Dichotomy

Posted on by learning to live like water

Universe - Light vs Dark by KDrift

I mailed S back his books today. I couldn’t wait to get them out of my possession.  It’s not that they were a reminder, it’s that I now perceive the energy surrounding them as so negative, so dark, I don’t want them anywhere near me.  They were good books, I bought own copies off Ebay for under $5 including shipping.  It’s just that those particular copies, sizzled in my hands and I was afraid of being burned.

Every memory is seen through clear light now.  There is no sadness, no pain.  I am happy to be walking, running, flying in the opposite direction. I can say, some of it was fun. None of it was real, not one moment was what I perceived at the time it was happening.  But that’s ok, I get it now, lesson learned.  All the tears I shed, were over an illusion!   LOL!  How silly of me! I wanted the illusion, I asked for it. I got it.  And now, it’s gone, and I’m on my way again.

All is well.  Really.  I suppose I sound bitter, but I’m not.  Just glad that it’s done.  Glad I finally saw it in it’s completeness.

I have been cooling the communication with A lately, because he was Facetiming me all the time, even while I was at the fireworks. He just sounded like he still felt there was a chance there could be something between us, and I didn’t want to lead him on, so I had very limited communication with him last week.  He texted me tonight, seemed to be reaching out. He is lonely, he is a widow, of about a year…and misses his  wife whom he loved very much.  So I talked to him for some time, I think I helped him.  I am still uncomfortable with the intensity of the emotion he feels for me, but I realize he’s having a hard moment, and is reaching out for someone to give his love to. I’m not the one, and he knows it…but it gave him some solace that I was there for him.  And I am glad I could give it to him.  He’s a kind man, a good man. A lightseeker.

There are times when I wonder why these two men have been in my life at the same time.  Such a dichotomy.  One is the ying.  One is the yang. I don’t want either one of them…but I see the difference so clearly.  I’m sure if S is still reading my blogs, this one has him pissed off, which was not my purpose.  I’m just working things out for myself.  It’s just my own personal perception S, and nothing will ever change it.  Go forth S, in the darkness that you seek.

Peace out for tonight.

Some Morning Gratitude

Posted on by learning to live like water

Yesterday, my best friend got home from a camping trip and called me in the afternoon asking if I wanted to come sit on her deck, and go for a swim inher pool.  It was over 90°.  Of course, I went had had a lovely afternoon catching up with her and her family.

Last night I got a friend request on Facebook from a woman who worked for me 30 years ago when she was in college.  We chatted for a couple of hours. Though she is 15 or so years younger than I, we had a bond then, and it was like it was never broken.  She has had a good life, and is still married to the man she got engaged to then.  It was like a gift from the universe to hear from her, and to know how fondly she remembered and thought of me.

I have such a rich full life.  I see now that I don’t need to waste it on people who have no intentions with me, except to satisfy themselves.  Older and wiser, I know that someday there will be a significant other in my life who cherishes our friendship and all I can offer him.  Until he shows up, my friends will celebrate life with me.

I am blessed.  Totally blessed. More than one lesson has been learned in the past few months, and I’m grateful for all of them.

Safety in Silence

Posted on by learning to live like water

I spoke,

But told nothing.

I listened,

But offered nothing.

I held my own counsel,

And shared not a thing.

I took my heart off my sleeve for a bit,

And closeted it in my deepest soul.

Safe from the demons that wanted it for their own pleasure,

No words, no laughter, no tears,

Just silence.

I’ll put it back out again,

When I’m safely away.

Ripples

Posted on by learning to live like water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsrUxhaaWks

I am a fan of Oprah’s show SuperSoulSunday.  She has had a lot of incredible teachers on this show, and I’ve learned so much from them.  This morning she had a re-run of the interview with John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods.  At the end of the show she did “Soul to Soul” with him where she asked him a set of questions she asks all her guests.

One of the questions is “What is the lesson that has taken you the longest to learn?”  He said,and I am paraphrasing, “The lesson I continue to learn, over and over, is that we have a wake.  Our actions ripple out in ways that affect people and our world in ways we will never know, can never imagine.  So I keep learning that I have to be kind, that I have a responsibility to make sure that what ripples out from me helps people, is positive, and doesn’t hurt anyone.”

All I could think is, wow, so true.  Everything we do ripples out.  Sometimes we see the results, or some of the results.  Sometimes we have no idea.

I remember when I was introduced to “cord cutting”.  It’s a thing you can do, a kind of ceremony, calling in your guides, archangels etc., and cut the energetic cords which connect you to someone.  It is done with love, never hate. Never ill feeling.  I did it to help free myself from my ex.  I went to a group meditation, and imagined cutting the energetic cords which bound us and came from that long dysfunctional relationship.  I imagined the two of us flying around saying “Good bye, maybe I’ll see you, maybe I won’t.  Have a good life…” And I felt freer from that negativity than I ever had when the meditation was over.  Which I thought was the end result.

But a few days later, my ex showed up at the front door of the condo I was renting.  I wasn’t home but my son was.  He got out of his car, and his father said to him. “I apologize for everything I ever did to you…..”  For a few short months it lasted, they had a relationship, until his father slipped back into  his old ways, and began to play with his son’s life and emotions again.

