Repair and Step 9

I was sharing with my husband the other night about an incident where a friend replied to an email and I felt stunned. After not talking to this friend in a year I invited her to attend a work event. She declined saying that since we hadn’t connected in so long that it was time to end our personal relationship but we could continue to be professional colleagues. In processing this, I’ve had so many thoughts, feelings and memories. I make up that I’ve hurt this person, yet I don’t know if that’s true. So I want to defend, and I want to explain and justify all the things that I have done for this person. I want so badly to be right.

As I was listening, my husband made the most simple, yet profound statement when he said,

“the minute my family doesn’t agree with me, I stop listening…”

It’s made me wonder if this is what I have done? When I apply this to the situation with my friend it’s teaching me in a real life example rather than an instructional moment with a client, a judgmental moment with my husband or a teaching and directing moment with someone else. This is an experience telling me that I need to listen.

I appreciate my husband and his pearl of wisdom. I also think about step 9 from alcoholics anonymous where it’s talking about amends and it says, "Made direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.“ I have reached out to this person asking for a conversation. I want to understand and I care deeply about this woman. I am also willing to take the risk even if she tells me again that she no longer wants to be in relationship with me. 

Throughout this pandemic and times of uncertainty, I want and need connection more than ever. I want to own my part of the breakdown in communication, ignorance and or insensitivity.

I feel so vulnerable, what’s happening in the world scares me, and I don’t know who to trust.

I also feel such vulnerability about my own memory. I don’t rely on my recollection or convictions like I used to and I don’t feel 100% sure about what happened. I know that my friend feels hurt by me, and I want to hear her, see her and honor her. This might sound like justification, rationalization and explanation…for me it feels like vulnerability and uncertainty.

I want to stay focused on the gift I received from my husband in all of this. I also hope I have the opportunity to repair with this friend and have the wisdom to accept her choice if she does not want to meet me in this place.

—Sheila Maitland, LCMHCS, CSAT