an insight

i've learned (and keep getting the lesson over and over again) that in a relationship
when you're having a hard time, if you're looking at what the other person is doing,
you're looking in the wrong direction.

i've learned this willingly and yeah, i've learned it the hard way too.
it's what's going on inside of ME that's what i need to look at.
'yeah, but he's bein' such a clod' i can argue.
and he most likely very well is.
thing is....it's how i'm reacting, what i'm doing, what i'm choosing to believe,
what feelings are coming up....all that stuff that i need to look at.

those are the things i need to work with.
those are the points on the map that guide me to real inner work and real growth.

over and over i've gotten this lesson and i believe it with all my heart.
and i have discovered things about myself this way that i don't think i would
have seen any other way. which is one of the reasons i think relationships
matter so much.

so this thought has changed my life. changed my partner relationship.

and i've never once thought about it with much of anything else.
never once put this thought on any other situation.

until yesterday.

it started with a note from someone who gets the quote of the day,
it continued with a conversation i had with noah while i cleaned the bathroom.
with the insight that gave me the angle i really needed to sink my teeth into
coming while emailing a friend. having coffee with a friend later, she reworded
it really positively. and there i sat holding one of the most important insights
into myself i've had in years.

and i think of all the things i can share about it, probably the part i most want
to share this morning is that it's the first time i really saw life like a relationship.

so take that first line i wrote and change it - put 'life' in for 'the other person.'

"when you're having a hard time, if you're looking
at what the other person  life is doing, you're looking in the wrong direction."

i've been looking at life.
not me.
altho, i gotta say - i've been attempting to look at me.
nah.
that's not right.
it's more like, i'll look at my reactions and not like them and wish they
were different reactions.

that's not the same as looking inside of you and trying to figure out why
you're feeling what you're feeling.

i just thought it was 'normal.'
who wouldn't?

yeah.
true.

but do you want normal?
or do you want real and honest and your best?

normal is surface, it's not really looking.
and yesterday, by accident, i really saw something inside of me.
i saw some place really important that i stopped trusting myself.
i saw how a deep fear stopped me without me even knowing it.

i saw how life's been it's steady chaotic mess of its self.
how magic hasn't ever left me, and how the darkness continues to
play with the light, and how it keeps going.

i'm the one who's shut down.
and yesterday i saw it inside of myself.
clear as day.

so then what? you see something. then what?
well, if it truly IS like a relationship -
what happens in my relationship is i remember the trust and love i have for my partner.
and concentrate on that and ask for help with the other.

hmmmmm......could it really be the same with life?
and how is it i've never put this together before?
maybe it's cause it's taken me this long to really believe that stuff about a relationship.
it takes awhile to REALLY believe it's not the other person's fault when things feel bad.
at least it has for me.

maybe i couldn't really have held it like this until now.
whatever the deal, i'm pretty excited about this thought.

can you imagine treating life like your partner? your lover? your best friend?

woe.