So I’ve been thinking lots about my time at the river. I had wondered what would come of it – how things might be different. No surprise, the most distinct difference is within me.  That’s usually the way it goes.  Go ahead and seek change, and invariably, the change begins with you.  “Be the change…” is a well known phrase that articulates this well.

Anyway, I have noticed rather clearly since that day, just how often I mitigate mine or others’ actions in order to protect peace, or personal agenda, or personal security (or to hide insecurity).  Not that it’s always wrong to find reasons for people’s behaviour that seem to lessen the consequences, or give somebody the benefit of the doubt.  But when it becomes the pattern, I think we set ourselves up for some rock throwing in the future. 

I have also noticed how complex it is to be deeply authentic with myself around relationship stuff , never mind with others, because it means getting to the inner places in my own soul that are tapped into…especially when I find myself reacting negatively to someone.  (It’s not that this is new to me…it’s just lately the truth of this is striking a little deeper).  Just what is that inner irritation really all about, anyway?  Honestly, sometimes I don’t want to know – I just want to get away from the person who stirred it up as if it would go away once that person was out of the picture.  The problem is, as many have discovered, it never does go away…the irritation, or negativity, or anger simmer just below the radar screen, like when you take a boiling pot off a hot burner, waiting to bubble again at the next “stimulating” moment.

Another aspect to this is the question of reciprocity…when the stuff in you gets stirred up by another…are you in a space with that person to figure out together what’s going on.  For me, that’s where my rocks came in – they symbolised a lack of reciprocity – there was no working stuff through together as two people on equal ground.  I have tasted the beauty of true reciprocity – there is nothing like it; and once you have known it, there is nothing like its absence .

On a somewhat related note, I read a phrase this week that stuck with me:  “I can’t be myself by myself”.  It’s true.  I am not fully me unless there are others who can reveal aspects of me I would never have known otherwise.  Ask any parent who, before they had children, thought they were pretty patient.  But kids have a way of showing us just how impatient we really are.  They don’t make us that way – they reveal what is already true of us. 

It isn’t always about the junk either.  I have a friend who has a way of creating space for me to express a rather diverse creativity that pretty much anyone else would be surprised to hear about.  It has been there all along, quietly finding outlets at different times and in different places, but this particular friend sees it, celebrates it and encourages it, challenging me to release it more and more. 

So, I have worked hard recently to get real honest and open; to stop mitigating stuff in order to avoid anticipated conflict or to get what I want (even if it’s a good want); to treat others as if there would be reciprocity, but not get hung up if it turned out to be lacking, knowing I did my part, and to be thankful for what gets revealed in me as I am with others.  The result?  A sense of personal freedom; power – not over others, but from others; and a growing integration between my inner world and what I offer to others in relationship.

I anticipated none of this that day at the river – but I celebrate all of it and welcome the change it is bringing in me and through me.