“We have to learn to love people even if they are not giving you what you want… and then not take it personally. If you feel hurt, you have to recognize that they are not hurting you because you are you, but because they are them.” – Krishna Das

This quote has been making the rounds lately. When I saw it, a knowing nod and tears of recognition sprang up in my eyes. Being a relationally oriented person and a peacemaking Libra to boot, I am challenged at times to accept that people in my life don’t always think and feel the way I do.  Although we may be mirrors for each other, we are not mirror images OF each other. With that sometimes comes disappointment when expectations go unmet. I am just delusional enough to believe that those with whom I am close are going to see the world through the same lenses and sometimes they just don’t. The temptation is to judge or make them wrong for it. My tendency is also to attempt to change their minds with logic and if that doesn’t work, then with charm. There is a fine line on which I dance. I don’t believe in closing anyone out of my heart, or ceasing loving them. Love is not a faucet that I turn on and off at my whim. There have been times in my life during which I have needed to step back and evaluate the relationship and determine how much I am investing in it looking and feeling a certain way and then deciding how much I am able to keep pouring into it.

One of the most painful and simultaneously important lessons I have learned is that I need to release expectation. This thought process brings me to The Work of Byron Katie that teaches to ‘love what is.’ She has said, “When I believed my thoughts, I suffered. When I didn’t believe my thoughts, I didn’t suffer.” If I am stuck in the mindset that someone is supposed to hold certain beliefs that they don’t, then perhaps we both suffer unnecessarily. As much as I am intuitive, I can’t always know what motivates the feelings and thoughts of others in my life.

In conversation with a friend recently, he shared that he too has had to determine the price he has paid to remain invested in  certain relationships. Although it has been sad for him as well, he has needed to walk away so as not to devalue himself in friendship with these people.  He quoted Maya Angelou, echoed by Oprah, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” It doesn’t have to be extreme. They need not be considered villains if they don’t follow through as we would have them do. They are simply following their own path that may diverge from our own. Wishing them love.