I reflect on you

  • 2017

A person that I love very much has just separated from the husband. Nothing new under the sun, the separations are already the daily bread. So much so that in our group we have come to develop a protocolo to help the friend in question to face the situation in the best possible way. However this time was different for me. I could not take the necessary steps to help the other person cope with that pain: let her vent and listen patiently to the summary of her conversations with the ex-husband, giving her space to mourn.

I felt a lot of irritation when my friend talked about her ex and insisted on making a list of the reasons why I would be so much better without him. I was so sure, it didn't leave him the benefit of the doubt. The worst part is that I hid this cruelty behind my affection for her. I loved her and didn't want her to suffer again . Nice hiding place, Paola. It is one thing to disagree with another person. Another, totally different, is feeling irritation. In the second case, the problem is ours and the solution must be sought within us.

The solution for me this time has come in the form of a lapidary phrase by the other members of the group: "It is that you press it a lot, let it speak . " Judging someone is never good, even if you are a friend and much less if you are a therapist. Therefore something was wrong, I needed to stop and understand what caused that reaction in me, what part of ME I saw reflected in it.

And suddenly there it was, my wonderful epiphany: his love story had been improvisedly truncated, by his final decision, in a hurry to run away and without any chance to talk about it, to reconsider. It was just the same thing that had happened to ME a few years ago. With a withering and univocal decision on his part it was over in a few days. And I unconsciously saw myself and him again in her and the other's history. The rage and irritation poured on his ex were nothing but my rage and irritation poured on my ex.

The moments of epiphany are wonderful:

As soon as your eyes open and you see everything clearly, it is as if a balm smeared the wounds, healing them instantly.

The people around us are a mirror in which we can reflect to discover how we are, what we have left to learn, what mourning we have not been able to elaborate or what pain is hidden in our soul and does not allow us to move forward with our evolution.

I remember the phrase of a friend who made me laugh out loud:

"Have you noticed that there are days when only pretty people come out and others that only look ugly out there?"

If traffic restrictions by alternating traffic have not been extended to people's physical appearance, I would say that does not work that way. The others are not handsome, ugly, friendly, irritating. We are the ones who react to our environment according to how we feel. If we are well we will see the vie en rose, if we are bad the streets will be filled with ugly people. If a person irritates us, it is because he is showing us an aspect of us that we do not like or do not want to see. At the moment when, observing ourselves carefully, we discover what bothers us and we accept it, the feeling of liberation is so great that we felt as if we had supported a backpack full of stones on the ground.

Tell me again about your ex, my friend, I will not judge you again. That little piece of my soul is already healed.

AUTHOR: Paola Andreoli

SEEN AT: www.paolaandreoli.com

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