Catch and Release

Everyday, I listen as people tell me about their lives: what’s working well and, more often, what isn’t.  No matter their grievance, I can usually relate to some aspect of the emotion it carries.  Who hasn’t wished for something about their circumstance and/or relationship to be different?  It’s human nature.  Still, there’s no evidence to suggest that the harder you resist what’s true, the happier you’ll be.  On the contrary, the harder you resist, the more you’ll suffer.  That’s not good for anyone and it certainly doesn’t make a bad situation better or a distracted partner more present.  But, what happens if you stop resisting what you don’t want to be true and start dealing with what is true?  For starters, you probably won’t like it much…at least not at first.  Change is hard.  Stepping back from telling everyone else what they should be doing to make your life easier or love you better or or or is an act of courage.  It’s the first step toward taking accountability for what’s actually in your control and letting go of what isn’t.  Maybe you realize others’ expectations of you are not in alignment with what you want, or your partner actually can’t give you what you need, or the way you’ve been coping is more self-sabotaging than it is nurturing.  Discoveries like this generally stir up what some might call “negative” feelings (I.e. anger, pain, disappointment, uncertainty), but there’s nothing negative about them. Like the key to a jail cell, working through uncomfortable emotion in a healthy way will set you free.  Here’s an encouragement to help you along your way:

“The Journey”

One day you finally knew
What you had to do, and began, Though the voices around you Kept shouting
Their bad advice‚
Though the whole house
Began to tremble
And you felt the old tug
At your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
Each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do, Though the wind pried
With its stiff fingers
At the very foundations‚ Though their melancholy
Was terrible.
It was already late
Enough, and a wild night,
And the road full of fallen Branches and stones.
But little by little,
As you left their voices behind, The stars began to burn Through the sheets of clouds, And there was a new voice, Which you slowly
Recognized as your own,
That kept you company
As you strode deeper and deeper Into the world,
Determined to do
The only thing you could do‚ Determined to save
The only life you could save.