I’ve been praying to be more loving and accepting. In red, are my Aunt Betty’s words to me on how to get unhooked from people who are difficult:

In order for you be more loving, you have to forgive all those who have judged you negatively.  Often, we want to resent and avoid them.  We need to learn to let people do their thing, and try to become conscious of when we’re judging them back.  When we judge back, we get hooked with them. 

Fr. Jerry’s words come to mind.  When I asked him why I had a trait that I didn’t like in another person when I was a child he said, “You became like him in that area because you judged him.”  “For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:2).  

Ask the Lord to do within you what you’re incapable of doing on your own virtue.  Ask the Lord to become the virtue you lack. 

When I told her about someone who could be irritating at times, she responded, ‘Perhaps X’s character defect bothers you so much because your own character defect is exposed.  As you let the Lord help you die to this trait, something good will happen for you and for X.  As you get healed, it’ll help heal the family of this trait.  The Lord is allowing this flaw to come up, so you’ll work on it. Pray and ask the Lord to help you recognize this flaw in yourself, so X doesn’t irritate you.  Ask Him to heal that part of you, so you don’t stay focused into X.  We have to be careful about the areas where others are getting to us, since it can be an open door to darkness.  

I have another excerpt I wrote where I talk about how we get hooked with others.  It’s helpful to write down those people who we have a strong negative overreactions to. It’s an indicator that we are similar to them in some area.  We may not act it out in the same way as the other person, but it’s likely in us in another form.  I hate when I have a judgment on another person, because I know that means that the same ugly trait is in myself.  Knowing this concept, I take it to my Aunt Betty and begin working to get unhooked.  I try to acknowledge it in myself, and begin to pray that it be healed in me and in the other.  Often, I go to the sacrament of Reconciliation and repent of it.  It’s been my experience that God has freed me from many things when I’ve done this.  Of course, it’ll be a lifelong process for everyone, but little by little, we become more loving and accepting and thus more filled with peace and joy.