Several weeks ago, my good friend Della visited with her 4 children. While Della and I talked, her kids went outside to play and spotted the local children riding their bikes up and down the street. Della has raised her children to be very open and giving; so it never occurred to them that the locals wouldn't simply welcome them into the games with open arms.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. You can imagine how this ended. There was name calling, posturing, threats, lots of tears and some heart-to-heart between Della and her kids about differing vibrations, compassion, forgiveness and such. All in all it was just the behavior I had expected from Della, her kids and the children who live in our neighborhood.
Now, there is one exception to the kids I see here and I'll call him Michael. Michael is 13 years old and we have become good friends, so he was here when Della again visited with her children yesterday. He had met her children briefly on that other day, they became friendly, and so it was natural that they all hung out together while they were here.
About two hours into this, Michael came back inside looking pretty upset. It seemed that the local kids were out on the street, and though both groups wanted to him to play with them, they were refusing to play together. He went on to relay that one of the kids had actually demanded he choose between his old friends and his new ones, and which side of the street to remain on.
Now when you're on the outside looking in, it is clear that those who try to force you to choose sides are on the side that you should avoid. And being familiar with the general disposition of the children on our street I was pretty liberal with the advice. "Of course they would try that.", I said. "That's the way they are, and though I understand that there really isn't anyone else around you have to think of what are you really missing if your friends treat you like that..."
That's when he said, "It was one of Della's kids."
Oi.
Now, given the prior treatment they had received at the hands of our neighbors, I wasn't surprised that a "yes vote" from Michael would be seen as a validation of their worth with regard to the ones who had dealt with them so rudely. Of course I could understand, etc etc etc...but then I said to myself.....
"Gracie, think."
Why did I automatically assume that the problem stemmed from the other children?
Sounds pretty judgemental to me.
And in expecting their poor behavior, wasn't I, on some level, doing my part to perpetuate it? Were there other things was I automatically passing judgement on? Was I holding them in a negative pattern too? And was I blythly offering advice in situations that were not as they seemed?
To be honest, I was pretty ashamed of my automatic reaction here. I've studied Shamanism for 15 years, and I still get tripped up by ego-judgements and patterns of negative expectation. I could certainly forgive kids for being kids, but I found it difficult to forgive myself. I had somehow misplaced my Love for me.
Well, sometimes these Life Lessons come with a free ego-smack-down as a bonus and after some soul-searching, I chose to see this as a good thing. As it turns out, Della's kids, the neighborhood children and Michael all taught me a very valuable lesson by highlighting my room for improvement. From now on, I'll do my best to listen *first*, and try to hold ALL parties involved in an attitude of Love. But perhaps more important, it offered experience in the process of forgiving myself.
That's where it all begins.
If you can't love yourself unconditionally, you just can't love anyone else. One follows the other.
Forgive myself...ah yes, *there's* that Unconditional Love!
*sigh*
Found it...
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