Vachon Imagined

When two people meet, they rarely meet each other.

More often, they meet each other’s experiences.

Fear meets fear.

Anger meets anger.

Shame meets shame.

And because neither person sees what is happening, they participate.

Fear tells a story and asks someone else to change in order to fix it.

Shame awakens an old wound and blames another person for causing it.

What was awakened is mistaken for what was created.

An old pattern rises, and someone nearby becomes responsible for it.

But eventually, something becomes clear.

The fear comes and goes.

The anger comes and goes.

The shame comes and goes.

Every experience that once claimed to be you arrives, stays for a while, and leaves.

After seeing this enough times, you stop calling these experiences yourself.

And when you stop doing it to yourself, you stop doing it to others.

You stop asking people to fix what only awareness can reveal.

You stop demanding that others change so you can be at peace.

You stop fighting people for awakening something that was already living inside you.

And something softer takes its place.

You let angry people be angry.

You let hurt people be hurt.

You let fearful people be fearful.

Not because you don’t care, but because you finally see there is nothing to fix.

People are choosing, consciously or unconsciously, which stories they will continue to carry and which they will finally lay down.

You no longer need to enter every story that invites you in.

Because you are no longer involved in their story, you are finally present to their life.

You can step aside when stepping aside is needed.

You can smile when a smile lightens the load.

You can listen without carrying the burden.

You can help without becoming entangled.

You can love without becoming lost.

You meet the life beneath their experience.

You recognize the life beneath your own.

And from that place, there is nothing to defend, nothing to attack, and no one left to fight with.

There is only love, free enough to let life move through everyone exactly as it must.