Her, him, they, your own damn self – it doesn’t really matter who.

 

If you, like me have the blessing and curse of seeing the potential in others, then you may also fall into the trap of falling in love with who they could be rather than who they really are.

 

It’s ubiquitous because this also applies how we love ourselves of course.

But let’s start with other, because sometimes it’s easier to see the thing when it’s outside of our own being.

 

She, he, whoever they are.

Can you fully love them and accept them for who they are right now?

Not their potential.

The person right in front of you.

The things you hate and want to fix.

The way they don’t see their own potential.

Why don’t they have the gumption, awareness, to do something about it?

Can’t they see their own potential???

 

Just a sample narrative that goes on in our mind, but you get the idea.

We just want what’s best for them, right?

 

Wrong.

 

We are arguing against reality.

We are more in love with the illusion of who they could be rather than fully accepting who they are right now.

And this is challenging, because we don’t see this potentiality as illusion necessarily and because we have this altruistic love for that person, we see it as helping them, rather than seeing it for what it is.

 

The truth of the matter is, it’s one of the deepest forms of disrespect.

 

I want to let that sink in for a moment.

 

If you cannot fully accept her for who she is right now – not her potential of who she could be – it is one of the greatest forms of disrespect.

 

You are disrespecting her own innate soul path and intelligence.

Yes, it will look like suffering.

Yes, it will look painful.

Yes, it will probably physically hurt to see her like this.

 

That doesn’t mean it’s not supposed to be.

 

This plays out most obviously in our intimate relationships, so let’s start there.

Perhaps this is a familiar story. You love your partner.  You want what’s best for them.

But sometimes they make shitty choices for themselves.

Maybe you think they need to eat better; take care of themselves better so they can fully be there for their family.

You see their best and you just wish they would develop it more. They have so much potential.

Why don’t they see it themselves?

 

Does this narrative sound familiar?

 

It does to me.

Let me tell you in my experience (and the experience of millions of therapists and relationship coaches out there) what happens next.

We try to fix them.

It maybe starts with helpful suggestions.

Or maybe it’s a bold as outright doing this for them so they can “see” the light.

We don’t even realize the level of manipulation we achieve in trying to “help” them.

 

How arrogant I’ve been. How absolutely disrespectful of the intelligence of the people in my life.

 

But, you might think, what if these behaviours are outright dangerous?

What if they are risking their lives?

We might get really angry and upset about their choices.

But these choices are their choices.

They have the right to chose things that will harm them.

It is not for us to decide what’s right or wrong, good or bad for them.

 

My question to myself has been: can I trust their own intelligence enough to fully be present with them?

I don’t have to agree with their behaviours.

But I can also fully accept them as a kind of deeper intelligence being expressed.

 

This is a pretty novel idea in our society where we have some pretty clear and rooted beliefs around self harming behaviours like alcoholism, drug use, and in general our relationship with death.

 

The truth is that we fall in love with illusions.

Very very few of us really and truly love other and self for who we really are – in this moment.

To really truly love, we must fully accept all of it – and it’s the “all of it” part that is so very sticky.

 

I write this on the cusp of a pretty fucking powerful piece of global and personal astrology – a pending full lunar eclipse in scorpio, a place of depth, mystery, and illuminating all that we do not normally see. This is a week of shadow work and this is probably precisely why I sit here writing about seeing through the veil of illusion.

 

If we want to live in true freedom – in our own lives, in our relationships – we must accept our relationship to illusion. We must be willing to see the places where we play the illusion game.

This requires enormous compassion and trust in our own potency.

 

You see, although it’s easier to spot the chinks in our relationships with others, to heal the core of the thing, we must be willing to see those patterns within us.

We must be willing to release our own obsession of reaching our potential.

We must be willing to forgive ourselves for our own humanity – releasing judgement.

 

We must learn how to be with what we don’t like, with what we hate, and with what we are outright disgusted by.

 

This is not easy work.

But it is the path to liberation.