Part of being on a Spiritual path is letting go...

All of us want to be kind and compassionate. All of us want to do all we can to help others in our lives, the ones that we love, to succeed, to be happy, to be healthy, to be safe. As we progress on our paths it becomes clear that we are all responsible for ourselves and there is really only so much you can do for someone else. This is one of the life lessons that can be hardest to accept, especially when you love someone who is ill, who is an addict or who simply won't take care of themselves.

How do you really help someone else?

In my most difficult and challenging relationships, I have asked Spirit what my best course of action is. This is what they said: You service their soul and not their personality.

In other words, Spirit is saying that it is important to detach enough to be able to look at what is in the Highest Good for someone. Is it in their Highest Good for you to rescue them, yet again? Probably not. Rescuing others is not allowing them to learn the lessons they are learning through whatever pattern or difficulty they are going through. This is not so easy, as the personality of the one you love will fight you all the way. They will be angry with you for not doing what you have always done. They will hate you for not saving them. They will say mean and hurtful things to you out of their own pain.

The desire to help someone you love can be so strong, so overpowering that it can be easy to believe you have the power to actually change someone's life. The truth is, you don't. With people who are caught in destructive patterns, whether it is abuse, addiction, mental or physical illness; no matter what someone else on the outside tries to do to guide, help or assist, until the person themselves sees the pattern there is really nothing you can do.

The internal need for someone you love to be OK can be so intense that it blinds you. You act out of panic and denial, rather than from peace and compassion. You can get caught in a destructive pattern where you constantly drop your own life to take care of someone else's inability, or you send money to your addict sister for the 100th time when she swears that this time it's just to buy some new clothes. You rush to take over someone's life, to bail them out. The guidance I receive from my Guides and Angels cautions against this, because in reality, sometimes the kindest thing you can do is let them experience the consequences of their actions. For me, this means not dropping everything to run and take care of my ill relative who will not take care of herself. For you, maybe it's not covering up for someone's drinking problem or emotional abuse anymore. Let the chips fall where they may. Then there is actually an opportunity for the ill person to see what they are doing to themselves. This is servicing the soul.

The next thing Spirit has said about these challenging relationships is to point out the enormous gifts I have received from navigating through these relationship struggles. My Guides and Angels have told me to open my heart to forgiveness and to choose to see these challenges as soul growth lessons. So, although I am not always successful at remembering this, I try. We can choose to recognize that part of our life paths is to learn this lesson of detaching while still being kind and compassionate. We can learn how to love and let go. In doing this I have discovered that without the challenges I have faced, I would not have developed my strengths. If I had not experienced profound loss, would I have found my Guides and Angels? Would I ever know the miracle of healing relationships after death?

It is not in the challenge that we find our strength-it is in how we rise to meet it. When we pray for courage and strength, God does not just give us courage and strength; the Divine gives us the opportunity to find those qualities within ourselves. This is what experiencing physical life is all about: every single person and circumstance is in our lives to teach us something that helps our souls to grow.

What circumstances have you lived through and what strengths did you develop as a result? Who are your toughest teachers and what are you learning from them? Write it down then thank them for it, even if you just say it in a prayer.

With love,

Ashley