Nedra, one of my clients, was quite upset when she received
an email from her friend, Roxanne, ending their friendship.
The email was quite blaming, telling Nedra that she was
narcissistic, selfish, and uncaring. Roxanne complained that
Nedra just talked about herself and was never there for
Roxanne. "You don't listen to me. You don't care about me.
You are never there for me when I need you."
Nedra was stunned. In her experience, this was not going on
at all. "I just can't understand how she could see me this
way!" she told me in our counseling session.
Nedra's inclination was to write it off as projection. In
her mind, this had nothing to do with her.
"Nedra," I said to her, "Let's see if we can find the lesson
here. There is always something to learn from a situation
like this. While this might indeed be a projection, there is
some way in which it has something to do with you. I'm
wondering how you might have abandoned yourself in your
friendship with Roxanne."
"Well, often I didn't speak up for myself. Roxanne wasn't
really open, so I would go along with things to avoid
conflict."
"So you didn't really take care of yourself in this
friendship?"
"I guess I didn't. I let a lot of things go. And recently I
started to feel distant from her. I think I could feel that
she wanted me to take care of her feelings so I started to
pull away. She is not open to learning and, while she talks
a good talk about taking responsibility for her feelings,
she doesn't really do it."
"But it sounds like you didn't take care of your feelings
either – that you ignored your own feelings to avoid
conflict with her. So I would like you to try something with
this email you received from her. I would like you to
pretend that your Inner Child – your feeling self - wrote it
to your Adult. Pretend that it is your Inner Child who is
saying, `You don't listen to me. You don't care about me.
You are never there for me when I need you.' Does this make
sense to you?"
"Oh yes! I can see this! I never would have thought of it
this way, but I can see that she was not taking care of her
feelings so she is blaming toward me for not taking care of
her, and I was not taking care of my feelings so I was
pulling away from her. In a way, her letter to me is a gift
to me!"
"Right. You can see that you need to be going within more,
paying more attention to your own feelings. It sounds like,
at least in this relationship, your focus was outward
instead of within."
"Yes, I often do this. And I can see that it never works out
well. I have done the same thing in my relationships with
men, and the relationships have never worked out. Okay, I'm
going to start to pay more attention to my own feelings. But
I'm wondering what I should do about the email? I have no
idea what to say to her. I feel that I don't want to respond
to her at all."
"Yes, I think that is appropriate. I don't see that there is
anything to say. You can send her your love and your prayers
and let it go. She has made it clear that she is ending the
relationship and that she is not open to learning or
exploring with you. So there is nothing for you to say or
do. How does that feel?"
"I actually feel relieved! I'm excited to have learned this
from the letter. All my resentment is gone and I feel
complete with this."
About The Author:
Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and
co-author of eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me
To Be Loved By You?" and "Healing Your Aloneness." She is
the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing
process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a
FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbon
email her at mailto:margaret@innerbondi
Sessions Available.