I’ve had some glitches occur in a couple of my relationships lately. One particular series of events left me feeling frustrated, hurt and ultimately angry. The more I thought about how things went down the more upset I got. My heart started to pound and one particular night I was worried I would get so irritated that I would have one of those sleepless nights that I dread.
So I decided to look at it all differently. I decided that the actions of others would not affect me, that I could decide how I would experience this relationship hiccup. I was confident I had done nothing to contribute to the state of affairs between the other person and me - if I felt there was something I needed to apologize for I would do so immediately, but there was not.
So, I reasoned, I didn’t need to ruminate over these events. I could just let it go. All I had to do was make that choice.
Experience has taught me that not everything can be talked out. Resolving difficulties, differences and misunderstandings through talking can only happen when both parties are totally honest with themselves, and each other, and are as prepared to do whatever it takes to make things right as we are. Anything less, and talk is just a waste of breath.
Too many times people want to make their own issues about someone else, because they are not prepared to face their stuff. That’s ok, everyone has to do what they have to do. After all, that’s how we all learn, ultimately, that we want to do things differently. We have to try out the other options to discover for ourselves they are not ideal, and do not take us to a place we want to go.
So we have to be as intellectually dishonest as we want to be in order to get to the point where we realize that in fact truth and candour alone bring peace and harmony. We have to find this out for ourselves, it is not something someone else can teach us.
But we who are on the other end of the dishonesty do not have to suffer. If we do suffer, it is important to understand, it is because we choose to suffer. What others do can have no impact on us, if we decide not to engage in the game. What is it to us if the other person cannot face up to their truth? So long as we stand in our truth, we are always ok.
In this situation I hadn’t actually lost anything, other than a perceived lost opportunity. But even then I know I can still be happy, peaceful and even joyful without that opportunity, because peace and joy are not dependent on things external. They are purely a state of mind. So once I choose peace and joy, then they are mine and no one or nothing can take them away.
What others do just does not matter. It’s what we think about what others do that totally matters.
