Negative experiences can make us greatly progress. People try to avoid trials and they generally desire to put negative experiences behind them. However, trials and negative experiences are like diamonds hidden in soil; a wise soul uncovers precious lessons in each experience.

When I was in a relationship with a psychopath, I progressed in my self-improvement greatly. And in this article I will list some of the things that I learnt from being in such a relationship.

A very important trait that I learnt from him is being adaptable to the environment. He taught me that resisting that which you dislike doesn’t give you any benefits. You end up fighting against it and therefore lose your energy. Also, you make your vibration discordant.

However, if you adapt to the environment, this gives you an opportunity to use it to your advantage. That’s how psychopaths act, but they look for selfish advantages through their adapting, yet normal people can gain advantages from their environments that do no harm, but only help.

He was the same with people – he would make himself whatever other people expected of him. This, of course, I did not take on. However, it did make me much more flexible when dealing with others, to avoid discord. As a result, of course, it made me gain many benefits by being more agreeable.

Also, it inspired me to develop in myself the fine qualities observed in others, be it a more loving nature, softness, or femininity. So though he simply copied the desirable behavior of others, this observation of him made me do the same, but in a genuine way – to develop those qualities for real; and although he used this ability to gain benefits through being more liked, I use this ability to become a better human being.

He was also highly self-aware, knowing how he appears at all times. This is something that I took on, and this was also caused by the self-awareness training of Buddhism. Most people do not know how they appear at most times. And the older they get, the less self-aware they are, until most remind of automatons driven by addictions and emotional impulses. This could be avoided if self-awareness is developed.

When you are self-aware, you can continuously improve yourself. You know if any negative thought crosses your mind, or you are aware of even a minor negative action or word. You start paying attention to how you talk, how you eat, how you walk – and this is something most people are largely ignorant of about themselves.

Only when you are aware of the unpleasant/negative things that you do or thoughts that you think, are you able to change them. And those who lack self-awareness should start from reviewing their day before sleep, step by step, until they do this review real-time.

He also taught me how to read other people. When he wanted to understand what the person was about, he would get totally quiet and switch off all internal dialogue, becoming as quiet as a wall internally and externally. So this allowed him not to miss on any verbal or physical clues about the other person.

This, actually, is done by quite a few Indian people. For example, Kashmiri people are excellent at reading people this way. When customers enter their jewelry or Pashmina shops, they greet the customers in a usual way and ask standard questions; yet they are mostly interested in customers’ body language, trying to understand if they are spenders or those who tend to save, and whether they can be convinced through arguments, compliments, or by giving them space.

Learning to read people, of course, benefits you intensely, because you know whom you are dealing with. Because most people are full of themselves, they notice nothing about another person. Yet if you learn to empty yourself and focus entirely on another party, you will learn a great deal about them, which will enable you to approach them in the way acceptable to them, and gain their friendship, get employed, or achieve any other goal you have in mind (hopefully, a positive one).

Furthermore, without this relationship I would have never known that people as such – psychopaths – existed. Without knowing about their existence I would have never been able to contribute to the knowledge base about these dangerous characters (I wrote articles about psychopaths here, here, here and here).

Have I remained ignorant about the existence of such beings, I would have considered some people as simply being bad, but humans nevertheless. But as a result of my relationship, and through my spiritual sensitivity,  I was able to understand that psychopaths are not real human beings but reptilians in human skin.

They are literally reptiles in spirit, but they wear human bodies. There is not much information about them, but since I am reading hermetic books,  I found one book that explains who those beings are. And that’s The Emerald Tablets of Thoth. This book talks about beings that were in the past oppressing humanity, and that they will again come in the future. The book describes those beings as ruthless reptilians working to destroy the human race, yet wearing human bodies.

I will never forget those cold reptilian eyes of my ex. You could only really see that predatory look if you totally focused on eyes only for some time. It’s possible to spot a psychopath by examining the face in the picture, and covering the mouth and nose, to only focus on the eyes. Sometimes that’s the only way to see that lack of warmth and absolute hatred in their eyes, as they usually wear an artificial smile that masks their true intentions.

Once I saw in his pupils the bottomless abyss, like as though he came from the pit and that’s where he’s going after death. He is not of this dimension – I know it. When I would dream about him, he would always leave, and where he went I was not able to follow.

It taught me, finally, or rather confirmed, that it never pays to follow darkness. As though the entire nature tried to destroy him when we were together. He would always get involved in accidents, when he would walk some stones or sticks would be on the way and he would not notice them and they caused injuries to his feet. Insects would attack him, he would frequently get involved in fights… yet those who follow the Light are supernaturally protected even from the greatest evil.

So this relationship was a blessing in disguise. I was with the incarnation of darkness but I followed the Light, so I came out of the relationship with little loss and with a huge gain.

I believe all experiences have something very precious in them, though outwardly some may look totally negative. And usually the most difficult experiences can teach you the most, if you focus on what lesson there is to learn from it.