From Struggle To Insight

Feature Photo by Lenmanaa, photo 2 by Jude Monteleone

It is interesting how life events can give us the option to develop new perspectives which can then impact us on all levels.  This happened to me on Thursday when I received a call from my dad about some family issues.  After fretting over it, losing the day from fretting, I realized that this was an opportunity from the Universe, an invitation to review my feelings about the subject, previous work I had done on it and thought I had completed, and perhaps make a more conscious shift to position me better into the future.

I got out my trusty journal and began to pour out my heart – I was able to look at the issue on 2 separate levels and go through my feelings and opinions and dissect the situation.  I did come out with some new perspectives and I offer them to you now because it is in this time of shifting energies that we, as women, are becoming both our own power and more powerful within our respective worlds.  Because it deals with family and relationships and without dragging all the details into it, suffice it to say that we all will go through similar situations in our lives if we have aging parents.

What I began to get at an even deeper level was, first, the common knowledge that I must address this within myself because, I, alone, control how I respond to life – this time I reacted but was quickly able to switch to responding and it is something we are always faced with – I had the emotion, thoughts, concerns, etc., so before, if at all, it was up to me to decipher the inner landscape of my turmoil.  Upon doing this, I came to the realization, that despite what I may think or feel, my family members were actually on their own paths spiritually, awakened or not, they were still following through on the agreements that they had made prior to coming here.

Conscious Choices

Now that may seem so simple a concept, and while I know that many of you are conscious women, I find that usually, we are focused on and involved with our particular journeys and where we are (and aren’t) in alignment with Spirit regarding our path.   It is also so easy to understand when we find others who are in sync with us in our travels that things just seem to flow and connect.It is, however, when we find someone who bumps against us, who is out of sync with us, who seems to harm us, frustrate us, shame us, embarrass us, go against us in some way that it is not always quite so easy for us to stay acutely conscious.  Also, it’s more difficult to remember that they, too,  are truly on their own spiritual path, and that these uncomfortable situations are what we signed up for as well.

I know I am aware of this deep down, and I truly subscribe to this concept.  In this particular situation with my family, however, I found that other things were also brought up for me – things like judgement, fear of rejection and the necessity of always being in control of everything in my life. As I wrote and thought and wrote and thought, I became aware of how all these things within my family were playing out and really providing me the opportunity to practice my work in consciousness at levels so deep and, at least in appearance, truly designed to hurt me.

I also became more fully aware and reminded that in recent months, along with the energy shifts, I had been making extreme conscious choices about who I did and did not desire to have in my life as I strive to stay in the present, creating an authentic future surrounded by like minds and hearts.  I have been striving to put in place people who uplift, enrich and inspire me and whom I can do the same for.   I had been sincerely releasing people who did not, whose purpose had been served in my life.

Within that avenue I then began to look at and think deeply about family members, and I realized that perhaps the same thing might be playing out with them.  I know that we are all told that often we just have to pick a new family in Spirit when we find ourselves at odds with our family of origin.I realized I really did have to make peace with where I do not fall in place within our family’s context of ‘how it should be’ and, that maybe, the important thing was that I was born, that I did receive some values and principles and those were the important agreements – maybe the rest of this happening was just that my original family members were now going to become ‘intersections’ like I have written about before.

Peace Comes

When that thought made its way to my consciousness, a peace settled over me that I have never felt when thinking, reacting, or feeling things about my family.  It no longer became about me having to fit into their situation or them fitting into mine.  Gone was the feeling of having to control anything – the situation or my own reactions to it – gone was the judgment I had felt about myself for not being enough and for them for what they wanted from me.  I was able to bless them, forgive myself, forgive them and just step back without having to make any aspect of it be right or wrong.

I am grateful for my life; I am more grateful that I know I have the ability to discern for my life how the who, what, when, where and how fits into it because I am making conscious choices for today and for tomorrow.  I am also grateful that this situation occurred because it not only caused me to focus and get fully clear about it  but it gave me the opportunity which I had not always used.

I now clearly and with intention will regard all that life presents to me from all my levels of choice and consciousness and be reminded fully that everyone is on their path.  I don’t have to agree, approve, accept, participate in or allow anyone  or anything in my life if it doesn’t resonate.  I can see that they, too, are travelers and may be merely intersections for a moment(s) to offer me opportunities for growth and insight or to simply say “no thanks” with no judgment.

Where before, in my life, I had worked to make really conscious choices about my own self, thoughts, actions, I had not always taken it to the very deepest levels of my being.  Now I give that gift to myself and hopefully to some of you who may be facing similar struggles.