Tag Archives: connection

Which Will You Be?

Posted on by learning to live like water

strength acourage

Strength

Measured in lies

Measured in pain caused

Measured in lives destroyed

Is weakness.

Is less than zero.

 

Strength

Measured in open hearts

Measured in joy given

Measured in lives connected

Is power.

Is heaven on earth.

 

Courage

Measured in willingness to lie

Measured in willingness to deceive

Measured in willingness to devastate

To crush, to harm

Isn’t courage.

It’s cheap cowardice.

It’s emptiness of a soul.

 

Courage

Measured in Willingness to to be honest

Measured in willingness to trust

Measured in willingness to show oneself

And be seen, truly be seen

Is courage.

It is wealth of spirit,

It is fullness of soul.

 

Which have you been

The weak morally bankrupt coward?

Or the courageous, powerful rich spirit?

 

Which are you?

 

Which will you be?

Stardust Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

We-Are-Stardust

It’s another weird late December morning.  It will reach 60° again today, though it looks like the last warm day.  The world is shrouded in fog, and my head too is a little foggy from the late night last night and the wine.  It’s a peaceful kind of foggy though.

No pressure today, no ghosts of the past filling me with longing this morning.  Nor the demons of shame, or guilt, for my part in what happened.  I loved, that’s all.  I loved deeply, intensely, without limit, beyond reason.  I don’t now, I will again. And today, I will let it go at that.

It’s easy to see our flaws when we look backward.  It’s easy to chastise ourselves.  But why?  We are all the same thing, the universe manifesting itself through us.  We are here to evolve, to grow, to learn.  Bitterness will take away the beauty of the lessons we learn.  I choose to hold them dear to my heart, so that as the future unfolds, greater joy will come into it because I didn’t waste the lessons.  I didn’t waste the time.

Like my current favorite teacher Brene Brown says, (and I am paraphrasing), we are hard-wired for struggle, we come into this life that way.  But we are also, from the moment of our conception and for no reason other than we exist, worthy of love and belonging.

I have read  a few blogs this morning about shame, our personal shame, and how excruciating it is.  Let me say, that verbalizing the shame, and not burying it, is the only way through it.  Allow others to feel empathy for us, because empathy is the death of shame.  Iyanla Van Zant says those things that we bury do not die.  They rot and they fester and they will make us sick.

I believe in putting our shameful experiences out there.  I believe in sending the energy to the universe, and that the universe, as a loving parent of us all, will atone, and make right what we did.  I believe that in owning our stories, we gain strength, and perspective, and understanding and compassion.  More importantly, we also make connection possible.

Shame isolates us.  Owning our stories, and letting go of the shame connects us.  To feel isolated, is to feel separate from others.  How can we be separate, when we are all created from the same stardust?   Shame, and isolation is us not believing we are worthy.

We are.  Each and everyone of us.

 

 

Christmas Eve Morning Musings

Posted on by learning to live like water

love and belonging

Before I went to bed last night I used my very unscientific method of confirming my feelings about knowing him from a past life, I asked my pendulum, both of them.  LOL.  They both said, yes, we have known each other in past lives.  They both said yes, I was supposed to remind him of who he was.  But no, I was not supposed to bring him back from the darkness.

Which is a relief…..Because I did my best, while we were together, to tell him that he had a beautiful soul, and that I could see it.  The darkness, the things that have happened to him in his life, have obscured it, in his own mind.  I always saw it, and even now, I know that it was his insatiable need to be loved that made him deceive.  I know his holes are so deep that he just couldn’t let go.  Such erroneous thinking.

Ruin is a gift, S.  It is the only way to begin transformation. I know he’s saying “bullshit” to that, lol.  But it’s true.  The trip back from the darkness is his to undertake, when he’s sick of having his life go wrong.

I saw him, I still see him…I forgive his inability to believe enough in himself to tell the truth.  I do know that the person the most hurt by all he did was himself.  So, the fact that I made sure she knew the truth is secondary.  If there had been nothing to tell, he wouldn’t be there.

The fact that I’m sure he blames me for the misery he’s in now….well, honestly, what he thinks of me is none of my business.

My ex has the same issues, of not believing anyone could love him based on his own merit.  And blaming me. He never was with another woman, but he lied about finances, about what he was doing, about his life, about his successes and failures, and blamed everyone else for everything.  In the end, everything was my fault, and still is, I know.  I really want to take him some Christmas food today.  I will try, but honestly, I don’t even know if he’s even living in the same place.  I’ll try, as long as I can do it without running into him.  I haven’t seen him in about 2 years, though I’ve talked to him during that time.  But I just don’t want to come face to face and have to talk to him.  It would be uncomfortable for us both.

