Category Archives: Lessons and Evolution

Just Wondering

Posted on by learning to live like water

This morning for some reason, when I was making my coffee, I wondered if my ex ever thinks about the times he would rage, and break dishes, and throw food all over the floor, and walk away from it, leaving me crying, scared and having to clean up. I wonder if he remembers ever, when he broke our whole set of 12 Norman Rockwell plates, which we’d purchased at $40 each from Franklin Mint. I wonder if he thinks about what he put me through ever. Or if he just pretends it never happened. I wonder if he ever regrets making us drive hours to and from my son’s hockey games, the whole time verbally assaulting my son.

I’d like to think he does, and regrets all the things he did to me and my son. But, I don’t think so. Most people would feel so bad, once they realized how out of control they had become, and how much they’d hurt people that loved them, that they’d have to make at least an effort to apologize. He’s never apologized to me, except once. He had started a fight with me the day before I was scheduled to have labor induced for my son. Big fight, almost physical, yelling, stomping. I went to my sister-in-laws house for the night and she came with me to the hospital, not him. He finally showed up at the hospital after I’d been in labor all day because his sister shamed him into it. After my son was born by c-section in the middle of the night, he apologized. It was the only time in our 40 years together.

Even S repeatedly apologized for what he did to me. Of course, it didn’t change him, so the apology was only sincere in the moment. But at least there was a moment when he could see what he’d done. And of course, then he went on to spew lies about me to his girlfriend,and tell her intimate things about us, which was very painful for me. Having to listen to the lies come out of her mouth and having him back them up was heartbreaking. But he knew it was wrong. He knew he was doing it to make her secure.

I have forgiven them both for all of it. Their own behavior is something they have to live with. My heart, my psyche has healed from it all. It was all a good lesson for me. One drawback to growing up in a loving family is that you are unaware that there are people out there who would do those things. The reason they do them is because of a flaw they perceive in themselves, not in you. But a loving family of origin also gives you a base of love to fall back on, a way to find your own worth again, and allows you to move forward. I was blessed beyond words to have that.

It’s coincidental, (if you believe in coincidences) that when I came out on the deck this morning in the still dark, and opened my email, the first one I clicked on, by mistake (I actually wanted to open the email above this one), was an email from the Daily Om. It was a lesson from the book A Course In Miracles about forgiveness, and how it is really our only function.

I’m an Aries, and one of my traits is I cannot hold a grudge. For me to be angry for a week over something is really stretching it. Luckily, I am also aggressive and persistent, and know what’s good for me and what’s not. Although with both the men I’ve loved, I accepted the bad behavior for far too long, and kept them in my life far too long. Even if it was just on the periphery. I can still say I love them both, which is important for me, not to hate those I loved intensely. I feel sorry for my ex, because even if he doesn’t face it consciously, he lives a life that demonstrates the effects his behavior had on him, being broke and all alone, and having no relationship with his son. S—I don’t know what effect his behavior has had on him because we don’t talk.  He’s disappeared. But I feel for him anyway, because the games he plays over and over keep away the people who love him.

It’s been a weird morning, thinking about this stuff. Funny what bubbles up. Maybe it’s because I had a date last night with a man who doesn’t seem to be a game player, or manipulative, or controlling. But I can’t say for sure yet, I’ll have to get to know him better to know that. But I think maybe it’s the contrast between him and my old loves that brought this stuff around this morning.

Anyway, it promises to be an extraordinary day today. It was 63 when I came out on the deck before the sunrise. It’s going to get up in the 80’s. People are saying it’s unusual to be so warm in December. I’m more than happy about it. I might be able to wear shorts to the artwalk tonight.

Love and light, everyone.

Leaving

Posted on by learning to live like water

leaving

Asking for strength
To get through the next days.
Friends buoy me,
Mark my channel.
Keep me centered
Grounded,
In the flow.

Looking back at my life
Here
for so many years.
Easy to have regrets
But I balk at regrets.
Lessons, not regrets.
Things I needed to learn
To grow my soul.

