Tag Archives: Meditation

Closure is Vastly Overrated

Posted on by learning to live like water

No closure

I’ve been doing the Deepak Chopra / Oprah 21 day meditation on losing the weight.  I’d like to lose another 10 or 15 lbs before I move. Just to be a new me, really the old me, long ago, when I was young..  I’ve lost a couple lbs (first I had to lose the 4 lbs I gained on vacation, lol.)

As it turns out though, being overweight has so much to do with our emotional state, at least I know that’s true for me.  Being hungry for lots of things, often manifests in food. For the longest time, I’ve wanted real closure with S.  All the endings, lol, and there have been many, have always been ugly, have always left me confused, and in pain, or angry. This morning during the mediation I realized that what has happened is my head gets stuck on replaying over and over the words, the scenarios, looking for hints, looking for something to hold onto.  It’s a loop, that I get stuck on, and I’d say many of us do.

Today I woke with no angst, or desire for that old life.  Then listening to Deepak’s quiet voice, I realized that I have to question that loop I get stuck in occasionally.  Is it real?  Is it true?  (And I say that in my best Byron Katie voice.) And, does it matter?  Does it have anything to do with what goes on now?

No, is the answer to all of it.  It has always been chaotic with him, it has always been extreme, it never made any sense and never will.  I have to stop the loop in my head that wants it that way. Just shut it down, and realize that my life and his no longer intersect because they are not supposed to.  The love and the passion that we shared is really the only thing that I choose to remember. Whether or not he perceives it, or chooses to remember it that way, I have to let go of.  And just move on.

There is no closure.  There wasn’t with my ex either.  My ex, is a mess…..I love him, I don’t want him in my life in any way.  There is only chaos, and still…he seeks power and control by trying to make me feel bad that I left, that he’s broke, that I salvaged what I could.  S…I love him too, but also can’t have him in my life.  Again, there is only chaos, of a different kind, but chaos nonetheless.  I saw, in January, how he was quite willing to bounce back and forth between me and B, when it suited him.  I hope he finds happiness, but I don’t expect he will.  There is no closure with people who live in their ego.

So…we have to break the loop that keeps asking for it.  The one that keeps asking “But why?” to all the myriad questions.  Suffice to say it’s over, there are better things ahead, and just move on.  Trust in the universe to right the wrongs, to bring your dreams to you.

In the meditation….he talks about breaking the loop that always brings us to eat as the answer.  That identifies all hunger as actual need for food.  I think those of us who have loved narcissists, or abusers stuck on power and control, just have to give ourselves closure, by breaking that endless loop that races through our minds.

And really move on.

Every day, I am able to do that more.  Yesterday I was stronger than the day before.  Today, I am stronger than yesterday.  The memories I choose to keep, are tempered by truth, and I detach myself from them.

Moving on….it starts slowly, one small weak step, then another.  At first away from the pain and heartache, but at some point, we begin to walk toward something, our dreams, ourselves.  I have begun to walk briskly toward my dreams.  Those memories are shrinking into the distant past.

Was it real?  Wast it true?  It doesn’t matter.  It’s over.

Life is good.  Make yourself a beautiful dream, and start taking one small step toward it.  You don’t need closure to do it. You just have to start walking.

Love and light.

 

A Little Gong Introspection

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

longing

Just got home from the gongs, it was lovely as usual.  I was fairly relaxed going in, and may have dosed off for a bit.  Hard to believe with all that sound going on, but it happens.   Not sure if I was sleeping or just somewhere else.

Texted with the new guy a lot today.  There have been no moments, yet, of wondering   “why did he say that?”  Won’t  know if there’s any connection til Saturday.  I’d like to talk to him on the phone, I may tell him that tomorrow.  Idk.  I hope I’m not too outside the box for him, lol.

I was driving home tonight and kept thinking about the weekends I spent with Scott before Betty showed up again in his life.  Sometimes I just don’t understand why he was so quick to give it up.  Even if he wouldn’t let me go, he gave up that time together.  We’d make love before we slept, and when we woke up, then go out on some excursion, and then usually take a nap before I drove home, usually late in the day, and make love once more.  It was sweet, and easy.  Seems like it might have been worth a second thought?  Well, apparently not.   I hope I can find that again with someone.

Gongs make me introspective, help me put things in perspective in my life.  I wasn’t longing for Scott, I was just missing that closeness, with someone. I know who he is.  Maybe I’m longing for the guy he was, then.  I don’t know.  But that guy disappeared, and hasn’t been around for a long long time.

Well, off to bed. love and light.

 

It Doesn’t Matter

Posted on by learning to live like water

Stock-footage-energy-sphere

I had a romantic notion, I guess, of what a twin flame was.  I was horrified to think that someone who is so wrought with his own emotional problems, deep-seated issues that he can’t figure out himself, that cause him to act in ways that are hurtful to himself and others, could be my twin flame. 

