Tag Archives: Fear

On Vulnerability and Love

Posted on by learning to live like water

The morning was gray, and quiet. I sat on my deck, having coffee, reading blogs, reading email. Doing some pensive introspection. About myself. About S. About vulnerability.

I have been a champion of vulnerability. I have watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability maybe a dozen times. She speaks to what I have always known, but did not form into a cohesive thought until I saw her speak.

I have never been afraid to be vulnerable. Not with my friends, not with strangers, not with the men in my life. Not in my blogs, or my book, or with my son. I do believe that you don’t give someone all your secrets, until they have proven the right to hear them.  I give it out a little at a time, but I give it.  I will initiate it.  I am not afraid of it.

I believe it is the only way to have a real, fulfilling, human experience. I believe, as Brene does, that it is the birthplace of creativity, of joy. It is the ying of the yang. You can’t know joy if you don’t risk something. You can’t be creative if you are afraid of failure. You can’t expect someone to open up to you their deepest darkest secrets if you won’t share in kind.

Vulnerability means that you take a risk, you put yourself out there. Not knowing what the outcome will be, if you think that there might be a reward that makes it worthwhile. There is no risk-free existence. You can’t imagine that just because you love someone they will always love you back. You can’t believe that everything will always stay the same. Change happens. And when it happens, and you hurt from it, instead of closing your heart, you have to thank God you are able to love so passionately, so fully. Because it means you are alive. If you hurt….it is the ying to the yang. There is no great reward without great suffering.

Ram Dass tells a story about his guru, who when given the option of love vs. suffering, chose suffering, because it was then that he would grow. Learn about himself.

So, we wish those who cause us to suffer, love and light. We let them go on their way, in their life, and hope that they find joy. We find ourselves better prepared to go on with LIFE, and LIVING, because we have a deeper understanding of what brings us joy, and peace.

One of my favorite quotes is from Khalil Gibran. It states:

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

I have a friend who was devastated by an ex. This persons heart is closed now, for the most part. They do not want to love again, to risk giving of themselves because the pain is so great. I see cracks in the wall occasionally. But the person quickly fills them in, and retreats behind the wall again.

To me, it is like being dead before you are dead. So love didn’t work out that time, or the time before. Maybe it worked for awhile, a long while, and then it changed. Change is part of life. Loving to me is living. I cant’ separate the love of a person, from love of myself, my family, of every living thing. To stop one is to diminish all. Because they are all connected.

This being said….if we love someone to the best of our ability, and they choose not to return it for whatever reason, it’s not healthy for us to continue to dream that they will. There is a time to let go, and acknowledge that this is not the one for you. It comes with self awareness. Let go with joy, wishing all blessings and happiness to that person. And then risk being vulnerability again.

Never forget that once you decide what you want, the universe will conspire to make that happen. Thoughts become things, so think the thoughts about what you want. Not about what you don’t.

And live. LIVE.

With Love and Gratitude, Good bye.

Posted on by learning to live like water

So I broke it off with him. I spent the night with him the night before he went in the hospital. I was scared. I was allowing myself to love him, setting myself up for hurt again, at some point. But I didn’t let it stop me. I thought about how I wanted to be there for him. I wanted him to have a nice memory to think of and wake up to when he came out of the anesthesia. I wanted him to know that someone cared how he was, and whether or not he hurt, or felt alone. I wanted that. I loved him. I loved him whole heartedly, without consideration of what he had done. It was true and honest and I don’t regret it.

The two days he was at the hospital, I worried over him. He didn’t get me the patient code as he’d promised, so I had to go through roundabout ways to find out if he was ok, or spending the night, or released. People I worked with didn’t understand why I cared so much. Hell, I didn’t understand. But I did. That’s all. I did. So I talked to him that night, and the next morning. He was in so much pain. I would have liked to just be there, sitting beside him. Just so he didn’t have to open his eyes and be alone.

But that wasn’t the way it was. There was too much water under the dam. I was going to take the time off from work, but he chose to go it alone. As he always does. I was afraid, anyway, to be so close to him. Because I still loved him, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did not feel the same.

