TGIF :: Awareness #5 (of 8): What We Carry; Evolving Relationships with Grace
Weekly Drop || #15
Once upon a time, two Buddhist monks came to a riverbank. They saw a young girl who was unable to cross the river. One of the monks offered to help, lifted her in his arms, and carried her safely to the other side. The other monk said nothing, but was puzzled and frustrated. Later in the day, he could no longer restrain himself and asked his companion, “We monks should not go near—not to mention touch—females. Why did you do so?” His companion laughed and said, “I left the girl at the riverbank hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?” — The Zen Buddhist story, Two Monks & A Woman
A Stepping Stone to Freedom
The Fifth Awareness is about lightening our load: Forgiveness, ownership + apology, and letting go are on the path to freedom.
Transforming relationships can be poetic and life-changing when we get it right. The Fifth Awareness beckons us to traverse intricate and unpredictable terrain in journeying to the next version of ourselves by evolving how we relate to others. In doing so, certain relationships will deepen, while others may experience some drift or conclude altogether. This phase of the ClearLife journey can be both arduous and profoundly rewarding.
Broken down for clarity, this Awareness has three distinct parts:
Forgiveness: When we’ve been hurt, we can strive to grok the essence of the pain and, when appropriate, authentically forgive.
Ownership + Apology: If we caused harm to ourselves or others, we can take responsibility for our actions and pursue repair.
Letting Go: When resolution or healing aren’t possible despite our efforts, we can release certain relationships—whether they are personal, familial, or professional—in their entirety, allowing us to redirect energy towards healthier pursuits.
Two underlying themes inform working through The Fifth Awareness:
Compassion: In resolving friction in relationships, it’s critical that we invoke kindness, empathy, generosity and acceptance, for others and ourselves. No matter how clear or righteous we are, it’s important to see and feel “the heart that trembles in the face of suffering.” (See beautiful work on these themes at Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education here.)
Motivation: As we outgrow unhealthy relationship patterns, it’s natural to slip into orientations that no longer serve us—such as revenge, denial, competition, self-defensiveness, or dishonesty. In treading this path, it helps to regularly examine our underlying motivations. We should be doing this work because we have a genuine desire to heal, grow, and love more deeply, rather than seeking revenge or catering to the ego’s unhelpful demands.
With this context and framework, let’s jump into the three parts of The Fifth Awareness in sequence.
1. Forgiveness
“Forgive him.” My dear friend Tony was still comforting me from across a wobbly cafe table in a bustling cafe, weeks after a painful breakup with a philandering college boyfriend.
“What?!” I exclaimed, “No way. Never.”
“That’s a lot of weight for you to carry, Cecily,” he replied.
In reviewing The Eight Awarenesses, we know the value of living more clear (Awareness #1) and that we choose whether we consume or engage in dimming behaviors or not (Awareness #2). We are familiar with the power of intuition (Awareness #3) and can see now the role trauma—or any life difficulties—have played in our various dimming habits (Awareness #4).
At a certain point, we might realize that we are still burdened by our experience of certain relationships. The weight we carry can be bitterness or resentment towards people we feel have hurt us, let us down, or otherwise harmed us along the way—or some version of shame and guilt stemming for our own regrettable behaviors.
These sensations, at their best, slow us down. At their worst, clinging to suffering from our past stands between us and true, deep, vulnerable connection and love. Entire lifetimes can be spent dwelling in the shadows cast by troubled relationships. It’s worth it to heal for how we connect with other human beings is at the core of our multidimensional wellbeing. For a beautiful work on how to achieve freedom from the cycle of pain and retribution, see Mpho and Desmond Tutu’s The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World.
My college buddy Tony was right, my frustrations and anger with someone else were serving little purpose other than weighing me down. Until we forgive, we are trapped in a cycle of pain and retribution. I eventually “forgave” the selfish jerk young man who had broken my heart. This meant doing what I could to accept that he didn’t intend to hurt me—but rather, he was grappling with his own personal struggles. Doing my best to cobble together some compassion for him allowed me to release the weight of resentment and move on.
