Letting go of difficult people…

Every morning, I wake up. I make a strong pot of coffee. I drink it while reading 100 or so posts from some of my favorite bloggers. It’s always interesting to me when the messages from different bloggers seem to be in sync and it appears the universe is trying to teach me a lesson. Today is one of those days. First up is Kristin Barton Cuthriell who writes:

A client came to me the other day. She is chronically anger with her mother and has been for years. The anger is poisoning her. It is tearing her apart. She describes herself as nothing but a bitter shell of who she use to be. She is so consumed by her anger that she is shutting out all of the joy in her life (and there is a lot). I shared with her my lesson.

My lesson about life being precious and short- way too short to spend it full of contempt and resentment. The lesson that we learn when we have a near death experience, survive a life threatening illness, or lose a loved one.

Her mother is getting up there in years and is struck with an illness that is taking over her body. “Let go,” I stressed to my client. I moved my chair a little closer, but not too close. I looked my client in the eye, and with extreme passion, but a tone close to a whisper, I said, “It is time to let go. Enjoy the time that you have left with your mother.” My client’s eyes welled with tears, and she nodded yes. She knew, the time had come. The time to let go. The time to rid herself of the poison. The time to stop ruminating about the past. The time to reclaim her life. The time to let life in.

Are you poisoning yourself with resentment? Has the time come to let it go? Only you can really make that decision. Make it well. You deserve the best in life, but it is up to you.” via Letting Go – Kristin Barton Cuthriell.

Full disclosure? Kristin is a client, but I hunted her down because I like her content so much!

Next up is Melody Beattie. I have been starting my days with her book “The Language of Letting Go” for over a year now and I frequently curate her content. Today’s reading was more poignant for me than most:

Few things can make us feel crazier than expecting something from someone who has nothing to give. Few things can frustrate us more than trying to make a person someone he or she isn’t; we feel crazy when we try to pretend that person is someone he or she is not. We may have spent years negotiating with reality concerning particular people from our past and our present. We may have spent years trying to get someone to love us in a certain way, when that person cannot or will not.

It is time to let it go. It is time to let him or her go. That doesn’t mean we can’t love that person anymore. It means that we will feel the immense relief that comes when we stop denying reality and begin accepting. We release that person to be who he or she actually is. We stop trying to make that person be someone he or she is not. We deal with our feelings and walk away from the destructive system.

We learn to love and care differently in a way that takes reality into account.

We enter into a relationship with that person on new terms – taking our needs and ourselves into account. If a person is addicted to alcohol, other drugs, misery, or other people, we let go of his or her addiction; we take our hands off it. We give his or her life back. And we, in the process, are given our life and freedom in return.

We stop letting what we are not getting from that person control us. We take responsibility for our life. We go ahead with the process of loving and taking care of ourselves.

We decide how we want to interact with that person, taking reality and our own best interests into account. We get angry, we feel hurt, but we land in a place of forgiveness. We set him or her free, and we become set free from bondage.

This is the heart of detaching in love.

Today, I will work at detaching in love from troublesome people in my life. I will strive to accept reality in my relationships. I will give myself permission to take care of myself in my relationships, with emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual freedom for both people as my goal.” via Just For Today Meditations » Daily Recovery Readings – December 5, 2012.

Additions? Subtractions? This content is easy for me to share, but hard to implement…