This morning it occured to me that whenever someone becomes more self-aware and finds a way to make Love more conscious, active and present in their lives, it changes them and therefore it changes their relationships. For most people the changes are overwhelmingly positive. The range of responses from others when someone they love begins to do this work is;
1) “Wow! You seem different. What are you doing? Can I learn that with you?”
2) “You seem different and happier, but I don’t want anything to do with that stuff.”
3) “What are you doing? I want to learn it to. I’m really interested in what you’re doing.” (The real message is: “You’re changing and I want to know how so I can sabotage it and get you back into our old comfortable pattern.”)
4) “You have changed and you’re not the person I got into this relationship with so I’m leaving.”
What occured to me this morning is that the more we work to stay focused on our responsibility for our own emotions and pull our energy away from trying to control or be responsible for the emotions of others, the more different this will be for the people in our lives. Sometimes this is very difficult for the people we love, and they can be very upset by the change, even though we see the change as positive. One of the most common patterns is for the people we love to feel either angry or abandoned by our refusal to play the game of trying to be responsible for their emotions.
The goal in this work is to increase our awareness of the Love which is our lives. When we are successful in doing this, it changes our daily experience in powerful ways. It is important to realize that this will change the lives of those who live with us in powerful ways as well. What is needed here is compassion and the ability to hold the space of Love for ourselves and the others in our lives, without retreating to the old pattern of blame and shame. There will be times when this is really difficult, but it is well worth the effort.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love! Everything else is false.