I have considered inviting him over for the holiday.  But first, my son and he have no relationship.  My son is content that way, even though I know he’s avoiding feeling all the stuff that he had to deal with with his father.  I could not do that to my son. He’s made a lot of progress, and is a great kid, but he’s not ready to deal with his father’s abuse.

I also know that my ex believes everything we had together, all of the money and possessions, were his, not ours….so the fact that I have a lovely home while he lost everything he had because he borrowed so much money and thought he’d never have to pay it back, would just anger him.  He really thought he could lie his way out of of having to pay the money back.  He would look at me and think this house is really his, that it was bought with his money.  The fact that I worked side by side with him for 25 years, and then for 10 more ran his business while he descended into severe alcoholism, means nothing to him. I was there to serve him, not to partner with him.  I’m just so grateful that I got out before he threw it all away and was able to salvage enough to have a nice life for my son and myself.

So I have to leave him alone.  But I’d still like to bring him something, so he’d know we were thinking of him.  He can use that information however he wants, to build his ego or to regret his actions that caused him to lose us.

I got a message from a guy on a dating site this morning.  His profile just made me laugh, it was so obviously a spoof on profiles.  It’s too bad he lives a little too far outside my geographic area, about an hour and a half or so from me.  But God, I hope I actually find someone who has a sense of humor like that.  It would be so much fun.

It seems I mostly get messages from men who live in California, Arizona, Texas….lol.  One this morning from Manitoba Canada, lol.  I live on the east coast, it’s pretty densely populated here.  But most of the profiles I come across are so boring!  Where are all the funny, alive men?  That was the attraction with S, he made me laugh and he was never boring.  If he just could have been honest, geez….

Well time to wrap gifts.  Make cakes. Clean up the kitchen, the house.  My son is working all day, so won’t be home til this evening.  It will be a nice low-key evening and I’m looking forward to it.

Happy Christmas Eve to all.

 

No Rumbling Tonight.

Posted on by learning to live like water

I am almost out of wine, not a good situation on a Friday night,  I think I have enough to get me by tonight.

I missed S for less than a second.  I missed A more, because I would have been safe with A.  I’m a little sick of living on the edge.   Which I always was.  Sometimes with my toes hanging off, leaning back on my heels to stay out of the abyss.

A pulls me back.  Keeps me attached.  Keeps me on solid ground.  S pushes me over the edge and can’t understand why I’m screaming. So I stopped giving him the opportunity.

Every day things come up that I’d like to be able to tell him, that I know he’d get, and maybe no one else would.  But I don’t, I won’t.  It just opens the door to all the emotions I have to heal from. I talk to A.  It’s not the same connection, but whatever it is, it’s a loving connection, where he puts me first.

I chose not to tell A about the dream.  He doesn’t need to know, he just needs to know I’ve worked through a lot of stuff.  While I think he’d get it on some level, he might get upset with the energetic connection, communication, I had (have? possibly..) with S. Even though I told him to leave, the overall idea might be upsetting to him.  Because it was definitely something. And I’m not at all surprised, that we communicated that way, though it was distressing.  I called the psychic today, left a message.  I’m anxious to see her  I hope she can see me next week, but I have no idea how she schedules.

I still don’t know how I feel about A.  Tonight I miss him, but I’m also feeling that’s just because I’m lonely and he’s so present with me.  I know he’d make me feel good, important, beautiful.  I’ll just let it be tonight.  I’m too tired to try to do any serious investigating.  No serious rumbling tonight.

Peace out.  Love and light.

Real Communication

Posted on by learning to live like water

I love intimate communication.  The kind of conversations you have where you learn about the other persons soul, where there is no judgement, only give and take, and connections are made.

I have these conversations with my friends, often.  It requires the willingness to be vulnerable, to put yourself out there, to show up and be seen, but it also creates connection that is unbreakable.  I think when a relationship ends, for me, it is the loss of communication that I miss the most.  When a friend moves away, I miss the late night conversations the most.  The talks on the deck late into the night over a glass of wine, or a cigarette.  (I don’t smoke, but some of my friends do, or did.)

I do a lot of texting during the day, because at work, my office is a big open space, and most everyone can hear a phone conversation.  Texting is quiet, and something you can do when you have a minute, a conversation can go on for a long time, it doesn’t require that you stop an important task at work to continue the conversation.

