Category Archives: happiness

Comes a time

Posted on by learning to live like water

I don’t know why we can’t keep things on an even keel.  Yesterday, driving to work, I realized, I don’t want to take the place of his ex.  I want my own new, and unique place in his heart.  I don’t want the feeling he has for her, I want my own account full of his love and passion.

When you love someone, do you ever really stop?  Do you have to “get over” them?  Or do you just have to forgive, do you just have to accept that the past will always be what it is, and move on?  I love my exes.  Not the way I once loved them, because time and events temper that, but I could never say I didn’t love them.  Even at the height of my contentious divorce, I wished no ill will on my ex, I wished he’d find a way to be happy.  I remember thinking, when things were ugly, why is he doing this to me?  I love him.  Then at some point, I realized the dark and ugly place he was living in, in his own mind, devoid of any human love or caring.  My heart aches for that and still does.

My heart aches for the pain S has endured with his ex.  I don’t know, and don’t really want to know, the whole story.  I know he loved her and something went wrong.  Now is the time for forgiveness, for her part in the pain, for his own.  And then to move on.  He never has to stop loving her, she earned her place in his heart.

Now there is another woman, who wants to walk out of that darkness with him, and find reasons for living, loving, gratitude and allowing grace to fill both our lives.  I hope I am given my own special place in that heart of his, that he opens it to a possibility at least.

We are given an endless capacity to love, which become greater as we give the love away.  There’s a Neil Young song, Come A Time, where he says, “We were right, we were giving, that’s how we kept what we gave away.”  Ah, yes Neil, that’s how you keep it and get more.  One of my favorite Neil Young songs.

I know loving is scary.  But honestly, isn’t NOT loving, ever again in your life, scarier?  Never feeling that warmth, compassion, that joy, that contentment, that pleasure, that comes with loving, isn’t it scarier to think of living without that?  Life is for living.  Life with love is like dying before you take your last breath.

Catching My Breath

Posted on by learning to live like water

Resting. Sitting back and catching my breath.  It’s been a full, but rather introspective, few days.  Quiet, as thankfully, I have not heard anything from the dark side.  His books were delivered to him today, I just tracked them.  I guess that’s it.  After a year, return the books, and be satisfied with an ugly ending.

I am…satisfied with it. I see now, really, that’s the only way it would end with him.  I mean, he loves the darkness.  It still kind of blows my mind that he consciously chooses that.  I’m grateful that it wasn’t uglier.  I’ve never known anyone who chose darkness and admitted it.

My ex lived in fear of the darkness, but in the end, it finally took him.  He didn’t choose darkness, he just couldn’t figure out how to go to the light.  And now, he can’t understand what happened to his life, and blames everyone and everything except himself.  Or did….I don’t know if that’s still true.  He may have come to terms with the life he chose, now that he’s fallen about as far as he could go.  It gives me no happiness, no pleasure, to see him like this, but it’s his journey, I chose differently.  I have considered calling him, but then I would be sticking my nose in his business.  He knows he can call me, and has done so in the past.

S wanted to know why I thought I was superior because I chose the light.  Superior?   Hardly….But I will say that the light is far superior to the dark.  I am not, just because I chose it. But what I chose?  A single candle can obliterate the darkness. All of our personal power is in the light, in love.  There is none in darkness and fear.

I know this from personal experience, that the universe works through love, that it brings you what you seek in the shortest way possible, once you surrender to it.  Sometimes it comes from exactly the opposite direction you thought it would.

This is what my book is about.  How I discovered the power of unconditional love in my darkest hours.  My biggest fault, I would guess, is that I try to illuminate the path for everyone, and not everyone is open to it.  We each have our own path to walk, and the thing is, even if you choose the darkness….at some time you will be unable to avoid the light. It will surround you, and saturate you, and you will finally have peace.

Conscious Healing

Posted on by learning to live like water

Not too much to say this morning, but that goes so much against my nature, I feel the need express it, lol..

First of all, it is hot and muggy.  Real summer weather.  Closed the house up and turned on the AC again.  I would love to be at the beach, but didn’t make any plans, so am not.  The beaches will be wall to wall anyway, so I’m probably not missing much.  This is my kind of weather.  It’s why I can live full time in Florida.  I can take heat.  I cannot take cold, snow, heating bills.