But then, what he thinks of me is none of my business. Right? I don’t know if it’s smart to allow myself to be so vulnerable. But I did, it’s done. I don’t think I regret it, because I gave it everything. It was his to accept or deny. He chose denial in the end. Why? I have my theories. But only he knows, somewhere in his soul, why he didn’t want the woman who loved him.

But then the gong bath happened…

And the next morning I woke up and didn’t care that much. I still cared, but not the same way. It was not visceral, it was not that intense, heavy kind of caring. I think it came together for me as a result of the gong bath. Suddenly, I knew he would never love me, that if I stayed with him, I would be repeatedly hurt by him. It is not his fault…it is mine, I stayed knowing he and I were not compatible on many things. One of them is our views on sex, and monogamy. And there were other things…which are none of anyone else’s business, personal things that he and I could not come to common ground on that I kept pushing into the background, because I loved him. But eventually, they would have surfaced, you know…those things you bury don’t die….they rot and fester and make you sick. In a relationship, they make the relationship sick. They cause resentment, and anger, and feelings of rejection, and loss of self esteem. I knew that would happen.

Trouble was, he was still in a lot of pain on Friday. I didn’t want to talk to him about it. Not until he felt better. We talked, I tried to be my same loving self, but I know the difference in how I felt showed through the phone lines. The next day he asked, what exactly is going on with you.

He knew. We have always communicated on a nonverbal plane when we are apart. He knew. Thus began a long and hard conversation. It was still too early to have it, but he knew,and I couldn’t lie. Or pretend it was different. I told him, I still love you, but I don’t think I’m in love with you.

And so, now, after 36 hours of texting, questions, accusations and then an attempt to see me to say good bye, we are done. I was not ready to see him. I don’t think I’m in love with him, but there is still hurt and rejection over the betrayal. Seeing him is painful. I told him, not yet. Maybe later. He got mad. I’m sorry he got mad. I’m sorry I couldn’t just see him and wish him well. But truth is…the wound has healed enough for me to see clearly, but it still hurts. The way an incision hurts under the surface for a longtime. I know we are mis-matched, and I know neither of us would ever be happy going forward. I don’t believe I could ever quite let go of his betrayal if I stayed with him. It would come back every time I felt threatened, every time he flirted with a waitress, or the girl behind the counter at the drug store. I would have made him miserable, and I would have been too. I told him, the prison whore sunk our ship, at the end of the day.

I will miss him. I will miss his flirty, sexual innuendo’d texts. I will miss having him in my life, kind of having a “significant other” after all the years of being alone. I will miss our excursions. Sunday afternoon naps. His wild and crazy stories of his youth. His hands. His passion.

But I won’t miss that feeling in the pit of my stomach when I don’t know where he is. I won’t miss the questions, I won’t miss the distrust that is now there permanently.

Done. Gonna take some time off. Let the wound heal, so that it’s not even tender before I meet the next guy. I don’t want to bring baggage into a new relationship, just like I took off years before I started this one, to try not to bring baggage from my marriage to it. And still, the baggage was there. There is relationship baggage you don’t know about until you are in a relationship, I found out. It wasn’t easy, this first one. But it was fun. It created growth in me. And I know myself much better. I know what I want better today than before I met him.

So…I thank him, I love him. We are done. May we both continue our journey back to source.

I’m in Charge Now

Posted on by learning to live like water

I do this thing, twice a month, known as a gong meditation. I have been going to them for about 5 years. They crossed my path in during my divorce, which was then in its third year. I was waiting for a date when the Supreme Court of my state would hear my case.

They used to hold the gong meditation at the gym I attended. My friend and I were leaving one Sunday afternoon and they were setting it up in the room where they hold classes like pilates and zumba. We wandered in and the group of people setting them up came over and greeted us. We asked about it.

It is a meditation experience. It lasts from 1 to 2 hours. You lay on the floor, on something comfy, and they play gongs, crystal bowls, tibetan bowls, various drums, rainsticks, bells. The sound can become very intense, it can fill the room like a glass fills with water, and then it can become very quiet. The intense sound we call Tsunami’s. It is so loud that you can scream, or sob and no one will be the wiser. But it can’t hurt your ears. I don’t know why….I think because of the vibrations being so organic.