This morning, it doesn’t matter.  It is, what it is.  If he doesn’t mature spiritually, we will not connect in this lifetime.  That journey is his to travel.  I will continue on my path, he on his.  Maybe in some lifetime we will connect.  I don’t think in this one, though I can’t possibly know when we will connect. 

Maybe I’ll find out that he’s really not my twin flame.  Maybe there are coincidences after all, and none of them are signs.

Though, my intuition tells me differently.

The relationship with him is rife with signs, but if he doesn’t read them, and only I do, it doesn’t matter. Or, if he reads them but discredits them, it doesn’t matter.

My intuition tells me that it just doesn’t matter here, in the present moment, what his soulful relationship to me is. 

I’ll let it be.  I’ll trust my intuition to guide me through whatever comes up.  My purpose here is to evolve my soul.  I believe it’s everyone’s, but if it’s not recognized on a human level by someone else, even a twin flame, it doesn’t make any difference to me. 

Since we don’t talk, ever now, which is so weird really after communicating constantly all day every day, except when we were in a push away phase, I have no idea where his head is at.  It’s been since November 19 that I have talked to him.  Since the weight of the lies fell out of his mouth and onto my heart, and as he asked me to lie for him, to become what he was, and I had to tell him he was dead to me. 

He is not dead to me, as a soul.  His current choices, as a human, made him dead to me.  Until he can grow, and change.  I have wondered when I will hear from him again, thinking in months maybe.  Because I have been sure I will at some point.  But now?  Maybe not for years.  Maybe not until we move on from this life. 

It doesn’t matter anyway.  My life moves on, the way it was.  The path was moving forward nicely, and then he showed up and I stumbled and lost myself, spun arouand and around, because there were some lessons I needed to learn, and now my life goes on.

My friend to whom I gave Reiki texted me last night to tell me that the issue she had that brought her to me yesterday, had taken on a whole, different feeling.  The issue has to do with her sister, and is ongoing.  They talked, they both laughed, good healing belly laughs.  The issue remains, but my friend was able to support her sister, and lift her.  I was delighted.

My friend also has issues with her ankle.  It hurts her often and a lot.  She said it was killing her when she got here.  Last night she said she forgot about it, there was no pain from it at all.  I’m sure it’s not gone, the issue with her ankle, but I’m so happy she had some relief.

It is satisfying to be able to help people.  To reach outside my own issues, and leave them be.  To make a deeper connection with people close to me.

I found a great site for guided free meditations.  https://www.tarabrach.com/guided-meditations/     I did one this morning that was on “knowing”.  Takes you very deep, to rest in your knowing.  I found some peace there.  My solar plexus was very tight when I got there.  I did self-reiki on it, while I did the meditation.  It feels fine now.

I guess that the tightness was caused by left over emotions from last night’s twin flame revelation.  Right now, it means nothing, because we are apart, as we were before, and it’s not my job to wait for him to catch up, as my medium friend said.  It’s his to catch up. He doesn’t listen to his soul much, he doesn’t think he has one, or doesn’t think it’s connected to the loving energy of the universe. 

People will make any excuse for bad behavior won’t they?  If you can believe you are not connected then I suppose that gives you free rein to do whatever the heck your narcissistic ego tells you to. 

Not my problem.  It doesn’t matter.  I won’t bump into him again, unless he matures. 

 

 

 

Let It Be

Posted on by learning to live like water

let it be

This morning I chose a guided meditation on acceptance. It seemed quite clear to me after my last blog, Still Waiting, that I was not doing a good job of accepting what is. I have been holding on, waiting for some resolution, some miracle of understanding to happen.

The guided part of the meditation asks, “What would your life be like if you could accept someone else’s point of view all the time?” I remember thinking, “I can’t…accept lies and deception of another person as a way to achieve personal satisfaction….I can’t.” As the guided part ended and I slipped into the gap, I thought, but why not just accept what happened, as just what happened? Why not, just allow it to be, since it is, it was, what happened? Why fight this forever?

And, at least, for that 20 minutes, I accepted it. I accepted the pain, and the heartache, and that I loved him, and who he was, and who I was, and the lessons I learned, and the place to which it has brought me. Without judgment. Without tears, without any emotion about it. I just observed it, as an experience of my life.

Which is exactly how I view my long relationship with my ex-husband. I can see the good, the bad, the ending, the beginning, the differences, the pain, the joy….

And for that time while I was in that deep gap of silence, and maybe longer, I can see the same with Scott. It was good, it was bad, it was thwarted because of his inability to be accountable for his actions. His actions before me, his actions with me. His actions with her. I don’t judge, I actually have a good idea what burdens he carries. And that he carries even more now, somewhere deep inside that damaged psyche. For that I can have compassion.

I accept it is the way it is. At least for now. It may not last. But it may. It seemed to resonate on a deeper level than before. I can only hope. I can only be mindful, as I move through the next days, weeks, months, and let it be.

Which is ironic, it’s what he always wanted me to do, lol. Let it be. Don’t tell her, let it be. Don’t ask that question, let it be. Don’t look for answers, let it be.