In the end,
I have loved,
much more than
I have hated.
I have laughed
More than I’ve cried.
Joy has filled
What pain tried to take away.

So young when I came here
Just legal age.
I leave 44 years later
The largest part of my life behind me.
At least, of this life.
Time for change,
For the next great adventure.

Love and light.

By Deborah E. Dayen

Picture from Google Images

Guilt vs. Shame

Posted on by learning to live like water

Guilt-vs-shame-1024x744.jpg

I’m unsettled this morning, though I don’t know why.  I’m irritated I broke my tail light lense on something I couldn’t even see in an unlit parking lot.  Backing up and turning.  This morning it’s raining so I’ll have to tape it up with plastic to keep the rain out ofit.  Grr.

I haven’t talked to my bff about her plan to put together some program that will benefit seniors, so I need to do that today.  I know that will help me move forward more than anything.

Last night the book club talked about why people who lie, and take, and deceive do it.  We all had someone in our lives that have done that. Was it for the thrill, for getting away with it?  Was it for the power, to feel “in control” of things?  I said, I really believe in Marianne Williamson’s and A Course in Miracles stand, that what is not love is fear.  And fear gives the ego rise.  The ego will convince someone who has doubt, that they are not worthy.  That the only way they can have people in their life is to manipulate them in, to lie to them.  The belief that you are not worthy of love and belonging, causes shame, it causes the belief that you are not worthy.

And shame…. is the most destructive of all human emotions.  Guilt can be productive, guilt says, “What I did was bad.”  Shame says, “I am bad.”

Those that purport to wish to be alone, like my ex-husband, really only believe they are not worthy of love, and are alone to hide their shame.  Better he should be alone, I guess, than trying to do to someone else what he did to me.  But the best outcome, would be if he could recognize his own worth, the beauty of his own soul, and let it shine.

S said to me, when he was trying to get me to help him with Betty, “I know I will pay 5 lifetimes for what I did to you.”  He doesn’t understand that at any point, even now, he can choose to change, he can own, and apologize and try to make right, and thus learn the lesson that he obviously missed.  Karma isn’t about paying.  It’s about learning the lesson, and if you don’t, you will repeat it, until you do.  The same situations will appear and reappear until you learn the lesson.

S was so similar to my ex, I believe that he showed up in my life to finish teaching the lesson that my ex started.  I hope I’ve learned the whole lesson now.

I think the first part, with my ex, was the power of unconditional love manifested in setting my son free.  The second part was to love yourself with that love, enough to learn not to give yourself away, to make a person earn the trust.  To honor yourself, first, always.

I hope I’m done with this lesson, and with men who can’t love.

The lesson, whatever it may be…..while hard to learn, is such a beautiful thing, and life can change so dramatically when you learn to honor and love yourself, and let that spread to others.

Shame is not necessary.  We all do better when we know better, that’s called evolving.  Guilt, for something you have done wrong, is a message from your soul, telling you to change.

One day at work, someone asked me a to do something that clearly was their job, and clearly not mine, and I was already overwhelmed with the work I had to do.  I very unkindly told this person that it was their job to do, and not to get me involved, etc. etc.  Making them feel stupid, I’m sure.  Even though I was right, I was cruel.  I hung up the phone, (I was in a different part of the building) and within less than a minute realized what I’d done.

I called this person back, and said, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.

Guilt….made me see what I did to her.  Not shame, I didn’t feel shame that I did it, I felt guilt.  And the guilt drove me to fix it.  My co-worker and I laughed about it later.

I believe the only way to get rid of shame, is to stop listening to the ego tell you you are not worthy, and begin to reconnect with your soul, your true spirit, which in all of us, is connected to the one great thing.  Love. Begin that journey, and watch your life change.

Guess I’m feeling philosophical this morning, lol.  Book club is good for me.

