JustBe, hello there! TBH I brought this up to keep the discussion real and grounded. Most of all, to keep it concrete and personal...based on personal challenges in unavoidable, difficult contexts and relationships.
The struggle, or simply the journey, is ultimately simply to be with oneself more truly and more deeply. I think that's what you're saying as well.
However, to discuss this in the abstract does not, I feel, get to the heart of it. Rather, it's only when we actively and regularly engage and situate ourselves variously, that we more deeply understand what this means on the ground, day-to-day.
It's often most acute or unavoidable (same thing) when we must deal or engage with others who may be unkind or unbalanced. Who may be even pointedly and consciously so and perhaps even specifically when dealing with certain relationships (their parents, their children, their employees, etc).
So...TBH...I do understand more deeply than most how limited some folks are (like my dad). He can be regularly petty and unkind and irregularly unstable and unpredictable. And yet I see that what gains he has made have required all his meagre efforts. Whereas so many linger in the same spaces with all the gifts of the world at their fingertips, unused or misaligned. It's all relative, truly.
But it's in these relationships and contexts where our mettle is most truly tested. And that's why it's those unavoidable, difficult, challenging relationships and contexts that I wanted to share and discuss, with regard to being and doing lovingkindness on the ground.
And it's those same things I would be very interested in hearing about from others, as well
Peace & blessings
7L