If It Ain't Broke...

Hi there, Last night my dear friend David Zarza had a book reading.  His book, When Spirits Call tells his story as a psychic medium.  In his book he recalls readings he has given, including one I initiated to connect my sister and her son Miles.  My sister was at the reading as well so we were able to talk about our experience and give tidbits that weren't in the book to the audience.  She and I are good at telling stories together, we have chemistry when it comes to relaying information.  A talk show may need to happen, you never know. At any rate, there came a place in my retelling where I was immediately flooded with emotion.  I am brought to the very moment again and again every time I tell the story of seeing my sister for the first time after I found out that my nephew has died.  Hmm, before we go there, I want to give you some background.

I am a fixer.  I fix broken faucets, garbage cans, pens, furniture, people :)  Though I don't consider people broken, fractured maybe, but not broken.  In my home, growing up, I was the translator between my mom and my sister.  They didn't communicate very well with one another.  Their's was a volatile relationship in so many ways.  I, being pretty different from them both, was able to understand what they were both seeking so I did my best to communicate for them to one another.  It helped on one level and on another it kept them from figuring it out for themselves.  I am appreciative of all of my years of training because that work I did as a child to young adult is a part of the framework of what I do now for a living.  However, before I understood that what I did was a career I practiced coaching everyone I ever dated.  Everyone that I was romantically linked to left the relationship fitter, more aware and with more love for themselves than when they entered.  I cannot help but improve my surroundings, it is what I do and for a long time it is what I thought I was supposed to do.  If I could make it better then I would.  Well, not everything and everyone is here for me to fix…and not everyone or everything can be.  I learned this truth because there was one time that I wasn't able to fix anything.

I walked into the dark motel room where my sister was sitting on the far side of the bed, it had been about 24 hours since Miles had died.  Her first words to me were, "I'm sorry."  It was then that I knew there was nothing about this experience that would be fixable.  I was devastated to hear her take responsibility for his soul's journey.  I was horrified to see that a large part of her had gone under with him that day.  I was not going to be able to fix it… there was nothing I could do to get her to feel differently than she did, think differently, speak differently.  I could not, for the life of me, take her feelings away.  Sowande was on this journey and all I could truly do was watch.  This for me, was/is the hardest part, so far of my nephew dying: my sister's pain.  

I learned, quickly, that a part of my living through losing my nephew was about letting people be where they are.  My sister was in a place that I had no access to, after MIles died, so I wasn't going to be able to talk her through and back to anything.  I was certain of that.  I have never really taken responsibility for others.  I know that we feel what we feel based on our own discernments and judgments.  You cannot make someone feel differently than they do, though I am sure you, as most do, try your damnedest to do so.  

You may not even realize you are doing it when you do, but I am sure you have a hard time letting someone be in pain when they are in it; and I don't mean pain like getting hit by a car, but pain that is emotional.  You may not hear yourself actually tell someone to not feel a certain way.  Hugging someone can actually be a way for us to stop someone from feeling what they are feeling.  When you reach out and pull someone in, they are no longer in the place they were in.  To both of you this may seem like the point, but for learning and self-soothing, crying or being where you are can be beneficial to moving through it.  I never want to be hugged or touched when I am in the middle of strong emotional feeling.  I want to feel it.  Within the intensity there is information.  I want to access it so that I can move the hell on.  :)   We judge pain as bad.  We want only happy feelings and none that are sad.  This is crazy talk and I knew that the pain my sister was in would remain until it was gone, or shifted in some way… I also knew that I was and am not responsible for it.

Where are you trying to take responsibility for another in your life?  How is that helping to keep you from taking responsibility for yourself and your treatment of you?  The first step is waking up… becoming aware… noticing how you are.  Try to let others be where they are.  You can love and support them without trying to take their feelings away.  

xo

a