When you meet someone carrying a basket of rocks, would you ask them to give you a rose? Of course not. You ask the person carrying a basket of roses to give you a rose. Why are you expecting roses from people carrying rocks?

People will only ever be capable of relating with you, seeing you, and giving to you; in the exact same ways they relate with, see, and give to, themselves.

Now imagine a person living in the paradise of the Swiss Alps. They live in a cottage on a sloping meadow, beside a flowing brook, alongside lambs and alpine rose gardens. They are within paradise and paradise is within them; do you think such a person would have the time and interest to see the worst in you, shame you and find all the bad in you?

What we carry within ourselves and see within ourselves, are exactly the same spaces we will be able to hold open for, and see in, others. We cannot find the gutters when we are in the Alps. We cannot find the Alps when we are in the gutters. We cannot walk in rose gardens when we live under bridges and we cannot see what lurks under the bridges when we walk in rose gardens.

Every person is only capable of relating to others, seeing in others, and finding for others; what they first have been able to embrace in themselves, see in themselves, and find for themselves. A person who has embraced their own shame and found the best in themself will also embrace the shame of others and find the best in others.

Nobody is able to move beautifully in the life of someone else a minute before they are able to move beautifully for themself in their own life. We give what we have. We cannot possibly give what we don't have. It is a very real and simple principle!

When you are mistreated, shamed and looked upon as less than; never for a second should you think that those who do you in these ways are doing so from a loftier place than your own. They are not! As they do to you, they so hold within themselves, they fail to embrace in themselves and they do in fact experience within themselves. Do not feel pain from such people. For how can you expect roses from those who are carrying rocks?

If someone embraces your shame and finds the best in you, that is because what they have been able to do for themself and within themself, they naturally do for others. A person in the Swiss Alps sees gardens. A person living under the bridge sees trash. What a person sees is exactly where a person is at.

Those who chastise, shame and ridicule you, are flowing from a place that is theirs and theirs alone. It's not your space, it is never about you. Those who carry baskets of rocks will throw rocks while those who carry baskets of roses will plant and give roses.
I can carry paradise within me, I can carry the Swiss Alps within me, along with all its alpine roses. I can be the garden of Eden. Thus, I have set myself free from the burdens of others' perceptions; it is compassion which sets me free, for I can only feel compassion for those living under bridges. How can I feel for them anything other than this?