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Posted: August 9th, 2007 at 1:27am By: Adele Ryan McDowell
As a child, in my powerlessness, I would occasionally throw temper tantrums. In my adolescence, I could rage. In my adulthood, I have grown mellower. I am less of a hot reactor.
In fact, my warrior instincts notwithstanding, I am now more of an advocate type. I dig for common ground; I look to build bridges. I like finding the bigger picture.
So, with all of that said, I recently had a flash fire of a fight with a friend. This fire reminded me of driving on ice: All of sudden I have lost control; there is no traction and I am swerving. It feels like it comes out of nowhere. And then ... KABOOM ... there is the crunch of a crash. It all happens so fast. I look over each shoulder; I shake my head out of disbelief and wonder exactly what has transpired.
And so it was with my recent contretemps. What the hell happened, and why, metaphorically speaking, was I bleeding from a verbal mortar from my dear friend of over 40 years? And how is it that I managed to wound my friend in the crossfire?
If you are a fan of planetary influences, then you know that mighty Venus is in retrograde and we have been advised, particularly with our loved ones, to zip it and not take anything personally. I could blame our flash fire on mighty Venus; it certainly fits the profile.
But I don't want to blame this on Venus or anybody else. I choose to view this as another of life's lessons. For I am a big believer that relationships, and that certainly includes the vast bastion of friendships, are our best spiritual teachers.
Friendships seem to wax and wane with closeness and proximity. Life does life, and you find yourself sending an annual Christmas card to someone with whom you once shared your deepest and darkest, and wonder how you lost the connection.
And friendships are tricky. They are without the dailyness of year-in and year-out domesticity, the kids' schedules or a shared bed and bathroom. And yet friendships can be amazingly anchoring, steadfast and intimate as well as surprisingly fragile and delicate.
I think the fragility is related to the concept of friend, which is predicated on mutual affection and trust. Friends are held together by an emotional tether. And if that single, solitary, lone tether gets twisted - for whatever reasons — in the wind, wouldn't it make sense that the friendship could fray, be hanging on by a thread or, at the very worst, fall away from its connecting cord?
We usually prefer our friends to be like-minded. Friends are supposed to understand and really get who we are and what we are about. In those instances when they don't get us, we usually snap. It can feel like a kind of betrayal. And it hurts.
As adults, we are often loath to admit that our feelings have been hurt by our friend; it sounds like grade school and feels so high school. Aren't we, grown adults, supposed to be beyond that?
But the reality is we do get our feelings hurt and, most assuredly, we do hurt others' feelings as well. Bumping up against one another's hot spots or blind areas is human nature; it happens. And from my perspective, it's always a two-way street.
In friendship, the boundaries can become so porous that we sometimes forget common kindness or simple grace in allowing another to be who they are in that moment. We can get so comfortable and so familiar that we can act from more of our primal — or is that primate — selves.
The Chinese have it right: One of their proverbs reads, "Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead." Good advice.
I now have a fly-less forehead; I have also sheathed my hatchet. What remains is the resolution. I think I will emulate Ron Weasley and Harry Potter and choose to take a temporary hiatus until I can speak from my Higher Self and understand my role as well as glean my lesson.
My thinking today is that there are always big lessons in friendship. Perhaps the friendship has run its soul course, and it is time to say goodbye. Or perhaps, even more scarily, I need to stand on the ice, keep my balance and talk it through.
I wonder if I neglected to be kind and gracious. Do I have all the facts and, more importantly, am I aware of all the feelings? Was there a subtext I missed? Could there have been a prior fumble that has festered into a big sore? I am full of questions.
Needless to say, a friendship of 40 years is worth some serious thought and reflection. I agree with the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, who said:
I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddamn friends ... they are the ones that keep me walking the floors at nights.
— — —
Dr. Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D., is a psychologist, empath and shaman who likes looking at life with the big viewfinder. Her email address is {email ARMCDOWELL@aol.com}ARMCDOWELL@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Adele Ryan McDowell.