The point of it is this. The gongs vibrate at the same rate as the human body. They don’t go around you, like many vibrations. They go through you. And they do their magic, where it is needed. Any thought, or belief you are holding onto that is not based in reality has very little chance of holding on during a tsunami. It is the perfect, safe environment to let your emotions bubble up, and let things go. I have done more healing there than any other single place.

Sometimes they are profound experiences. One night, I found myself in front of a wall made of cinderblocks. In each hole in the cinderblock was a piece of paper. And on the paper was written a reason, explaining why that particular block was put in the wall. Every slight, every hurtful comment, every lie, and manipulation, very injustice ever laid upon me, had its place in the wall. It was a wall I had built, purposefully, during my marriage, and the divorce. The wall was meant to keep anyone from hurting me again.

And it worked. I was able to extract myself from that abusive marriage. I was able to keep my wits about me, and help my son to escape it also. I was able to testify during my trial for a day and a half, and keep my head, not be emotional, and tell my story. And to sit in the auspicious Supreme Court as the justices questioned my attorney and my ex’s. And to know, by the questions that were asked, that I would win.

But that night, I realized that the wall had served its purpose, and that now……instead of keeping hurt out, it was keeping me a prisoner behind it. No one could hurt me anymore,but no one could reach me either. It was time to take the wall down. I began to take it down, one block by one block. I don’t know that it is completely down today….but would have to say, by and large the anger and pain I was holding onto in that wall has been forgiven and put behind me.

Another night, I saw my ex and I flying around. I had been struggling with letting go, of him, and all the dreams, and plans of a 32 year marriage, a 40 year relationship. We flew around, we waved to each other. “Good luck, have a nice life! Maybe I’ll see you, and maybe I won’t”, we called to each other. And then I flew in one direction, he in another, and we were alone, without each other, and happy, and I had let him go.

Another night, I saw myself, lying on the floor. And four entities, I don’t know what they were, were hovering over me. Protecting me. From what I am not sure, but I’m sure they knew, and that I needed them. When it was over, as I lay there trying to work my way back to the room I was in, out of the meditative state, the facilitators who are good friends of mine by now, began to talk about how the gongs can thin the veil, and allow spirits into the room. They knew nothing of my experience but I knew that it was verification of what I saw hovering over me.

Tonight I went. I didn’t know what I wanted to work on. The man who hurt me so badly by having sex with the stranger was on my mind, a lot. I have been talking to him. I miss him, his funny intelligent self-deprecating nature. I have always enjoyed his company. But I am full of mixed emotions. First it was rage, then pain, and now, it’s mostly fear. He has been in the hospital the last 2 days, having surgery to repair a hernia operation. I have offered to do whatever he needs done. I try to remember that I don’t have to like someone to show compassion. Of course….I do like him. A lot. So that part is easy. But I am scared shitless of being hurt again. So, fear. I have lots of it.

I went into the gong bath, as we call it. Bathing in the vibrations of the gongs….There are 8 gongs. I had the intention just to try to get deep enough to sort out my emotions regarding this man, what he did, and our relationship, where it should go from here. Love. First of all. Love. I think I love him, in more than the unconditional way. But so what? If I am subject to being hurt like that again. Then I remembered the rage…I remembered it, but didn’t feel it. I have let that fire burn out. The hurt, well….I still feel it, though it is not nearly so raw these days.

But my solar plexus and my sacral chakras both felt like there was a ball of something unpleasant in them. Fear. My heart wants to love this man, my head tells me I’m a fool. I am much more inclined to follow my heart than my head. But my gut…well,not happy with any of it. Fear.

I heard Elizabeth Gilbert talk the other day, about how when she was in India on her Pray part of her Eat, Pray, Love journey, she went to an island by herself for 10 days, and battled with all the voices in her head. Crying, screaming. She told them all, guilt, shame, pain, anger, love, joy, “look, we all have to find a way to work together. So from now on….I’m in the drivers seat. I love you all, you are all a part of me. You all have a place in me. But I’m in charge now.”

And that’s where I was at the end of the meditation tonight. Fear, hurt, anger, love, shame, …listen you all. I’m in charge now. The fear will keep me cautious. The love will keep me compassionate. The hurt and anger and shame….will remind me not to become too vulnerable to someone who has not earned my trust. Maybe he can earn my trust back, maybe he doesn’t really want to. It remains to be seen. But……

I’m in charge now.

