Three messages

Janet usually leaves me three urgent messages during the night; two or three times a week. Sometimes there have been up to five. The content of her calls are pretty much about the same thing, which for her is very important. For me, well, I will often have to force myself to listen until the bitter end. I have learned to allow her to simply be herself, though I have had to put some distance, at least interiorly from her problems. For after all is said and done; I can only offer to listen and not much else, just to try to be there for her even if it does no good. She is caught in an endless cycle of anxious concern, over and over again, like being trapped on a circular highway with no exists. So all I can do is listen, say the right things and once in a while drop some advice that I know will do no good. Perhaps knowing this is what allows the relationship to continue, to simply allow Janet to be herself; as painful as that may be. I am powerless to change anything and in that is my freedom from entanglement that can be destructive to both of us. She is always afraid that I will get angry with her and in the past I have, but that was because I was trying to save her, or change her, which meant I lacked the faith of believing that in spite of all the darkness and pain, indeed God is a work in her life. I have seen it, how in spite of her deep anxious concern she tends to get what she needs, when she needs it.

When I start to lose patience and want to demand the impossible from her, I look inside at my own cycles that I am caught up in and have been struggling with all of my life and it helps me to get perspective. Demanding change in others is a way for me to try to reduce any kind of problematic relationships in my life. So I can become irrational and wonder why Janet simply cannot make an act of the will and change, conveniently forgetting my own shackles and my struggle with them. Willfulness is not the answer in any case since will power comes and goes.

I don’t like the word co-dependent since it is often used to actually control others through guilt; to get them to stop something that makes for discomfort. Yet the word is also useful for self reflection. I don’t think people come into anyone’s life to be saved, but perhaps to just simply be seen and accepted, without making ones peace and happiness dependent on their changing for the better. Those that stick are perhaps the ones that need to be embraced but not forced to change, or allowed to have a destructive effect on ones life. It is a balance that is in constant need of review since compulsive undertows are always at work. Perhaps it is the creative pull between truly loving and controlling that allows for growth. To draw back from the struggle can lead to other problems that could be more serious. Something has to shut down within if those who come into ones life that are needy and struggling are put aside, which is its own species of isolation.

Love is not controlling, seeking to change someone and getting angry if they don’t is a power play that is easy to fall into. None of us our saviors, yet by simply being there and allowing the other ‘thou’ to feel loved can permit grace to take hold. For in the end I know that I need mercy and grace and have benefited from it. Having others in my life demand that I change so that they can feel better has never helped me, so I guess it is safe to say that it probably never helped anyone else either.

The heart can only stretch when self knowledge is present to help avoid the pitfalls. Compulsive helping leads to disappointment, resentment, withdrawal and sometimes even to hatred and scorn for the one who will not play along with the game: “I help you and you change so that I can be happy about myself”. It does not work, we are each to unique, complex and if I may so, to screwed up for that to happen. Real change comes from deep within the soul, and at times this depth can hide some really powerful workings of grace.