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As a child, in my powerlessness, I would occasionally throw temper tantrums. In my adolescence, I could rage. In my adulthood, I have grown mellower. I am less of a hot reactor.
In fact, my warrior instincts notwithstanding, I am now more of an advocate type. I dig for common ground; I look to build bridges. I like finding the bigger picture.
So, with all of that said, I recently had a flash fire of a fight with a friend. This fire reminded me of driving on ice: All of sudden I have lost control; there is no traction and I am swerving. It feels like it comes out of nowhere. And then ... KABOOM ... there is the crunch of a crash. It all happens so fast. I look over each shoulder; I shake my head out of disbelief and wonder exactly what has transpired.
And so it was with my recent contretemps. What the hell happened, and why, metaphorically speaking, was I bleeding from a verbal mortar from my dear friend of over 40 years? And how is it that I managed to wound my friend in the crossfire?
If you are a fan of planetary influences, then you know that mighty Venus is in retrograde and we have been advised, particularly with our loved ones, to zip it and not take anything personally. I could blame our flash fire on mighty Venus; it certainly fits the profile.
But I don't want to blame this on Venus or anybody else. I choose to view this as another of life's lessons. For I am a big believer that relationships, and that certainly includes the vast bastion of friendships, are our best spiritual teachers.
Friendships seem to wax and wane with closeness and proximity. Life does life, and you find yourself sending an annual Christmas card to someone with whom you once shared your deepest and darkest, and wonder how you lost the connection.
And friendships are tricky. They are without the dailyness of year-in and year-out domesticity, the kids' schedules or a shared bed and bathroom. And yet friendships can be amazingly anchoring, steadfast and intimate as well as surprisingly fragile and delicate.
I think the fragility is related to the concept of friend, which is predicated on mutual affection and trust. Friends are held together by an emotional tether. And if that single, solitary, lone tether gets twisted - for whatever reasons — in the wind, wouldn't it make sense that the friendship could fray, be hanging on by a thread or, at the very worst, fall away from its connecting cord?
We usually prefer our friends to be like-minded. Friends are supposed to understand and really get who we are and what we are about. In those instances when they don't get us, we usually snap. It can feel like a kind of betrayal. And it hurts.
As adults, we are often loath to admit that our feelings have been hurt by our friend; it sounds like grade school and feels so high school. Aren't we, grown adults, supposed to be beyond that?
But the reality is we do get our feelings hurt and, most assuredly, we do hurt others' feelings as well. Bumping up against one another's hot spots or blind areas is human nature; it happens. And from my perspective, it's always a two-way street.
In friendship, the boundaries can become so porous that we sometimes forget common kindness or simple grace in allowing another to be who they are in that moment. We can get so comfortable and so familiar that we can act from more of our primal — or is that primate — selves.
The Chinese have it right: One of their proverbs reads, "Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead." Good advice.
I now have a fly-less forehead; I have also sheathed my hatchet. What remains is the resolution. I think I will emulate Ron Weasley and Harry Potter and choose to take a temporary hiatus until I can speak from my Higher Self and understand my role as well as glean my lesson.
My thinking today is that there are always big lessons in friendship. Perhaps the friendship has run its soul course, and it is time to say goodbye. Or perhaps, even more scarily, I need to stand on the ice, keep my balance and talk it through.
I wonder if I neglected to be kind and gracious. Do I have all the facts and, more importantly, am I aware of all the feelings? Was there a subtext I missed? Could there have been a prior fumble that has festered into a big sore? I am full of questions.
Needless to say, a friendship of 40 years is worth some serious thought and reflection. I agree with the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding, who said:
I have no trouble with my enemies. But my goddamn friends ... they are the ones that keep me walking the floors at nights.
— — —
Dr. Adele Ryan McDowell, Ph.D., is a psychologist, empath and shaman who likes looking at life with the big viewfinder. Her email address is {email ARMCDOWELL@aol.com}ARMCDOWELL@aol.com{/email}. © Copyright 2007 by Adele Ryan McDowell.
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