We were all raised with a sincere delusion. Although no one ever warned us (or warned the people who raised us), we were brought-up in a world that invisibly divided reality into two parts only:

Yet, doesn't experience demonstrate that life is rarely that simple, that clearly marked, that obvious? Weren't the guys wearing the big, white, cowboy hats only in the B movies? But being raised in this artificially divided environment, we take these over simplifications for granted; sometimes take them as absolute truths often doing so subconsciously.

Then, we often operate from those "truths;" and expect others to do the same. Only two ways to look at something, to think about something, to feel. Expectations. Unspoken rules. Projections onto others. Oops. Ouch.

How many times have I heard a client say "What else could you expect me to do?" "Anybody would have known." "What would any decent person have done?" "Why isn't he doing what any normal person would do?" "What's wrong with her?" "What's wrong with me?" Unhelpful at best; enraging at worst.

The answer, by the bye, to "What's wrong with me/you/her/him," is "Nothing." Those are learned behaviors. You and they may benefit from more awareness and supportive modification; but there is nothing "wrong" with you - or them.

The point is not to cast the ex or the children or the other person in that 'ol right/wrong classification. Not to stick them with the old, rigid classifications and ways. How about thinking of them as not yet aware, overtired, confused or just plain ignorant? As one wag said, "Mistake makers…a perfect synonym for human being."

Mistake maker. Doesn't that soften your view of them and what's happening or not happening? Couldn't that view broaden and deepen how you look at yourself? And mighn't that open a space where change and conciliation could happen? A space for the other and you to be who you are and where you are, allowing the possibility of a better future?

*Or how I learned that different people can look at something and see it…differently.

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