The most challenging aspect of our lives has got to be maintaining inter personal and social relationships. By this, i mean friendships, sisterhood, brotherhood, mom daughter bond, father son bond – well literally any relationship you can think of. It’s not the relationship per se that’s difficult but pulling through the hardships life throws our way and still being able to respect and prioritize that other person (be it friend or family) through all of it, is the challenging part.
It’s so easy for miscommunications to get in the way of friendships. Not everyone believes in openly discussing a particular issue, rather the “in thing” these days or for quite a while has been, “let’s ignore this issue and give that person the cold shoulder ” Sometimes it makes me wonder if people are so afraid of confrontation that they would rather just give up a whole relationship than speak out frankly.
When i say relationship, i dont always mean the typical boy girl love – Nope, i mean every interpersonal relationship that exists as i mentioned in the beginning.
Sometimes it seems so ridiculous that a vast majority of us look for the easy way out of problems – we do what we do best, we look for escape routes and just ignore the problem at hand. Out of sight, out of mind right?
That my friends is the definition of unhealthy when it comes to our mental health. I too have resorted to ignorance far too many times and I’m not proud of it. It stung though when the tables were turned and i was being given the cold shoulder by people i thought were my friends. I may be guilty of looking for the easy way out of problems but i never alienate people. So when this was being exercised on me, i was confused, hurt and angry to say the least. It hurts the most when you trust someone a lot and they disappoint you, doesn’t it?
I once remember telling someone who was going through a rough time, to simply forgive the other person. I remember my words were something akin to this, “Until you forgive that person internally, you will not be able to get this negative energy out of your system. If you want to move past this, you have to forgive and let go. You don’t even have to do it in person. Just forgive that person internally for the hurt that you believe they have caused you.” As i was saying this, i also found the solution to my own problems. Funny how it’s so easy to counsel and offer a helping hand to others, but when it comes to our own issues we end up drawing a blank right.
Much later, I exercised my own advice to every single person, who i believed had broken my trust, hurt me and disappointed me. I internally forgave them or at least tried my best to – Hey don’t judge me, the list of people i had to forgive just kept getting longer so i need time for my healing process you know 🙂
But this gave me a lot of inner peace. For that, i was truly happy. On the downside, i did find it harder to trust people, i have come to terms with the fact that i am no more that girl who can breeze through life with a smile and blindly hope that everything would be ok. I have become a bit more realistic, i suppose.
Well that’s the thing about relationships, it’s never easy and sometimes we feel like life changing situations are beyond our control but there is one thing that we can still do. Clear the air. No matter how big the issue, just openly talking about it can help us get over the misunderstandings and miscommunications and thereby understanding each other in the process. Isn’t that what life is all about. If men and women are social beings, shouldn’t we make an attempt to actually talk and sort out our issues. If there is simply no way out of this, then maybe just forgive that other person and move on. I truly believe in forgiving but being cautious around them in the future for my own emotional well being – it’s my way of dealing with things. well why don’t you ponder about what you would do ☺
© 2018 Chandhinie. All rights reserved.
RISING PHOENIX 