keep your eyes open there's sharks in them there waters

This week has been, as usual, fabulous! I had one BIG lesson this week and one smaller lesson and boy were they eye openers...
Yesterday, as I was dropping off my daughter at her father's house, she said "Mom, come in, I need you to help me find my brown belt" and since her father was not home I thought it would be fine~ya'know trying not to infringe on his space and all... And it was fine... but when we got into her room she had lots of photo's sitting on her bed and as we were chatting I was looking through them and noticed that there were a number of them that her father had given to her that were of us when we were married and working hard on our future ~ bought land together and planned on when she graduated moving up there, living off the land, and being self-sufficient, with me doing massage, etc... Made me feel so sad. Really sad. All those dreams, and the photos of us working together brought it all right to the forefront. Then I realized that when I thought I was being the good ex-wife and not wanting to go into his (used to be ours) house to infringe, I was really avoiding the feelings of sadness that come for me when I see stuff that used to be ours, which is not anymore, and stuff that was never there, and belongs to someone else (who, by the way is quite perfect for him) placed very comfortably among the old belongings...
Wow, epiphany... The feelings I had at that moment were not nice, like a shark swimming in the water, who could bite hard... Could this be how Jim's ex feels? Could this be why even though she is very much moved on, when she returns to the house where they were building their future and working hard to make plans that she gives me the cold shoulder? Hummmm... Could it be?

Anyway, the other lesson was this... One of my clients shared with me that she made some choices when her child was younger that she HAD to make (or die, ya' know the kind of life choices I mean) and has now had a most loving conversation with her adult child letting him know that she was sorry that her life choices caused him so much pain and that if she could she would take away the pain, but she cant and she is so very sorry... And they are working toward a relationship, and it is hard for her because he sounds so angry (like his father) and what I thought when she left was this... I will never ever say anything negative about Jim's ex to their son. I will hold the space so that when he grows up he will make his own decisions about his mother, and I would hate for her to suffer like my client is suffering. All life choices are up to each individual person and they live the consequences, and it is not up to me to "make" it a certain way, just to hold the space and know that we all the do best we can at all given moments.