A Good Place

Posted on by learning to live like water

a good place.jpg

Feeling a little passively content this morning.  Not so angry at S, as I have been for 24 hours, which followed reading my blogs from last summer.  I had a hard time with them.  I was in so much pain, all summer.  Trying to make sense of what was happening to our relationship, nothing fitting together. I know he read every one of them, and knew the pain he was causing with his lies, and didn’t care….as long as he was getting what he wanted.

But that’s who he is.  He is who he is, I’m just glad to know now, and be out of it.  I accept him as he is, I don’t invite him into my life though.

I’m sure that the loving attention I get from A has soothed the anger.  It reminds me how insignificant S’s behavior is, in the face of someone loving you.  Sometimes I want to be with A, but I’m so fickle right now, I know sometimes I won’t. Or, I’m afraid I won’t.  Right now, he is not rushing, or pushing me in any direction, he’s just loving me, and I’m just loving him, from a distance, and it is very healing.  Just the right amount of relationship for me, while I continue to put the one with S in it’s proper place, and gain perspective on it.

I’ve learned that I caused so much of the pain I experienced, by trusting S with out his having earned my trust.  I’ve learned that I have to love myself first, and demand what I need.  Over the summer, I thought what I needed was him, but when he refused, what I needed and demanded was that he let me go.  I realize now, that I should have just gone, I didn’t need his permission, or release, because he wasn’t going to give it.  He wanted me to continue to adore him, to desire him…..no matter the cost to me.

I’m stronger now, and wiser.  Whoever I love next, will get a balanced, more mature love, and all the passion I lavished on S…I will have more for the next one.  Because I will make wiser choices, I will love myself more and know my own worth and therefore, attract someone who also feels that way about himself and me. No more high school drama.

It’s all good.  I’m in a good place this morning.  Content again.

Releasing the Past, With Love and Light

Posted on by learning to live like water

I did a meditation this morning on releasing the past.  Bits and pieces of memories still pop up from time to time, usually first thing in the morning, and I ask the universe, why?  He just so didn’t have to do that to me.

So, I’m trying to just find a way to let those memories come and go, and not unpack and take up a room in my psyche.  The guide in the meditation suggested re-framing those things, realizing that people who did things that hurt us were acting from their level of consciousness at the time.  Brene Brown, in her book Rising Strong, has a whole chapter on the debate as to whether or not people are doing the best they can.

When I went to the wedding in VA, a couple of weeks after I was devastated by S, I read that chapter of Brene’s book on the plane.  I had to stop reading, when I read that, and hugged the book to me and looked out the window, tears in my eyes.  I sent him a text, when the plane landed, and told him that I knew he was doing the best he could.  And so was I.

But that was before I found out that he’d been lying to me all summer.  That’s when I thought they had just gotten back together the weekend he dumped me.

Now I ask, do I have to still accept that he was doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that when he would tell me he wanted to be alone, that he didn’t want a loving relationship right now, he wanted to find himself, all the while the truth having been that he was seeing Betty Boop on the weekend, that he was doing the best that he could?  When I would tell him to let me go, and he would ask me not to go, when he would tell me how he missed me, and come to see me, all the while lying to me, and to her, was he doing the best he could?

Do I have to accept that?

It seems naive.  It seems false.  He knew neither of us would share him, if we knew.  And he played us both to keep us in his life.  He played me harder than her, because she had no idea he was doing anything other than spending Saturday night with her.  She had no desires that weren’t getting met, she had no longing he wasn’t fulfilling.  I had them every day, and every day I had to hear what I now know was another lie as to why he wasn’t available.  I was far more work…and got far less.

But back to the question, was he doing the best he could?

I wish I could say yes.  I wish I could say yes, and just forgive it and move on from it.  Sometimes I can.  More and more of the time.  But sometimes I say, this is a smart man. It was one of the things I loved about him, was how smart he was, how he could discuss almost anything, could solve problems, could fix things.  This is a man with whom I was so clear…he would get aggravated with me for saying the same thing over and over in a million different ways to make sure he understood me.  I never wanted to hear from him, or another man, that they didn’t know how I felt.  He knew, unequivocally, how I felt.  And how Betty felt for that matter.  At least, that’s what he told me back at the beginning of our relationship, that she had told him that she wouldn’t tolerate him cheating on her.