I just don’t like when texting takes over for real conversation all the time.  It is nice to hear the other person’s voice, to add the additional information that audio gives you.  The way you can tell if the person on the other end of the line is pensive, or happy, or sad.  If they are being glib or earnest.  I like that I text with Jim but it doesn’t take over, we still talk by phone.  Even A, when we get into a sweet intimate conversation talking about our relationship, past and present, will call me.  I have had what I thought were real, truthful, intimate conversations via text, but found out later, they were just a diversion.  So, I don’t trust texting now, for any personal, intimate conversation.

Communication, real, intimate, truthful, sweet conversation is just such a blessing.

Writing…is also a great way to communicate.  I am generally more eloquent with the written word, lol.  I can look at what I write, and review it, and see if it’s exactly what I meant.  I have been known to send huge long texts…..the kind that are received on the other end as 10 texts, lol. Just because it’s my comfort zone at times, and at times when what I have to say I can’t say, verbally, to the other party, for whatever reason.  Because I’m not somewhere where I can talk, but it needs to be said. Because I’m too emotional to be able to spit it all out verbally.

Tonight when I go to dinner with Jim, I’m going to work at building an open and easy communication, because while he so far has been willing to show up and put himself out there, I can see he’s still not comfortable with it.  And me, I suppose I am more willing, but it’s my nature, first of all, to say, “This is me, I will be this person today, tonight and tomorrow….”  But also, I have been working for years now, to connect with myself and know who I am.

And still, I learn more every day. Close, intimate conversations with others where you listen, speak, and exchange ideas is how we learn about ourselves.  We see what is reflected back to us, we see where we want to go, and where we don’t.

Communication, really, is how we connect, if we are real and honest and willing.

Gratitude and Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

Morning of a new day.  Today I will try to get farther along my path of healing.  Today I will focus on the gifts that I have in the present moment.  Gratitude.

Gratitude, true gratitude, is really how I was able to make the turn from devastated to healing.  I changed my point of view from what I didn’t have, to what I do.  From what didn’t work out, to what did.  I let go of the things that caused me pain, and chose to remember those things that brought me joy.

I had questions, unanswered.  I stopped asking them.  To what purpose would I get the answers?  There would be no joy in the answers, only confirmation of things I “know” without asking.  I let the questions go.

I am grateful, there is always a lesson.  There is always something we can learn from a difficult, even devastating, lesson.  We can always become better people.  We can raise our vibration a bit, we can see more of the big picture than we saw before.  We can ask for help, and find out it’s available.

Our humanness may still grieve, but our spirits will lead us out of it if we can listen to it.  Joy is in living, not in regretting, not in pain.  We have to open the door that was set ajar by the pain, and walk through.  Trust…vulnerability….love and belonging….creativity…inspiration.  Open to something new, that will fill our soul more than what we left behind.

Appreciate, and love those we leave behind.  Love is easier than hate, at least for me.  As I look back on my life, I don’t want to have spent much time hating anyone.  Momentary, perhaps, to get through the first initial shock of pain and betrayal, but it very quickly dissipates.  How could I hate someone I loved so much, moments before?  Can’t, in reality.  In the end, love is all there is.

I don’t hate my ex, I don’t hate S.  I love them both, I hope both find happiness and joy.  My ex…shows no sign of having learned any lesson.  S…idk.  I think he feels safe, right now, comfortable in what he knows. I don’t think it’s joy.  He can’t believe in love, and while I find it sad, it’s not something I can change, it’s not my journey.  I think that unconditional love is something you have to experience over time, you have to see that someone loves you no matter what you have done or do, over time, to believe it.  The kind of love I was blessed to be born into.  No matter how angry my parents would get at me for stupid stuff I did or said, they always loved me. That was the baseline.  It was never crossed. So, just because I can’t invite the chaos that S caused my heart back into my life, I will always love him, and if he needs me, I will be there.  As I am for my ex.  The difference between them, is my ex doesn’t accept that, he believes I want to hurt him.  S, I think, knows I will be there.

A seems to have found joy in his new home, and he has a girlfriend there, and I am so happy for him.  We still talk every day, every night he tells me “Good morning sweetie.”, every morning, a good morning.  Often a nice conversation during the day. There are times when he tells me he wishes he could just lay down next to me and hold me.  I feel the same about him at times.  But we are both moving forward in our lives, knowing that our friendship is not definable, and that we will always be special to each other.  We didn’t have a soul connection, but we have a very close connection anyway.  Our purpose in each other’s lives has been to help each other heal, I am sure.  So maybe it is a soul connection.  Who knows?

