Greetings from the Land of Enchantment

what we think we know

When we're angry, it's so easy to be blind to our own part. When we have an agenda, it's so easy to lose sight of what's actually happening. When we want what we want when we want it, it's too easy to lose sight of the other person in the equation.

I had the rug pulled out from under me this weekend by two close friends. They called me on my story. And despite how painful it was to see myself, it was exactly what I needed. So much of the time, when we're convinced that something is true about another person--more often that not, it's really about us--about me. This is a spiritual axiom I'm very familiar with and yet, in day-to-day life, I still seem to lose sight of it.

I was called to the carpet on a lot of things this weekend and as I recognized myself and my behaviors, it was as if the air was taken out of my tires. How I operate in the world, what I thought worked and negotiated me and my ego through the traffic of everyday interactions, especially intimate relationships, was completely wrecked. What's the phrase? Totaled. My way of doing things was totaled. I was completely unmasked.

I was naked under a blinding light. There was no where to hide anymore. I saw why I'm not trusted, how my constant questioning, doubt, and insecurity undermines the other person's faith in me and in themselves; I saw how I make the other person into the bad guy in order to run away and not feel what I feel; I saw how I set the other person up to fail rather than using my intuition to take care of myself and give the other person a break; I saw how I manipulate and manage things to try to get my way; I saw that I still--after all this time--have an exchange based idea of relationship; I saw that I don't forgive and forget, instead I overlook and expect; I saw that I have no idea how to do this thing called love.

And yet, some of my instincts are correct--I simply don't listen to them. They make me feel to vulnerable, too soft, too open, too everything. I know now that relationships are not about getting anything. They are only about serving.

Now to meditate on this new understanding and discover whether I can actually live to it--or not.

posted by Sat Purkh Kaur Khalsa @ 11:12 AM