Dancing In The Rain

Recently I shared some of my "stuff" with a friend who had fingered the trigger of its arising. He backed off a bit, and very sweetly let me know that he was just waiting for my "storm" to pass. OK, I thought. It's my storm and it's up to me to deal with, that's a valid choice.

But his backing off triggered more of my "stuff", aka, abandonment issues. I've been pondering this for awhile, just being with it, attempting to not judge this backing off as right or wrong, just feeling what comes up and to the best of my ability, not feeding the ego stories that arise. There is no doubt in my mind that I have "abandoned" people that I love while they are in the midst of their storms. Sometimes, when the storm is big, I've just not possessed the emotional capacity to deal with it even though I knew I should stick around and offer support. At other times I've reasoned that it is probably best to just leave them to their stuff and let them sort it out alone, offering my support silently in the background. So whether it has been just plain selfishness (or self preservation) on my part, or truly the most sensible thing to do, either way I understand this reaction.

Something else has up come up for me with all this contemplating of storms. I really appreciate it when my friends don't back off and wait for the storm to past but rather put on their galoshes and dance with me in the rain.