Relationships can be tricky. Navigating the right words and emotions sometimes is a bit of a pain in the ass. Get it wrong and someones going to be 'mad' at you. Get it right and the rewards are love, devotion, respect and happiness.
I find myself saying 'I work hard' at relationships a lot. I often think long and hard about what people say to me, as well as what I say to them, but oftentimes I have felt misunderstood.
Interesting that I never really feel misunderstood in business. Business, especially really good business, has it's parameters and business people learn to navigate within them. It's pretty simple really and I really love it. I get a tremendous amount of respect from my customers because I give them a tremendous amount of respect. I give them exactly what they call me for and the 'relationships' are happy ones. Of course occasionally a customer will call with a complaint and I leap to the challenge to win them back over. I have a very successful turnover rate thus far and as I type these words, I am looking forward to the opportunity to do it all over again tomorrow.
However, there is an emptiness associated with this 'misunderstood' feeling and I am learning to disassociate and disconnect from the expectations that come with feelings. It's not that important that I feel misunderstood. What's important is that I lead with love always and patch up and spackle any cracks or feelings that would steal that love. Forgiveness for feeling offended and love for the broken heart. I've had a broken heart most of my life because of one relationship or another. The time has come to change the outcome, the expectation, and the feelings.
As I look back over my relationships, I realize that I had a deep need for love (as most of us do) but perhaps mine was a little more intense due to my earliest definitions of love and devotion. My experience coming from a broken family left my expectations in turmoil. I navigated relationships poorly constantly coming from a place of deep need. I lived that way for most of life perhaps up until most recently. These past few years have brought many bad habits to light for me and my inner most being rises to the surface as being the most important relationship that I have ever needed to learn to navigate. Getting to know oneself is the most important relationship because once you truly know yourself, you can give to others in a way that is selfless, needless but filled with love, respect, devotion and happiness. That's all I've ever wanted in my relationships ultimately but having that want can lead to disappointment. I now realize that loving yourself, nurturing yourself, understanding why you do what you do, letting go of past hurts, forgiving others, all of these things lead to a better you and a better you in a relationship.
A clean slate, an open heart and boundaries are something I rarely started with in the past but it's how I wake up every morning now. I embrace the newness of day and opportunity and although yesterday may have been a bear for one reason or another, the new day presents a chance to breathe differently, pray more effectively, release more expectations and dream cleaner visions for myself and others. When you come from a place of hurt or brokenness, your expectations are cloudy, never fulfilled and disappointment is the order of the day. When you release all of that and embrace openness you realize that even if the other person never even notices you, you do not have to buckle under unmet expectations, you notice yourself. You love and nurture yourself and more importantly, you set boundaries. You adjust the flow of qi in your life in a sense. If you focus on energy that is negative or of a really low vibration - like anger, or sadness, that energy will be more prevalent. The opposite of that is also true and so much more beneficial.
Every toxic word or deed that has ever been said or done to you that has hurt you deeply, you can release. You can create a space where pain used to reside. You can change that energy to something healing instead of something draining and capable of creating sickness. Every toxic word that you have ever said or deed you have ever done, you can forgive yourself for and if you need to, apologize for. Humility is salve to a multitude of wounds. Forgiveness is the bandage and love is the result all within the boundaries that you set in your relationships.
Why boundaries?
Because everyone is on a different part of the journey. Not everyone understands that expectations lead to disappointments. Not everyone understands that love is the higher law. Not everyone will embrace your thoughts and emotions as good, as accurate or in some dire relationships, necessary. Those are the ones you need to really set boundaries with. Love your neighbor, your family, your friends, but don't yoke up to them if they have a habit of invading your space in a way that is toxic. Plain and simple. Change the way you respond and you will get a different result.
Of course, most of this wouldn't even be an issue if people were more honest with themselves and if they were more interested in the pursuit of mind, body, spirit-evolution. Some people are more on a journey than others. Unfortunately, we all have people around us that are not even aware that transcendence is a reality and something to be searched for. For some, they've carved out a hollow that allows only a very small amount of light to illuminate. These relationships rarely evolve, perhaps too much auto-pilot role playing. Honesty and humility however, can bring all of these bad habits to light and relationships can evolve because people can evolve.
I am living proof that you can change and you can overcome just about anything. Love yourself first and the energy that flows from you will be illuminating.
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