Crack the Door, Crack the Mirror. Spread a LIttle Light.

Posted on by learning to live like water

I have heard it said, from so many great spiritual teachers, that when we rage at someone, we are only raging at ourselves. That we see in the other person, that which we dislike about ourselves. Or that which we fear in ourselves.

I have done this myself. Gotten so angry at someone, because I read into their words something they didn’t mean to say. I have answered questions that weren’t asked, and not answered the one that was, because I projected, based on my own demons or ego, what I thought they really wanted to know.

And people have done that to me. They have taken my good intentions and twisted them into something ugly. They have inserted their own guilt, or fear, into what I say to make it mean something hurtful to them. And raged at me for it

Generally speaking, when one person rages at another, I am pretty sure it usually ends up with two egos battling, and two people angry with each other. A ruptured relationship. I am guilty of this, as I have defended myself against the untrue projections. And people have defended themselves to me, against my false accusations.

Imagine, for example, you offer your help to someone who asks, but at the same time, lay down boundaries which are necessary for you to maintain your equilibrium. The person, who had other ideas about the form your help would take, becomes angry at your boundaries, and interprets them as being put there to hurt them. While in reality, they are put there for your own safety, so you can continue on with your life while helping them.

This happened to me…..which obviously I am trying to work out by writing this essay.

It got ugly….there are more details in my last blog. But the fact is, 4 or 5 days later, I am still concerned about this person. I blocked him on my phone, on my email. Because of the ugliness. But I began to worry, about the ordeal he faces, and just wanted to know he was ok, with what he had to do, with the arrangements he made. I didn’t want to start up with him again, or even have a conversation. But I could not sleep wondering if he was ok, and knowing that I’d cut off all access to reach me.

So what is that? It’s unconditional love. This person has hurt me, but I see now that he has hurt himself more, that he lost much more than me from his actions. I forgive him, and move on. Because I know that holding onto pain and anger is like taking poison and thinking the other guy is gonna die. It’s a lesson I learned well going through an ugly, contentious, 4 year divorce. In order for me to move on, I had to forgive my ex for all the ills he had attempted to do to me. Because holding on to the hate, pain and anger, gave my ex control still. I knew he didn’t know better, I knew that it was his own fear, and feelings of inadequacy that caused him to do those things. And I also learned that our thoughts become things. All the ills he wished on me, were what manifested for him. It is sad, just sad, to see this happen to someone you loved.

So it is the same now. I see that this man believes he is not worthy of unconditional love. He believes he is being punished by forces greater than himself. He lashes out, because he listens to the voice he thinks is protecting him, when in fact it is the voice that is leading him to harm. It leads him to being alone, thinking he needs no one. That he is separate from the whole. When in reality, we are all one thing, and need each other.

Now that the anger has subsided over the projections, and nastiness, and I have allowed my spirit to once again take over, and feel the unconditional love for him that I try to extend where ever I go….I feel for him. I feel for his inner child, I see his soul and the struggle it has to be heard, to be allowed to shine, to remove the layers of darkness that lie over it. Last night I could not sleep, because I knew I had shut a door that needed to be cracked open. It actually made my stomach hurt.

During my divorce, in the early days, my son was living with my abusive and controlling ex. My ex conspired with my son, all kinds of things that hurt me, one of which was to cut off my ability to communicate with my son. I used to go knock on the door of my old house, the place I’d lived for 30 years, and just beg my son to come out and hug me. Because I knew, somehow through the grace of God, that my son needed to know I was still standing no matter what he did to me. That I still loved him unconditionally just because he existed. Eventually, he understood, and walked away from his abusive and controlling father to my door, with the clothes on his back. Because he knew.

It was then, that I learned the overwhelming power of unconditional love.

So, I sent this man a text after unblocking him, and told him I just need to know if he’s ok. I think I wanted him to know that I still care…that no matter what he throws at me, I will still be standing. I don’t want to be his lover, but I want him to know that I can live what I preach, that I can walk the walk at the end of the day. I also want to know that for myself.

