The “C” Word

Yesterday I was feeling very uncomfortable in my skin (again). This has been going on for weeks (and, frankly, I’m getting a wee bit tired of it).

Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of what my son’s dad and I considered the beginning of our relationship.

Yesterday my son’s father asked me to help him out in a financial situation.

In the past, during our marriage, in issues around finances, I often ignored my feelings, my instincts, my inner knowing in favor of his logic and his rational plan of action as to how everything was going to work out just peachy keen. It all made so much sense, and yet I had an internal soup on boil telling me differently. I routinely turned the soup down to a low simmer and defaulted to his logic. And, despite his best intentions, when it came to finances, everything never did work out peachy keen.

In the past, I agreed to his plans for a couple of reasons. I wanted to support and believe in my partner, but, mostly, I wanted to avoid conflict with him.

Yesterday when he asked me for help, for the first time ever from a place of deep connection with my Self, I declined…

And sent myself into an emotional tailspin.

I was transported back 27 years when our relationship was like a shiny new penny: full of openness, care, love, listening, playfulness, and passion about life and each other.

And the sex?? Off the charts.

Sometimes it feels kind of cruel to have had the kind of relationship we did and have it crash and burn so far from its fullest flourishing. The potential for something truly amazing was there, and we let it go.

I know now that part of my part in the release of our potential relationship was in consistently choosing to go against my inner knowing in favor of his masculine logic because I wanted to avoid conflict.

So in saying “No” yesterday from a place of honoring my Self, I had to deal with the very conflict that I have been trying to avoid for 27 years.

But, to my surprise, I found the conflict wasn’t with him; the conflict was with me.

In saying “No,” what I was expecting was an argument having to convince him of my rational, logical reasons for not being able to help. What I got was my brain diving into all the rational and logical reasons why I should help, while my inner knowing was telling me to attend to my boiling soup.

It was an AND place so uncomfortable that my heart physically ached…a simple tug of war of grand proportions. My struggle laid in simply not picking up my cell phone, calling him back, and telling him I changed my mind. My struggle was in staying with my Self and not defaulting to him to make myself feel better.

And with that struggle my stinkin’ intention of three weeks ago flew into my weary mind. Suddenly yesterday’s struggle and all the internal struggles of the last three weeks made perfect sense (of the non-linear, intuitive kind).

Living in the uncomfortability of conflict in relationships with others is not what I have been avoiding all these years. What I have been avoiding is living in the uncomfortability of the conflict of standing in my Self.

Three weeks ago, when I wrote my intention of using conflict as a way to deepen into my Self, and my relationships and the Greater Field of Life, I thought I needed to work on conflicts with others in my world. I never meant, planned, expected, or frankly, wanted the conflicts I was so ready, willing and able to address to happen within the confines of my own skin.

That’s just too hard.

But that is the level of conflict I have been dealing with the past three weeks, and I am just realizing (duh!) that is why I have been so discombobulated.

I was prepared to engage in conflicts outside of myself.

And that just ain’t where it’s happening, lady.