Understand you can choose only for your own path
“I wonder” writes:
Why is my relationship with my brother so strained? I love him very much, but feel anxious and find it difficult to speak to him. We were once close but now I just seem to irritate and annoy him. He says I over analyse, and he is a very ‘closed’ person. Can I do anything to improve things? Also is he happy and are there positive changes coming for him soon?
The guide’s response:
Dearest wonderer, you do overanalyse. But bless you for this; you have a beautiful mind that likes to visit all different aspects of a person’s life and path. It is what has helped you very much to see how your path has been balanced and the choices you have made have affected other things.
Your brother, this dear one… It is true. This one is not happy but does not want you to see this. He wants to keep it still and to himself. Knows that you see that he has made choices that have not been the best, but does not want to discuss it with you.
So…. You understand you can only choose for your own path. Choose, when you are with him, to be light and happy and loving. Don’t fill the air with words and talk. Don’t judge, and don’t even see what might be blatantly right before your eees. See only him – and the love that he has for you.
He does want to see you and be with you. But he does not want to be reminded that he should have made other choices. So be joyous, happy, light. If he wishes to discuss something with you he will bring it up. Otherwise, if you want a relationship with this one — be blissful, perhaps even childlike, for that is where the great ground is between the two of you.
And thank you for wondering.
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You often counsel: “You can only choose for your own path” and this makes great sense to me intellectually. But I often find I struggle with the practical application, especially for my children as they become adults. I have spent so many years, in effect, choosing their path — what I feed them, how I run the house, the schools they go to, the experiences I expose them to, what I pay for. Now that they are young adults — and making their own choices, some of which I don’t agree with, I find it hard to stand by and watch, particularly about both daughters’ decisions to delay seeking higher education. Plus, I am getting a lot of pressure from my own aged-parents to somehow convince my girls to alter their choices. I feel torn between my old life and beliefs and how I was raised, which very much came from parental approval of choices, and this new arising awareness to let them find their path, even if they flounder for awhile in finding it. How do I act day to day and deal with my girls and my parents while trying to live these emerging beliefs?