Bait

Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

If you get out of someone’s way, they will fight and they will kick, but eventually, there’s nothing they can do but look at themselves and get real. Very, very real. Or totally self-combust in a life of lies. Or that dear opiate, denial….

All abuse is just bait. To get you to be the one who freaks out. So the other person doesn’t have to deal. Doesn’t have to take responsibility. Oh look — she’s the one with the black eye. She’s the one crying in the corner. She’s the one leaving. What a bitch.…

But I stay silent and practice not taking the bait — not being resentful. Letting it wash over me. Because when I stay here, I am powerful. Very, very powerful. Take note of this. Let him have the middle-aged tantrum. Just be sure to duck!

— Laura Munson, This Is Not the Story You Think It Is. . . : A Season of Unlikely Happiness, p. 233-235

Conscious Forgetting

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Relationships 0

To forget means to aver from memory, to refuse to dwell — in other words, to let go, to loosen one’s hold, particularly on memory. To forget does not mean to make yourself brain-dead. Conscious forgetting means letting go of the event, not insisting it stay in the foreground, but rather moving it off a stage, allowing it to be relegated to the background.

We practice conscious forgetting by refusing to summon up the fiery material, we refuse to recollect. To forget is an active, not a passive, endeavor. It means to not haul up certain materials or turn them over and over, to not work oneself up by repetitive thoughts, pictures, or emotions. Conscious forgetting means willfully dropping the practice of obsessing, intentionally outdistancing and losing sight of it, not looking back, thereby living in a new landscape, creating new life and new experiences to think about instead of the old ones. This kind of forgetting does not erase memory, it lays the emotion surrounding the memory to rest.

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 402

Their Own Choices

Letting Go, Relationships 0

You cannot save another person from his or her spiritual lessons, no matter how much you may want to or how hard you try….

For in the same way that we have seen that no one can steal your destiny, it is also true that you cannot force others to achieve their own destiny. You can merely provide gentle guidance and allow them to make their own choices.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 184, 185

Hearing God’s Voice, Together

God, Guidance, Life, Marriage, Relationships 0

The secret of the Christian life — and the Christian marriage — is that you don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to figure life out, you don’t have to figure each other out, you don’t have to figure parenting out, or money or family. You have a counselor, you have a guide — you have God. What a relief that we don’t have to figure it all out! We get to walk with God. That is the beauty of Christian spirituality. This is not about mastering principles; it’s about an actual relationship with an actual person who happens to be the wisest, kindest, and, okay, wildest person you will ever know.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 130-131

Real Intimacy

Connection, Relationships, Trust 0

At the heart of any real intimacy is a certain vulnerability. It is hard to trust someone with your vulnerability unless you can see in them a matching vulnerability and know that you will not be judged. In some basic way it is our imperfections and even our pain that draws others close to us.

— Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., Kitchen Table Wisdom, p. 113

False Nobility

Growth, Relationships 0

I have met many women and a few men in what are clearly difficult, sometimes abusive, or extremely negative relationships who think that they are doing something spiritually wonderful by staying in a situation that is clearly eroding their soul. This is an example of the tribal belief Spiritual growth is hard, and you have to change yourself so you can be happy in any situation with any person at all times. Personally, I don’t believe this at all. It is responsible for more people staying in bad situations than any other tribal belief about spirituality.

— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 284

Doing All the Work

Letting Go, Love, Relationships 0

Doing all the work in a relationship is not loving, giving, or caring. It is self-defeating and relationship-defeating. It creates the illusion of a relationship when in fact there may be no relationship. It enables the other person to be irresponsible for his or her share. Because that does not meet our needs, we ultimately feel victimized….

Are we doing all the waiting, the hoping, the work?

We can let go. If the relationship is meant to be, it will be, and it will become what it is meant to be. We do not help that process by trying to control it. We do not help ourselves, the other person, or the relationship by trying to force it or by doing all the work.

Let it be. Wait and see. Stop worrying about making it happen. See what happens and strive to understand if that is what you want.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 325