When my dog bites me, I get mad but I don’t feel betrayed and I don’t hold a grudge. When my husband acts like an ass (I mean, a donkey), I often attribute it to his malicious intent or purposeful neglect. Instead, I need to just remind myself that even though these beings with whom I am in relationship (husband, two mothers-in-law, father, etc.) walk and talk like rational humans, I would be better off if I thought of them as different kinds of animals.
If I really thought of my mother-in-law as a snake, I wouldn’t get so worked up about her as I do. I’d just think, “My son loves to play with this snake; this snake will never bite him, but *I* don’t like snakes. And if I ever get close to being seduced into believing I might be able to trust the snake, I have got to remember: this is a snake; it’s just in a snake’s nature to bite when it’s threatened. Never fully let your guard down.” To personalize it, to get upset, or entrenched with rage over how the snake treats me would be silly. Instead, I could just view things practically: when around a snake, use basic precautions, that’s all.
I once got into a HUGE argument with my other mother-in-law. (What karma blessed me with having not one but two)? I kept pushing her to just talk to me about why she was angry but she evaded --until my continued pressing led her finally to blow up. I should have been smarter. If instead I had perceived her as an animal, I would not have expected this scared kitten, stubborn goat, innocent rabbit, or whatever to be capable of having a rational conversation. In turn, if she had pictured me as a stubborn ol' mule in her own right, we might have spared ourselves a huge blow out altogether.
I believe it was in Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul that the author suggests thinking about the people in our lives as eccentric characters in a novel. My suggestion is in a similar vein of thought. The bottom line is that in order to be in a better place in my relationships I sometimes have to find ways to lighten up, to depersonalize, and to relativize who all the actors and participants are (including myself).
The Buddhists are right; it really is our expectations of others that cause so much suffering. As a kid, I expected my father to be a father, to be the adult in our relationship. So, I would get really upset when he was even more psychologically needy than I was. I have to get over stuff like that. We’re all human; all flawed. There's both good and bad in all creatures. Cats both scratch and cuddle. Dogs both bite and protect.
To expect all those cats and dogs out there not to bite or scratch sometimes, to expect them to be any different than they are, would make ME crazy not them.
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