Category Archives: Letting Go

Stop the Ride! Please!

Posted on by learning to live like water

I keep thinking that I’ve figured out how to get off the merry-go-round.  You know, that feeling, that you’ve been going around and around and not getting anywhere.  Riding a horse that you can close your eyes and with a real good imagination believe it’s real for a moment. Ah, such bliss in that fake horse, for the short time that you make it real.  But, you open your eyes and there you are on a fake horse going nowhere.

Suddenly, you want off.  You have things to do, places to go, people to meet, a reality to deal with.  You just want off.  So, you dig in your heels and try to slow it down so you can get off with out smashing your face into the ground.  You ask the man who runs the throttle to please slow it down, so you can dismount.  But you’re dependent on his good nature, his time-table, you don’t know if the glint in his eye means he enjoys seeing people flying off the horses or if he has some compassion for those that need to leave.

I went to a gong bath Thursday night.  During an exceptional “white noise” tsunami, which is when the gong players play them so loud and hard that the sound and the vibrations absolutely don’t allow a thought, only emotions, I cried out, asking for resolution. I surrendered.  (It’s lovely when you cry out during a tsunami, no one hears you except God, or your inner self….).  I turned it over to the greater powers that be, to resolve how they saw fit, trusting that it would be in my best interest.

I was up all night (thus my poem, Sleepless).  Caused, as usual by expectations, attachment.  (OH Buddha, I can’t figure out how to not be attached. And not having expectations is hard….) I expected a certain outcome, which I thought was realistic, on Wednesday night.  Let’s just say, I was disappointed.  I was suddenly snapped back into the past, with old fears, old issues.

Thursday morning, I was on an emotional edge all day, it wouldn’t have taken much to push me into the abyss, a gentle push, maybe one little finger in the small of my back, as I peered over the edge and idly wondered what was at the bottom.  Of course, I remembered, later.  Grateful that I didn’t make the leap to find out what I already knew. It’s never good down there.

Back to surrender…..and the vibrational healing of the gongs.  I was subdued after the bath, I went home, I was in bed not long after.  I was exhausted, as if I’d been up for days, and carrying a heavy burden while I walked.  I lay down, sure I would pass out and of course, did not.  Until about 4 am.  I sobbed, I cried, i asked. I lay there numb. I got up and walked around, I sat by the window, I put on my meditation music over and over, changing the cd’s at 2 am.  I asked…please get me off this merry-go-round.  Trusting that it would be resolved to my highest good.  To everyone’s highest good.

So, come Friday, I had to go to work on 2 or 3 hours sleep.  Again, still, I had what I thought was a realistic expectation for Friday night.  But the offer I got, was a long way from the one I wanted.  My gut did a flip flop and screamed “NOOOOOO….” and so, I refused it.  Knowing that my gut is much more tied in to what’s better for my highest good than my mind, which toyed for a second or two with accepting far less than I wanted.  Because it would have given me a little pleasure to accept and then a lot of pain.

Listen to your gut, always listen to your gut.

Last night I discussed the offer….with the one who made it.  But I didn’t cry.  I didn’t even get mad or upset.  I’m not angry about it.  I’m disappointed but I am accepting the reality that it is what it is.  Reality.  And I guess this is the way the universe is working it out in my best interest.  So be it.  It seems that there is really no reason to accept less than I dream of, in this one life that I have.  (At least in this lifetime, I only have this one life….) It seems it is dishonest to my inner being to change myself to become what someone else needs.  (Which I know, I have done that before much more blatantly.)

Well, the story is not ended yet.  It isn’t quite over I guess.  I am willing to ride it out, to see where it goes.  But I’m not afraid and I think I have a more realistic expectation of the outcome.

But damn, I didn’t want to go to Florida alone.  Sigh……

A Lesson from a Zen Master

Posted on by learning to live like water

I get an email regularly, maybe daily, from a site called the “Wild Divine”.  Today there was a link to a Zen meditation, which I clicked on to use for my daily meditation.  It was a guided meditation, by a zen master.  I was soothed by his voice, and found myself in a pliable state, non-resistant to his suggestion that our most important task is to enjoy life.

Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested:

That’s something I’ve forgotten, in all my angst over unrequited love lately.  I think that this weekend, without S, I will just endeavor to enjoy my life.  And why should I not?  I’ll take care of my house, which should be a labor of love, since I love my home.  Gonna do things I’ve been putting off for no good reason.  I thought about going to the gym, but instead might go walking with a friend, on an old train track in town.  I might write, I think I might actually work on the book, which I have ignored now for way too long.  I have the fixings to make so much jewelry that lays unused.

