Choosing Peace

Somehow, you are both the best and the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

We’re going for lunch today, meeting at a halfway point. She asked, I concurred. When I checked in with my body – used mindful breathwork, sat quietly, located where I feel energies when I think of her and ponder our meeting – it felt okay.

I was actually curious. We have never done this. It’s just not the way we roll. She and Dad do their own thing, live their own lives. I’ve got Husband and our Five Beautiful Souls, but they’ve never expressed interest in us so, though we only live an hour away from each other all these near forty years, we’ve not gathered.

For this, I feel sad. And by sad, I mean sad for them. Oh, Husband is so kind. His vibe is something you wanna have in your life! And FBS – their grandchildren – I mean… who doesn’t want a relationship with Pure Love. I see how my in-laws have softened throughout the years, the grandchildren offering a purity and perspective that has shifted their frequency and maybe even made their countenance healthier.

Surely, added lotsa laughter, memories, and purpose!

And then there’s me, their daughter… and I’m pretty intense and sometimes a lot of work, but I like to think I’m worth it. 🙂

And so… today… I ponder why God would have her and I commiserate over a sandwich or a bowl of salad, maybe dessert. What’s up, I wonder? My growing up years with her – our times together – very, very difficult. Confusing, scary, abusive.

However awful the storm of my disappointment, it’s a response that belongs to me. It’s my heart, after all. My territory, my kingdom. And since I’m the only one with the authority to surrender it, I can also take it back.

Helen Oyeyemi

There were YEARS that I tried to “get them to love me” and approve of me and see me… some would say wasted years, but are they truly wasted if I gleaned wisdom from it all? I mean, sure, I’d like to just know this wisdom without having to have had the rough experiences, but that’s not the way True Wisdom usually rolls. Wisdom begs personal experience. 

I have grown very wise specifically because of her, of him, of our dysfunctional relationship over the years. Our relationship offered a myriad of opportunities for recalibrating my energies, rethinking my paradigms, reconsidering my thoughts, unlearning inherited ways of coping, and learning new and higher vibrational truths.

And for this, I am exceedingly thankful.

I am nobody’s victim. When I recall the many ways in which we all chose to participate – or not to participate – in each other’s lives, I refuse to view my part as one who was abused. They chose not to engage in a relationship with me, Husband, FBS. This action is on them. They may take ownership of their actions.

What if they owed me nothing? What would my viewpoint be then? How would I feel about our relationships then?

I remain strong and stable as I stand in my reaction to their apathy. Very often, I cried, my heart broken, confused. But slowly, surely, I walked through this particular valley of the shadow of death and came through to the other side of Love.

I get to choose how I respond. 

And – so vital is this point – how I respond directly impacts ME. Should I respond with spewing, I get spewed on too. Should I respond with anger, I get angered on too. Should I respond with sarcasm and hate, I get sarcasmed and hated upon as well.

It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

As my consciousness awakens, and as I remember my Divinity, and as I come to understand the purpose for Incarnation, I am able to witness, stay in peace, and respond in Love as Love.

Which doesn’t necessarily look like, “hey, shit all over me and I’ll just play in it!” That’s not Love. Love says, “I have space for you to be you right where you’re at right now, and I have enough love for myself and passion for all of us to allow you to be on your journey, even if that means shitting on me… so, because I don’t want to play in shit, I’ll be over here… praying for you to wake up and remember that you are Divine, you are Love, and we are One. And I will rejoice beside you the day this happens… and encourage you as you grab lotsa paper towels and begin the clean-up process.”

Difficult relationships can bring inspiration, education, experience, opportunity, wisdom, and soul growth. If we allow this! Should we find ourselves lost in “the unfairness of it all” then we remain treading water in a pond that is stagnant and going nowhere. No judgment, of course, but also just a lot of continued difficulties.

We are bound to repeat what we do not heal.

So, thank you to these two souls. I wish them well. 

Not all storms come to disrupt your life… some come to clear your path.

It is well with my soul. ❤