If every relationship is a mirror of the relationship we have with ourselves, it would help to remember that how we originally came to know ourselves was through the relationship with the first people we ever ‘knew’ … our mother and father … or for some of us, whom we didn’t know. It is through our relationship with our parents; how we have come to know or experience them, that we see ourselves and others when we look out into the world.
When a child is created, parents are ‘In Service to Love’ to bring that Spirit into life. All that they do to raise their child is in response to the call within them to be of service to the next generation, and they do that to the best of their ability, given who they are, what they know and what their experience of life has been, but also given what they do not know and is outside their conscious awareness. However you were conceived and whatever your relationship with your parents has been, there is no denying that without them, you would not be here! It is their blood that runs through your veins, their genes you inherited, and their history you are connected to.
One of the most baffling things for many of us is why when these are the very people to whom we owe our life, they are also the ones to whom we look when we say that life is not working!!! Accepting our parents as they are is the most important ‘work’ we need to do in order to experience peace and harmony in our relationship and family lives. That’s because it was from them that we first learned what it means to be a man or woman, a father or mother. And, unique as you are, who you are is, in part, a combination of your father and your mother. No matter what you do or where you ‘go’, they live within you!
Whatever you judge as not ok in your parents, you risk becoming. This keeps you tied to them and to your judgement not only of them, but also of yourself. Until you accept whatever you judge in them and in yourself AS IT IS, you aren’t free to choose another way. Our Soul’s journey ensures we are born to the parents and into the family system where we can continue to grow and contribute to the ongoing evolution of humanity. Parents are our first teachers and it is through the things they do which cause us pain that we are urged to grow and heal.
So … when I look at my father and see his stubbornness mirrored in me and say “Yes, I too am like that.”, then I can choose to be more flexible. Or when I see the struggle to speak up that lives in my mother reflected in my own behaviour and have compassion for her, I can grant that to myself and ask for what I want. When I can accept their ‘weaknesses’, I become more open to recognising and owning the strengths they have also passed on to me.
This is why we are given the same experience over and over and over again … to come to a place where we realise that the gift is NOT in what others are doing or not doing, but in our ability to see everything with eyes of love. Whenever you see yourself in relationship with another behaving as you did with your parents, remember they are there to show you it’s time to let go, to respond, to heal, and to grow (up). Then you can stop resisting those things in your partner, or seeking a new partner in the hope that it will all be different! And if we want to experience self-love we need to let go of all the ways we withhold love from ourselves.
So be grateful for the struggles you have with your partners … they’re showing you where you haven’t yet accepted yourself. Whatever it is, and wherever it’s showing up, when you accept it in others, you are free to accept it in yourself and vice versa. Once you have held it, you can let it go … but you can’t let go of something you have not yet embraced and you can’t give what is not already within you.
Inner Sense No. 36 | October 2013
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Thanks for sharing!