Another month of having wholeheartedness as my intention for the year. During this month, I’ve been deliberately trying to step out from a middle man position that I’ve put myself in. I’ve been encouraged to, in some ways, but I cannot put the responsibility on anybody but myself. Sometimes I volunteer, and sometimes I’m invited to step into the situation, as a middle man, a go-between, a translator of sorts, but I am the one who accepts or rejects the proposition. And I’ve started to reject it. To say No, I won’t do this, anymore. It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for you either. It has me meddling in business that’s not mine to meddle in.
I do find it challenging though… I’ve done it for so long, it feels very normal to do, and I experience a certain amount of discomfort when I don’t.
Lots of thoughts whirling around in my head, thoughts that generate a feeling of fear, of anxiety, of worry. Both for the people that are involved, but also for myself.
Who am I, if I am not the middle man? What space will open up for me, when I let go of this meddling? What might come of it?
There is both excitement and fear there – because who am I, to you, if I am not “assisting you” in this? Will you no longer depend on me (no, that’s the whole point, duh!)? Am I then no longer important to you?
And you – what will you do with the space that’s opening up, when I no longer inhabit it? Will any of you step into it? Take on the responsibility yourselves, for communicating in such a way that translation is no longer necessary? Speak, and listen, listen and speak, until you are in agreement of what it is you, both of you, are trying to convey? Making sure there’s respect for the feelings of the other, even if there might not be understanding – because the striving for understanding often seems to push you two farther apart, more than anything else?
And there I go again… getting into – rather than stepping out of – it. So I remind myself – again – to let go. Because the only way for something new to come into this equation, if for me to let go, in order to let come that which wants to happen.
Breathe in, a long, deep, slow breath… and slowly let go, of my position as middle man. It’s served me, and you, to some extent. But it is time to let it go, hard as it might be. Or, for that matter, perhaps it might not be hard at all?