3 perspective shifting strategies for dealing with difficult people

Listen to the podcast episode: https://www.drsatorimadrone.com/podcasts/master-of-play-with-dr-satori/episodes/2148283567

Welcome to the Master of Play With Dr Satori Podcast! Here are the highlights from Episode 3:

• Encountering difficult or challenging people is inevitable, as they can include our own friends, family members, as well as strangers or those we read about online.
• What makes people "difficult" isn't their behavior or the beliefs they hold, it's the frustration and discomfort we experience when we perceive that others fail to meet our own expectations.
• Perceiving others as difficult stems from misunderstanding that they and we are having our own unique experiences on the playground of life.
• Using the analogy of a playground, it becomes clear that each dimension of consciousness is an opportunity for exploration and play, and there is no judgment about what toys are chosen to play with, as various toys represent certain frequencies of consciousness. 
• What we judge in another is the character or role they're playing that we view as separate from who they are as Divine Source Consciousness. 
• We don't have to agree with or like the choices that others make. It's about letting go of the judgment and resistance so we can be free and peaceful in the face of any challenge.
• The first strategy is about reframing the situation so we can tell a different story with love and compassion, thus taking responsibility for our level of consciousness.
• The second strategy involves viewing challenging others through the lens of an ascended master, and to remember that we are already ascended masters.
• Finally, the third strategy involves remembering that we and everyone are all One. If we truly believe we are all Divine, then everyone else is an expression of you and you are an expression of everyone else. We're all here to expand and explore different ways of experiencing our divinity through playing with the toys of various levels of consciousness.
• Love is all there is. Where there is love, there is no difficulty.

Master of Play with Dr Satori - Episode 3: 3 perspective shifting strategies for dealing with difficult people

Hey there, Dr Satori here, and welcome to the playground of joy and conscious evolution.

In the course of our lives, we inevitably cross paths with individuals we label as challenging, troublesome, or simply hard to deal with. Sometimes they play a direct role in our lives as our partners, family members, friends, coworkers, or even those we randomly encounter, and sometimes we feel impacted by difficult others through the lens of politics, news, or social media.

These individuals seem to have a knack for stirring up discomfort, irritation, frustration, or a range of other emotions within us. As such, the tendency is to perceive them as complications in our lives or obstacles to our happiness, whether it’s in the short or long-term.

And because we view them as the root of our problem, we blame them, feeling convinced that if only they would change their behavior, align with our perspectives, and stop interfering with our desires and beliefs, then everything would be smooth sailing.

If you’ve found yourself nodding along, it’s because we’ve all experienced this at some point. Perhaps you’re currently grappling with a challenging individual in your life, unsure of what to say to them or what to do to create more harmony and ease, when you secretly wish they would just go away or miraculously stop what they’re doing so the problem would disappear.

On today’s podcast, we’re delving into the intricate layers of consciousness, unraveling the dynamics of our evolution on life’s playground. We’ll then connect these insights to three effective strategies for shifting perspectives, offering a fresh approach to evolving our beliefs, emotions, and interactions with those seemingly difficult people in our lives. By the end of this episode, you’ll have the tools you need to free yourself from the stress and frustration of feeling impacted by the choices of others. 

The meaning behind being difficult

So let’s get started by breaking down what we mean when we call someone "difficult."

When something is difficult, it's the opposite of easy. Similarly, a difficult person is someone who could feel hard to get along with, uncooperative or not easy to please. They may appear to be selfish, inflexible, holding onto rigid beliefs and ways, or they might be unwilling to compromise or work together towards a solution.

When we say someone is "being difficult," we're basically saying their behavior doesn't match what we want, it doesn’t meet our approval. We measure their actions against our own expectations, based on how we think they should behave.

Expecting certain behavior from others comes from wanting them to do things that make us feel comfortable. But when we do this, we give our power away and make someone else responsible for our comfort and satisfaction. And because only we can create these outcomes for ourselves, others will always fall short of our expectations.

Now look, there's no judgment here about any of this. It's simply about understanding our thoughts and feelings with compassion so we can make more effective choices and create the outcomes that we desire. Because if we judge others or we judge ourselves for judging others, then we get stuck in a cycle of shame, blame, misery and dysfunction.

