Relationships are, to use my friend Janie’s vernacular, slippery little suckers. Most of the time the people in our life are loving, supportive and a source of joy. Sometimes our relationships go awry. And sometimes we have no idea why, what or where it all went south.
We have all been there. We are tootling happily along and then suddenly, out of nowhere, someone in our life tells us they are offended at something they claim we said or did, and as a result it is all over. The friendship, they say, is done!
Not only do we have to recover from the loss of the relationship, we have to recoup and re-establish our truth in amongst all the accusations and indictments on our character and good will. All kinds of charges are being laid at our door and we have no choice but to deal with them.
If we recognize how our words or actions led to the other person being hurt or offended, well and good. We can apologize and if the other person is willing we can do what it is needed to try to move forward. But if we feel the behavior of the other person is totally unreasonable and unwarranted, what do we do?
Dr Wayne Dyer, internationally renowned writer and speaker on spirituality and self-reliance, once posed the question: if someone gives you a gift that you neither want nor accept, then whose gift is it?
Clearly the gift remains the property of the giver. This is true whether the ‘gift’ is a physical object, or whether it is a tightly bound package of false accusations, disingenuous claims, and inaccurate accounting of events, tied up in a string of hurtful criticisms.
All we need do is reject the gift (metaphorically and literally), send the giver our best wishes - and, if possible, love - and move on. The course of events is telling us in no uncertain terms that, in the short-term at least, we need to allow our paths to diverge. We travelled together for a season and a reason, and now both have shifted, and we are being pushed to travel in a new direction, alone.
We waste emotional, physical and mental energy trying to fight this shift. It will be a fruitless task, doubtless resulting only in more pain, and for no good end. We must surrender our need to have things the way *we *want them to be, and allow the Universe to transform our thoughts and our experiences.
We will only ever be taken to a place that will benefit us, where our progress, peace and well-being are optimized. The other person will be similarly cared for because, in truth, we are all One.
The essence of that Oneness is love and these experiences are lessons in love. The problem presents as a trick question: can we find love, express love, be love in the face of its supposed opposite? Love is the question and love is always the answer.
