Waiting For Someone Else To Change
Author: Julie Redstone

We live in a world of relationships in which we are always
asking for things and giving things, more of one and less of
the other depending on who the 'other' is in our life. With
some it is very easy to be generous, tolerant, and forgiving –
to create leeway in our hearts for them to make mistakes or to
do things that we would rather not have them do. We find a
space within ourselves in which we can accept them as they are.
With others, their trespassing across a line of behavior, word,
or thought – a line that we have drawn inwardly and often
outwardly – causes a prickliness in us and a feeling of being
easily wounded - a feeling of finding certain behaviors
intolerable or of needing to run away because we feel
disappointed or hurt. Then, in our hearts and often outwardly,
we ask that they be different so that we know how to be with
them and so that our relationship can continue without so much
difficulty.

There is a lot of pain in wanting others to be different.
There is the pain of feeling dependent upon someone who is not
dependable. There is the pain of feeling helpless to create
the change that we desire. And most of all, there is the pain
of feeling locked-in to our own responses so that we cannot
react differently. For if we could react differently, then the
behavior of another would not be a source of concern to us.

This mix of different kinds of distress can be acute or it can
be longstanding, sometimes lasting for years or even for a
lifetime. There is often a yearning to be free of the entire
situation and an inability to know how. In the corner of our
awareness we know that more love and tolerance is needed, but
have difficulty finding these, despite our knowledge.

There is a bridge that it is possible to build that opens up
greater love – a bridge built out of a truth we can recognize
that enables us to be free. It is a bridge of compassion that
is composed of two things: on the one side, the recognition
that the 'other' is doing the best that they can, all of the
time, given the limitations that they face within themselves.
These limitations are part of their inheritance – part of the
burden that they carry through life, and they can only be put
down when they are ready to be put down. Recognition that
another is doing the best that they can defines one aspect of
the bridge to greater love.

The other side of this bridge is defined by knowledge
concerning ourselves. In a deep way, it involves knowing that
we are alright and can feel whole no matter what anyone else
says or does. This knowledge of our capacity for wholeness and
the feeling that our life is not dependent upon anyone else's
unique response, cannot be simply a thought that we tell
ourselves. It must be an experience of inner integrity which
allows us to absorb the limitation of the world and of others,
without having to have the world change for our benefit. Such
an experience of inner wholeness and love is the goal of a
spiritual life. We already have this knowledge within us, for
the wholeness that we seek is already there. It is a matter of
finding it again. The finding of it allows us to recognize a
choice that we have, and we make it all of the time: to
recognize that unconsciousness is part of the way of the world
at this time and we can react to it with disappointment or
disapproval, or, we can focus on our own inner path to the
things we seek, so that we become an agent of healing for the
world, rather than a disappointed lover.

To let go of having to have another change is no small thing.
It is huge in its implications. It is even revolutionary, for
it can change our entire life. Yet, it is built on a capacity
for greater love that we must seek within ourselves in order to
find it. Such seeking opens up the way to a life in which the
source of love can increasingly be felt within us, and the
wellspring of disappointment can dry up.

The letting go of the sense of needing another to be different
for us may not disappear in a moment, a day, a week, a year, or
even longer - and yet it can. It can disappear in an instant
because it involves a simple shift in perspectives, a shift
into a perspective of knowing that no matter what anyone else
says or does, that we remain whole and ourselves, with the
capacity to let go of the clinging that has made life painful.
This clinging, which we would so much rather do without, may
ultimately be the agent which produces great benefits for us if
we become aware of it in a deeper way. For it can lead us to
the path of becoming responsible for our own inner growth, and
it can lead us to the recognition that we become free by
letting others be free to be themselves as well. In this way,
we gently move toward an inner capacity to live a life that is
wholly based in love, not because of what others give to us or
do not give, but because of what we feel capable of giving to
the world.

About The Author: For other writings by Julie Redstone see
Pathways of Light – http://lightomega.org/PathwaysofLight.html.
Also, the Sacred Relationships section of the Light Omega
website –
http://www.lightomega.org/Ind/Sacred_Relationships.html.