I am home staying with family for the week and have been working a lot with what is shared here in this article. I am finding the deeper I go I can be a very intense person to be around and this can feel very painful to me. I get very passionate and I am feeling where there is an invitation to share my perspective. Then I have to be with the effect it causes. I am watching and softening inside where in the past I would get tight and defend myself.

As a teenager I did intentionally push buttons. Always arguing and confronting but at some point got tired of the reactions and then kept things to myself or changed the way I felt to be and what to share to avoid them. When I share my perspective my family can take things very personally, get defensive and try to convince me that I am wrong and have bought into some belief system. Like you say in the article I am not trying to push buttons but that is what happens. I keep wondering why I have to share with my family who seem like they will never see any other way of being. I know it is just to be myself fully no matter what. This pain of not being seen or heard feels very karmic, at the end of the day I often am feeling a overwhelming release, pain in my heart and abdomen and crying. I keep reminding myself of what you said here

"I find it greatly helps to let go of the need to feel like we’re here to teach, to heal, to lead or direct. It’s about progressively moving into the place of absolute trust, that even if our action may cause some degree of discomfort, it's refined purpose is selfless."
Thank you for the space to share here.
With love,
Kim