I’m heart sore today. Over the past two weeks I’ve been in the process of losing a friendship. It ended yesterday in silence and being unfriended (which has its own indignity). The loss makes me sad and disappointed, but honestly, I sat back and realized I was mourning the potential of a friendship.
But writing about my disappointment isn’t the reason I’m writing this post. I knew the relationship was ending, in that intuitive way that I feel things combined with awareness of how I was being treated (and yes, I call my friendships, relationships. I love my friends and I relate to them intimately with the sharing of their or my deep thoughts and feelings. Isn’t that a relationship in itself?) The past few days I’ve been asking, what is this person here to teach me? I realized there were two things:
1) I was trying to accommodate someone at my own inconvenience and loss of voice;
2) I don’t want a relationship where fear, anger, and jealousy play a part in my friendship.
So here is what happened. I got triggered. There was a shift in this person’s actions and I knew the end was coming. This relationship meant something to me so I fell into an old role that doesn’t serve me anymore. It’s the role of people pleaser. Where I focus on what I could have done to upset this person. How could I placate, cajole, smooth over the very apparent ruffled feathers? Trying to create opportunities to have them open up and speak what they were feeling. Because we all know and practice open communication, right? It is important in any kind of relationship, right? Except when it’s not. This person was in a place where they couldn’t be open and express themselves. That had nothing to do with me. I completely forgot that it’s not my shit, it’s their shit.
I lost my centeredness. I lost my focus because I came out of fear of losing that relationship. I fell into that role of how can I be perfect for this person? What will make them happy with me? The more I tried, the angrier and frustrated they got. I feel I don’t normally act insecure or needy, but sweet onion chutney, I didn’t recognize myself last week. I kept saying what is going on? I’m not normally like this, why am I acting this way? Instead of saying, this person is not acting in a way that is good for us. I did not allow myself to see that they were stuck and I was stuck. We couldn’t be who either one of us needed to be which was a person who could own or express their own shit. We were to people who could not say this is what I need or this is what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling this way.
So instead of seeing and holding compassion for both of us, I allowed my own old patterns and personal fears to come through. It wasn’t about me. I may have helped with the trigger, but it was coming from their perspective, their insecurities, their fears, their paradigm. Honestly, I’ve done enough hypnotherapy sessions to know a person’s reaction is never about you. It’s personal heartache, pain, or fear they experienced or witnessed that when allowed, shrinks our capacity to speak out of a heart centered place of love. I believe that communication should come from that heart centered place to allow connection. It allows you to be heard and seen. That didn’t happen.
I could have just said. This feels different to me and I’d really like to try and understand why I feel this way. If you are feeling different or unhappy I’d really like the opportunity for us to discuss it. That person would then have a choice to either continue their behavior, or open up. Their choice to own. More than likely the outcome would have been the same where we separated paths, but I would have felt differently. I would have felt I stood in my own truth. That I didn’t have to be the chameleon that I often feel I have been in my life. Trying to fulfill the roles and expectations that others had placed on me.
And I’ve realized how important it is for me to have healthy relationships with people that are healthy. I want to be with people that I help elevate and who help elevate me. So I am always trying to work from that heart centered space. In recognizing this, I’m seeing another piece of the puzzle of my free spirit fall back into place. I can only be responsible for my own shit.
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