When your best friend is a Trump-loving Republican.

I’m struggling. I find myself passive-aggressive these days to one of my closest friends. I don’t want to be that way. I want to be loving and accepting of her.

Ironically, I’ve been writing a lot about healing and how we’re all wounded… About compassion and facing my own shadow self. Killing off my ego self so I can shine in my own authenticity. Ha.

But I can’t get there for my best friend. I can’t release the expectation I have for her to be the person I need her to be. Damnit. Why can’t she just be like me? (Sounds absurd doesn’t it, yet so many of us feel this way.)

I feel betrayed. I feel abandoned. I feel disappointed and let down.

How can she be so fundamentally different from me? She never seemed that way before. How can she post Breitbart stories? How can she think Confederate monuments are ok? We both grew up in Birmingham, Alabama,—the hotbed of this stuff.

She’s a strong woman, too. How can she even think of approving a man in the White House who talked about “grabbing p*ssy?” And who thinks so very little of women? She abhors these kinds of men.

Who stole my friend and when is she coming back?

And so today, as she and I had another head-bumping moment, I decided to work through it with words on digital paper.

How do I accept her unconditionally? People come in and out of your life for a reason, it’s said. Is this one of those moments to walk away?

If I open my heart and truly believe we are all connected, do I release our friendship just because she isn’t fitting into my “box?”

Do I allow my need to be right to override my desire to be compassionate, whole and at peace?

Do I stand for the change I want to see in the world or are there caveats?

Can I walk the walk?
And that’s really what it comes down to, isn’t it?

Can I be the person I want to (need to) be? Am I willing to sacrifice my own ego identity and rise above it to do what is every human’s Divine purpose?

The truth is, this is hard. It’s hard to keep my heart open… my eyes clear and focused on being the light I know deep down that I am—that we all are. The fact that I am being vulnerable enough to write this says I’m getting closer.

Am I Mother Teresa? Umm no. Do I need to be? Umm no.

BUT WE CAN ALL BE BETTER, MORE COMPASSIONATE BEINGS. Can’t we?

We can all realize that hate and anger doesn’t beat hate and anger. Even when you believe your hate and anger are for the right reasons.

Winning isn’t the answer. Coming together as humans who are all after the same things is what will make our world — and our lives — whole.

We all just want to feel connected. We want to matter. We want not to hurt so damned much. We want to be loved and feel love. Everyone just goes about it in different ways. Ways that seem to defy the very desires we’re trying to manifest.

As for my friendship, I’m getting there. I’m asking her to be patient with me. Give me time to sort out my own issues. Because no matter what, this is my “stuff” to deal with…not hers. She can’t make my light shine or fade. Only I can do that. And vice versa.

I’ll leave it with this Mother Teresa quote that soooo sums it up. It’s said she hung this on her wall and read it daily. Maybe that’s not a bad idea for all of us to do.