Once we meet one person, one being who we are willing to see as completely innocent the jig is up. I feel incredibly grateful to that one person. The feeling tone of unconditional love when she was an infant was one in which I learned to commit irrevocably to seeing her innocence. Ultimately, that led to me seeing my own innocence. And that makes it inevitable I will see your innocence. And that is how the suffering ends.
p.s. this was not an easy task and for a number of years I feared I would not succeed. Only the strength of my commitment and the pain I had experienced as I ended up with one broken close relationship after another gave me the courage to stick it out. I now see clearly how I projected my own guilt on to those around me. How liberating to own it and transmute it back to my own innocence.
Here is an example. After we got the car towed on New Year’s Eve, I came home and was going to prepare a holiday meal on special china to make it festive. My daughter announced she just wanted to eat in her room. Many years ago I would have pitched a fit and guilt-tripped her into eating with me. More recently I would have said ok while internally blaming her subtly for “spoiling” my holiday. This time I sincerely said, ok. She immediately suggested another way both our needs could be met and the alternative was so sweet and satisfying because it authentically met my desire to connect. How succulent.