Was he doing the best he could?  God, I hope not.  I hope he knows better than to treat people he loves in that way.  There was no honor, no respect, not even a tiny bit of love for either of us, in his actions.  It was just self-serving, it was stealing our love, and our energy, to fill his holes.

Perhaps therein lies the problem.  His holes.  He has so many….and I knew of them.  He told me.  He told me so many things, of his past.  Things that were horrible, that he lived through.  That he did.  Things that he swore he’d never told another soul, and didn’t know why he was telling me.  I still will hold his confidence, and never tell a soul those things.   I never judged him for any of it.  It was all in the past, way past, and I always felt that his experiences made him into the man I loved.  Let me say, though, that the knowledge of these things, allowed me to always see his inner child, the one who just wanted to be loved like all children do.  I gave him an inner child crystal early in our relationship, after he told me some of these things, which he used to keep next to his bed.  When we broke up over the prison whore, I think it was, he threw it into the river near his house.

I suppose it doesn’t matter how smart he is.  I suppose that what happened to him, and the way he acted out on it in his lifetime don’t have anything to do with his ability to solve problems, and do the work he does.  Emotionally, with me and Betty, he was doing the best he could.  He had two women who loved him the way he always wanted to be loved, unconditionally.  Although, I can’t speak for her.  I can only speak for me.  He didn’t want to lose that, but he knew he couldn’t keep us both if we knew about the other.  He lied and lied, to create a false world, a different world for each of us, so we would stay in his life, and continue to love him.  Fear…of losing what felt so good to him.  What is not love, is fear.

The answer is, yes, I guess he was doing the best he could.   The best he could was destined to eventually blow up in his face.  And mine.  And hers.  It was destined to absolutely devastate me.  I assume it did Betty also.  I think it has more than anything devastated S, because he now has neither of us (unless Betty has forgiven him, but I kinda don’t think that’s happened….) and has none of that unconditional love that he had.

If he had been honest with me in the beginning, when he began the song and dance about wanting to be alone,  we would still be friends. If he had just told me that then they had talked and he really wanted to see if they had a future. That he still had a lot of feelings for her.  If he had just been honest.   We would still be talking.  The hurt would have just been hurt, it never would have turned to anger, it never had to affect Betty at all.

I told him, so many times, that I would always love him.  That the love I gave to him he could take to the grave with him.  My heart still aches for that child, the one who steered the riverboat right into the deep and was lost.  My heart also sees the grown man, who denied the light, who fought for the darkness, who chose to allow his darkness to hurt people who loved him.  That was a choice.  No matter what he felt emotionally, he knew it was wrong.  He should have made another choice.

He can’t undo what he has done.  He can only make different choices going forward.  As can I.  I have to, as the meditation suggested, re-frame his actions, realizing that what he did reflected his level of consciousness at that time.   The pain is down to the level of a thorn stuck in my thumb every once in awhile, that needs extracting. I keep wondering why I keep grabbing the thornbush, and don’t just walk away from it.

I’ll attempt to do that, so that I can fully let it go, with love and light.  I can wish for him, that in his final years, he will welcome the light that I always saw in him, that he will learn to love himself enough to make himself proud from here on out.  To make decisions that he can live with, to be honorable, because I know right now, he’s having a hard time living with what he did to us.

Love and compassion are, apparently, and gratefully, my default settings, and I’ll return to those.

Love and light S. May you someday see the light in you that was always so apparent to me.

 

 

 

Looking for Balance This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

A few days distance from the lies, and the waves of my emotions are returning to a place I am more comfortable with.  Gentle swells on the ocean, rhythmic rising and falling.   My head has stopped spinning and the heavy weight of so many lies and such deceit has been passed from me to the universe, where it will be righted, and atoned.