I’ll channel the passion I have had for S into my life, and have a passion for it instead.  I won’t not love S, I will just find things to do so I am not spending my time wishing for what I can’t have.  That’s a waste of time isn’t it?  Once you know, you know.  So I have spent some time grieving it, and I’m not saying I won’t spend more, but I won’t lose myself in the grief.

You gotta honor your feelings.  So…I can honor the grief, the loss, the sorrow. But I can’t move in and pay rent to stay there.  It’s good to know that I’ll be ok.  I’m glad that I have done the work that has given me the resources to find a way through this.

Accepting Reality

Posted on by learning to live like water

I heard from him, not long after I put up the blog yesterday.  He thinks I’m attacking him, in my communication with him.   Since what I said in answer to his “Are you pissed off” questions was to tell  him how I felt, and nothing more, I have to assume that my being unhappy is perceived as an attack on him.   He said he didn’t talk to me for the whole day because he was “annoyed that you played the same broken record again.”

So….It’s an annoyance to him if I am unhappy, if something is bothering me, wearing on me.  If I am struggling.  It’s an attack on him.

Not struggling to understand this morning.  Struggling only to accept.

Reality, standing in front of me, hands on it’s hips, saying, what are you gonna do now?  Now that  you know????

Going with the Flow Today

Posted on by learning to live like water

The other night S and I were having a conversation via text.  It was kind of light hearted, flirtatious, easy.  I was getting sleepy and said goodnight, he continued texting, so after about 10 or 15 more minutes, I said I was going to sleep (because I couldn’t keep my eyes open).  When I woke in the morning there was a text from him much later, during the night asking if I was pissed off.

The question itself confused me….I didn’t think I’d said anything to indicate that I was angry or upset over anything.  I was however, feeling the struggle that I wrote about yesterday.  Had been feeling it the night before, though I hadn’t thought it came through in my texts because it was only a feeling then, not yet developed into a thought.  His question, wondering if I was pissed off, kind of propelled it into a thought though.  Thus the blog about “Struggle”.

I didn’t want him to think I was angry,but thought he deserved to know what was on my mind, so I told him.

I have not heard from him since I told him.

Which is, in and of itself, confusing.  If he was going to ask the question, did he not want an answer?  A truthful answer?  I told him of the struggle, I have told  him of it before.  It is not news.  It is a struggle that at times presents itself, I have to deal with it or not.  He also can deal with me and it or not.  I asked for no answers from him, or changes.  Just said that I was longing for something that wasn’t there.  Truth.  He knows it.  I know it.

So, not to hear from him in 24 hours is more than just confusing, considering we normally have an ongoing text conversation all day, and usually a phone call.  What does it say?  That he doesn’t want to deal with it.  That he doesn’t want to know if and when I have issues with the one-sidedness of our relationship.  I don’t know.

And then, I’m concerned that it was bad timing for me, that perhaps his friend who is so sick took a turn for the worst, and that, and me and my issues, and the fact that he had a bunch of family birthdays to deal with yesterday, were too much for him.

And there I am making excuses for him.  Life happens.  I asked for nothing from him when I briefly explained my struggle.  If he was overwhelmed at the moment, I would have expected a “Can we talk about it later?”  If his friend took a turn, he knows he could tell me and I would be there, and shelve whatever I was dealing with until later.

Reminiscent of him blocking me for what seemed to be no reason last week.

Feels like rejection, feels like I am very much more on the periphery of his life.

Feels like I should perhaps take the love I feel for him and redirect it into the rest of the world for the time being.  Once again, it feels like he’s just not that into me.  And really, it accentuates the struggle I have, and it confirms what I feel.

So, in my best Byron Katie voice I will say, “I wish you well S, if that’s what you want. I am a lover of reality, and the reality is that you want something that doesn’t include me.”

My life is rich and full, of friends and family and things I am passionate about.  If S should choose to communicate with me I will be open to it, but I won’t obsess over it, or the lack of it.

It’s all about letting go I guess. Seems I’m being forced into letting go, and I will go with that flow, until the flow changes. Maybe the flow will take me somewhere better, or unexpected.  Who knows.  Just living like water.