Friends and Enemies

What I learn from my enemies is every bit as valuable as what I learn from my friends. Friends teach me to appreciate myself, to receive love, to feel safe in my vulnerability. Enemies teach me self- acceptance. When I am criticized, I learn to stay on my own side. When I am reviled, I learn not to take others personally. When I am betrayed and disappointed, I learn to stay in my Adult, to forgive, and to keep on moving.

When I look back over what has made me strong, I credit my enemies. I’ve learned not to listen to “you” statements. I recognize when another wants to hurt me so she won’t feel her own pain. I’ve learned to step aside instead of react. I’ve learned that no one really cares that much about me--usually they don’t pay attention to anyone besides themselves. If they do want to hurt me, it’s only to serve their misguided purposes. How I’m told I’m wrong is almost exclusively projection. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be hostility associated with the statement.

People are complex creatures with inner worlds they often can’t handle. They don’t know what to do with frustration, conflict, misperception. They don’t recognize the gift in loss. They don’t want to grow up because they’re afraid they can’t. They’re not sure they know enough or have enough or that they can weather the storms. They’re not in control of their lives so they act controlling to distract themselves and the rest of us. The front is all there is. Nothing exists behind the posturing.

Learning to see through the bluster anchors me in my own truth. It teaches me that I am all I have and I am enough. The Needy Child part of me is comforted by the strong Adult. And that’s all she needs. The supports of money, material things, prestige, or acknowledgement don’t mean much in themselves. But that enduring relationship between the Child and the Adult promotes transformative growth. Those two together can face the world. It’s an unbeatable combination. And without my enemies I probably wouldn’t have developed this strong inner self-supportng relationship. I’ll always be grateful to jerks.

Loveable, Loving, Learning

We all yearn to be loved but traditional religion has taught us that we must work to be worthy of love. Being just as we are isn’t good enough; there is something basically evil lurking in our shadowy innards. We don’t know exactly what we lack but some authority will tell us and then show us how to correct our faults.

We listen, we try, but we never reach “good enough.” In fact, we learn self-hate. We judge our feelings, alienate ourselves from our core, and live from our intellect instead of from our soul. We try to be other than how we are naturally and hope that that is more acceptable. To whom? To God? To our mothers? To our peers (whom we fear only tolerate us)?

It certainly doesn’t work with ourselves. We don’t feel more comfortable. We don’t like ourselves more. We don’t experience increased aliveness and creativity and spontaneity and joy. We felt hurt and now we have layered pretense over the hurt. We don’t feel the hurt but it still lives in us beneath our awareness. We know something is going on because we don’t always sleep so well and once in a while we drink a little too much and our eating seems designed to comfort our hearts instead of nourish our bodies. Generally, we’re frustrated. This life doesn’t seem worth it.

Can you imagine loving yourself the way you love a newborn--without expectation or criticism, with complete acceptance and open-hearted joy? With the trust that at your deepest core you are perfect? The truth is we are one with God. That’s the bottom line. Our foundation is God; we cannot destroy that. We may forget our essence when we listen to the intellect but we remember when we move into our depths in meditation.

As individual expressions of God we are loveable. We don’t need to earn love. We can’t improve on God. We are fine this second.

The next level is practicing love. We are loving beings, sharing our acceptance and gratitude with others. Because we accept ourselves, we open our hearts and welcome others. We treat them the way we treat ourselves. We choose to be loving because that best expresses who we are.

We are always learning. We do takes and re-takes and mis-takes because that’s what life requires. We can’t learn and grow without exploring different choices. We always get feedback and we always have another chance. And always we accept ourselves. “For this minute I am in my right and perfect place.”

We open our hearts and we open our minds and we are open to new experience. We allow God to be God in us. What an adventure!