The dualism of life and people.
I am wrestling with how to remember and live with challenging people, both past and those still alive.
There are a number of people in life, like how things go, that I've lost touch with or intentionally moved on from a friendship or relationship. Occasionally, something will trigger a memory about that person.
There are also people now that I am in a relationship with that are still challenging and I'm still in a relationship with. I write about this on and off, because it's fascinating to me. It also feels like the core of what our current evolution as humans is about. If we can't get along with good people we're just different from, we have issues.
One thing I'm practicing lately is to embrace the good memories with that person when they come to mind. When I'm reminded of something good about a challenging person formerly or currently in my life, I am trying to pull that into my heart space and really dwell on that. So often, my tendency is to immediately shift to something negative. Yeah well, that was an awesome time, but then the shit really hit the fan.
No. No, I want to embrace the good everywhere and not turn things that were once beautiful into something permanently dark.
I think I'm going to say that again because it just sort of flowed out and it seems super important: I want to embrace the good everywhere and not turn things that were once beautiful into something permanently dark.
This seems important in moving toward a more non-dual way of living, to genuinely try and hold even challenging people, people no longer in my life, in this beautiful light. Yeah, I have better boundaries now for sure, but all of my past friends have benefited me at some time in the past. I need to be less black/white and remember that.
What's that looked like this week?
- Stepping into a small health food store and the smells taking me back to being a kid when my Mom drug us into tiny health food stores that had popped up, all run by fierce hippies and health food nuts, as they were called. This was back in the 70's when no one was eating yogurt, avoiding white sugar and monitoring healthy fats. Mom was a trailblazer; my healthy microbiome is absolutely because of her.
- While helping plan KT's wedding, being reminded of my wedding day hair fiasco and how my bridesmaids rescued me. My hairdresser somehow thought I wanted to look like Wilma Flintstone, so once I arrived at the church with my beehive updo, they adeptly calmed my nerves, redid my hair, put on my makeup and literally took a disaster and turned it into a great ending (and story!) I don't speak to many of them any longer, but the memory feels precious.
It's really up to me whether these memories all have to be erased, avoided or marked as bad in my mind. Can I celebrate those people and those moments in time? Do things have to be black and white?
Non-dual living and thinking is stretching me right now, but I'm being changed by how the graciousness of this lifestyle unfolds.
I'm grateful for my small communities of people I get to share life with that understand these tensions and are trying to process the same things I am with grace, some confusion, frustration and celebration.