Choosing Not to Blame

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Growth, Healing, Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Our intimate partners are by and large our most important persons. Because we share responsibility for our lives with them, because they are magnets for our disappointments, it is all but written into our marriage contracts that we will blame them when things go wrong.

But what happens when we make a point of doing the opposite? What happens when we let go of our proclivity to blame and resent our lovers for our own disappointments? Every time we forgive and thank each other we teach each other critical, and generalizable, life lessons: There is no master plan. There is no life that we were supposed to lead. There is no good future in wishing for a different past. The assumption that things should always go our way, and that someone or something is to blame if they don’t, only leads us away from the path to our better selves.

— Mark O’Connell, PhD, The Marriage Benefit, p. 164-165

Moving Forward

Growth, Letting Go, Relationships 0

Much as we would like, we cannot bring everyone with us on this journey called recovery. We are not being disloyal by allowing ourselves to move forward. We don’t have to wait for those we love to decide to change as well.

Sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to grow, even though the people we love are not ready to change. We may even need to leave people behind in their dysfunction or suffering because we cannot recover for them. We don’t need to suffer with them.

It doesn’t help.

It doesn’t help for us to stay stuck just because someone we love is stuck. The potential for helping others is far greater when we detach, work on ourselves, and stop trying to force others to change with us.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 164

Trust

Letting Go, Love, Relationships, Trust 0

To love others without feeling the need to trap or control them requires trust that your needs will all be met, withor without the other person’s cooperation. You must be absolutely sure that loving connection can encompass any level of difference without disappearing. You don’t have to trust the other person. You must only trust that your needs will be met no matter what that person may do.

— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight, p. 198

Seeing the Inner Light

Core Value, Healing, Parenting, Relationships 0

True healers take into account any type of darkness, but their real task is to see the Light in their clients so as to help them remember and consciously reconnect to their own inner Light. In this way, both healer and client are healed together. Parenting is the same. The ultimate gift of a parent to a child is to care for the inner Light of children until they can care for it themselves. True friends are those who believe in you through thick and thin. They still see the Light in you even when your moods and behavior are dark and low. Mentors, managers, leaders, visionaries, peacemakers, and everyone who truly serves . . . they all see the Light.

— Robert Holden, PhD, Happiness Now! p. 29

Controlling People

Letting Go, Relationships 0

Every person alive has a chosen journey, one that is right for him or her. Letting the truth of this sink in is one way to begin the process of giving up control, as is acknowledging that the more we try to control someone, the less interested he or she may be in staying in our life. Every time we get into a power struggle with the person we are trying to control, we drive a wedge into the relationship. Other people’s desire to escape will be directly proportional to our continuing obsession with how they are living and what they are doing.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 140

Needing People

Letting Go, Relationships 0

How do you know when you don’t need people? When they’re not in your life. How do you know when you do need them? When they are in your life. You can’t control the comings and goings of the people you care for. What you can do is have a good life whether they come or go. You can invite them, and they come or not, and whatever the result is, that’s what you need. Reality is the proof of it.

— Byron Katie, I Need Your Love — Is That True? p. 189

An Explanation

Life, Relationships 0

The general rule to remember is that when we’re scared, we’re scary, and when we’re scary, we’re usually scared. If someone seems strangely opposed to your actions, even though you’re motivated purely by good intentions and are doing nothing that could possibly injure him, rest assured that person is afraid. This does not excuse violent or malicious behavior; it just explains it. A common psychological error you’ll find in movies and television is that the evil people on the screen are often depicted as knowing they’re evil and feeling powerful in their destructiveness. In real life, people who perpetrate evil virtually always see themselves as victims, forced by circumstances to “defend themselves” by attacking others.

— Martha Beck, Steering by Starlight, p. 193

Escaping Judgmentalism

Gratitude, Growth, Love, Relationships 0

Being judgmental is a habit, and it can be changed….

Training ourselves to feel and then express unconditional love, the antidote to judgment, is possible, particularly with God’s help. We can choose to bring God into our minds whenever we find ourselves in the act of judging; this changes our experience and our perspective instantly. Practicing gratitude is another simple way to escape from the habit of being judgmental.

Let’s try to remember that we choose all our relationships for the lessons they bring. Being willing to accept these lessons and the people who bring them can change our minds from judgment to love and acceptance.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 139