Not Until I’m Ready

It is funny.  I can only "get it" when I am ready.  For some reason, the lesson of creating my own reality is here again.  This time, I see it in a way that I have not been ready to see it before.

Again and again, I have expected something or someone outside of myself to make everything okay.

I don’t like how M acts when he gets mad or frightened or whatever feeling he has when he goes into what I call his "blackness" of heart phase.  I usually get scared and believe the things he says, and I feel hurt and hopeless that he can say what he is saying–that he sees me as such a bad person.  In effect, I let "his stuff" look like it is my stuff, and that I have to convince him that I am okay.

I spiral into panic attacks, and tell myself that if he would stop hurting me, I would stop falling into these panic attacks, and that somehow my horrible and scary behavior is only because he did his horrible and scary behavior first.

But here I am, today, knowing that from now on, I don’t have to believe that his stuff is anything but his stuff.  I never need to defend myself against his words or opinions.  I do need to be honest and watchful and present, and work on my own reactions and fears and defensiveness, without any care whether or not he is working on his.  Why?  Because I can only create my life by choosing my own actions and thoughts, never by attempting to control another’s actions and thoughts.

Yeah, simple and obvious.  But I really have not been strong enough in myself until now to truly understand this.  I feel somehow excited by the possibilities of how peaceful and happy I can be, just by not accepting others’ versions of reality as my own.

There we have it.

And my grandbaby is magically perfect in the way she reminds us all of LOVE.