by Gary Zukav: The hardest times to choose love are the very times when you can most grow spiritually…
In fact, they are the only times you can grow spiritually! When you are angry, jealous, impatient or holding a grudge, a part of your personality that has no interest in love is active in you. It is not interested in other people. It is not even interested in you. It is interested only in what it desires in order to make it feel safe and valuable, for example: winning a power struggle, being right, making someone wrong, having its needs met first, eating when your body does not need food. These are all experiences of the frightened parts of your personality, and the list of what these parts want is as long as it is familiar. The worst thing they do, though, is prevent you from choosing love.
The loving parts of your personality have no trouble loving. That is all they do. You experience the loving parts of as gratitude, appreciation, caring, patience, contentment and awe of life. They are polar opposites of the frightened parts of your personality. They are interested in other people. They love other people. They are interested in you, and they love you, too. When you experience a loving part of your personality, you love other people and yourself.
The question is: How can you have the experiences of a loving part of your personality when a frightened part of your personality is active? The first step is to distinguish the loving parts of your personality that are active from the frightened parts of your personality that are active—in other words, to learn to distinguish love from fear in you. The second step is to choose love, no matter what. When you choose love again and again, even when the frightened parts of your personality are active (for example, you are angry, jealous, in despair, etc.), the frightened parts lose their power. They still come, and they still hurt, and they still have no interest in other people or you, but they no longer control you.
Each time you choose not to act on a frightened part of your personality, you create authentic power—and you grow spiritually. The frightened parts of your personality come less frequently and with less intensity, and the loving parts fill more and more of your consciousness. Eventually the frightened parts of your personality lose their sway over you entirely, and only the loving parts remain. When this happens, jealousy, resentment, inferiority, superiority, are no longer obstacles to your spiritual growth. They are opportunities for it! They are broad avenues that lead to exactly where you want to go, to fulfillment and joy, awareness and freedom—if you choose to take them. The hardest times to choose love become the very times that you can most grow spiritually. In fact, they are the only times you can grow spiritually!