The unexpected and unknown are often misinterpreted as “difficult”

Let's imagine that we’ve just transported ourselves back to the 1800s. The way we act, dress, and what we believe would be confusing and even disturbing for the people of that era. They would likely find us difficult to understand because everything about us would be strange, unexpected, and unknown. And what is unexpected and unknown is likely to be misunderstood and feared, especially when the consciousness of an environment reflects scarcity, duality, separation, and judgment. 

On the flip side, we’d surely see them as difficult too. Even if we tried to explain ourselves, offering new tools and information from the future, many would likely resist because our ideas wouldn’t make sense to them. We and our ideas would be out of the context of their reality, just like their habits and lifestyle would be out of sync with our own.

From a broader perspective, we can look at this with kindness and compassion. People in the past knew what they knew based on their way of thinking and the level of consciousness they were in at that time. Instead of judging them, we can understand their limitations and realize that with the eventual shift to tools of higher consciousness, they would someday advance in their journey of self-realization.

Now, let’s extend this understanding to an analogy that will serve as the foundation to solving the dilemma of “difficult people.” 

Experimenting with life on the playground

Picture yourself as the Creator, experiencing Oneness, and desiring to create a new opportunity to grow, expand, and evolve what you know and who you are. Imagine you and a team of celestial architects coming together to design and build a creation called "The Playground." This is a place filled with all the resources you could ever need to explore and create whatever you desire. 

As new explorers arrive, they start in the third-dimensional consciousness. Just like children beginning school for the first time, they need time to adjust and learn about their environment, and as they master one level of learning and play, they advance to the next.

And at every level of play, there exists different sets of toys, each designed to help the explorers expand and grow as they create new realities within each dimension of consciousness. It’s through interacting with these toys that the explorers build their model of understanding the whole playground, how it works, and their place within it. The greater their level of self-awareness, the more integrated the toys become with their own consciousness.

This means that in the denser, more physical environment of the playground, the toys appear as separate from the explorers. That’s because the 3D section of the playground was created to experience judgment, fear, lack, limitation, competition, suffering, and separation from Source. The explorers who play with these toys put them into categories of right and wrong, good and bad, me and you, and all other experiences of duality.

3D explorers are drawn to playing with the toy of judgment and labeling others as bad, difficult, unworthy, or undeserving. These young explorers might play the game of the victim, blaming difficult people for making life harder for them, for treating them badly and not behaving appropriately or fairly, according to their interpretation of the playground’s rules.

Because they have free choice, explorers in every section of the playground can play with their toys for as long as they wish. There is no judgment about what they play with, the choices they make, or what they create. 

Eventually, explorers will outgrow their toys as they desire to unlock the next level of exploration as their inner guidance systems become more defined. They will start searching with a greater curiosity for something more enriching and satisfying that leads to grander creations, growth, and expansion.

Into the fourth dimension 

3D explorers begin to transition into the fourth dimension when they realize that they hold the keys to their own evolution, including the possibilities of healing, alignment, transformation, and self-realization. They start asking the questions “Who am I?”, “Why am I here?”, “What’s my life purpose,” and “Is there more to existence than life on this playground?” They also imagine creating a life of greater balance, purpose, satisfaction, wellbeing, and fulfillment.

They seek out fourth dimensional toys that will help them to explore these questions. They also seek out others who have similar questions, those who have discovered their own answers to these questions, and they play in cocreation with others who have similar desires.

These developing explorers who make the transition into 4D begin to play with toys of conscious manifestation and creation. And they begin aligning with people, places and opportunities that help them to recall more and more of their Divine Nature, and they begin to understand that they have created their lives and everything in it.

And as they attune to their ability to consciously create, they become more aware of what they want and don't want. They become more discerning and aware of what toys they like playing with and what they don't, and so they stop playing with the toys that don't support who they are becoming. 

And they begin to notice that no matter what the circumstances are within the environment of the playground, that their thoughts about those circumstances lead to the emotions that signal the experiences of higher or lower consciousness. Because of this, they realize that they are not victims because they have control over their vibration and who and what it attracts and manifests.

Those having a 4D experience focus on exploring the 4D toys of healing, growth, and development. They become aware that these toys help to alleviate suffering and create higher levels of transformation, and so some 4D explorers try to enlighten those in 3D with this knowledge.

However, this can lead to misunderstandings. Some in 3D might feel judged, interpreting 4D explorers as arrogant, better than, or misguided about the realities of the playground. And both groups clash if they think their toys are the better toys, increasing separation if one group attempts to convert the other to their own beliefs and view of reality.

