She-mom

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” ― Eckhart Tolle

I’ve been exploring several different things to post as I re-discover this love/hate relationship I have with writing. I feel as if I’ve been catapulted into the growing pains of my soul-vulution by learning a very important lesson in letting go. Little did I know that a lost friendship would shine so much light on the issues in my life I’ve been working on to transform. Little did I know that this is where I would begin this blog.

I’ve never been a particular fan of drama. I guess from an outside perspective, none of us really are. From an inside perspective, however, some of us unconsciously need it as much as they need food. I’ve always considered myself pretty low-profile with drama. The handful of good friends I have tend to be other souls very much in touch with their paths. They’ve spent long nights doing the internal work they need to undo so many of the cords that bind us down. When we spend time together, it’s usually co-creative and meaningful, deep and insightful. We work hard at deeply examining assumptions we make, and constantly push each other to become aware of our projections onto others. There is little room for energetic vampire. There is a gentle respect for privacy and boundaries. Those times spent together may not be often, but we are always there for each other and giving each the space to focus on the acceleration of our lives. It’s easy. It’s ideal. I enjoy vibing at these frequencies.

Of course, it would also happen that outside my norm, something would attract the very tiring person I love to hate into my life. She was loud, boisterous, vivacious, obnoxious, and probably came out of the womb talking the ears off the delivery team. She had no sense of boundaries and unloaded the life stories of everyone she knew, to everyone that crossed her path. Her assumptions were often unexamined, and she was full of projections. It was hard to spend five minutes with her without feeling completely energetically slimed. Having done some shadow work, I naturally began by asking where she was acting as my mirror. For the year she was my friend, I would often have one too many drinks with her and become completely sucked into what she was projecting. I always walked away completely exhausted and unable to separate what was hers, from what was my own. I despised her lack of discretion, but also loved her magnetically social nature. I would go through cycles of spending time with her, becoming tired of her, then taking my distance. I was always a slimy mess after an evening out with her. Man, oh man, did she trigger things in me. I couldn’t stand being her friend, yet I couldn’t stand the thought of taking the step to release her from my life. So why was she my friend? What was it I needed to look at within myself?

And then it dawned on me…..this girl is MY MOTHER. I had been painfully working through my own mother issues for the past two years, gritting my teeth through the undoing of some incredibly unhealthy dynamic with her and in the meantime, I had become friends with my she-mom. The Universe is brilliant! The Universe has been conspiring in my favor to push me through the process of two years of excruciating work and would soon drop the most lovely bomb-shell on me! I needed to transform something huge, and this shift would release something very deep in me.

Two days ago, I took the first steps to release her from my life. There are details to the story that I’ve decided to leave out. She had done some hurtful things to me, and I needed to take action. I can’t begin to reiterate how difficult this was for me. I hate conflict and confrontation, could I do it? My own mother’s over-forceful will somehow squashed the will in me as a little girl. But now, I felt my will exploding out of me. In the past, I would let things go without a fight. Of course, dealing with something and letting it go is very different from avoiding it and letting it go.

I spoke my truth. My volatile she-mom was explosive. It quickly became all about her, and she scrambled in every way she could to place herself in victim mode. She took every single syllable I uttered completely out of context. She became vindictive, aggressive, angry and outright mean. This became a replay of the same old scenario played out for years with my mom. I could feel myself getting sucked into her black hole and I could feel myself retreating back to my same patterns. She sucked others in. It became a drama that would put High Schoolers to shame. I felt her every effort to emotionally beat and exhaust me, a manipulation I felt all too comfortable with. Should I just give in and keep this person in my life when every cell inside me is crying out for me to stand firm and no longer allow this same pattern to repeat in my life?

The friendship is over and I’m relieved. The old part of me that grew up comfortable in a certain unhealthy dynamic had found a friendship to replay it.  That old part of me was sad to lose the relationship, but she was dying. And with that came a feeling of empowerment. As challenging as it was, I had broken a pattern. Something shifted.

I happened to speak to my mother later that day. I shared with her that I had had a challenging day, and a friendship I had was now over. “I’m your mother and I love you, and I’m also your good friend. Tell me what happened,” she says. I explained. “We all have these experiences with friends, and you just have to move forward and not let the past affect the now,” she responds. At this point, I’m quite surprised by the conversation we are having. I asked her about how my husband has been a part of the past she can’t move forward from. (Just know that my mother refused to even be in the same room as my husband and has never acknowledged or forgiven him for one of her own created dramas).

“I had dinner with him the other night, and I am working hard. And I think you can say that I’ve taken a huge leap forward in evolving. It’s not easy for me but it gets a littler better each day. In time, I will fully be able to accept it all.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The mother who when I was two months pregnant with my son and tried to pull a knife on herself and prompted my husband to call the police. The mother that threatened to disown and never speak to me again, and never forgive my husband for calling the police while I was pregnant. The mother who never relinquished that control over me, to keep me feeling guilty for my relationship, and never fully able to be present in my marriage with him. Please note, these issues with my mom (and starting in childhood) always stood at the corner of my relationship with W and is what pushed me to begin working through it all in the first place. In that process, I attracted a woman into my life who meticulously played the role my mother had played, from a different angle. For the past year, my will wasn’t there to look it in the face and not run away. But now I lost a friendship, and gained something even more valuable. I tapped into a power inside of me I had put to sleep. I found a will that I was reluctant to approach. There was a huge shift in me, leading to a huge shift in my mother. I’ve learned a grand lesson.

The moral of my story is this. Oftentimes we grow up accustomed to certain types of conditioning, trigger and response, dynamic. This can then be replayed throughout our lives in the relationships we have with others. Breaking out of this via the relationships we attract into our lives is powerful. When we bring in a relationship with someone that seems so against where our true desire lies, we know that we can often find a cord from the past. In this situation, I found that the best way to make a huge shift was for the Universe to bring this friendship into my life and push me to respond in a completely different way from what I had been used to. It was a terrifying process and I am still integrating the power of it all.

Do you have a tendency to attract relationships and friendships into your life that are unhealthy and don’t bring you to the Highest vision of your Self? I tell you this, these relationships and friendships are gems. They are opportunities to break from certain molds, and allows the work we need to do within to become more whole, and more able to enjoy the present and the truth of who we are on the deepest level. How amazing is that?

And now I bless this woman for her own issues, projections, assumptions, dynamics and wish her the best. I shower this situation with love and thank the Universe for planning her into my life. We are all responsible for what we feel, how we react, and the stories we create. This friendship with her pushed me to a whole new way of Being, and let’s just say I’m awed by what has trickled in and shifted in my relationship with my mother as a result. I created some room for something big to open up.

So, cheers to toxic relationships!…and the antidotes they give us to better our relationships with ourSelves.