Recognizing the Enemy is Us

Living Consciously – Recognizing the ‘Enemy’ is Us

by David Rivinus

It is a cosmic law that whatever you perceive is you. This is an opportunity for recognizing the ‘enemy’ is us.

From time to time, we are all thrown into “the cauldron” to burn away those inauthentic parts of ourselves that we no longer need. The trick is to see the aggravation as an opportunity, and just as importantly, to understand the language that the distressing circumstance is communicating in. As I would soon see, Monica was more than ready to grow from her crisis.

Monica didn’t walk into my office. Rather, she exploded through the door. Her hair was in disarray, her clothes were disheveled, there were wrinkled papers sticking haphazardly out of a portfolio she was carrying, and she looked as if she were in the middle of a nightmare, which, in her own way, she was. After awkwardly sitting in the chair I offered her and then requesting a glass of water, she launched into a litany of grievances ranging from a distressing court case she was the plaintive in, to domestic issues, to car troubles. At times her monologue was so rapid-fire and intense, I wondered if she was breathing between outbursts.

The irony was that she had a strong spiritual foundation. Yet the calm, centered approach to life that living consciously or this kind of background usually produces was the antithesis of her agitated demeanor.

I work with dreams, and Monica had heard that I consider waking life just as much a dream as the more traditional dream experience we have when we sleep. She had made her appointment with me to see if I could help, and she was now rattling off an itemized list of her myriad aggravations, almost throwing each one of them at me, to try and convince me of how unfair life was being to her.

When she was finally done, I asked her a simple question: Which of her many grievances did she consider the most pressing? Without a doubt it was the court case against a woman, Lucy, who had cheated her in business and was trying to embezzle money. I asked Monica to describe Lucy, and her reply was immediate, “She’s dishonest. She lies. She manipulates. She cheats. She’s aggressive. She does her best to misrepresent any offer she is making, and she always has this saccharine smile on her face that you just know is fake.”