Difficulties disappear in 5D

But all judgments fall away as explorers evolve into higher levels of consciousness within the fifth dimension. Here, from the highest vantage point on this playground, it becomes clear that everyone is Divine and has free choice, and that none of the toys - or the desire to play with the toys - is good or bad, right or wrong, better than or less than. 

It is in this 5D consciousness environment that there are no longer any "difficult people," or even difficult situations. As unconditional love and Oneness replaces judgment, 5D explorers understand they are part of a larger community beyond the playground. 

They know that there are other realms of evolution and unfolding yet to be experienced and created on this and on other playgrounds. This is the zenith of freedom, where the toys of exploration are always in abundance and are always available in perfect timing. 

All of us on the planet have chosen to play within various levels of density and consciousness, exploring what it's like to create from these unique perspectives.

Because all levels of consciousness are aspects of the Creator, no dimension is better or worse than the other. It’s simply that the denser the vibrational experience, the more you experience being separate from Source. And as you increase your consciousness, your frequency, you increase your awareness and connection to who you are as the Divine.

Everyone is playing a role, exploring choice-making and expression through layers of consciousness 

Now, let’s apply this playground metaphor to our own lives. When we take a higher perspective, it becomes clear that any challenges we face with people who appear as difficult stem from a misunderstanding of who we and others truly are.

Those who seem to be challenging, annoying, uncaring, hurtful, unjust, or just plain mean, are Masters of Play who are exploring choices and expressions within the density of a lower consciousness environment. It’s the character they’re choosing to play that we judge as wrong, bad, or difficult.

Likewise, we are also playing a role, experimenting with expression, exploring, creating, and defining ourselves and our lives in ways that are unique to us. The beauty of free choice is the diversity that gets expressed through having so many options to explore. 

For example, when I go to the grocery store, I enjoy thinking about all the shoppers and the food choices they make. Not one shopping cart is the same as another’s. And this reflects the tastes, diets, budgets, families, cultures, and other variables that are unique to each person. There is no right or wrong basket of food to buy at the store, and no one is being difficult or challenging another’s free will by selecting what they personally want to eat. 

Any challenge that we face regarding others lies in the judgments and thoughts that foster a sense of separation and opposition. When we resist or judge, we are the ones who introduce a state of difficulty. 

We introduce resistance to our lives when we oppose or judge anything, because God or the Divine never judges and is never in opposition to anyone or anything. 

This is not to excuse anyone’s behavior or to paint a rosy picture of what anyone chooses to do. And it’s not about trying to force yourself to be okay with things like war, poverty, hunger, abuse, inequalities, and so on. It’s about letting go of the judgment so you can feel peaceful. 

Because if you’re enraged about an act of violence, for example, the vibration of rage binds you to that violence, and neither you, the perpetrator nor victim are free, as you are choosing to play with them in their corner of the playground.

However, when you respond to violence by aligning with the frequency of peace within, you allow peace to flow without. And not only are you no longer entrapped by what you encounter, you are in the only position that can aid in bringing forward a solution. Solutions are never brought about by the same level of consciousness that created the problem. 

Because in any situation, it’s resisting the peace that feels difficult. That’s what’s hard and not easy. Resistance is the state of momentarily forgetting that we and everyone else are all Source Creators. It’s what happens when we cut ourselves off from this innate knowing and we become enmeshed in the energy of separation

Resistance is solid, dense, unbending, unforgiving, and an aspect of the third dimension of consciousness that expresses separation. What we resist feels uncomfortable because it goes against who we truly are as Spirit Incarnate. 

And we can’t change any person, condition, environment or situation through our judgment and fixing. What truly brings a shift in consciousness is love. 

So, to make this all practical in our daily lives, let’s delve into the three consciousness-shifting strategies that will change our perspectives of seemingly difficult others. 

Strategy Number One: Reframe the Situation and Accept Responsibility with Love and Compassion

Strategy number one: Reframe the situation and accept responsibility with love and compassion.

Reframing involves revisiting our experiences with a fresh and elevated perspective. If we have a negative encounter with someone, we get to have a “do over” by telling a different story of what happened.

When we’ve had an interaction that we didn’t like or that left us feeling uncomfortable, we get to reevaluate our role and create new meaning. Since we are the authors of our own narratives, we have the power to choose the meaning that we give to all situations we experience. 