Practices for Forgiveness
Everyone is Doing Their Best: Scan your life for relationships that stand out as a source of some pain. Go all the way back into your youth. Remind yourself of the events, actions, communications around this pain and try to feel where it lingers in your body. See the persons or people for whom you still carry resentment. Imagine (or even better, recognize) that they were doing their best with the limited resources and understanding available to them at that time. Accept them and the narrative as part of the past. Try to find gratitude for the lessons learned. Consciously choose to leave it behind. Step away …lighter.
I have learned that putting my force field up (thank you, daily meditation practice) allows me to forgive and let go much more easily. -Rachel
Verbalize It: It is one thing to offer or experience the liberation of forgiveness, but we may need or want to communicate it as well by asking for or offering forgiveness. This can be in person, in writing, on video, on the phone, whatever works for you.
My father died many years ago, so I ended up writing him a long letter. I even hand wrote it, knowing he preferred ink on paper. When I burned it later that year I had a strong sense he’d received the message in some way. -Anonymous
Accept Recurrence. True forgiveness can take years. Meet the ebb and flow with compassion for yourself. Stay curious. A member of the ClearLife community shared:
“I really didn’t mind clinging to bitterness for years. It fueled me in an odd way. I was eventually able to truly let go of some of my resentment towards those who hurt me. It still flares up from time to time though.” -Anonymous
2. Ownership + Apology
Of course friction is relationships is a two-way road, often influenced (or caused) by our own behaviors. In addition to offering forgiveness, it is equally important—especially when we are on a ClearLife journey—to examine and address our own role in relationship disruptions. This process is reflected in the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as part of making amends:
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Aspects of our own dimming tendencies can harm others in non-egregious ways, such as being flaky, inauthentic, or lacking presence during difficult times. Severe behaviors like violence, financial recklessness, lying, and abuse are more likely to emerge when someone is seriously suffering or in the grips of self-medication or addiction.
One of my regrettable behaviors pre-ClearLife was maintaining a righteous façade of busy-ness around me that told friends and family “I am important. I don’t have time for you right now. I have a lot of priorities and you are not one of them.” I was terrified of genuine, intimate connections that could penetrate my protective armor and force me to confront all that lurked beneath my polished exterior—and God forbid, talk about it candidly. In recent years I’ve been able to own this and apologize to some people I know I hurt. This is deeply uncomfortable yet profoundly healing in most cases.
The Drama Triangle as a Tool in Ownership
The Drama Triangle is an approach to understanding the co-creative role we play in puzzling relationships. The three roles of victim, villain (or “persecutor”), and hero (or “rescuer”) shape dynamics that once understood, can be disrupted, dissolving tensions, resentments, and even revenge. You can learn a bit about the Drama Triangle here in this short YouTube clip of a Tim Ferris video interview of Diana Chapman, author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
I spent many years self-positioned as the victim. Everything happened to me as a result of external forces beyond my control. I had villains in my mother, bosses, and certain men in my life. I found heroes in my father, bosses, and other men in my life who saved me from all of those villains. Until I broke free, this narrative allowed me to evade feeling my emotions, avoid taking responsibility for my actions, and rely on a nightly habit of numbing to cope with it all.
I will delve into this in a future post, but I encourage anyone who resonates with these familiar roles to explore them more deeply. This awareness unlocked so much on my ClearLife journey. 🤍
Practices for Ownership & Apology
There is no shortage of beautiful and poignant guidance on how to own regrettable behavior and apologize. We get to choose whether some version of ownership and apology support our own growth and freedom and act on it or not.
This is one area where mindfulness around the guiding themes of compassion (for others and self) and motivation (why are we apologizing?) are particularly helpful.
