Quote

Make peace with your family and friends. This may mean that you get closer or it may mean that you part ways so that they can be who they need to be and you can be who you need to be.

Evita Ochel

Reflection

Relationships with our family and friends can be the source of our greatest joy and satisfaction or the source of our greatest stress and suffering. In some cases, we will find ourselves aligned and connected with others in a way that positively nourishes all those involved in physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual ways. In other cases, we will find ourselves out of alignment, drained, and depleted by the connections we have with others. It is these times that require our greatest attention and provide opportunities for our greatest spiritual growth. For too long too many people have been conditioned to “put up” with destructive relationships in the name of family or friends. Yet this superficial importance of status has destroyed the wellbeing of too many people and stunted their spiritual growth. The people who play the roles of our family and friends in this lifetime are no more and no less special than the ones who came before them and the ones who will come after them in other lifetimes. Every connection stems from a karmic interplay between lifetimes and the dual nature of reality, which is always working to balance the energy of contrasting forces. This is why where there is a villain there is a victim, and vice-versa.

Through consciousness expansion we can see beyond this material realm and linear view of reality to grasp the oneness and connectivity of all that is. Through surrender and equanimity we can transcend duality, and attain a wholeness of being that releases us from karmic cycles. Through wisdom and discernment we can understand that there is a reason and a season for every person in our lives. When we are in states of love and alignment we allow people and the connections we have with them to flow naturally; when we are in states of fear and resistance we try to control people and the connections we have with them. The former approach leads to peace and wellbeing, the latter approach leads to pain and suffering for all involved.

When we act from a space of love and peace, we are able to move through and heal emotional triggers, we are able to release any grievances and resentments, and we are able to forgive and let go. In such a space we attain clarity to know whether it is for the highest good of the self and the other to maintain a physical connection or not. One of the most loving and compassionate things to do is to allow the other person to be who they need to be and how they choose to be without exerting any control or expectations over them. However, this love and compassion must also be extended to ourselves where we, too, give ourselves permission to be how we need to be in order to express and experience the highest and most authentic version of who we know ourselves to be at any given point in our life.

This is why to make peace with others sometimes means that we will get closer and at other times it means that we will part ways with them. Remember, peace starts with you, and your actions will determine your state of being and the quality of your relationships.