Mirrors

Franki can be what feels like at times, very demanding.  She wants what she wants and she wants it now and no amount of reasoning from a logical, rational or otherwise practical adult will do.  She also has a really great way of making what seems like a gazillion and one requests of me all at once, and doing it when I’m smack-dab in the middle of being absorbed in some sort of activity like preparing something that she’s already requested, pulling my hair out by the roots, rocking back and forth with a crazed look on my face or eating bon-bons ;).  So I pull myself away from my current activity and provide what my little princess is requesting, only to be met with a very defiant “nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”!  So I say to myself, “didn’t she just ask for this”?  And the answer is “yes of course she did, but I have a very sneaky suspicion that she’s just changed her mind”.   I’m really observant that way :0.   When these things happen, I can find myself thinking that what I’d really like to do is just run away, join the circus and be one who rides elephants and throws flaming batons of fire in the air.  But then I quickly decide that I’d much rather be with this child who just seems as large as an elephant right now with her demands.  I’m not beyond or above having a knee-jerk emotional response in these moments and most often, what I feel right then and there would be something equivalent to overwhelment or frustration.  I can feel myself wanting to blame her for my current emotions since she appears to be the catalyst of it all.  After all, if she weren’t being so bossy and making so many demands, I wouldn’t feel this way, right?!?  The thing is, although she’s appearing as the one producing demands and “making” me feel overwhelmed, I’m the one who gets the credit for the emotional response I’m having.  She’s not doing anything other than being a two year old who wants something and seeing me as the provider of some of those things.  She’s also figuring out her ability to choose and to change her mind and exploring how people respond to her.  The point is…well, actually, there’s more than one point….She’s not, in essence, defying me, she’s just establishing and exploring her independence and autonomy.  I don’t have to look at it from the point of view that she’s being difficult or uncooperative, and allow that perspective to permeate my response.  I can instead see that she has very valid and very real desires being expressed through the personality of a two year old.  She doesn’t care that I’m doing something else; she doesn’t comprehend that, although she’s simultaneously and what seems to me all at once requesting different things, I can’t fulfill all of her requests all at the same time.  While I’m not always going to be in a place of remembering this and responding accordingly, the thing is, I can reach for this perspective more and more, while I’m not in the middle of the tornado of “no’s” and “you have to do this right now mommy”.  The more I do that, the more aligned I become with this perspective and the easier it is not to see her as the rascal in all of this.  The other point is, is that relationships are tricky in the sense that most of us have been socialized to believe that “it’s your fault that I feel this way”.  “I felt fine before you showed up, and now you’re here and you’re doing that thing you do that annoys me and now I’m annoyed and it’s because of you”.  Or, “I felt awful before you came into my life and now all I see is sunshine, lollipops, rainbows and unicorns”.  The people in your life may seem like they’re the reason you’re feeling a particular way, but the responder is you.  They may be the catalyst for the emotion but you’re the one who gets the credit for the way you feel.  If you’re feeling a certain way, people are going to show up in your life reflecting or amplifying how you feel; they’ll look like they’re “making” you feel that way, but they’re just a representative, showing you how you feel.  If you like how you feel, go along your merry little way and keep thinking and doing what you’ve been thinking and doing.  If you don’t like how you’re feeling and you’re blaming the rascals around you, then here’s a perfect opportunity to see what these people are showing you and make a decision that you want to feel better.  It’s perfectly fine that you’re having the emotional response that you’re having, but the question is, “do you like feeling this way and are you holding others responsible for how you’re feeling”?   Emotional responses are often vibrational habits that we start somewhere along the path of life and you can bet that if it’s active enough, there’ll be people and situations that will continually “show” up in your life “making” you feel that oh-so-familiar feeling.  It’s not a coincidence.  The people and circumstances in your life are like a mirror…reflecting back to you how you’re already feeling.  Nothing ever has to be just because it always has been.  Things are constantly changing to the beat of your drum.  If you want something to change, first make a decision that you want to find an improved feeling about it.  If you don’t find a way to feel differently first, no matter what you do action-wise, things will continue to beat to the drum you’ve already got going.  Change how you feel, even if nothing in your circumstances has changed…change how you feel.  Change how you feel about the people in your life and what they “do” to you and change how you feel about the conditions or circumstances in your life.  Find a way to feel better about them, and you’ll also begin to see the reflection being mirrored back to you, change as well.