Jim, I can’t speak about yet.  I don’t know him well enough.  I think he would like to go deeper than he is, he sent me a good morning text as I write.  Sweet, it was nice.

I am blessed by the people in my life, the ones who have been and have moved on, and the ones who have stayed.  I’m grateful for them all.

Small Steps

Posted on by learning to live like water

I tried sleeping without an Ambien last night.  Fell right to sleep, woke up 2 hours later and was up 2 hours.  So, I’m a little tired today.  I’m good though, I’m really ok emotionally today.  I have been doing the Ho’oponopono a lot, and it really helps me to stay centered and grounded.  Just say it while I’m walking around the plant at work, or driving.

A friend at work said to me yesterday, “You still care for him don’t you.”  I admitted that yes,I did,but it’s the only way I can let go, is with love.  She said, “Its that connection isn’t it.”.  Yes.  I told her that right at that moment, I could tell her what he was feeling and it’s really hard to ignore that.  She has been married 40 years, and adores her husband.  She said, “I’ve never had a relationship like that.”  I told her “Me neither.  I don’t even know what to do about it, but to try to just learn to deal with it, and go on.”  So that’s what I do.  If I get an intense “knowing” of what he’s feeling, I have to remember it’s not my deal now, I can’t let it affect me, and I go on.  I have to consciously make an effort to change my thoughts when it happens, and get engrossed in something else.

I’m learning to do that.  When I woke in the middle of the night, I thought of him for a moment, but then much more about Jim, the man I’m meeting for lunch today.  And that was not purposeful thinking, it’s just where my mind drifted.  I’m looking forward to seeing him today.

So onward.  Small steps every day toward healing.  Toward a healthier life.

Trusting My Gut

Posted on by learning to live like water

I used to be good at this.  I used to be able to walk away from people and situations that my gut told me were not right.  In fact, that one ability, helped me see through the bullshit in my long contentious divorce, it allowed me to sit on the witness stand for a day and a half, and speak the truth.  It allowed me to see through my ex-husband’s profusion of lies, and advise my attorney what the truth was.  It was strong enough that the judge and the Supreme Court were able to see through him too.  I was never weak.  I always knew what I knew and could speak the truth.

It has served me at work, and with my choice of friends.

I don’t know what happened to my ability to know what the truth was when it came to S.  I have a friend who said I wanted to save him.  Did I?  My gut says no, even now.  The last 6 months with him, weren’t really with him.  I tried to break it off with him so many times.  Every time he drew me back in.  And then, he would come to me and tell me he decided he didn’t want a relationship, he wanted to be alone, and to figure out who he was.  I would always say, then go, do it.  I support you in that.  Always.  And two days later he would want to see me.  Just a couple weeks ago, he told me he thought he would always be a bachelor.  This was after Betty Boop showed up, and it made me believe that he didn’t want her either.

But my gut, when she first showed up “back in his life” told me she was back in his life for real.  I lost my mind, because I knew….  But then he came to me, and told me it wasn’t true, and all he wanted was my happiness, and I believed it.  In the face of my gut screaming at me that she was back in his life, that he was leaving me for her, I believed him.

I wanted to believe him.  There is no other excuse, for me to not listen to my gut.  For me to take apart the pieces I had put together telling me the truth, and to make a different picture.  One that didn’t include her.  His words…”I’m so disappointed that you would think I would jump back into that, after what she did to me.”

But he had.  And I knew it.  And I denied it.

Because I loved him so much.  I think I was addicted to loving him.  It was obviously unhealthy. We were never on an even keel.  And it was so incredibly one sided.  It was all about him, his pleasure, his happiness, what he wanted always came before us.  There was no us, really.  It was momentary.  Fleeting,  There were moments even days, sometimes a week or two. But it was still all about S.

Except after he fucked the prison whore, and I was seeing A, then he came to me and for about a week, maybe two, there was us.  The memory, the promise of that short time stayed with me, teasing me, telling me that he did care for me.  Then, I guess it was when his best friend died, he was so morose and depressed, and withdrew into himself again.  Whatever fledgling thing that had started between us, disappeared.  I could never get it back.

I could read him so well.  The day his friend died, I had not talked to him in a couple days, but that morning, I knew something was wrong, and messaged him, asking if he was ok.  He messaged back, funny you should ask, Gus died last night.