Ownership: Consider whether anyone may feel hurt by you and why. Take time to put yourself in their shoes, being present with “their heart that trembles.” Accept the role you played in their pain, whether your actions were intentional or not. With compassion for yourself, own your role in their suffering.
Authentic Apology: Imagine apologizing while paying very close attention to your underlying motivation—is it to make you feel better? Help them heal? Resolve toxic tension? A step in co-creating a new relationship? Imagine what an apology would feel like for all involved, including you. Use this to inform whether you take this step or not. For guidance on how to give a real apology, I love this Eve Ensler TED talk on The Profound Power of an Authentic Apology. Four steps to be made with courage, radical ownership, and genuine curiosity for true healing. She concludes:
“So, why would anyone want to go through such a grueling and humbling process? Why would you want to rip yourself open? Because it is the only thing that will set yourself free. . . . There is no one who enacts violence on another person who doesn't suffer from the effects themselves. It creates an incredibly dark and contaminating spirit, and it spreads throughout your entire life.”
3. Letting Go
This part of the Fifth Awareness sets this approach apart from the Twelve Steps in that sometimes making amends (or forgiveness, ownership, and apology) aren’t available or don’t work. Sometimes we need to make peace with something or someone, let it go, and move on.
“Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting, it just means we stop carrying the energy of the past into the present.” –Yung Pueblo
Letting go is not to be confused with forgiveness or forgetting. Letting go is what we can choose to do as a next (and hopefully final) step to resolve our role in friction-filled relationships if forgiveness and ownership + apology don’t serve our needs.
Sadly, the experience of unresolved relationships, silence among formerly close friends, family or colleagues—or other relational distress is very common for people who have rewired their relationship with a dimming tendency.
Getting clear means growth.
Growth means change.
Change means not behaving the way we may have previously.
Not everyone is going to like it.
One of my favorite memes from my early ClearLife community is:
“The woman you are becoming will cost you people, relationships, spaces, and material things. Choose her over everything.” —Anonymous
Letting go is not abandonment. It is about trying to resolve with good intentions and if that proves impossible for some reason, moving on with grace so we can redirect the energy and time in healthier ways.
The “Friend(s) Break-Up”
We are accustomed to big shifts in romantic and professional relationships, but social and familial ones pose particular challenges as we often perceive them as lifelong. Sometimes they’re not. Accepting this impermanence is an act of self-care — and let’s be honest, can be extremely difficult.
Changing or even leaving behind a social scene we once loved but no longer aligns with the new life we are crafting is a common experience in ClearLife journeys. Over the years, I have encountered countless people who have expressed concerns and worries about navigating this process.
“I want to drink less or not at all, but I don’t know what that will mean for my weekends, my relationship with my husband who has no interest in stopping drinking, and all of those fun, boozy dinners I’ve grown accustomed to attending for years.” —Anonymous (2022)
Truth be told, we can maintain certain relationships despite the shifts in how we connect (coffee and hikes instead of bars and wine tastings, for example), but not all. Some relationships won’t look the same as they did when we bonded over something one person no longer enjoys. Some will end altogether.
Party culture from college had engrained in me that I was “more fun” after a few drinks. As I got older, I realized that while there was a lot of fun there was also more drama when alcohol was involved. It feels so much better to be clear, and much more grounded. (7/9/23, anonymous)
On a ClearLife journey, we often face the challenge of choosing between the social life that once nourished us and the new one we are crafting. This process requires inner strength, patience, and clarity of intention. It also involves accepting that some people may choose to distance themselves from us because we have changed. The key is to not cling to what is beyond our control. In a future post, I will delve deeper into this topic, including the thread of family relations and ClearLife.
A Practice for Letting Go
Meditation in whatever form works for you is the most helpful here. A regular contemplative practice can unlock the equanimity we desire to stop clinging to things that no longer serve us. If you don’t already have a practice, I like this simple introduction from Lion’s Roar. Overall, the goal is to reach a place of non-attachment, allowing, and trust in our intuitive guidance.
