I love the Buddhist’s rule: harm no living thing. It’s all about compassion. Being raised a Christian, I was taught the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
I was very anxious when I approached Step Eight. Sure, I could rant about the harm others had caused me. If it wasn’t so sad, it would have been comical how much difficulty I had seeing how I had harmed others.
The patterns I discovered that have done harm to me and others are:
--Manipulation
--Control
--Dishonesty
--Insensitivity
--Denial
--Stubborn
The reason I mentioned that Golden Rule is because I really had to question my belief system and I realized that over the years I really started twisting things. The Golden Rule is about treating people the way you would treat yourself. Well, somehow, I started thinking of it as a quid pro quo. I also realize that I somehow started treating people better than I would treat myself.
I remember one day reflecting how I would spend hundreds of dollars on my partner but would rarely spend any money on myself. I would go all out for others and leave nothing for myself, yet resent others for my behavior.
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