"But you took it out on me!" the man insisted.

Siegel, a loving and sensitive person, saw the truth in this and changed his behavior. Years later, he read a line of poetry by Rumi: Your criticism polishes my mirror. "When I heard that," Siegel exclaimed, "it was like 'Oh, thank you! Now I know why they're all trying to make me better. It isn't that I'm a terrible person. They're trying to help me!"

And so it is for each of us, as the people in our lives hold up reflective mirrors enabling us to see who we really are. The problem is, as Bernie Siegel pointed out, most of us don't take kindly to criticism. The self-defensive ego, a hero in its own mind, typically rejects criticism and stirs up negative emotions that close our minds to truths which could be larger than our own. At other times the ego, in disarray, absorbs undue or untrue criticism that becomes a less-than-useful way of relating to life.

What, then, is a body to do?

Science and spirit tell us that the body is to sit still and relax when the mind is confused. The mind quiets itself and consciousness listens for the still, small voice of the soul. We draw from this deeper well of knowing to get clear on the truth of a person or situation, because the only cure for ego’s well-meaning grip on our perceptions is disarmament through meditation, positive thinking and wholeness affirmations. These create in us the calm, peaceful mind of transcendence, in which we are attached to nothing of the ego and only to the mind of the soul. It is this higher mind which sees clearly by staying open and receptive to wise, loving guidance of every sort.

I've been listening to a wonderful discussion of how emotion influences consciousness, on a CD set, "Destructive Emotions," by author Daniel Goleman. It's a detailed report on a Mind and Life Institute gathering in which the Dalai Lama of Tibet met with some of the world's foremost researchers on the effects of and antidotes to our destructive emotions (a staggering 84,000 of which have been catalogued by Buddhist philosophy). Scientists are confirming that negative emotions like anger, fear and depression alter physical structures in our brains so that we are quite literally unable to know the difference between fact and fiction: e.g., we get so mad and filled with aversion that we "see red" or "can't see straight."

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