My Story
Resolution of pain in my relationships with my ex-husband Dave (betrayal) any my late mother (disappointment) is a cornerstone of my ClearLife journey. Through authentic forgiveness and uncomfortable ownership of my role in our dynamics, I’ve been able to untangle and unfurl, releasing years of bitterness and anger towards them.
These days, Dave and I share holidays with our kids and extended family. We talk regularly as we co-parent our sons—and even exchange gifts on occasion. Reaching this point required significant effort, including my dropping the victim identity and acknowledging that Dave generally did (does) his best. This process has been transformative on several levels, primarily for our kids.
Here is an excerpt from the forthcoming The Canary—about the moment I knew Dave and I had finally put the pain of our divorce behind us. This exchange happened with a fellow mom at a little league game:
She looked at me intently and asked, “I’ve been wondering, what is your relationship with Dave? I can see that you look a little alike, and you behave like family, but you’re clearly not together. My best guess is he’s your brother. Is he your brother?”
My face relaxed into a broad smile. I felt as though Dave and I had won a coparenting gold medal. If acquaintances who had seen us at least weekly for months guessed we were family, siblings even, this was the best healing outcome possible. This meant we looked and acted like family, not ex-spouses, an expression of friendly care and love, not the tense recently divorced energy we’d embodied for several years . . .
Similarly, when my mother died too young in 2011, entangled in the grip of alcohol and depression-related illnesses, I was deeply angry with her. What a disappointment, failure, weakling, I recall feeling. I wore the victim hat too: Look at this mess you’ve left for us to clean up.
For years, I carried this weight of negativity and disdain. It wasn’t until almost a decade later, deep into my ClearLife journey, that I was overcome with a profound wave of compassion and love for her. I recognized that my mother had endured immense pain later in life and was genuinely doing her best to get through each day. She simply didn’t have the tools she needed to heal. Today I can hold her in a space of appreciation, awe, and tenderness—a level of understanding I couldn't offer when she was alive.
And I’ve done my best to forgive myself too.
I’m not a failed hero to my mother, the one who tried to “save” her and couldn’t. I also was not the cause of her suffering, in taking steps to care for myself. And perhaps, most important, I was not the victim, harmed by her thrashing and neediness over two tragically dark, trauma-filled decades. I wasn’t proud of my disconnect and failure to be as compassionate with her then as I might be now, but even that wasn’t something I could dwell on. I’d done the best with what I had, or at least that is what I continue to tell myself. —From Chapter 26
Why This Matters
The impact of forgiveness, ownership, and letting go is profound, creating ripples of healing that extend beyond ourselves. As we release anger, resentment, pain, and bitterness, we become lighter, and this transformation is felt by those around us, particularly our energetically sensitive children and elders.
I witnessed the most pronounced impact on my children. As I softened and let go, they too became more at ease, open, and trusting. Loved ones tell me they also experienced a shift, sensing that I carried fewer burdens from the past.
It feels like freedom.
Among friends and others in the ClearLife community, I've witnessed similar transformations. Eyes, hearts, and minds open, transitioning from closed and cautious to open and inviting.
These shifts in awareness and expression are the precious threads of gold in the human experience. We have the power to choose whether we want to weave them into our lives or not.
May we all choose what we carry with grace. ❤️
Miscellaneous…
Embracing “Pura Vida” …on this final day in Costa Rica: “pure life” — to live a peaceful, simple, uncluttered life with a deep appreciation for nature, family, and friends; a “real living” that reflects happiness, wellbeing, conformity, and satisfaction. Amen.
Following a Growing Fascination with the Enneagram… and learning more from The Wisdom of the Enneagram while also appreciating a woman-powered perspective in Glennon and Abby’s recent podcast(s) on the same.
Returning to… Monday Dharma Night, Spirit Rock Live, next week after years of digital only offerings. Would love to see some of my local beloveds there ❤️