Recently I've met up with a couple of exchanges that left me bothered if not disappointed and disheartened. Nothing heavy duty mind you, just moments that didn't work out the way I would have preferred. Hey, what's new? Life is full of less than enjoyable experiences that for me, always gives me the opportunity to choose anew - to either indulge in my feeling disappointed or take the higher ground and simply forgive.
I've come to learn that when all is said and done in these moments of emotional discomfort, understanding really is the grand booby prize. In the realms of feelings and the landscape of the emotional body, feeling resolved and content with how an encounter plays out is all that allows you to move on smoothly in life. Understanding means shit if you're still enmeshed in the emotional trauma/drama residue. My head might 'get it' but it's not in my head that felt bounced a couple of times this past week.
Don't you know, family has a special access card to the inner courtyard of our emotional domain. Speaking of which, my dear middle brother and I have come to have a fairly tempestuous relationship, taking years to develop the same recurring patterns. He and I were extremely close when we were much younger. We'd pal around all the time and my depending and looking up to him gave him the feeling of being my protector. Perhaps he being the middle son of three boys left him feeling a bit lost in the shuffle and our closeness provided a place of added worth for him.
In any case during this time in our youth, I filled a place in his Heart and life that really fed his sense of importance and value. It was a sweet time with us and holds precious memories for me. However, as time went on my attention began to move towards our eldest brother. He was more athletic, outgoing, confidant and self assured and better with the girls. In time, he became my personal ideal and even though in my 7 year old mind these qualities didn't register as such, I started wanting to hang out with him more and more.
Understandably, Laurence was hurt by my shift of alliances. It wasn't a sudden thing my wanting to emulate our eldest brother Eric. It was gradual and as these things go, without forethought or pretense.
However, the way Laurence dealt with his disappointment and as has played out over the years in our and other significant relationships in his life was to beat me up. His way of dealing with his pain was to pass it on to me, making me the object and brunt of his own emotional disappointment.
It takes not such a wise Soul to see how terribly ineffective this strategy is in getting one's needs met. In the land of the Heart, the one who resorts to this kind of behavior, sooner than later, ends up standing alone. And he is, quite so. It saddens me that the women who birthed his 6 children divorced him and along with his two other failed marriages, has left him facing patterns that are all too consistent for him to ignore.
Over the years we've engaged in many verbal battle royals. Really vivid epic yell-downs where I would feel my feelings of being attacked, unheard and unsupported and as with the younger brother syndrome, put upon and taken advantage of. Believe me, I'm no angel in terms of playing the quiet stand-by and carry quite a tongue in expressing reactive anger ... and yet, the need to abuse others to relieve my suffering isn't a piece in my personal emotional game board. I have other patterns to contend with, though thankfully not that one.
Up until now, I'd tended to take it out on myself feeling it was ultimately my fault for the fuck up or break down. Again, up until now. So when he recently lit into me for something that happened back in the 1970's, wanting resolution and satisfaction, I knew to not only step off and disengage as quickly as possible but to get to forgiveness so I could let it go inside of myself without lingering charge or rancor.
Again, family holds those special keys to our emotional memory chest and in order to effectively evolve if not become free of the inbred triggers of my past, I've learned to just keep it simple by consistently letting go in forgiveness and Love. The Awakened Sacred Masculine quickly goes to this place when faced with similar circumstances. Personally speaking, processing this old shit is not only crazy making, it keeps me stuck in the muck and mire all too long. Another way to say this is what I hold onto, holds on to me. Life is just too short to keep feeding on the old regurgitations, over and over again.
In another unrelated instance with a women I've just recently begun seeing, our recent exchange brought up feelings that triggered a sense of the same ol' same ol' ... in short: after a number of days apart we had time to spend in close intimacy and she honoring her priorities, chose to do something else. Along with work related concerns, she later admitted she was leery of being the proactive force in our relationship, effectively being the one who takes care of her man, carrying the weight he doesn't carry for himself.
Apparently, this has been a recurring pattern for her in her life and being the strong women she undoubtedly is, I can see how this would happen. Personal and professionally, I've heard this from women a lot over the years and rightfully so. Whether it's the 'mother nipple' clause in our collective dysfunctional behavior manual, I know how this turns the feminine off. They want and need a man to stand up for himself, take care of his business and take the pressure off of them to do what he has to do for himself.
Believe me, I get this 100% ... and yet in the relative newness of our relationship, to have her pull back in self protection not only caught me by slight surprise, it brought up the place in me that felt judged and in some respects, cast in an unfavorable light, grouped into the lump sum of the co-dependent masculine liability.
Instead of making her wrong for her feeling the need for personal space and not being aware or willing enough to speak to it at the time we were most recently together - or even needing to clear my feelings with her, I just got my self on my way and let her get on with her day. In retrospect, I noticed how little disappointment there was in me in how this played out between us. In this regard, the choice and ability to forgive her was immediate, largely because she was in no way, shape or form at fault for me. She was just taking care of her business, however she saw this as so. Good for her.
In keeping with a primary relationship motto of mine - You Be You - my primary relationship is not only with God but with my own feelings. In this instance, how I meet her is my business, what she does or doesn't do, is hers. The Awakened Sacred Masculine always references himself first and foremost from his connection to his God I Am and thereby his own internal sense of Self/self. All the rest follows. It is so much cleaner this way, if not easier and more enjoyable being inside my own skin. I no longer am at odds with my world and those in it - nor do I need to fight others upon the battlefield of my Heartspace ... being no battlefield at all here.
The days of blaming and making wrong just to satisfy my own pain body's well spring of dissatisfaction are long over. I just wish my brother makes it to the other side of his own suffering and learns to live more joyfully with those left standing in his life.
... to be continued ...
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