Unconditional love means just that…it’s unconditional. We cannot pick and choose those we love. We have to love everyone. Probably especially those our egos feel least deserve it.

So….my intention was not to be a mirror to him. But I know I was, we are all mirrors for each other, whether intentionally or not. It’s the way it works. I know he didn’t like what he saw, and that his ego took over and projected all his fear onto me, and my motives. And I know he hurts, he knows somewhere that he read me wrong. A little bit at a time, I hope he can begin to believe that he is worthy of love, and….that he doesn’t have to earn it. That it is his because he exists.

Living like water means that we find a way to get back to source. So that’s what I’ve done. I have found a way to get back to source and extend love where it is needed. I know that most people would not understand. But this morning, my soul feels free, I am satisfied that I did the right thing, cracking open that door for a little light to shine through.  A Course in Miracles says that a miracle is a change in perception from fear to love. I hope I have helped to start that process.   I hope I cracked his mirror a little too. Cracked the door, cracked the mirror. Spread a little light where it was needed.

Living Through Fear

Posted on by learning to live like water

Ok, I had a quasi-relationship with someone for a few months. It wasn’t a love relationship, and it wasn’t really a friendship. It was something else, a connection, really undefineable. It started out as one thing, then ran into a wall, morphed into something else, and then, finally, kind of blew up in a fit of ego vs. truth. It was weird.

But dang, it’s just come to me how strange it can be to see all evidence of that person’s involvement in your life disappear. Comments, “likes” on posts, pictures, texts, emails, all kinds of interactions just disappear. Now…I didn’t really do much of that. I don’t really care that much whether or not I have an interaction with this person, but he has made it a point to make sure there is no sign of me.

Blocked my phone, my email, unfriended me, unliked my FB page. Whatever. I dislike doing that stuff, if a person isn’t bothering me, I just don’t do it. It’s part of my life, why try and delete it?

Well,I suppose that if a person’s MO is to run. To hide. To retreat. To bring the walls around him in, so that no one else can get in, it seems like a good idea. He might almost be able to convince himself that I never existed in his life, that I never taught him anything, that he gained nothing from it, and that all the stuff he projected onto me, all the kindnesses I extended to a seriously messed up person, were actually done with an ulterior motive to get something from him. Even tho I have more that he has, and not just material things. I have a life that I love, a job that I like, a beautiful home, a great kid, a loving family, a warm loving circle of friends. He has a sad story, and that’s about it. He can’t drive, having lost his license for 5 years. He has a home, which is paid for lucky for him. He can’t work, because he can’t drive, he has a few friends, a function of having grown up in the town he lives in. But nothing that would be a motive for me to do kind things in the hope of getting some of it.

Fear. I gotta say, fear. I have known two men who make every decision in their lives based on fear. Never on love. I gotta feel for both of them. So, while he decides that the reason I took him to an art museum was because I wanted something from him, undefined, I really just have to feel sorry for him, that he is unable to accept human kindness, and that usually comes from a place of not believing he deserves it.  He thinks it’s his gut talking.  But any time we come from a place of fear, you know it’s the ego.  My ex also didn’t believe he deserved it. He also believed every kindness was a manipulation.  He also lives his life from that place of fear, from his ego.

Whatever. If deleting, and running, and pretending that I was never there helps him get through the day, so be it. He won’t see a sign of me. But…I gotta wonder how he’s gonna delete the memories of the truth from his mind. Because you know….That shit that you bury, doesn’t die. It just festers, and rots and makes you sick. So much easier to view the world through the eyes of love, isn’t it?

He is an artist, he paints.  He had given me a painting, on the first night we met.  I loved it.  I had pointed it out as my favorite of the dozens of paintings in his house. Yesterday, I sent it back to him.  I could not have it hanging on my walls, much as I liked it, to remind me of all the accusations he lay on me because he just couldn’t accept kindness as kindness.  Bad energy, even from something beautiful. Because he had to project onto me all the fearful thoughts he has about himself.  I put a note with it, telling him I hope he finds someone to give it to that he can trust enough to accept their kindness.

I am not angry with him.  And, I am out of his life, at least as far as anyone can see.  The electronics age is so easy, put the button and delete.  Now, if he can just find a way to delete the memories, the truth that is embedded in them, he’ll be ok……