This past year has been a big year for me. I’m sure it has for everyone. Life is ever-changing. A little less than a year ago, I was in a business relationship that went bad for everyone involved. It caused everyone involved a lot of pain. Neither one of us entered the relationship with ill motives. I have to believe we both embarked on this adventure in order to further a cause that is bigger than the collectives parties involved. At least I know I signed on for those reasons. During several breakdowns of communication, the changing of hands for decision makers, and corporate restructuring, I found myself in the middle of a situation that required as its only hope to salvage something good a complete break in the relationship. We’ve all been there at some point. That point of no return where if you continue where you’re headed, it will cause more long-term pain and dysfunction, and if you leave, it will cause a great deal of immediate pain. So, we do what we have to do, and we do that the best way we know how.
A very close friend of mine (you know who you are) knew fairly well what was going on with both parties. During the most trecherous part of the storm, he said something that initially cut me to a place that was deeper than I was comfortable being cut. He said, “You know, Jonathan, it takes two for a relationship to not work.” Ouch! The conversation ended very shortly after that.
Here were my biggest challenges with this situation. First, from what I could perceive, the position from which people on the other side of this situation were operating was one of false information about me. In reality, I have no way of knowing whether they were or not, but that’s what my gut was telling me. The reason this aspect of it was so painful was because I would have (and never have) intentionally or maliciously hurt that organization, and the feedback I was getting was how damaging the relationship was for them. So now we have two parties who are both in turmoil and who believe the other party is responsible. While I should not be concerned with other peoples’ perception of me, I still had trouble with this. I wanted (and thought I needed) someone to hear my side of the story.
Further, there are two entities who are disillusioned with the other, and both could have had a mutually symbiotic relationshp. So no matter what the reasons, excuses, rationalizations, and stories are, there is a relationship damaged that may be beyond repair. That is very uncomfortable to fathom.
Have you ever been in the middle of a movie in which you were completely immersed? You were warned before hand that these people were actors, because their names were announced in the credits at the beginning of the movie. You also knew with certainty it was a movie, because you had to drive to a movie theater to experience this. You purchased a ticket, bought your popcorn with extra butter, walked down the hall, opened another door, found the perfect seat, and took a load off. So you really had no excuse to get sucked into the story. You were fully aware it was not real. Why, then, did you start crying when the lead character died? Or why did you jump when the antagonist in the movie showed his face in that dark garage? The answer is simple: against your better judgment, you let yourself believe the story. The same is true in situations in our real lives.
Children of divorced parents will often take a fact (mom and dad got divorced) and then start telling themselves a story about it (it must have been because of something I did, or, they must not love our family anymore). In nearly every divorce situation, these statements are completely false. The child could hear directly from the parents a different story (”Honey, that’s not the case at all.”), but that story carries some serious weight. And until this child learns to stop that story from playing in his or her mind, it will be clinched as more powerful that the known facts.
In my personal situation, I’ve been telling myself, That person was out to get me, or, I knew I should have never trusted that guy! But what if I stopped with the stories? What if I stopped replaying it over and over in my mind? What if I could get to the place where I turned the lights on in the movie theater, stopped the movie, and said to myself, This is just a movie. Stop being so drawn into it? Just what if? Is it possible that we were all just trying to protect ourselves? Is it possible this went bad because of things outside of our control? What if it was bad idea from the beginning?
My intention is to continue healing, stop telling myself the stories, and stop the resentment. For the past several months, I have been, in essence, drinking poison and expecting the other party to die. I have been unsuccessful at my attempts, and have been very successful at alienating myself.
So here’s the great news: even if other parties involved had inappropriate intentions (which is probably not the case), I’ll never know. But regardless, I do not have to be bound by it. If I can stay in the place where I choose to no longer let the pain stick around, then nothing they might think, say, or do has to affect me. And that’s a great place to be!
I strongly encourage you to consider situations in your own life that you may be reharsing stories about and put a stop to it. Just because I looked at my watch doesn’t necessarily mean I’m running late. And just because that situation you’re thinking of didn’t work out the way you thought it should have, doesn’t mean anything other than it worked out differently. So let go of it, turn on the lights in your movie, and move on.