Before we act, most of us try to consider how our actions will affect the people we care about. But do we spend too much time agonizing unnecessarily? I think so….

But I have good news: I’ve learned that if something is good for me, it’s good for everyone that I’m in relationship with. “What ?!?” You may be saying “How can that be true?”

The first time that I heard my spirit make this bold statement, I was doubtful too. At the time I was considering ending a friendship with a woman who had become very needy and overly-dependant on me. She was fairly negative and so I found myself frequently playing the role of the cheerleader when we were together. I’d spoken to her several times about how our friendship felt unbalanced and heavy, but no shift had occurred.

When I thought about ending the friendship, I worried that without someone cheering her up that my friend might become even more pessimistic and maybe even slide into a depression. During a meditation my spirit helped me see that by cheering her up repeatedly over a long period of time, I was actually preventing my friend from developing the skills that she needed to shift and cheer herself up.

What was best for me was to no longer carry around the weight of someone else’s negative thinking. And what was best for my friend was to experience the full weight of her negative thoughts without me intervening and buffering her from feeling the negativity that she surrounded herself with.

I ended the friendship and a few months later heard from a mutual acquaintance that my (former) friend had started seeing a therapist to get help in changing her perception of herself as a victim. Yeah!  My spirit’s teachings had been validated for me.

Since then I’ve heard many clients’ spirits give this same sort of advice, and it has always been  accurate. Sometimes during a public lecture I will announce that what is best for each person is also what is best for everyone that they are in relationship with. Immediately hands go up, as audience members challenge me, offering scenarios that they think will disprove that rule. And my spirit has always been able to demonstrate how the best action for one person was also the best action for the others involved.

Here’s what’s so great about this: when trying to decide the best course of action, your job is no longer to assess what’s best for the other people in your life. You only need to figure out what is truly best for you.

Now when I say “What is best for you” I don’t just mean what feels good in that moment. I mean sitting quietly and feeling what your heart is guiding you to do when you decide it’s time to honor yourself. When you evaluate the situation from a perspective of being self honoring, you will nearly always end up with an action that honors everyone’s journey, not just your own.

People are in our lives for a reason. Usually we are learning similar, compatible lessons from each other. So if I’m trying to create better boundaries n an area of my life, I will likely attract someone into my life who has poor boundaries since this will give me a chance to practice setting boundaries and enforcing them. The boundary that I make may feel uncomfortable to the other person, but I have no doubt that such an action is what’s best for both of us.

So, the next time you’re struggling with how to handle a difficult situation, stop trying to figure out what will be best for the other person or what will keep her happy. Instead take some time to focus inward, asking yourself what is best for you. The answer – the action that will promote your inner peace and your personal growth – will be the same for you and everyone that you are connected to. It may not appear so at first glance, but trust in the perfect balance of the Universe and you will see it demonstrated before your eyes.