From Courage to Change of Oct 28:
It’s amazing how my attitude toward others tends to return to me like a basketball rebounding off a backboard. My impatience with other people often generates even more impatience with myself and my world. When I am unkind to someone, I get defensive and expect others to be unkind to me. Likewise, when I accept someone unconditionally, I find that my whole world feels safer.
So it’s in my best interest to treat others as I wish to be treated. I try to imagine that my words and actions are being addressed to myself, because in the long run I generally get back what I give out.
If I am unhappy with what I receive, I might try looking for that same behavior in myself. It may not take exactly the same form, but I find that whatever I dislike in another is something that I dislike in myself. The reverse is also true: What I admire in others probably reflects an admirable quality within me.
Today’s Reminder
There is something for me to learn from every interaction I have with other people. I will make an extra effort today to take note of the attitudes I’m giving and receiving because they both can teach me about myself.
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
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It is uncanny how the interaction of human relationships seems to provide the most reflective energy I use in my 10th Step inventory. I have seen the reality of reciprocal force in having my projections return to me. The emotional cause and effect that comes from observing produces what I have sent out returning, shaped by the spin of my own intent.
In recovery terms, this insight touches the Law of Emotional Physics: energy, once released through thought or tone, completes its circuit. When I’m impatient, it’s not the world that grows harsher — it’s my perception that tightens, my own nervous system that recoils from the vibration I set in motion. Conversely, when I meet another person with acceptance, I change the climate within which both of us breathe.
The passage also contains an implicit mirror teaching: that our judgments of others are veiled self-judgments. The qualities that irritate or inspire us reveal unfinished business in the psyche — what Jung called the “shadow and gold” of projection. When we learn to trace that projection inward, resentment becomes revelation.
What’s beautiful here is the humility at the end — the willingness to learn from every interaction. This transforms ordinary contact into a spiritual classroom. Each encounter becomes a diagnostic mirror for my soul, showing me how I am living the principle of reciprocity — not as moral debt, but as energetic honesty.
Daily Reprieve 
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