This kind of thing happened all the time with us.  He would call or text when I had my hand on the phone.  I’d be deep in thought about him, or something related to him, and he’d call.  I know he feels my pain now, but I also know he won’t call.  I may hear from him, when she’s gone home…asking if I’m ok.

Don’t, S, call me.  Don’t, S, ask.  I’m not ok.  You have your answer.  You don’t need any more.  Any interest you show is only to make you feel good about yourself.  To make you convince yourself you are not a monster.  It would do nothing but cause me more pain.

So…my gut tells me, I need to block him.  I need to set myself up so I don’t ever hear his voice, or his name.  That I need to try to erase as much as I can of him from my life.  I need to allow the love I have for him to sink into the deep recesses of my soul, where it can sleep undisturbed, and without disturbing me.

My ego won’t let me do that yet.  I’m working on it.  I need to cut the cords, over and over.  I need to break that connection with him.  If our souls have some connection, which I have always believed, they will meet again when this life is over.  When it won’t hurt me any more.  Til then, I need to get as much distance between he and I and our non-relationship as possible.

I’m so grateful I will be going to my niece’s wedding in VA in a couple weeks.  It will be so wonderful to be with my warm family, loving family, to be with people who have, as the basis from which they live, unconditional love.  I wish I could go and stay there.  I am so glad that I have in place a plan to leave this area.  Now more than ever.  The driving force has always been that I can’t retire and stay in Connecticut, it is just too expensive to live here.  Moving to Florida will allow me to own a home with no mortgage and have enough money to live without working.  Now, equally as strong a driving force as that, and maybe even more powerful, more urgent, is the desire to get as far away from S as I can.

He was going to come stay with me there, I had talked about coming up here in the summer and staying with him.

Another dream, another plan, another hope, washed away with the tsunami of “She’s back in my life.”

Why I ever ever allowed him to make believe that it wasn’t true, I’ll never know.  My gut screamed it.  My friends said, “how do you know it’s true?” when I lost my mind when she first showed up.  “I just know….I just know.  I can’t explain it, I just know.”  I was so sure, I convinced them.  Then I listened to him, and took him back into my heart, and let myself love him without limit, again, and here I am, 4 weeks later, looking at what I knew was true in the first place.  Emptier now than I was then, and not only do I have to deal with the loss of him, but with the pain of knowing I was played by someone I loved so much.  That he bold-faced lied to me.

It’s like a kick in stomach, a knife in the back, and a hard left to my temple. I am so beat up and bruised.  The scars will run deep, there will be tender spots there for long into the forseeable future.  I keep wanting someone to wake me up, and tell me it’s just a nightmare.  That he’s not really waking up with her this morning, taking her to breakfast, loving her the way he could never love me.  And I know, in my gut, that I loved him better than she ever will, or is even capable of.

It’s hard, to give someone your all, and be rejected.  To give them your all and find out it was just a plaything for them, that it never meant anything of any substance.  It feels like a waste, a waste of precious love.  Even though, I know to love is never a waste, but really, there shouldn’t be so much pain attached to it.  It seems so unfair, to hurt so much when all you did was love too much.

He wasn’t the one.  The universe has been pointing me away from him for months, trying to spare me this pain.  Finally, I had to get to a place where the road closed behind me, the bridge burned as I crossed it.  It was the only way I could gain my freedom to love someone who could share that glorious experience with me.

I’ll be smarter next time.  I’ll be wiser.  I’ll be harder.  But some man, at some time will break through that, and relish my ability to love him.  I believe he’s out there.

First, I will have to learn to trust my gut again.  And to walk away from anyone it screams no to.

The journey continues.  But it’s hard today, unfairly hard.

Needing Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

Abstract Tru Llove Hand Connection Wallpapers HD

I can’t write what I feel this morning.  Because he reads what I write, it would not be helpful to say it again, what he already knows.  Besides, the words escape me this morning, I can only feel, and know I can only sit with my feelings.

It’s another gorgeous New England autumn day again today.  Wish I could skip work, and go to a park at the ocean, or maybe the big fair that goes on every fall an hour from here.  Something, besides sit with my emotions.  I need to distract myself.  I am tired of working, and coming home, and going to bed, and repeating.  Even the weekend holds no promise of distraction, only time to change the work from employment to taking care of my house.  Feeling confined, and alone, tired of my solitary life.

Connection.  I need connection, on a deep sweet intimate level.  I suppose there’s a reason I feel alone today.  And I suppose I will figure it out. The universe may remedy it anyway.

Trying to stay in the moment.  It will all turn out ok…Everything will be ok in the end.