<p>I work as a financial consultant in an investment company and feel ready to quit because I cannot stomach my supervisor who is patronizing, crude, and manipulative. I just want to get away from him, but even at home I wind up going over in my mind all the things he’s said. How can I make this work?</p>

A better question might be how to quiet your inner monologue so you can make more conscious choices that will better serve you. All points of view are available within your own awareness. Try the following exercise:

Identify something you feel strongly about. It can be an issue, a cause, a belief, an opinion, or a conviction. Now consider someone who opposes your point of view. It may be a public or personal figure. Having identified your antagonist, list the qualities that this person expresses that irritate you. See if you can come up with at least five or six traits you find really annoying. Now that you have identified what you don't appreciate about this oppositional person, see if you can recognize some aspect of each annoying quality you listed in your own behavior. If you are truly honest with yourself, you will see that on some level, you are actually similar to the person who exasperates you.

As for your boss, look at each of his or her qualities that stir you up and ask yourself, "Do I ever express similar traits?"Your first reaction may be "Absolutely not!" but I would encourage you to go deeper and see if you can recall a time when you were crude or manipulative.

The more you are able to embrace a highly charged quality in your own life, the less likely you are to be triggered by other people who are expressing that characteristic. It has been my personal and professional experience that the more strongly we deny a negative quality in ourselves, the more likely we are to express that trait in our relationships. If you have identified a characteristic in your antagonist that you just don't see in yourself, try asking a close friend who is willing to be honest with you. One of the best ways to determine whether you are denying an aspect of your nature that you don't wish to acknowledge is to ask, "Have you ever known me to be demeaning? Do you ever feel I'm manipulative?" If you have created safety for your friend to be honest, you will usually learn that the trait you so strongly resist is within you, just below the surface.

We carry within our awareness heroes and villains, saints and sinners, loving, doting parents, and screaming, needy children. These internal characters are the basis of our creativity, richness, and mythology. Unrecognized, they are also the basis of emotional turbulence and suffering.

I urge you to become familiar with the diverse sides to your nature. Accept and embrace the different faces you wear. When you can love the various characters within your own being, you will spontaneously find yourself tolerating and appreciating a much wider spectrum of people around you. Recognizing does not make you weak" it makes you complete.