Hi Brooke,
after having watched July’s videos I realize I’m a bit trapped in letting (not) go of one experience from my past:
I did have a professional partnership with a woman for 10 years and it was a good and supportive partnership most of the time. By reasons I don’t know (that person wasn’t willing to share them with me) she changed her attitude towards me at some point, though and got really destructive and aggressive. Finally we got a “business divorce”. At the time (it is already 10 years ago) it was hard to cope with that change of hers, with her silent treatment and with what she did (one example: She terminated the joint lease of our business offices without telling me a word – I only found out one day after the right to withdraw from the termination. Of course this was illegal and the landlord happily let me (alone) have the contract continue, but still). Another difficult thing for me was the thought, that I must have done something unvoluntarily to her, which I found extremely hard to deal with.
In trying to find passed experiences for July’s homework I came up with that story – and realized I’m in peace with it. Who cares why she did it at the time (if it was something I did wrong, but she didn’t tell me – it’s on her) and the years since our “divorce” have been so successful for me that it simply doesn’t matter what happened then.
BUT- and this is why I write to you: I recently met her coincidently at a professional event (actually first time since) and she wanted to pretend nothing stands between us. I got really angry and refused to small talk or even be anywhere close to her. I even talked to the trainer at that event (I knew there would be small groups later on to work on specific topics) and asked her to not put us in the same group (not giving any specific reason). Now my question is: Should I work on letting this anger go (t: she’s a human and certainly did it because of her humanness)? But then: I have no problem in wishing her well from afar (may she live in peace…) but I really don’t want her to cross my boundaries ever again. And I even really don’t want her to be close. My concern: Letting go of that anger might lead to forgetting what she did (I have the tendency to do so…) and I don’t want that. And does that anger hurt me? In that situation it helped me stick with my boundaries and not giving a f… on what people thought (and I liked that).
Does all of that even makes sense? Thanks for your thoughts (and for all of your inspiration!)
