Sometimes you just have to do things that you know are hard. You know it’s going to be painful, but you also know that not doing it will cause even more hurt and pain in the long run. This is especially hard for empathic people because we don’t ever want to cause someone pain- not ourselves and not other people. But, as grown ups we know that there are times that the best course of action, the one taken in love, will cause pain, and that’s when we do it.
I had to do something like that this week. I have been struggling in my personal relationship with someone I’m close to. Part of my process in healing myself this year is to heal my interpersonal relationships. This person is important to me, and as such, I want to live in clean relationship with this person.
I have agonized over this relationship for awhile now, because while we are great friends and love one another, this person and I have also been dealing with our own personal issues that have been encroaching on our relationship with one another. I don’t want that and want a healthy and happy relationship. Our friendship is dear to me, and I want it to continue. I knew that I needed to talk to this person, but I also knew that doing so was going to be painful for both of us. This friend does not like conflict, and I’ll admit that I don’t either. But, the fact of the matter is, our friendship has been nothing but conflict lately. While my friend has tried to ignore the conflict by acting like an ostrich with its head in the sand, I couldn’t continue on like that. Even knowing that our friendship would likely end if I didn’t make the effort to talk wasn’t enough to get me going. I don’t want to hurt my friend’s feelings. And, I knew that by hurting my friend’s feelings I would be causing myself pain, too.
Finally this week I decided to bite the bullet. I decided I would talk to my friend. And I did. And it was hard. It was one of the most difficult things I have done in a long time. And it did cause pain and hurt feelings. But, I’m glad I did it. It’s like ripping a band-aid off. You know it’s going to hurt but it will be more painful if you go slowly.
So, I did it. I caused the pain and frustration and initiated a talk. I can’t say that everything is sunshine and roses now, but at least right now my friend knows how I feel. We have a lot of things to deal with in this relationship if we want to continue being friends, but at least both of our feelings are out in the open.
And that’s the thing. I can’t promise that everything will be instantaneously great if you do the difficult things. I can’t even promise that they will be great in the end. Things might completely fall apart. But, if that happens then it is meant to be what happened and will ultimately be for the highest good of those involved. A broken and ended relationship of any kind can be for your best good if it brings an end to a toxic relationship that can’t be healed.
In the end, you can’t force another person to want to heal. You can’t make them ascend to a higher vibrational field. You can only work on yourself. You can do the difficult thing and reach out to work on a relationship, but if the other person doesn’t want to you may need to walk away. It is not easy to do this. It is painful. But by not doing the painful thing you are ensuring you will vibrate on a lower plane.