I will always believe that it was a ripple out of the cord cutting I did with  him.  At the time I said to someone, telling the story…”You throw a stone in the water, you never know what will ripple up on the shore.”  I like the idea of us leaving a wake behind us…..same idea, but it seems a more powerful representation.

And I love the idea, the truth, that we have a responsibility to not hurt others, to make sure that what washes up on the shores of the rest of humanity lifts them and shines light on them.

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….

Darkness Schmarkness

Posted on by learning to live like water

  
You know what bothers me?  Using the excuse that he likes the darkness and that’s what he seeks to excuse hurtful behavior. It’s such a cop out. 

He doesn’t have to change his behavior, because he “seeks the darkness”.  Is he saying he seeks to behave in ways that hurt others? 

It’s one thing to behave in a way that may be offensive to others but does not hurt them. But, specifically, to have intimate relations with someone who you know is in love with you, and afterward tell them you want many women, is hurtful. And to have intimate relations with someone while still grieving an old relationship, taking the chance that this new person you’re with now is going to fall for you when you have no intention of falling for them is hurtful and wrong. 

I took years off after my marriage from other men while I healed from the damage done. But I intentionally didn’t date anyone so that no one would fall for me when I couldn’t fall for them. I started seeing A when S did the prison whore.  I regret it to this day because A fell for me and I could never feel the same way about him. It was a lesson learned that won’t be repeated. And it irritates me that I was smart enough to know that I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it anyway because I was such a mess after the prison whore.  

The point is you don’t get to excuse your behavior by saying you like the darkness.  If you do say that and believe it, your intent is evil, and your intention is to cause damage to someone else. 

‘Nuff said. But that’s what’s bothering me at the moment. Darkness, schmarkness. Don’t hurt other people. 

Retreating

Posted on by learning to live like water

The gongs last night carried me to a different level of existence where only I lived, deep in the center of my soul.  Not lovers. Not friends. Not family.  I asked for peace in the present moment for myself.  For the absence of longing, the absence of missing, the absence of wanting more., the absence of wishing for things to be different.

I purposefully felt gratitude for my many blessings. As the gong tsunami washed over me for the third time, I was at peace with the present moment.

I talked to S when I got home.  I hoped to make plans to go to the beach Sunday. To maybe come to his house tonight, laden with food.  He said he has to work today, maybe tomorrow.  That he was dog sitting his son’s dog.  But he wouldn’t make plans, not even contingency plans around the possibility that he may have to work tomorrow.

He told me he has another book he’d like me to read (this will be the third, and I’m not done with the other two yet.) He told me of a song he would like me to look up on Youtube and listen to.  He is attempting to help me know who he is. I think I know…but followed his lead.

If you follow my blog, you know that I have been trying to stay in the moment, and live as I described in the first paragraph here.  I have no expectations of my relationship with S, just that we would enjoy each others company.  I have stipulated with him though, that I am good with that, as long as he doesn’t want other women.  He has, in the past, often told me he doesn’t want anyone else.

Last night he said that he’d like to think he could date other women if he wanted to. He wasn’t saying he wanted to, only that he wanted the freedom to do it, if he so choose.

What I feel now, is (and I think that statement about other women makes it obvious)…he’s beginning to pull away again.  I am enough in the moment, that it does not hurt me.  But I think I want to let him go.  I don’t want to extend a thread for him to reel himself back in on.  I love him, I do. But I can’t do this.  He knows other women is a deal breaker for me.  That I won’t be one of many, part of any man’s harem of women. And while he’s not actually asked me to do that, that the thought has entered his mind tells me where we are headed. We can’t make plans, we have not seen each other all week.  I made a point not to pressure him all week, and to just have fun with him in our communication all week.

I thought that’s what he wanted, and I know that staying in the moment without expectations is good, so it was a good exercise for me, something I will continue to do.

I also do not want, under any circumstances, to play push pull.  Last week we pulled together.  Now he is pushing me away.

This is far far from his wish that we just have fun together.

I need to say goodbye to him, before my heart is broken again.  He tells me so often I always want more, that I am never satisfied with what he gives me.  I think it is he who wants more.  He wants me nearby, but to have the freedom to wander where he feels led, even if it’s to the bed of another woman.

Not going there.  I can’t.

It’s like I said last Sunday, I love him. But it will never turn out the way I dreamed of.  No matter how I downsize the dream, he always wants less of me.

I sent him a text in the middle of the night, because of course I couldn’t sleep til about 3 am.  I knew he was asleep and would see it when he woke, and also that it would most likely make him mad.  So be it.  I told him if he was serious when he said that, that we need to say goodbye…..

This game tires me. I am withdrawing.   Retreating to the safety of a circle of friends who won’t play this with me. It was a good week, I learned a lot about staying in the moment.  This week, I’m not sure yet, I think the lesson might be about letting go of attachment.

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.

Trying

Posted on by learning to live like water

  

 

I am still trying to “let it be.”  It is hard. I realize that I am seeking almost constant reassurance.  I guess it’s just scary for me. Probably just as scary for him.  I find myself reaching for him and most of the time pulling back, knowing that often reaching across the distance makes it a wider gap between.  Sometimes it slips past me anyway. 

I guess I should listen to Yoda.