“Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game.”
~ Jim Butcher
Let’s say you are working on healing from family estrangement. Let’s say you have acknowledged that other people may see things differently, that they are all struggling to get their needs met, skillfully or not. Let’s say you have been practicing your tolerance and your capacity to accept your missing family members. Let’s say that you have been listening to all the feel good stuff, that drifts around out there in pop psychology and pseudo spirituality land .. the stuff that says if you give unconditionally, it will be returned to you ten fold. Or the stuff that says if you give the best of yourself, it will heal relationship hurts, open doors, solve problems and it will MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD.
But what if it doesn’t?
Let’s say you are practicing all that feel good, positivity building, life enhancing stuff, and that people you are estranged from still treat you poorly. Maybe they toss your tolerance back in your face. Maybe they suck everything you give like insatiable vacuum cleaners, with never a word of thanks. Maybe you give the best of you, and they give you the worst of them. Maybe you are brave and hopeful and positive and are still left out in relationship cold. Maybe you give and nothing comes back …. nothing … at … all.
Maybe your giving to others, hurts you.
Let’s not dance around this. In our lives, we need to extend ourselves, reach out and give and we need to stop giving when it hurts us. When giving to another person tears us apart, when it leaves us feeling depleted, diminished, abused, taken for granted or our hearts feel broken like fragile, glass ornaments, we need to stop giving.
Relationships require reciprocity. They don’t need to be perfectly tit for tat – but across time, we need to feel that there is reasonable give and take. We need to feel the things we are giving are valued and we need to feel that we are valued, that the relationship is based in mutual regard and caring. Many estranged relationships have been little more than extended dances of pursuit and distance; one person desperately trying to connect, heal, give and care … the other person, withholding, rejecting, punishing and distancing. Sometimes the pattern flips, and the sides change – but generally, one person gives more and wants more, the other is less invested and gives less. Many relationships become fully estranged precisely because of this pattern. The pursuit and distance pattern is excruciating. It hurts to give and meet rejection. It hurts to feel like you love and care, and the other person does not. It is also not healthful for us to sit in a place of rejecting and punishing others.
This Christmas, check your receiving and your giving. If someone is giving to you, can you receive with openness and gratitude? Even if it is hard, can you stretch yourself to receive and accept?
And if you are giving, and the giving is not received in the spirit of gratitude and openness … if the giving you are doing causes you suffering and heartache … can you stop? Will you?
E-stranged 