The battle of the wills end when you allow the other to have free will, it is pretty hard to fight with freedom.
The tighter you hold and the more you force, the less the other person can feel and find their own sense of what it is they want to do.
When I was in the beginning stages of my mental breakdown, my husband and I found a place to stand that left us both in total freedom, a place called “I love you today.”
In this spot, it allowed each of us to change our minds and to gauge our own feelings about whether we wanted to stay together. This free space to be yourself, to feel that which you feel and to express it daily allowed us the time to re-configure a new normal in our relationship.
We fell into this spot after weeks and months of feeling the instability each of us had during the most stressful event in our marriage, Me not knowing who I was.
Pretty hard to promise tomorrow, when today is unknown.
It felt so much easier to breathe when we embraced the unknown and lived presently with each day and even each moment.
“I love you today” is an honest and alive relationship and we both promised the other that if and when we didn’t want to be here we would tell the other.
It isn’t a piece of paper, the ‘happiness’ of our children, or a million other reasons that folks stay together, but instead we individually get to choose if we fit together, if we are happy here, if we enjoy this place, if we are at peace here, if it is a spot for us to grow and change….
It is like a free-range relationship, where each has the freedom to be who we are, and when who we are no longer works together, we will be brave enough and honest enough to let the other know.
I just don’t feel then, that we can blame the other; we will always hold the power within us.
I love you today, and if it changes I will let you know.
I am thinking this same idea can be used upon our children. Instead of raising children who must remain in our pen (religion, mind set, pathway, etc), where we tell them how to be and grow, that we instead open the gate and let them roam free.
Let their will be done.
Let them decide which way to go and how to be.
It releases both of us to be who it is we were meant to be.
This reminds me of the paragraph from one of Bryon Katie’s books,
“I don’t know what is best for me, or you, or the world. I don’t try to impose my will on you or anyone else. I don’t want to change you or improve you of convert you or help you or heal you. I just welcome things as they come and go. That’s true love. The best way of leading people is to let them find their own way.”
I M Perfect lady 