Basically, people become difficult when we believe they’ve done something to us that made us feel uncomfortable. Whether it was an action that we didn’t like or words they’ve said, when we experienced it, we felt bad, and we believed the source of our feelings was due to that person.

However, it's crucial to understand that no one possesses the ability to make us think or feel a certain way; we are solely responsible for our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and level of consciousness. Every time we blame others for how we feel, we give our power away to the belief that we are separate from them and from the Divine. 

Faulting others comes from playing with the 3D toys of wounding instead of the 5D tools of wisdom. When we are wounded, we become the victims of our own resistance to our inherent worth.

For example, if someone calls us a name we don’t like, yells at us for not meeting their expectations, or tells us in so many ways that we aren’t good enough, then we become wounded if we react with the same level of consciousness that they are projecting. Because if we allow that vibration of confrontation or disharmony into our bodies and energy field, we allow less of who we are into our experience, and we forget that we are all One, all Masters of Play experimenting on the playground

But the good news is, we are solely responsible for our vibration and our level of consciousness, and we can choose joy instead of disempowerment. Responsibility means being accountable to ourselves for our own state of being, which is different from “reacting” to circumstances around us.

The realm of reactivity is a third dimensional state of acting unconsciously, or out of habit. The meaning of the word “react” is “to exert an opposite action against the one who has acted.” Reactivity is resistance because it’s a response of fear, anger, or pushing against the belief that we all have free choice as aspects of the Divine. 

However, we exercise responsibility when we prioritize our highest expression of who we are as creators of our own reality. When we claim responsibility for our own experience, we reinforce a higher perspective of unconditional love over judgment, criticism, or blame. 

We respond from empowerment and alignment with our truth, and we react from a place of disconnection from our power and our divinity. 

So, when we reframe a situation, we have the opportunity to interact with it again from a higher level of mind. For example, let’s say that someone we love tells us that we’re being ridiculous if we believe that we create our own reality, and if we believe that then we’re out of touch with the way the world really works. 

And let’s imagine that we feel offended and hurt by the comment, and we can’t believe our loved one thinks we’re crazy. Not just that but we feel our hearts retract because we’ve closed off from the love that we feel for them, and we begin to feel less accepted and more isolated, thinking that we’re misunderstood. 

Then, we start judging them for being difficult, wrong, and for not realizing the aggravation they’re experiencing is their own doing. And this leads us to digging up more unpleasant memories that reinforce our judgments, finding more fault with them so that we can feel better about ourselves and validate our own beliefs. And the scenario can spiral from there. 

The more we work ourselves up or stew over the situation, the worse the offense becomes, and the more difficult the offender becomes. Plus, as we dwell on it, we reinforce and enmesh with the energy of aggravation by expressing a lower state of consciousness. In turn, we get more of the vibration we are being, and we can start to attract even more aggravation to us.

So now let’s revisit what’s happened and reframe it. To transform anything into a higher level of understanding, we must introduce a higher level of consciousness, of unconditional love. When we move into love and forgiveness for ourselves and our loved one, we lay the foundation for healing and resolution. 

Imagine that we recorded the scenario and now we’re playing it back, like we’re rewatching a scene from a tv show. And here’s the part where our beloved makes a statement. They say to us, “you’re ridiculous if you believe that you create your own reality, and if you believe that then you’re out of touch with the way the world really works."

Pause. Here’s the decision point. What new choice are we going to make here? Let’s start with how we feel about our friend or family member. Do we love them? Yes. Do we need to agree with anything they say or believe that it’s true? No. Do we have to like what they say? No. Do they have free choice to believe whatever they wish? Yes. And, do they have the freedom to express what they believe from the level of consciousness that they choose to explore? Yes. They are choosing what toys to play with and how to make sense of the playground for their own enjoyment, expansion, and evolution, as are we. 

From this vantage point, nothing is wrong because nothing can ever be wrong. They aren’t wrong for saying what they did, and we’re not wrong for believing something else. And we can continue to hold love in our hearts without judgment, without entanglement, and without needing to be right and making them wrong. This is the process of reframing. This is the process of letting go of what doesn’t serve us and choosing what does.

Strategy Number Two: What Wouldn’t Jesus Do?

Now, from this state of higher awareness, here’s the second perspective shifting strategy for dealing with seemingly difficult people. I playfully call it “What Wouldn’t Jesus Do.” And you can certainly swap out Jesus, who is also known as Yeshua or Sananda, for any other ascended master or deity who you feel connected to, such as Mother Mary, Kwan Yin, Buddha, Babaji, or whoever you might pray to or otherwise reach out to for support or guidance.

