I am feeling very angry. I am choosing to feel angry because I keep falling into the pit of blame and judgement in relationship to how you are...my perception of how you are and the meaning I keep making of what you do around me...particularly in moments of disgareement and conflict. I know it looks and feels like I am angry with you, which in turn causes you to react defensively, which fuels my frustration, and my judgements.
I keep hoping things have actually changed...that when I see you this time it will be different..and yet even before you arrive, I feel anxious and fearful...an insidious reaction from our past... and I start frantically working out ways to defend myself from an attack I am certain will come. I am aware I am still deeply attached to the idea that if only YOU would change, if only YOU would behave differently (even though I fear you won’t) then I would feel ok in relationship to you. I know this doesn’t work and I tell myself “I should get off it” and “I should be able to handle this” so I say “yes” to seeing you and things are OK for while. Then inevitably I find myself reacting to something you say or do, telling myself it means you don’t care what I think or feel. I start judging you for how you are behaving, then judge myself for judging you and reacting yet again. I end up feeling anxious, frustrated, angry and despairing...and the game continues.
I realise this is what I have always done in our relationship. For so long I have really ”tried” to make things “better” (aka: make YOU better). I’ve “tried” to get you to do something different, “tried” to avoid an upset, “tried” to manage the energy by tip-toeing around you to avoid an argument...”tried” to talk to you openly and honestly, “tried” to get you to listen to what I am saying the way I mean it, “tried’ to make you understand how I feel. I’ve “tried” to let go, to move on, to not care what you do or how you show up and yet, I keep expecting you to be “reasonable” and to change and as you know, expectations are just a prescription for disappointment...and it simply doesn’t work.
Well, I am tired of all the “trying”. I am tired of the game...I am tired of worrying about how you are going to show up and how I am going to handle it, tired of being anxious whenever I think about you coming to visit, tired of fearing your reactions and your feelings and your behaviour, tired of being hard on myself and hard on you, tired of judging and managing and manipulating and handling things...just plain tired.
So once again, I choose peace in relationship to you. I choose to do something different about how I show up in relationship to you. I choose to remember to put my loving self first in this relationship, to love myself and to love and bless you and if I choose... to keep on walking. I realise that my unwillingness to STOP playing the game is what keeps it going.
My truth right now is: I don’t know how to BE at peace in relationship to you...yet. So I choose to keep responding with awareness and rigour for myself. I choose to dig deeper and uncover what else is really going on for me in relationship to you, to become conscious of what it is that keeps me recreating this relationship dynamic and keep responding and letting go.
I used to think this meant I had to have more regular contact with you in order to heal this wound between us. Now I remember that I can choose to say NO to having contact with you for as long as I choose. I choose to create a guilt-free space to engage in my own process, the best I can right now. I choose to let go of worrying about how you may (or may not) react to my choice. I choose to let go of my need for you to agree, approve or like the choices I make.
The bottom line for me is this: I Create The Whole Of My Own Reality. I am response-able for creating you showing up the way you do in my life. I also know I cannot change YOU and hanging onto this expectation is a one-way ticket to the pit of despair! So letting go of my expectations is key...as is my willingness to keep loving you and me and responding from love no matter what form our relationship takes in the future.
Let the healing continue...
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"Forgiveness means giving up all hope that the past will ever be different..."
thus spake Oprah! Based on an original quote by Lily Tomlin and others
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