You’ve probably heard many spiritual teachers say that you can’t change other people. However, this is not entirely true and it really depends on what exactly your approach to change the other person is.
Changing Their Behaviors, Attitudes or Beliefs
If you attempt or even expect someone else to change their behaviors, their attitudes or even their belief systems then you will most likely get caught up in the Expectation->Disappointment->Blame karmic loop.
Your chances of changing someone else’s behavior by force or using manipulation tactics is almost guaranteed to result in absolute failure. The moment you think or feel that someone “shouldn’t” be a certain way, you will meet them from a state of resistance. And whatever you resist, persists.
It’s human nature to get defensive when we are met with resistance. Have you ever tried questioning someone’s way of life or belief systems? How did they react?
Most likely they went into a state of self-righteousness and tried to defend their beliefs. The Ego loves creating its identity out of belief systems, the more a person is identified with their beliefs the greater their inability to change and adapt will be when exposed to a new way of thinking, feeling or being.
No Two People Have Ever Loved Each Other
That is a quote from Byron Katie. It might sound like a ludicrous statement, but when you really let the words sink in you’ll find a lot of truth in them.
When you meet someone else for the first time that person will be filtered through your own belief systems, ideas, attitudes, past relationships and even your current emotional state. The moment you meet someone you instantaneously create an idea of that person and they begin to become alive within you as a thought-form.
This is why the same person can be the coolest person in the world to someone and the greatest f@*king idiot on the planet to another. Your family, your friends, your co-workers and your spouse will all have a different idea of who “you” are based on how THEY perceive you and how THEY interpret what you say and do.
Which then is the true version of you? Who do they truly love or despise?
They can only love or despise the idea of you that they have created within themselves.
The Only TRUE Way To Change Someone Else
When you meet someone else you are only meeting another version of yourself. The ONE-Source-God in individuated form meeting another individuated form of the same Source.
Indeed, we are all mirrors to each other and the uni-verse.
With this awareness in mind, if you want to change someone else, then you must change how YOU relate to that person’s reflection within you. This is way easier than changing the outside manifestation of that person, which you have almost zero percent control over. On the other hand you have 100% control in how you choose to feel, think and relate to that person within yourself.
However, this inner reflection often becomes tainted by a myriad of belief systems, attitudes, unresolved emotions, past traumatic events, thought-forms, soul fragments, etc. that you have accumulated through this and other past lifetimes. These unresolved issues and energetic blockages become triggered within you and you project them onto the other person.
When You Change, Others Change
We all have heard the famous Gandhi quote “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” The same philosophy applies for relationships.
The moment you change, the other person changes.
In this case you are looking to change, heal, unwind and transmute the belief systems, attitudes, past traumatic events and unresolved emotions that you have related to that person.
Anytime you become triggered by that person, that trigger becomes an entry point to unwind that unresolved emotion or to question that belief. The more successfully do this, the more you will notice that even though that person is still the same person you begin to feel about them and even see them in a whole new way.
And something else profounds begins to happen. As you heal these unresolved issues and you begin to open the other person will sense this openness within you. No longer are you holding them in these self created limitations about them and this feels great to them, even thought they might not have a clue of what has changed.
But something has changed, you changed how you feel and think about them. They will feel this change within you and something magical will happen. If they resonate with the change they will adapt and act accordingly. Your inner change becomes an open invitation for them to change, an invitation without an agenda.
And if they don’t change, at least they changed within you and that is all that truly matters.
Personal Story
Many years ago the relationship I had with my mother was full of drama and guilt. I thought my mom should change, I wanted to fix her and rescue her.
Anytime my mother wanted something from me she would resort to using guilt as a strategy to manipulate me. I hated this with a passion, but despite my hate I would succumb to the guilt and do what she asked of me. This strategy got to the point where I was choosing my professional carrier based on what my mom approved of. Needless to say I was miserable.
I wanted my mom to understand me and let me be. How foolish of me 🙂
Finally I decided that I would clear all karmic imprints, soul fragments and cords of attachments related to victimization, guilt, co-dependency and blame, especially those that were triggered by my mom.
This inner journey led me to awaken and embody a state of personal power. From this new found state of awareness I realized that I was giving away my personal power by feeling guilty and seeking my mother’s love, approval and appreciation.
The decision to not feel guilty anymore changed my life. No longer did I see my mom as the tyrant who could manipulate me and “make” me feel guilty. She was simply doing what she had learned from her mother.
As soon as I stopped feeling guilty and told my mother that I would not engage in her manipulation strategies, our relationship changed. Of course my mother kept trying to relate to me in this way but when she saw that I wasn’t partaking in the dynamic and the connection through drama had vanished, she made the choice to start relating to me in different ways.
And so by changing myself and without forcing my mother to be different we both ended up changing.