I am feeling very angry. I am choosing to feel angry because I keep falling into the pit of blame and judgement in relationship to how you are…my perception of how you are and the meaning I keep making of what you do around me…particularly in moments of disgareement and conflict. I know it looks and feels like I am angry with you, which in turn causes you to react defensively, which fuels my frustration, and my judgements.

I keep hoping things have actually changed…that when I see you this time it will be different..and yet even before you arrive, I feel anxious and fearful…an insidious reaction from our past… and I start frantically working out ways to defend myself from an attack I am certain will come. I am aware I am still deeply attached to the idea that if only YOU would change, if only YOU would behave differently (even though I fear you won’t) then I would feel ok in relationship to you. I know this doesn’t work and I tell myself “I should get off it” and “I should be able to handle this” so I say “yes” to seeing you and things are OK for while. Then inevitably I find myself reacting to something you say or do, telling myself it means you don’t care what I think or feel. I start judging you for how you are behaving, then judge myself for judging you and reacting yet again. I end up feeling anxious, frustrated, angry and despairing…and the game continues.

I realise this is what I have always done in our relationship. For so long I have really ”tried” to make things “better” (aka: make YOU better). I’ve “tried” to get you to do something different, “tried” to avoid an upset, “tried” to manage the energy by tip-toeing around you to avoid an argument…”tried” to talk to you openly and honestly, “tried” to get you to listen to what I am saying the way I mean it, “tried’ to make you understand how I feel. I’ve “tried” to let go, to move on, to not care what you do or how you show up and yet, I keep expecting you to be “reasonable” and to change and as you know, expectations are just a prescription for disappointment…and it simply doesn’t work.

Well, I am tired of all the “trying”. I am tired of the game…I am tired of worrying about how you are going to show up and how I am going to handle it, tired of being anxious whenever I think about you coming to visit, tired of fearing your reactions and your feelings and your behaviour, tired of being hard on myself and hard on you, tired of judging and managing and manipulating and handling things…just plain tired.

So once again, I choose peace in relationship to you. I choose to do something different about how I show up in relationship to you. I choose to remember to put my loving self first in this relationship, to love myself and to love and bless you and if I choose… to keep on walking. I realise that my unwillingness to STOP playing the game is what keeps it going.

My truth right now is: I don’t know how to BE at peace in relationship to you…yet. So I choose to keep responding with awareness and rigour for myself. I choose to dig deeper and uncover what else is really going on for me in relationship to you, to become conscious of what it is that keeps me recreating this relationship dynamic and keep responding and letting go.

I used to think this meant I had to have more regular contact with you in order to heal this wound between us. Now I remember that I can choose to say NO to having contact with you for as long as I choose. I choose to create a guilt-free space to engage in my own process, the best I can right now. I choose to let go of worrying about how you may (or may not) react to my choice. I choose to let go of my need for you to agree, approve or like the choices I make.

The bottom line for me is this: I Create The Whole Of My Own Reality. I am response-able for creating you showing up the way you do in my life. I also know I cannot change YOU and hanging onto this expectation is a one-way ticket to the pit of despair! So letting go of my expectations is key…as is my willingness to keep loving you and me and responding from love no matter what form our relationship takes in the future.

Let the healing continue…

On Wednesday, February 13, 2008, I like millions of Australians witnessed history being made when our Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stood up in Federal Parliament and said “sorry”. As I sat and watched with tears streaming down my face, I was moved by his open, honest and heart-felt acknowledgement. I knew that a profound and powerful healing had begun not just for all Australians, but for all humanity. Later in the day I received the following email from my beautiful business partner and dear friend, Peter Sheldon and I want to share it with you:

“Today was the 42nd opening of parliament and the day that the prime minister, Kevin Rudd kept his word and delivered an apology to the indigenous people of Australia. Rudd’s speech, the emotional and spiritual responses in the parliament and particularly the gallery were evidence, along with the deep feelings in my own heart and soul, that we were witnessing the fundamental commencement of a deep healing, not only for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, but for everyone who resonated with the pain of separation, the release of genuine acknowledgement and the possibilities for creating anew.

It has long been my own feeling that we have been blessed to have in our consciousness (though often denied), the continued (though tenuous) presence of a people whose profoundly deep feeling of connection with the land and model for connection through spirit is a reminder of where and how we have separated from our own spirit and from each other as a people.

In many ways, I feel the consequences of this part of our own history, as they are demonstrated in aspects of both city and country Aboriginal communities, is the mirror of so much we haven’t been willing to acknowledge in our modern, busy living and sometimes soulless experiences. Yet how profound and painful it has had to be (for our indigenous brothers and sisters) to allow us all to get to today and the healing to begin with consciousness through this first step to reconciliation. How powerful that Rudd has brought this forward so forthrightly and in this first term of Parliament for both Kevin Rudd and Brendan Nelson who entered the House today as new leaders on both sides of Parliament.”

Now as we move forward in the spirit of reconciliation I ask you to look into your own heart and choose to heal your separation from your own magnificent self, from each other and from humanity as a whole. We are all one people, one whole planet, one song in the universe. Let the healing begin.