Do you have a person in your life that if they would just go away – literally disappear – your problem would be solved AND you could graduate to a new state of enlightenment because they are the only thing standing in your way of peace and your life working out? Maybe heavy-handed, but that’s how it feels.
There is nothing more emotionally stressful than having a deep desire for change in your life and then to experience – once again – a person or situation that is the exact experience you keep trying to move past. Whether it’s with the original person (or thing), or their energetic doppelganger who seem to pop up as a new friend, your kids karate teacher or that one person in your book club.
You want nothing more than to move through this but you feel at an impasse. It feels like there are only two options and you lose either way.
First, take a moment to acknowledge you’re doing your best with this person and/or the situation, especially as you’re being triggered left and right.
Second, and likely more difficult, what would it mean if this person was doing their best too?
Take a minute with this question.
This could be a opportunity to experiment with two things:
#1 Leaning In, and
#2 Detachment
Leaning in is acknowledging you’re doing your best and you’re open to a third option – as opposed to the two you feel you lose at – even if you can’t see it just yet. Leaning in does not mean pushing, nor trying to force an outcome. It also doesn’t mean you need to share any of what you’re thinking with the other person. This is your part of the experience, so do with it as you need to move through it.
Detachment is taking the moment to see the other person as doing their best, even when it feels like they are causing you so much turmoil. If you can allow the possibility that they may be doing their best (however it may appear) then you give yourself a chance to soften and release some emotional tension which will open you to other possibilities you may not have seen through the myopic lens of ‘this person needs to vanish like now’.
Feeling like you are spiraling back towards an old cycle can cause enough stress to get your heart going. I thought I was done with this!!! Grrrrrr! But that will only tighten the knot.
Taking a moment to acknowledge you’re doing your best (i.e. taking a breath or 20) and then allow the possibility they are doing the same (softening) could allow an openness for you to see and maybe make a different choice on how you want to handle the person and the situation that is closer to what you want and who you are now.
A third option.