Why Reconcile? To create peace and order by bringing parts and pieces of your experience back into alignment, thus providing a sense of accuracy, completion, and serenity.
When you reconcile your bank records and checking account, you are bringing everything into balance to confirm that your math matches up. Using this metaphor, apply this same process to your own emotional health and well-being.
Reconciling is about cleaning out your psychic closet. Do you have unresolved issues which are draining your reserves, causing hurt feelings, filling you with regret, or taxing your tenacity? It can be it very difficult to reconcile things which have happened in the past, especially when you can’t change the past. It allows you to move forward with acceptance and surrender, rather than berating yourself for what cannot be changed. Would you like to find peace with them now?
Reconciling Relationships
The areas that benefit us to reconcile with another person are highly emotional ones: A divorce. An argument. A disagreement with a colleague. A betrayed confidence. Being let down by someone’s lack of dependability. Broken promises. A loved one’s refusal to get help.
Relationships, of all shapes and sizes, can be challenging messy, and can experience rifts for many reasons. A rift is all the more painful if the breakdown has happened with someone you love, trust, and care about.
Is there a person with whom you would like to reunite and resolve a painful or awkward issue (even if the relationship is on a different level or in a “new normal”)? What steps can you take to heal relationship struggles, such as the ones mentioned above, or the one you have troubling your heart and mind as you read this?
How Can You Begin to Reconcile?
- Take responsibility for your part and if the shoe fits, wear it.
- Be willing to engage in an honest crucial conversation.
- Share your desire to make things better.
- Let go of the past and focus on your present and the future.
- Apologize and ask for forgiveness if needed.
- Listen to their perspective with patience and respect.
- Forgive their actions and release the struggle.
- Move toward building trust and emotional safety.
Reconciling Your Past with Your Present
Ask yourself: Am I holding any grudges? Do I need to forgive myself or another person? Am I struggling to release the past? Is it a challenge for me to accept some things I cannot change? Is it difficult for me to appreciate “what is?”
As an exercise to help you reconcile your present with your past, write down who or what you may resent, why you resent them, what happened, and what your part in the situation was.
Once you’ve considered all of the different parts in a situation, speak to someone you trust about it, to determine if your perspective can shift. Doing this may enable you to let go of what has been holding you back. Reconciling can help you move forward with acceptance and surrender, rather than berating yourself for what cannot be changed, or berating the other person for not changing.
This has been one of my greatest challenges as I have grieved for what has been lost and wishing certain things were still a part of my world. How does one reconcile the need to have a conversation with someone who is no longer alive? How does one reconcile years lost to drama and heartbreak? How does one reconcile being a thousand miles away from your aging mother and adult children to be with the man you love? Believe me—reconciling is a continuous process, with varying degrees of difficulty.
Begin now by thinking of things you are thankful for today. List the incredible gifts, small and large, which bless your life now. Begin with at least one—hopefully, your list of things for which you can be grateful will expand from there.
This blog is an excerpt from her new book, Release the Power of Re3 . . . Review, Redo & Renew for Positive Change & Transformation. To learn more, please visit www.SusanCYoung.com or www.amazon.com/author/susancyoung.
