I recently paid a visit to a friend who was on his sick bed, and in a bad way. I had heard that he had missed almost three weeks of work and was not able to drive and needed help. In my Filippo way, I came in making jokes to try and make him laugh. I am a strong believer in laughter being the best medicine. My friend smiled at first, and he was able to squeak out a laugh after awhile.
This particular friend is also usually funny and sometimes his humor can be biting. Since I know where his humor comes from and his intent, it never bothers me. On the contrary, I personally find it funny and laugh almost each time.
During my visit, I said something to him to the effect of, “Well, I know you must be really sick because you are not hurling insulting at me… I miss my old friend.” My intent in saying that was to make him laugh and try to get him to muster up the energy to think of something “insulting” to say. But he didn’t bite.
That bothered me, and in some way, confirmed what I was sensing. What I was sensing was what I had felt for a long time but he didn’t want to talk about, and I couldn’t force the issue. I sensed he had deep issues that he had been holding inside for his whole life and they were after all these years showing the effects in his body.
So, I offered that up to my friend and told him, I told him that his body was crippled from his crippling thoughts. He went on to say that he doesn’t think “crippling” thoughts, and furthermore is always positive about his body, and goes to the gym, and eats right. I told him, that they weren’t thoughts about his body, that were necessarily the problem, but his overall thoughts in general, about himself, his circumstances and other people, that have gotten away from him and were not congruent with where he wants to be and who he wants to be.
He wanted to hear more, but I could see his energy was low. Instead I went and bought him somethings that I thought would help his energy come back and his body rehydrate and when I returned with the items, I told him, that he could call me when he was ready, and that I would sit with him and help him with what’s really going on.
Today I got that call to set up some time for life coaching. I was expecting his call, because I could see that we had connected on the truth and what was at the core of his illness. What I didn’t expect was for him to say, “If I ever said anything to hurt you, it’s because I was envious of you, and I’m sorry.”
Wow, this was huge. HE was envious of ME? All my life I wanted to be someone else… anybody else, but me. I was envious of so many people myself, over the years, that I could never imagine that someone would be envious of me. A flood of thoughts came to mind in a split second.
In that second I came to know how my experiences and my learnings have served me. All the teachings and the lessons, all the work and the study, all the prayers and the dreams that were related to this moment had worked, had come true and were made manifest, and this was the proof. I had no more reason to be envious of anyone, I had no anger toward my friend, and best of all, I was happy to be no one else, but me!
As momentous as that was, I then took a moment to “try on his pain,” and realized even more than I knew I could know, how hurtful envy is to all parties involved. I took a quick scan to see if there was anyone I was still envious of. And there came back as, no one. Mind you, there are people who have qualities that I would still like to have, but I admire them, rather than envying them.
And then I asked myself honestly if I could truly see what it is in me that he might be looking at that he might have been envious of, and I found many things. And accepted them for myself, and opened myself to seeing his point of view. Then finally, I was curious to ask myself, if I had known he was envious of me throughout our whole friendship, and the answer came back, definitely yes.
I then said this. “Thank you for telling me that, and there is no need for an apology, I understand.”
It was clear to me, that we had broken through something and that my friend was thinking of what goes on in his head. And furthermore it was important to him to be clear, open and honest and have closure so he repeated, “Please accept my apology, I’m never going to admit that ever again.”
“Very well,” I said, “then, I accept your apology, thank you.”
We have a bedside coaching appointment for this coming Monday.