HER HUSBAND WAS UPSET. ”I can’t believe you forgot our anniversary! And you never remember, last year it was the same thing! I’ve got to admit, you’re just plain thoughtless, you know how important this day is to me, and you don’t care one bit how I feel…I’d swear you go out of your way to hurt me!”
She listened. When he paused, frustrated, she said, “Jack, I love you. Your truthful argument, please?”
His face still dark with anger, her husband all at once relaxed, and laughed. ”Do you insist?”
She smiled. ”I insist, sweetheart.”
“Very well,” he said. “My Truthful Argument.” He leaned against the kitchen counter. ”Among the many choices available to me, I chose to be upset, just now. I made that choice because in that moment it seemed to me, and I may be wrong, that you haven’t remembered today is our anniversary.
“However: my greater truth is that you’ve remembered more times than you’ve forgotten.
“However: you are so consistently kind and thoughtful of me in so many other ways, just now I realize that calendars don’t matter.
“My truth, my perception from the huge majority of my impressions and memories, is that you care for me so much you decided to be spending your life with me, no matter I sometimes lose my perspective and my temper, too, from time to time, when I’m frightened I’ve lost your love.
“My truth is I know that not you, not anyone has the power to hurt me or upset me or to anger me but myself, and to the best of my knowledge you have no more tried to hurt me in ten years being married than I’ve tried to hurt you. And that is never. You are no more thoughtless than I am. You’re a galaxy of thoughts! Both of us, we sometimes think in different directions and that’s OK, isn’t it. It makes for a rich wide star-field for us to explore together.”
He smiled. ”And by the way,” he said, “Happy Anniversary.”
She moved close, touched his shoulder. ”Thank you for telling me your truth,” she said. ”If you’re hungry, we should probably go to the bedroom. There’s ten candles in there, burning down.”
————-
The reason I like that little story is the However parts. For every insult we’d like to hurl when we’re angry, there’s a raft of howevers: “You’re so mean to me! However, truth be told, you are many more times kind than mean…
“You’re so different from me! However, to tell the truth, we have a lot more same than different.”
“I hate you! However, we’ve shared many more warm kind times than hateful and in truth I love you a lot.”
Try it, next argument. Begin to respond in anger, then add the word, “however,…” and tell the truth you know despite your distress. See how rage disappears in laughter?
This has always been the foundation of any loving relationship I have ever known…..that .there is always good intention behind any act and NEVER to let the veil cover my eyes. A universal law for having love and joy in your life everyday…To be remembered daily if need be.
(and always to have the candles lit
Wow!
… and try it I will, what a wonderful perspective to adopt in moments of anger and conflict, thank you Richard x
You know, there’s always one, sitting in the back of the class, that doesn’t quite get the message in time. That’s me!!
Maybe when I grow up I’ll learn to flip the brain engage switch before I press the tongue release button….. I keep tryin’
That’s all most loved ones require, that we do our best, and keep tryin’.
Why is it that I seem to be out of phase with most of my life lessons? A day or two after a major disaster I’m ambushed by the obvious. Why a day late and not early?
well, the answer should be obvious. Knowing a day early disaster is coming, what would you do? Act to avoid the disaster? And thereby miss the lesson?
Point taken. That would indeed be a boring life, it would be so much easier though….
I once saw a great epigraph in a book, there was no credit for the author but it stuck with me and very germane here:
Life is the most difficult teacher
The test come first
The lesson follows
Matt, get in line with me! Re-learning this lesson I thought I knew and got complacent about. Thank you, Richard! I’ve gotten flowers once (ONCE!) in 32 years of marriage. But when I wanted a garden, a fence got built, when my old truck started getting hazardous, HE did the research to find me the best in safety and economy…and when he saw the emptiness of my heart after our old lab passed away, I got a puppy for Christmas – a present that is still giving. The candles are rarely lit…because the form can’t be defined by me…However is a lovely word I’ll start using…
Becky, that is beautiful! I don’t have a husband anymore. However, he does still send me a dozen roses for my Birthday thanking me for doing all the work. : )
Garden, truck and a puppy? Stellar!
Synchronicity strikes again… I had this experience only last week, and I was the one who chose to be hurt and upset. A couple of “howevers” might have speeded up the cognition of what was happening here, I´ll try to file that word where I can find it quickly when required.
As it was, it took a day or two until I could see that _he_ wasn´t the one causing the hurt, it was _my_ expectations that he would act like I would have done…
Lesson learned: We are different. Never expect anybody to act, to think like me – they act and think like themselves, and it is their right to do so. How I react to their actions is solely my choice.
Matt, I´m a slow learner too,and I´m certain it wasn´t the last time I´ve encountered this lesson…
Joined minds. It’s one of the reasons it can be so frustrating. We know we should know and do know but the self desires/learnings/expectations override the knowing in an automatic reflex. While people think and act like themselves, we are all not so very different. If I would quit accusing ‘them’ of what I myself would not do (well, not always – grin) it would be easier to override the reflex.
The trouble starts when we expect actions of our liking from others, particularly from those whom we love. No expectations, no heartbreaking! Of course, it is not that easy for us ordinary human beings.
Oh, Richard, This was truly lovely! Thanks! We do so much in life as “knee-jerk” reaction, because we are conditioned, almost from birth, to do so. Life changes so much when we examine the difference between action and reaction and choose to do the former. It’s another form of freedom when we realize we can stop for a minute and think, “Do I choose to make this an issue in my life, or do I choose instead to act from my Higher Self who is always loving and never threatened by anything.
Yes, would that nation’s would do this with other nations, business with other businesses, etc. But I do believe the Energy of these changes in consciousness are happening and rapidly. I see the evidence in all of your wonderful “stream of thought” commentaries you enter here and the delightful responses from your readers. It truly is a developing little community that is growing together and enlarging in population.
Do you have a feeling of welcome, Laura, how happy we are for your spirit to visit? What I like about this place is all of a sudden, at least for a few minutes, I’m not crazy any more.
Hi, Richard, If you were ever “crazy” you now know you have a lot of company and it is very positive company, indeed! Yes, I feel very “at home” with this familiar bunch of eternal beings. Thanks for this wonderful interaction of expanding Energy, and those who are willing to try and not take this physical world all that seriously.
Richard, what a beautiful story. I, like others, get stuck in that place of ‘why did you do that to me’? when I know I allow myself to be there. And, like the other posts, I will file however with a capital H some where near the ‘tip of my tongue’ for the next time I start to blame someone else for how I feel.