It’s so enormously hard sometimes, this figuring out how to cope with moments of heated conflict in precious relationships. Sometimes we choose to leave. That’s a crucial option to have.
But choosing to stay. That’s what I’m going to talk and sing to you about today. If you have questions about whether this is healthy, you may be interested in this.
It was a very important moment for me when I had this flash of wisdom or guidance that, “Oh, I'm not really thinking of leaving. I don't want to leave. Though maybe I will at some point.”
It’s a reckoning with how hard it is.
“Nobody said, no one ever said that it would be so hard.”
We have this expectation of ease. When it's not easy, I think there's a grappling of, wait, is this my fault if it's not easy? But this work inside of, oh, it's so hard, is giving up on that dream of ease…
And how can we build hope?
Transcript
I want to talk to you today about how hard it is sometimes, this journey of being in a high conflict relationship or just figuring out how to cope with moments of heated conflict in whatever relationship. I'm going to sing you a few songs about it.
“Such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy No one ever said that it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
I was just guessing, pulling the puzzles apart,
running in circles, chasing our tails”
Sometimes that's how it feels, running in circles and chasing our tails. And it can be so hard. There can be so much back and forth in the mind trying to figure out, should I stay? Should I go? Is it supposed to be like this? Some of that “should I stay, should I go” happens without any actual intention to leave.
It was a very important moment for me when I had this flash of wisdom or guidance that, “Oh, I'm not really thinking of leaving. I don't want to leave. Maybe I will at some point. But”, I thought that day many years ago, “as long as I have no intention to leave, let me choose to stay here and get out of that “Should I stay? Should I go?”
It may be a relationship where maybe a parent-child relationship and you're the parent. You know you're not leaving anything, but there's this feeling of ‘Is it supposed to be so hard? Am I doing something wrong? Is there something I should be doing to make it easier?”
And it’s a reckoning with how hard it is.
“Nobody said, no one ever said that it would be so hard.”
We have this expectation of ease. When it's not easy, I think there's a grappling of, wait, is this my fault if it's not easy? But this work inside of, oh, it's so hard, is giving up on that dream of ease. I think that's important.
I know there was a time in my life when I walked around saying these really kind of funny, not funny, words to myself, which were, ”huh, I guess it's not supposed to be easy. Because if it was supposed to be easy, then I believe it would be easy, or at least easier. And it certainly isn't easy. So I guess it's not supposed to be easy.” Really grappling with this.
So… choosing to stay, choosing to work on ourselves and find our own sources of strength and bring that also back to the relationship. That's partly setting boundaries, partly being very clear about what we want from the other person, not taking all the responsibility.
When we do that, we need to find our sources of strength, maybe call out to our angels. So there are two more songs I want to sing to you.
The first one is Calling All Angels by Train.
“I want a reason for the way things have to be
I need a hand to help build up some kind of hope inside of me
And I am calling all angels
I'm calling all you angels
And I won't give up If you don't give up
I won't give up if you don't give up.”
I won’t give up on me ever. And I hope you never give up on yourself.
Now, in my relationship, we came back to being each other's angels over and over again. Each of us chose not to give up. But that's not enough because sometimes it was very hard and we weren't always on the same side. We weren't always able to be there for each other. So we have to also find other angels.
Part of the reason I'm here is to be angels for each other, to not give up together. But most importantly, that you don't give up on yourself. You may at some point decide that you're giving up on a relationship of one kind or another or giving up to try to give everything into the relationship. Giving up can be a release and it can look different ways at different times. So we need each other. We need other angels.
We also need our own inner angels, to call in to our own angels. The values that we want to rely on, the angels of clarity - to try to develop the clarity of knowing that you know what you know. There's an angel right? Also the angels of activities, practices that make us feel good and make us strong and to always keep coming back to that.
So we have this duality maybe of, what was the first song? Coldplay, The Scientist. How hard it is. And then we have the second song, Calling All Angels by Train of, okay, I won't give up and I'm calling my angels.
Jane Sibbery also has a song called Calling All Angels. I think she actually holds both sides. This to my mind is one of the wonderful arts of life, the most special skill and art of life, to hold both sides without feeling like we need to push one side away in order to just connect to the other.
We don't have to push the pain away. There can be pain and joy. And the pain doesn't have to make us feel like the joy is all gone. We can hold them both. So, Jane Siberry.
“And it's one foot then the other as you step out on the road.
Step out on the road.
How much weight?
How much?
Then it's how long and it's how far and it's how many times.
Oh, before it's too late
Calling all angels, calling all angels, walk me through this one don't leave me alone
calling all angels, calling all angels
We're trying, we're hoping, we're hurting and we're loving.
We're crying, we're calling, cause we're not sure how this goes.”
And I think that is the path. Acknowledging that we really don't know how this goes and how it's meant to go and calling all our angels, the outer angels and the inner angels, and still taking one step and then another as you listen deeply to your own truth about how and where.
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