I had a great realization the night before last. I went to the bookshelf that holds my treasured collection of self-help and inspirational books to browse for something to read. Before selecting Wayne Dyer’s 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace, I noticed something.

There are a couple of books on my shelf that have been extremely important and helpful to me at times in the past, but that I realized I now no longer need. I have graduated from some areas of self help!

One thing that struck me as especially significant is the book that I bought a few years back called Sibling Revelry, by Jo Ann, Marjory and Joel Levitt. I purchased this book to help me deal with some of the difficulties and tumultuous emotions I was experiencing in my relationship with my sister, Lisa.

It really hit me that over the course of a few years, Lisa’s and my relationship has transformed from one that included a lot of angst, into a strong and healthy friendship. With a lot of soul searching and personal growth on both our parts, as well as a mutual desire to have a strong, healthy, loving, and mature sibling relationship, Lisa and I have become friends and each others’ strong supporters. I am so grateful that this has been possible, rather than continuing to play out the old childhood dramas that plagued our relationship well into early adulthood.

I must add though, that the outcome of a strong and healthy relationship is not always possible. In our case, because we both wanted our relationship to work, and were committed to working towards that, it has been possible to achieve the mutually desired results. Lisa did her work, and I did mine, (in our own time and our own ways) and the outcome is that we are now both able to relate to each other in a healthy and balanced way.

In many cases though, there is not an equal desire and willingness to work at transforming a relationship that is in some way(s) unhealthy. If this is the case, and you are the one who wants to transform a connection, your positive outcome may be in your own perceptions and way of dealing with that relationship.

In the case of another area I have dealt with - a very difficult relationship with my mother, much of the work I did was after her death when I was in my mid-twenties. I am not able to have a healthy and loving relationship with her on the physical plane, which does cause me a few pangs of sadness more than a dozen years later. However, I feel that my relationship with her, within myself, has been healed, and is healthy and loving. A book that helped me enormously in my quest to heal that relationship was Motherless Daughters by Hope Edelman.

Yesterday as I was chatting to Lisa on Skype I had a wonderful experience of feeling connected. Before I got a chance to mention my joyful realization that I no longer needed help in having a healthy sibling relationship with her, Lisa told me that the night before she had been talking to a friend. Her friend is experiencing difficulty in her own relationship with her older sister, and Lisa had thought about suggesting the book she knew had been helpful to me in our relationship. The very book that I had been noticing that I was ready to pass on for others to use! I just love those reminders from the universe that everything is working exactly as it should.

There are a couple of things I feel are significant in my realization that I no longer have a problem with an area of my life that did cause me difficulty in the past. This is not to say that I can neglect my relationship with Lisa, or take it for granted, but simply that the old wounds have healed, and we have learned how to relate to each other in a positive way. Now it’s just maintenance, and seeing as we get on so well these days, the maintenance is fun.

The lessons I noticed in this situation are these:

• That with the right intention, time, patience and good resources, a painful situation can be transformed. Validation that self help really does work!

• That sometimes we don’t even need to be aware of our progress for it to be happening. I set my intention of creating a positive relationship with my sister, found resources that gave me what I needed to get on the right path, and worked at healing the pain of the past. Once things were on the right track, I largely forgot about how difficult things had been, and just naturally kept heading in a positive direction. Things got better and better, and it wasn’t until two days ago that I truly realized how far we have come, and just how much things have changed. This makes me think of the quote that tells us to look at how far we have come rather than how far we have to go. It is even better when you can look at how far you have come and realize that you are already where you want to be!

• That sometimes it is good not to obsess about each step of progress towards a goal. To just be on the path, and to naturally keep moving forward allows the progress to happen at its own pace. Set it and forget it. Your intention is there, and it doesn’t necessarily need to be constantly poked and prodded.

• That even though there will always be things that we haven’t yet mastered, when we take time to notice, we can see that there are other things in our lives that we may have thought we would never ‘get,’ but if we stop to look, we will see that we have either gotten them or truly are getting them.

• That if self help can work in one area, it can work in any area. If I apply the same principles to aspects of my life that are difficult to me now as I did to the areas that I have graduated from, I will eventually graduate from my current challenges, perhaps even with an advanced degree!
  
  
  
  
  
  

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