I have been dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome for about 5 months.  I kept putting off getting it fixed, because surgery scares me, the expense scares me (I have one of those wonderful high deductible plans), and I didn’t want to miss work. But it’s been getting progressively worse.  It keeps me up half the night, I am taking 3 to 4 ibuprofen before bed and an Ambien to help me sleep through it and even that doesn’t always work.  Last night was particularly bad, because I did so much housework yesterday with it, especially preparing the seafood gumbo.  Lots of slicing and dicing.  So, Aug. 28 I am having the surgery.  And I will only miss one day of work for sure…it’s so simple now, it takes literally 10 minutes…(the dr. said, yeah it takes 10 minutes if there are delays….)  I should have done it ages ago…stupid…..

I am a great believer in the emotional component of most physical ailments.  Louise Hay suggests that carpal tunnel is brought on by railing against the injustices we see in the world.  My friend who is a spiritual counselor and is even more tied into alternative healing than I am, says, “You’ve been giving too much.  The right hand is for giving, the left for taking.  and you are out of balance.”  I think that is possibly true, regarding some of my, well one of my relationships.  So maybe it will improve now that that is no longer in my purview.  I think it is possible that the emotional aspect is not just giving, but giving to someone who doesn’t want it, and is not receptive to the light.  Because overall, giving acknowledges having, and the more you give the more you have.  But trying to lift someone out of darkness who professes to seek the darkness, is stupid, and unfulfilling and a waste of time.  So when the energy gets thrown back at you in a negative way, and upsets you, I would guess there are some physical ramifications.

Until you learn to do the Byron Katie thing, and say, “It’s not my business that he likes the darkness. It’s his.  I have to stay out of it (and in my case, away from it….)”

And you know, he has/had so many health issues, I think his longing for the darkness is giving him what he wants.  He should be content.  I am content to have only a couple of issues….and I know where they came from. Diabetes, from not taking in the sweetness of life for 40 years.  And the carpal tunnel.  I have had what I thought to be arthritis, bad, actually was thought to be rheumatoid arthritis, but in the past months, the symptoms have basically cleared themselves.  Just very minor stiffness in my fingers now, and even that is improving.

Some friends I have in alternative healing said to me, “Put your hand into a tight fist for 5 minutes and then release it.  It hurts…..You held on too tight for too long.”  And yes, that was true.  Louise Hay suggests arthritis is from feeling unloved, from criticism. and resentment.  All of which were true in that long nightmare of a marriage.  It seems that I’ve been out long enough (8 1/2 years), and have learned to like myself, love myself, that the symptoms are subsiding.

Pretty cool.

I guess I am at the moment, just living in the moment.  And grateful for being able to sit out on my deck and listen to nature, and feel the soft breeze that occasionally drifts by.  And just kind of let my mind go where it wanted.  Which apparently was to healing…..spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

Love and light….

To Be, or Not to Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

To be or not to be, that is the question.

To be what?  In love with S?  He isn’t in love with me, though he likes me well enough, likes being with me.  Our relationship was important enough to him to follow through this weekend.  It’s not love, but it’s  nice.   I can’t help but love him and his funny, off beat, intelligent, and quirky personality.  But that’s my problem, lol, not his…..

To be friends with A? I don’t love A, I’m pretty sure he still loves me, it makes me uncomfortable to be close friends wit him and intimate with S.  It just doesn’t feel right to me, I don’t know how to balance it.

To be alone?  I am fine alone, but not all the time.  I enjoy the company of a man.  Particularly S, Most everything we do together is fun.  My problem is I get very attached.  I get a little, and it makes me long for more.

I don’t know where I am this morning.  I am still not wanting to put any parameters on my relationship with S.  I enjoy every minute with him, so why should I not be with him?  I am ever so afraid of heartache down the road with him, but isn’t that the hallmark of most relationships?  You have to take a risk, and as it develops, your fears should subside, right?

I am going to be moving to Florida in a year or so.  I will be moving away, not he.  Our relationship is bound to be changed by that.  There are endless possibilities of how we could manage it.  But what right do I have to be demanding now, when I’m the one who’s going to make the biggest change to our relationship?  I can’t.  I can just be with S for as long as we want to be with each other, as long as we enjoy each others company.

As for A….I was going to send him an email, telling him more or less to bugger off.  I don’t think I will.  I think I will just let that relationship die a slow natural easy death, like going to sleep and not waking up, he and I will just fade into our histories.

To be…in the moment, to be mindful, to learn acceptance and gratitude for what is, and find grace.  I guess I am really getting sick of pushing, and am realizing that it’s not necessary.

To be or not to be?  I think, just let it be.