By Jackie Woods
How many times have you gone to an event and looked around to see if your clothing was appropriate? How often do you watch the performance of someone and compare it to how well you can do that job? Do you look at your ancestral lineage as something to be either proud or ashamed of? In other words, do you look at people as mile-markers indicating your success or failure?
What if a magic fairy waved her wand, and all at once you could see the qualities that make up the totality of our spirits being mirrored everywhere you looked? Instead of seeing their clothes as an indication of their taste, you might see their beauty or creativity. Instead of seeing their competence as a measuring stick for your own, you might recognize such qualities as structure or organization. When you look at your family tree, instead of pride or disappointment, you could notice the continuation of qualities such as nurturing, persistence, care, or passion.
These qualities may not look the way you want them to, but if you look underneath the individuality, you will find that their spirit has the same qualities as yours – just with different coverings.
To see the “me” in “thee” requires a good bit of retraining, because we have learned to make comparisons almost from day one. If you had a sibling or a friend, you probably observed differences. In school the grading system put some kids above others.
When you hit your teen years, clothes became a big issue of comparison. Then, as an adult, the best jobs got the most money.
Even though the boot camp of giving up comparisons may be rough at first, because lifetime patterns can be tough to give up, the reward will be great.
You will be able to see yourself as the God-given qualities that make up your essence. Also you will be able to expand those qualities as you discover them wearing a different look in others.
This kind of focus in life will break down the illusionary walls of separation and push into a world of expanded discovery.
As a beginning place, you might sit down and list the qualities that you presently recognize in yourself.
Then do the same for your very best friend. Each day pick one person to observe. Try to uncover the one quality that they bring most frequently. You don’t even need to be enamored with the forms through which they are expressing this quality.
Instead of comparing their form of expression to yours, reflect on how you can expand that quality in yourself. Remember patterns are changed one day at a time, and if they are changed to accommodate more qualities of spirit, greater happiness will be the reward.
Jackie Woods is the founder and director of the Adawehi Wellness Center off Fox Mtn. Road in Columbus.
She has taught personal growth classes for over 30 years.  Her goal is to help people change the patterns of expression that block the qualities of their spirit.