Life has a habit of bringing us these day-to-day challenges. Next to the big stuff, we also get the small irritations between partners or petty power struggles at the office; parents, children, businesspartners… Any relationship really has its own bumps in the road and even small pebbles can cause big impact on our functioning together; leaving us somewhat bewildered at times; distracted from our own banner and what we want our daily lives to look like.
But as someone once explained to me:
Relationships are there to learn from rather than to be happy in.
I took me a while; but measuring this piece of wisdom against some of my own daily life little struggles with people around me I have come to believe, it is indeed the eventual learning, the process of figuring out the lesson and drawing your own conclusions that makes us happier in the end. If the other person in a relationship would solely be there to make our lives work the way we want, there would be no challenge, no ground for exploration left for ourselves. Just imagine how boring that would be. Plus we would be totally dependent on that other person.
So the ultimate challenge in day-to-day life may well be to avoid being drawn into another person’s storyline and the way this person chooses to behave. Instead figure out and learn how you feel about something; what is important for you in life, rather than have someone else hijacking your thoughts and feelings, your life basically.
How to stay close to who you are, that is the question. How to stay in your own lane on the path we are all travel together.
Here’s a possible 3-step recipe.
1 : Forget the Blame.
Avoid feeling wronged. Things are as they are. Mulling about the injustice done or running around in blame-circles will keep you needlessly occupied while you could be doing totally different things with your life. So:
Be Careful What You Mull For
2: Forgive
The most effective way to stop Mulling is to Forgive. The Magic of Forgiveness is that it liberates you all on your own accord, as it is you who changes the energy of the situation and creates a way to let go of the venom. And it goes both ways. Asking for forgiveness has the exact same effect… So:
Surf the Magic of Forgiveness
3: Be Grateful
The third thing is to be grateful you’ve stopped Mulling; have been Forgiven or have found it within you to Forgive. Rather than trying to mend a struggle and convince people to see things your way, alter it into the best antidote you can think of:
Smother it with compassion.
Allow people their own space, their own mistakes, their own wrongs and their own rights. If we would all do that, I think daily life would be a whole lot more agreeable.
The card that goes with this is the 6 of Insights; the 6 being the number of communication and relationships; the Insights the suit all to do with personal development.
Click the card for further explanation and see how it reflects for you. I wish you a compassionate, forgiving and blame-free time to come.
Ingrid Schippers, 30-10-2018
Draw your own card on the right of this blog
More Questions? Mail me at info@energycounseling.nl
The abridged spoken version of this blog, features as end note on ‘Dutchbuzz’, the radio hour for Internationals every Tuesday from 10 to 11 pm on ‘Den Haag FM and can be found in the Programme Archive of the Dutchbuzz podcasts, dated October 30, 2018.