I have so often espoused unconditional love in my blog.  Last night, I suddenly felt a wave of deep sorrow, not for myself or Betty, but for S.  I just cannot imagine living a life in which I thought I had to lie and deceive to keep people in my life.  I have this same feeling about my ex, I cannot imagine feeling so unworthy of love and belonging that I felt the only way to keep people in my life was to control and abuse them.

That being said, I know it is the journey of both men to discover that they too have a center in their soul which is an expression of God. I cannot help them. If they don’t want to find it, they will not.  Free will….lets them choose.

If only they knew the joy that lay in letting that light shine.

I know my ex, when he was young, was trying to let it shine.  He tried to do the right thing.  I have to say, he was faithful to me and never lay with another woman.  But he was unfaithful to me, in his lies and dishonor and disrespect, his anger, his self-centeredness.

I still feel that when I met S, and he was just out of chemo, he was grateful to be alive.  He was trying to live his life in gratitude.  While he didn’t disabuse me of the notion that Betty had done him horribly wrong, he didn’t talk much about it, and only said occasionally he didn’t know how he could have been so wrong about someone.  He added no other lies to his repertoire that I know of during that time.  There was the prison whore, but he did come to me, look me in the eye and tell me he knew he wanted to be with other women.  The fact was that he couldn’t take my sorrow and my sadness.  I think he was shocked to see the depth of the love I had for him.  He told me he would rethink it, and we continued on.  But the desire was in his heart, and he did the prison whore a couple of weeks later, and told me.  Then he came to me, and told me about it from where he stood, and I understood him, and I forgave him.

The point is, he was trying to be honest then.  That’s when I fell madly in love with him.

And a month later, when Betty came back into his life, the lies began. Based on the man I knew and loved, why would I have even suspected?  Maybe he just reverted, maybe the pull to his younger self was too strong, the energetic ties there too strong for his newly found honesty and gratitude to survive.  There was so much history there to remind him, at the deepest level, of who he used to be, and he succumbed.

I think he liked the drama.  He loved living on the edge.  Once he told me about being rescued off a ship by helicopter.  I asked if he was afraid.  He said no, that he felt the most alive when he was living on the edge. Every time he was with one of us, and we hadn’t figured out that the other existed, he felt had walked on the edge and survived.

Sadly, I think the only time he felt loved was when someone was crying over him. And maybe when one of us took him to our bed and adored him.

The only time he felt alive was when he was risking it all.

Therein lies his work, if he chooses to do it.

What do I do about my belief that the love never dies, that my love for him was unconditional?  It is, it was, it will always be.  But that doesn’t mean that I accept his behavior.  It doesn’t mean I would ever subject myself to the possibility of that kind of pain again.

But I look at  him, and still see that child’s soul, just wanting to be loved for simply existing, but never receiving it.  Never having his own soul’s beauty validated.  He became what he believed he was, he lived up to the expectations of other damaged people.

I hope he will go within, if he remains alone. Or even if he doesn’t.  I hope he will try to learn to love himself, and let that light, that I glimpsed for a few lovely months, shine.  I hope he will own his own story and see the incredible lessons he can learn from it.  It’s not too late for him, even at age 66 he can redeem himself. He can still evolve.

I’m just much more comfortable with love than hate.  I am more comfortable hoping for the best in his future, than dwelling on the ugly in his past.  Who more than S, needs unconditional love?  He is in my prayers.

Not that I want his future to include me.  My path has gone far from him, but he will always be a big part of who I am.  I learned so much from this experience.  Hard lessons, and some happy ones.  The one I am happiest about is that I am capable of loving someone so intensely.  That I am not afraid to be seen, regardless of what the outcome will be.  Obviously, the outcome here was not one I wanted.  But I trust that there is a reason for that, for my higher good, and everyone else’s.  I trust that I needed to learn these lessons to be ready for the outcome I want.  I have faith that it will manifest one day with someone more closely aligned to my vibration.

