Need? What are you talking about, Nora, you wacky Breakthrough in Abundance coach?
I invite you to consider:
A problem focuses our attention, our energy, our creativity, our intelligence. We hunger as human beings to put these inner resources to work (in fact, I believe it is our deepest need as humans to do so). When something doesn't go our way, when life feels out of joint, we often focus our best strategies, ideas and solutions on the disruption like a heat-seeking missile. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. But what we often don't realize is how much we benefit when the problems don't get solved. Wait, what?
Yeah, really. When problems don't get solved, we get to keep messing with them, obsessing about them, strategizing our next move. How do I know?
Last night, someone I love very much had a very big breakthrough. A breakthrough I've been waiting for for a very long time. I was so happy for him, so happy to experience his new capacities for so much more in his life. And yet, something tugged at me as we talked. I wasn't 100% clear what it was.
This morning I awoke at 5am--restless, irritable, discontent. And I knew. I missed his old way of being. It had been a worthy opponent in my set of personal battles. I could cry about it. I could gossip about it. I could grieve all the pain it had caused me in the past. This way of being in my loved one that left me feeling so frustrated gave me purpose, focus and energy. And now, it was gone.
To be fair, the likelihood is it will be back. I believe that we've all got our fire-breathing demons and they never completely go away. They just possess us differently as we grow. But simply knowing that my loved one would be shifting his relationship with his demons brought me to the simple fact that I am now a warrior with no war. The fire-breathing demon has flown away but I'm still flailing in the night, waving a pitchfork. With no fire from the demon's nostrils, it's cold out here in the dark.
The gift of my discontent, of course, is that I get to be reminded that none of the wars I'm fighting in my life are about other people, places or situations. They're about me. They're about my pain, my story, my relationship with myself. And when I stop thinking so much about what other people need to change, it gives me the chance to encounter myself, warts and all. And I've got plenty of warts.
For the record, yes, some messy stuff happened to me when I was young. And some messy stuff has happened to me as an adult. But messy stuff happens to everybody. It's important to feel the feelings and honor the experience when the mess happens. But at the end of the day, the gift is to use the mess as a growth opportunity, not a trap for my defenses.
For the last few weeks, I've been graced with a new level of gratitude for all the really awful stuff that's ever happened to me, specifically because it has given me the ability to connect and empathize with other people when they get hit with hard stuff. Whenever I connect lovingly and vulnerably with another human being, we both get to release fear, shame and judgment. I believe that sharing these moments of healing is one of the most valuable and sacred of human experiences. What a gift that I get to do it on a regular basis.
So here I am: flawed, messy, grateful to let others know that their flaws and mess are beautiful to me. And when I think of my dear loved one walking into his life today with new levels of awareness and power, I realize that I'll never "know" enough about who he is to judge or assess him. No human being can ever know or perceive enough to truly judge another. Rather, whatever conclusions I draw about him are designed to tell me about me--my assumptions, my prejudices, my fears. We can't possibly see the world as it is. We only see it as WE are.
Perhaps all this newly aimless embattled energy tells me that I'm a whole lot more belligerent and defensive than I like to admit. Wow. OK. There it is.
I CAN be really belligerent and defensive. How many people have I pushed away? How many fights have I picked with loved ones? How many times have I totally dismissed people I don't know based on defensive judgments? Deep breath. OK. I see. I see the new information. What a blessing.
What a blessing to see these parts of myself that are hard to face. What a blessing to leave my comfort zone and find growth as I feel the discomfort of admitting my flaws. What a blessing to grow.
Have a terrifically uncomfortable, growth-oriented day!
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