You cannot control others; but you can control yourself and your level of engagement with others.  Day after day I see human beings who are caught up in some kind of a struggle involving others.  The range of feelings is wide: sadness, resentment, frustration, despair.  The level of pain is usually high.

Struggling with others is a great opportunity to become a more integrated and whole human being.  The struggle with others can tell us much about ourselves: what our level of firmness or softness of boundaries is, if this struggle hits a  childhood wound that never got healed, and it can point us to our values, those qualities of living and being that are most important to us.  Struggling with others offers a profound opportunity to look inward and learn about yourself.

You can choose to engage more or less with the person involved as well as yourself.  Often the level of engagement with the other person is high and the engagement with self is low.  What if you flipped that around?  What is you were less engaged in the struggle with the other person and more engaged in your process?  What would that look like?  What would change?

Until next time,