity to handle any situation in life—you have to stay in the realm of positive thought. Now, this doesn’t mean that you deny your feelings. You have to move through those feelings about a situation before you can ever get to positive thought.

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If you are so out of peace about the situation you have to ask Divine Spirit, “What needs to be healed in me, would you please help me trigger the emotion so I can release this negative feeling.”

Once you move through the fear feeling, then you will come back to peace and back into Divine Alignment where all answers are available to you to help you move through the difficult situation.

SUMMARY

Everything is here to help you. Yes, even the difficult people and situations in your life. These difficult people and situations bring us the contrasts of life. And, there is great value in contrast. Out of the contrast will come greater clarity. And out of that clarity you will come into resonance with your own power.

Realize that the contrast that comes with difficult people and situations is something you have done right. This contrast is part of the clarifying thing that is helping you to realize what you do want to experience and become.

And when you become masters of life you will not ever give up one miserable moment of this life has had to offer you.… because every one of them helps

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you become who you ultimately are.

Can you embrace that fact that when a difficult person or situation comes into your life? These difficult people and situations are a good thing and not a bad thing?

TRY HARD cause it will make your journey a more happy trip!

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Prologue

While Susan was closing out the TeleSeminar I kept hearing Johnny Mercer’s old tune Accentuate The Positive. I’m guessing most of you are too young to have heard this song.

So many songwriters, movie and television scriptwriters and authors have captured the essence of important spiritual truths throughout time. This is just one of those times.

You’ve got to accentuate the positiveEliminate the negativeAnd latch on to the affirmativeDon’t mess with Mister In-Between

You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximumBring gloom way down to the minimumHave faith a pandemoniumLiable to walk upon the sea

To illustrate my last remarkJonah in the whale, Noah in the arkWhat did they do just when everything looked so dark?

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Man, they said “We’d better accentuate the positive”“Eliminate the negative”“And latch on to the affirmative”Don’t mess with Mister In-Between No!Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.

For further enjoyment go to www.youtube.com and find Bing Crosby’s version of this song.

Again, as always, thank you for allowing us to be a part of your spiritual journey on planet earth. Just remember, this is not where you really live. Back home in the spiritual dimension is where the action is. That’s where we all started out and where we’ll all eventually return.

Oh, and one other reminder… You will eventually learn You are not who you think you are! You are not even WHAT you think you are. You are so much greater! Likely beyond your human comprehension right now — so you have something to look forward to:-)

Our Love,Milt and Susan Sanderford