A New Relationship in the Making.....

I hav no idea why but your posts always speak directly to parts of my soul and mind which immediately grasp what you are saying and feeling.

I do not think that relationships are sapped but, rather, go through cycles of change wher all that they seemed to depend on comes to its natural end. If we accept this we find we are soon entering a new cycle of relating to the same person that is rich and rewarding if we accept it though it may be difficult and uncomfortable if we grasp at the old cycle and give it attention that belongs in understanding the new cycle.

I seldom think of The Gospels but a sying comes to me. Jesus explaining in a parable how new wine must be put into new wineskins for if it was put into old wineskins they would burst.

A new way of relating to Nidhi is opening before you. No longer as your child but also as a woman who, in turn, will become a mother. Soon she will be a wife and another will occupy the place that you and your husband occupied. This calls for a large adjustment and at the time we adjust to new relationships we are pulled back to the old and to remembering all that came before this - it is a way of adjusting a farewell and a greeting that, if made generously and fearlessly will produce new spiritual riches.

Kim

A Postscript. Do not miscalculate the difficulties that accompany change. They may be transient and relatively easy or they mey be difficult as one looks with longing and nostalgia on the past which seemed so certain and comfortable and which we grasp at to reassure ouselves. But grasping is suffering.
I find the following buddhist perspective helps when my mind and heart are confused.

If we contemplate desires and listen to them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. Then we come to the realisation that the origin of suffering, desire, can be laid aside and let go of.

How do you let go of things? This means you leave them as they are; it does not mean you annihilate them or throw them away. It is more like setting down and letting them be. Through the practice of letting go we realise that there is the origin of suffering, which is the attachment to desire, and we realise that we should let go of these three kinds of desire. Then we realise that we have let go of these desires; there is no longer any attachment to them.

When you find yourself attached, remember that ‘letting go’ is not ‘getting rid of’ or ‘throwing away’. If I’m holding onto this clock and you say, ‘Let go of it!’, that doesn’t mean ‘throw it out’. I might think that I have to throw it away because I’m attached to it, but that would just be the desire to get rid of it. We tend to think that getting rid of the object is a way of getting rid of attachment. But if I can contemplate attachment, this grasping of the clock, I realise that there is no point in getting rid of it - it’s a good clock; it keeps good time and is not heavy to carry around. The clock is not the problem. The problem is grasping the clock. So what do I do? Let it go, lay it aside - put it down gently without any kind of aversion. Then I can pick it up again, see what time it is and lay it aside when necessary.

It sounds very simple and reasonable but we humans are not always simple and reasonable for we fear pain and that pain is itself painful and confusing.