Failure to please oneself…
One mantra running going through my head, helps to answer some of my current dilemmas. It has been useful to me lately, thankfully, or else I would find myself very lost.
“….Betrayal of your Self in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It is the highest betrayal….” comes from Conversations with God Volume 1.
Yes, I know what that means and what it entails for me right now. But it is hard to honour the tasks that have been set for me to do when others’ needs press so much on me and I feel so pulled towards them.
We all have times when we ask, ‘What will happen to that, if I do nothing about it? Will it die without me? What would that death do to those who are relying on me and who are so dear to me? Will it wait a few more years for me to come back to it? Should I allow other’s need to overtake mine, even if that becomes a great fat obligation that I know – I know – is entirely the wrong motivation and will procure and produce little of use. So many questions, each with their own peculiar pain.
I know that doing things because we feel obliged to, is the wrong reason, and, even despite all the work it might entail, is ultimately an empty gesture.
How do I express my love for those I adore, by letting them down?
There is another way to look at this. By doing what I don’t want to do – not yet, though I feel obliged to and might get round to it some day – am I trespassing on someone else’s karma? Am I smudging their path, which is for them to walk? Worse, is that the kind of interference which will come back to bite us both on the ankle? Ouch! I don’t much like the sound of that.
Imagine spending five years – for that is the least time it would take to do this job well – and then to discover that, actually, no-one is pleased or grateful. Even if they are, I probably won’t have been. Better by far to do what I can, when I feel it is the right time. It is hard to trust though, very hard to let go, when I am so used to expressing my love by ‘helping’ others.
There is no going back to the patterns of old, whatever we decide. We can only go forward, doing what our hearts call us to do.
Please share:
August 25, 2017 @ 10:39 am
What a tangle. I know that oftentimes we do things because we feel obliged to, and this is particularly irksome when it’s something that we wouldn’t have ‘chosen’ to do under other circumstances. When it is a relatively small thing we get over it and move on but ‘five years’ that is a huge commitment. I feel for you in the dilemma.
August 25, 2017 @ 11:19 am
Yes, this has been pressing on me for a while, but learning to trust my feelings does help. I daresay this is just a case of tangled priorities that will sort itself out. Can’t help wishing that there were three of me, though. We all wish that, sometimes, don’t we?!
Thanks so much for visiting, and for your comment, Diane. xx