The hard lessons, well, we all know what they are.  I’ve talked about them enough.

Looking for balance this morning, I guess.  I know this much is true….The love never dies.  It has become like water, transformed into a cloud, and will rain down somewhere else soon.

 

 

Learning the Lessons

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was walking with my cousin yesterday.  We take these long 5 mile walks and talk incessantly.  We both have our issues, and we talk and listen without judgement.  She’s actually my ex’s cousin, lol, and the only member of that family with whom I am still close.

We were talking, finally, yesterday about the lessons we have learned or are learning from our current situations.  She and her family have some serious issues they are dealing with.  I suggested what I thought my lesson was this time, but she has not been able to see a bigger picture with hers.  Though, hers is fresh, and the wounds are still bleeding, she is still reeling from it’s presence in her life.  She was blindsided by it, as was I by mine.  We both believe there is always a lesson we are supposed to learn from every difficult situation.

She expressed a wish that she could just stop for awhile, learning lessons.  And me too.  We both could take a stretch of easy, instead of so difficult.

I said though, “You know there is no growth without pain.  Perhaps as our soul evolves spiritually, the lessons become harder to learn because they are more important.”

I first learned the power of unconditional love when my son lived with my ex, about which I have written a blog, and won’t go into the specifics again.  Let me say though, that that lesson came easily, even though the situation was harder and scarier than anything I’ve ever lived through.  The lesson, to just unconditionally love him, came naturally. I can’t take credit for even thinking of it consciously.  It was just a natural reaction, of a mother for her child, and only after all was resolved did I realize that it was the power of that unconditional love that brought about positive change.

Now, the lesson seems to be a deepening of that lesson, for me.  But I’ve had to acknowledge in the last month that there are people who will reject that kind of love.  People who absolutely don’t trust it, or believe in it.  I am committed to it, regardless.  But I think there will be no reward in the end as there was with my son. So…while this lesson has been devastating to me, in my personal life, it was not as hard as knowing my son was in danger every minute.  But the lesson is harder to stay with.

One might ask, why would I continue to love someone unconditionally who absolutely will hurt me without cause, will betray and disrespect me?  Why would I unconditionally love someone who is incapable of that same emotion?

I suppose that is the lesson for me, to answer those questions.  My only reasoning now is, unconditional doesn’t allow us to pick or choose who we love.  It has to be, unconditional – without limit, without reason, beyond thought or judgement.  As so often has been said, the people who seem least deserving are the ones who need it the most.

So….I will continue to love this way.  My door will be open, not to the hurt, but to extending the love.  If I am true to myself, and what I absolutely believe to be true, in fact, KNOW to be true, that love is the most powerful energy in the universe, then I have no choice.  It doesn’t mean I will expose myself to danger or hurt.  It means I will love.  Always love.

If I ask the person I’m directing it to at the moment, hard questions…it is because I want them to see that there is another way to think, to live, that being fearful of love, and alone doesn’t have to be the way it is.  Wanting connection, love and belonging is the natural human condition. To pretend it is not, is just pretending.

There are other ramifications, if this is the path I choose….because as it trickles down into the cracks and crevices of my life, I have to change myself to fully be that person.  My anger, which can be self-righteous and flare on a short term basis, has to be tempered with the knowledge that what was done to me by anyone was done by someone doing the best they could with the tools they have been given, with their level of consciousness at the time.  And that perhaps over time, someone loving them regardless of their actions, might help them to evolve too.

There are those more highly evolved than me, who say we contract before we are born to learn the lessons that face us here.  We even contract with other souls to join us in the journey.  And if we take this life time and don’t learn them, then we will come back again to learn the same lesson.  That’s karma. It’s not what goes around comes around.  It’s whether or not we open our hearts to learn the hard lessons that allow us to evolve.

Who knows?  The world is a mystical, incredible place, and our journeys are also.  I will go with what has been put in front of me, and find a way.  Live like water…..