Okay, imagine that your best friend shared a secret of yours with someone you don’t like, and you just found out about it. And now you’re on the phone with another friend and you’re rehashing the whole situation and complaining about how horrible your now ex-BFF is and what kind of person they must be to have done this to you. And then you go on to recall a list of past wrongs where your friend did other things or said things that you didn’t like or agree with. And you go on and on, building the momentum of judgment and creating more and more separation between you and your friend.

Now, for this example, imagine that the person on the other end of the line, the person who you’re ranting to about the situation is Jesus.

Here’s what wouldn’t happen. Jesus, for example, wouldn’t say, “I can’t believe she did that! No wonder you’re upset, she’s a horrible person and she doesn’t deserve you for a friend. That’s probably why her husband left her for another woman. Maybe we should post that on social media."

Jesus – or any ascended master or enlightened being - wouldn’t take sides or get involved in the lower consciousness game that we and our friends were playing. He would simply love us all, recognizing that we’re merely choosing to play with the toys of complaining, gossip, anger, hurt and separation. He would see us for who we are – Sparks of the Divine, and masters of play who have temporarily cut ourselves off from our magnificence and Oneness.

So quite simply, in the midst of feeling challenged by certain people, be like an ascended master. Because indeed, you are already an ascended master. There’s no separation between you and any enlightened being, and there is no separation between you and the Divine. You just don’t feel like an enlightened being if you are denying who you really are.

Strategy Number Three: Acknowledge the Oneness of Everyone and Everything

Which leads us to strategy number three: acknowledging the oneness of everyone and everything.

When we find others to be challenging or difficult, and we want them to be different, and to make the choices we want them to make for our own comfort and satisfaction, we can liberate ourselves from all frustration, worry, fear, sadness, and anger by remembering one simple thing.

If we truly believe that we are all one, that we are eternal beings who have come from and are part of the Divine Source Consciousness, then nothing and no one can ever be separate from anything or anyone.

No matter who we encounter and no matter what toys they choose to play with on the playground, including what dimension of consciousness they choose to explore, we are not separate from them.

Think about it this way...

If you are Divine, then everyone on the playground of life is an extension of you, and they are all choosing to explore different aspects of consciousness and creation within the realm of physical density, where you’ve focused yourself into being an individual expression of the Divine.

In other words, your kids are you, your partner is you, your parents are you, your neighbors are you, your coworkers are you, those who work at your favorite coffee shop are you, everyone you follow on social media is you, all the politicians are you, all those who you disagree with or fight against are you.

Just sit with this for a moment. Everyone you know and encounter, and those who you don’t encounter and will never know, in the past, present, and future, are all extensions or versions of you. 

While you create your life based on your individual choices, so do they. They are other expressions of you who are deciding what roles they’d like to play so they can have different experiences and expand their understanding of who they really are. 

If they were meant to think like you, look like you, act like you, have the same background and make the exact same choices as you, then there wouldn’t be anything for them to explore because there wouldn’t be any opportunity for expansion. Because on this playground, freedom to choose and the diversity that evolves from it prompts expansion. 

At the same time, you are an extension of everyone else, making your own unique choices as to how and what you wish to create.

And when we can acknowledge the Divine in All, and from a higher vibrational perspective, we can see beyond the human avatar of what people look like, how they identify, and all the social components and characteristics that appear to define who they are, then what we see – the only thing that’s left - is their True Nature. And every time you can see Source Consciousness in another, it’s because you recognize it within yourself.

So why would we choose to view anyone as other than Creator, including ourselves? The only reason we would mistake anyone for their human avatar or their behavior on the playground of life is that we have temporarily forgotten that love is all there is.

When we forget this fundamental truth, it’s solely for the reason that we have been momentarily distracted by the illusion of difficulty, challenge or separation. And when we understand this, we can refocus our awareness on the truth of love, allowing ourselves to align with the unconditional, pure love that is always available to us at every moment.

You, my friend, are enough just as you are. And when you no longer feel the need to fix what you think is broken or strive to be anyone other than who you are, you also free yourself to accept and allow others to be fully themselves. In this authenticity of being, there is no challenge, no difficultly, no separation, and there is no ”other.” There is only ease and the unfolding of joy, peace, and love.