Whether you see it or not, you do know how to call difficulties to you, how to keep them and, even escalate them. This is how you do it:
 
You think about the difficulties often. You gnaw at them as a dog a bone. You resent the difficulties that you see encroaching on you through others. If others would only be easier to get along with or would understand how difficult a situation or situations are for you, life would be a lot better and easier for you. Certainly, it seems that way. Certainly, you see so-called others as reprehensible and yourself innocent. Is this not the case?
 
One way or another, beloveds, if there is a pattern that recurs in your life, there is something in you that can change. Must change. There is something you are seeing and a way you are reacting to what you see that keeps you shackled in a kind of bondage. You are bonded to certain ideas and perspectives you hold as inviolable. In one way or another, you hold onto something that you see as the inalienable truth of the matter.
 
So long as you call your approach to the matter as true, the situation, as you perceive it, takes this as an invitation to stay. You hold on to it. Let go of it, and the world can only react differently to you. Dear Ones, you are mistaken in some way. When you are self-righteous and can’t let go of seeing as you do, you tend to keep that which you say you don’t want close to you. You nurture it.
 
You play a part in the situation. If you have a hot potato in your hand, it is your hand holding a hot potato. Until you drop it, you are victim to it. It is hard sometimes for one who perceives himself as a victim to let go of being a victim. Self-righteousness makes you hold on to being a victim. Even if something isn’t right, even if it isn’t right to the whole world, so long as you keep the rights and wrongs of the situation close to you, you keep the situation yours.
 
When a light bulb goes on in your mind, a little light comes in. It makes a difference when you keep the light and relent your grip on the difficulties. Relent your grip on the difficulties, and the situation will change. What has to change in the situation is the way you see it.
 
If you see a tiger, you are the one seeing the tiger. Perhaps you are really seeing a kitty-cat. So long as you see a tiger, it is a tiger you respond to. Others are not the only ones misinformed, beloveds. Better to dissolve the tiger villain in front of you.
 
Whether it is a diamond or a piece of coal you clasp, you are not the owner. You may keep a diamond or a piece of coal close to you, and, so, you presume you own it. So long as you presume that certain difficulties are yours, something in you keeps them. Perhaps your sense of ownership keeps them.
 
Perhaps it is a cool summer’s day and you feel a chill. If you feel chilled, you will put your coat on. What if you feel chilled, and the temperature is actually 80 F, and you still feel chilled, you are the one feeling chilled. So long as you believe that what you sense is accurate, regardless of what the case may be, you will wrap your coat around you. You can only act on how you perceive. The way you see certain situations may not be helpful to you.
 
Come, have a change of heart and give it a try. Go beyond your conviction that you are right and that there are no two ways about it.
 
In this upcoming moment, there are people who will see something differently, and this is to their betterment. They are giving more than lip service to changing their perceptions. I propose that when you let go enough, when you calm down enough to see through the walls you have built up, you will naturally see differently. Your perception will have changed.
 
Prove no one guilty based on your perception. Face asking yourself what you can possibly do to change the affront of the situation that you see so stubbornly with your eyes. What can you do? You, not someone else. You? That is the question to ask. What can you do?