What do you notice when you drink in this bottle? What words, images or associations come up for you?
What do you feel when I say that Orange contains some of the most challenging emotions you will ever experience – shock and trauma. Something that has been very present of late in the personal and collective energy. The gift if you can remain with the messiness of all this is deeper connection; and BLISS one of the highest vibrational states available. You will know if you read my articles that it is also about FORGIVENESS.
David Whyte wrote if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than put ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing.
As I said in my stillness heart connection this week, it takes courage to forgive. You have to be able to let go. Let go of the small agenda for the sake of the big Agenda. And I had a real epiphany around all of this when having a challenging conversation of my own.
What makes a difficult conversation excruciating?
Someone I have been getting to know whom I admire a great deal left me a voice message this week stating his unease at something I had done. What made this even more difficult to hear for me was we had recently had a breakthrough in our relationship and I had shown him my vulnerable self. Add to that the fact that when I first met him I had given him a piece of my mind, you can imagine I was rather dreading this conversation.
That said I didn’t want it to hang over me so we found time to speak on the day he raised it with me. That same day I had been on a rare date with my husband for lunch and had shared with him the situation. Ever the pragmatist he gave me his take on how to handle it. He’s much more in his feminine than I am in some ways. His view was that I should let the person share whatever they had to share, acknowledge it and end the conversation.
This sounded great in principle and much less messy than what actually happened. And yet I couldn’t adopt that approach however much I wanted to because it wasn’t me. I did prepare in a number of ways first by reflecting on what he had said and seeing what came up for me. Secondly I shared some of my fears with a mutual friend who knows the other person far better than I do. That helped on a level and yet I knew it was going to be tough.
How the conversation played out
We met and shared some preliminary niceties. We then dived into the issue and it was so hard not to get caught up in the drama. Nothing I said made me feel any better. I acknowledged his points. There was a moment where if we ended the conversation, I may have left with my dignity intact. Yet something inside me urged me to speak up.
I felt so judged by him because I was judging myself. In his compassion, he was able to show me how hard I was being on myself. Another reminder that the hardest thing to practice is self forgiveness. Here’s the rub you learn nothing when everything is going well.
The whole process was very painful and in some ways tainted my special lunch with my husband. I spent so much time critiquing myself and finding myself guilty that it was hard to enjoy the wonderful surroundings and the delicious food.
The gift
The real gift in all this was seeing my own pattern when I am triggered. I had projected onto this man the idea that he was judge and jury because that’s what I had done to myself. His love for my higher self was so pure that his intention had been to save me getting negative press from others who might think less of me for what I did. This man was only trying to save me from myself.
What a gift and what insights, when I stopped for a moment and took another look. I am indebted to Rich Bellars and I encourage you to get to know him if you don’t already. I am a recovering harsh critic of Kate Griffiths and need constant reminders to cut her some slack! And best of all, this will lead to even deeper connection with myself and therefore with others because that’s the magic that happens when we pause to see the whole picture.