Platters of Nourishment

On the breakfast table in a house I lived in years ago was a large platter of food. It was mine. Two people I know--one a friend, one a family member--were voraciously eating from this platter. I grew so angry that I yelled and threw a cup against the wall, causing it to shatter and break into a thousand pieces. "This is MY food and I hate it when others eat from my plate," I screamed. Food can represent nourishment, both physical and spiritual, and we all must have nourishment. Sometimes I feel I am unable to grow when I perceive that others around me are depriving me of nourishment (which is of course transference/projection). We are each one of us responsible for providing ourselves with the nourishment we need to grow and enlarge ourselves in this life. We cannot do this completely alone. We do need times of silence, of being alone and still with ourselves so we can listen to what our Self is trying to tell us. But, is it not all the disruptions and interferences that cause us discomfort and suffering that lead us to the places we need to be in order to grow and learn? True, we cannot allow the behavior of others, over which we have no control, to disempower our determination to seek nourishment. We cannot blame others for our own failures to procure for ourselves what we need as we do not have the power to change anyone other than ourselves. So what is the message of the dream? We all need nourishment and often that nourishment is the same (something we all share), yet we cannot blame others when we do not get what we need, for it is up to each one of us to take from the plate of life that which we need to feed ourselves--this takes action. And, it is through the chaos and craziness of human behavior that we can see more clearly the path upon which our deeper self is guiding us to walk on. I often struggle with relationships. If someone does something we vehemently disagree with, what action, if any, do we take? Do we decide to distance ourselves from that person? Do we choose to look at that person's good qualities and accept the "bad" as simply part of their humanity? I always think the compassionate, loving viewpoint is the best route; however, it is good to remember that we can love someone from afar without constant interaction. We can disagree with their beliefs, philosophy, religion, orientation, etc, but do we condemn them just because they are different from us? I think not. What about all the things we have in common, both good and not so good? Hollison writes: "We do not learn and grow by all subscribing to the same school of thought, copying the same values, or voting the same way. We grow from the experience of our differences, although in insecure moments we quickly forget this. The capacity to include those differences, even incorporate them into an ever broader, more sophisticated range of choices, is the chief task, and gift, of evolving relationships."