We were lying in bed chatting about everything and nothing and somehow landed on a conversation about an individual in our personal life who had done and said things that felt horrible.

“The more space that I have from the situation, the more upset I am” I said to him.

“Really?” he asked.  “I thought that it might get better” he said.

“No, it is just getting more intense” I responded. 

As I sat staring off into space I realized that I was feeling fairly resentful about the situation. Rather than pushing that emotion away, I allowed myself to feel it fully. I knew instantly that I was resentful because I was feeling taken advantage of. I had been incredibly generous with this individual and they had projected their bullshit all over me. They had even admitted this to me when we had conversations about the situation. As I allowed myself to sit deeply in the energy of resentment a couple of things happened, I recognized that I was upset with myself for ALLOWING my own boundaries to be crossed. As I sat with that knowing I felt a shift to the energy that was behind the resentment. The resentment had been a form of protection. The resentment was a wall of angry energy that was protecting me from feeling the emotion that was truly there but that I was avoiding. I was hurt. I was truly sad that someone who I thought was important in my life,  who I had cared for, and done a lot to support had projected their bullshit on me rather than taking accountability for it themselves. The resentment was protecting me from feeling really sad. My mind knew that this individual didn’t act like this purposefully to hurt me, they were avoiding their own discomfort. My heart wasn’t as rational. My heart was sad. So, I allowed myself to feel the sadness fully.  Behind the sadness, I realized that this individual was someone who I didn’t care to be in contact with. I had watched them use multiple people, again not from a place of awareness or with the intent to harm, but this was still a pattern for them.

A couple of weeks later, I sat in silence and this situation floated through my mind again. I smiled when I recognized that I wasn’t reactive, I wasn’t triggered, I wasn’t upset and I also wasn’t interested in being in contact with them either.