Suddenly, I think I can let it be, but only because I have answered my questions, I know what happened, I see quite clearly. I stood in my own truth, I did what I needed to do. The story is written, the truth came out, the whole truth. The rest of the story unfolded as it should have, and my story continues to unfold, as does his, as does hers, but those are none of my business.

So I’ll let it be. Right now, I stop asking questions, I stop holding on to the trauma and the pain and the love….. Just let it be. It was an experience. Like taking a trip, like taking a drive, like any other experience. I may have learned more from it, and so I will be grateful for it. I don’t wish it never happened, because then I would not have known that I can still love passionately, unconditionally. I would not know that trust needs to be earned. I would not know that unconditional love has to extend to ourselves first. Always.

Acceptance. I hope I can continue to let it be. I know that the waves may still wash over me, I hope I can go back to this place, and let the waves come in, and go. Let the tide rise and fall again. I hope I can find the man I’m looking for somewhere along the tideline. Where all the treasure washes up.

Peeling Back the Layers

Posted on by learning to live like water

Wistful

I just got home from a gong meditation.  I had no intention going into it.  But I was tired, I didn’t sleep well last night.  And work this week was beyond crazy.  I was so happy to end the week with the gongs.

This week was another week in letting go of old stuff.  There was the thing with Addie, there was the strong vibe I had about Scott’s health, and then for a few days I felt no connection to him at all.  Which was a relief, because I mostly worry about him when I feel connected.  Which is, I know, kind of crazy, considering he’s the one who caused all this heartache and pain.  I wish I didn’t see his soul so clearly.  But I do, I’m going to have to deal with it somehow.

Tonight at the gong bath,  my friends who put it on suggested because it is the Christmas season, that we (there were about 20 or 25 of us there) say the names, or at least put the names out into the universe, of anyone we know who needs healing of any kind.  I thought of my 94 year old mother, who had a massive stroke over a year ago, leaving her unable to speak, read, write and partially paralyzed.  Yet, she goes on.  She laughs on the phone.  But we all know she’s ready to go on.  Her memory is failing and though she knows who her daughters are, she can barely understand some basic things.  Like my sister makes her get out of her wheel chair so she won’t forget how to walk.

I also thought of my ex, of Scott, of Betty, of Addie.  And sent healing energy to all of them.

I was soon into a deep meditative state…lying there in the dark, snuggled under my blanket.  I wanted to let go of the past, if anything.  But I kept remembering one afternoon last summer when Scott and I feel asleep spooning, and he had reached around me and was holding my hand and wouldn’t let go.  It was in the summer, so he was seeing Betty then on the weekend unbeknownst to me, although that may have been a Sunday, I don’t remember.  I guess it must have been if it was the afternoon.  I don’t know why I couldn’t stop that image while I was so deep.  I guess it was so symbolic, now, of how he wouldn’t let go of me all that time.

I’m not gonna lie, it made me sad to remember that tender afternoon.

I began to say the Ho’oponopono, to myself.  To say I love you, to myself.  To try to become strong enough to let go of that memory, and the rest of it.

I think I regained the stillness I had last night and this morning.  I hope. It wasn’t a voice in my head, it was just a memory, embedded deep in my heart.  I wasn’t holding a conversation about it with myself, I was just remembering it, in living color.  Feeling it again.  There are a lot more where that came from, and I need to let them all go.

I really do feel for Betty.  I don’t know her at all…..but I am pretty sure he convinced her he would never cheat on her again, for her to take him back.  And she had to deal with him being with me too, the whole time he was with her.  That’s hard.

And Addie…trying to fill holes with every woman he meets.  Not letting himself feel what he feels.  He tells me I keep breaking his heart, and I know I have a couple times, because I could not love him the way he wanted me to.  Then instead of allowing himself to heal from that, if it’s true, he jumps into a relationship with the first woman he dates, and the first woman he meets on line.  I know him well….it’s not because I’m on some kind of ego trip about him, I just know how he is.  I know how we were, I know how he buries his pain.  I do believe that he loved me very much.

My ex…I don’t even know what to think about him.  Living in the teeny cottage next door to our old house.  Not working, all alone.  He probably needs healing the most, and is the least likely to ever crawl out of the depths he’s fallen into.

I recognize now, that it was all another layer of pain that I peeled off the onion tonight.  It was not painful, not in the way it has been in the past.  It was more wistful, just some sweet tender memories from before it all blew up.  Before the explosion of emotions that ended in such destruction.  I’m glad to have a few real moments to remember besides all the sadness in the months leading up to to that explosion.

I am grateful to have the gong meditations to work through this stuff.  Since I was going through my divorce, it has been my biggest healing tool.  To go there, and let whatever is ready to come up, come up, and for me to see it, feel it, honor it, and let it go.

A Long, Busy, Happy Day

Posted on by learning to live like water

Been a long busy day.  I didn’t stop for 5 minutes all day, except for lunch.  a 9 hour work day, plus an hour drive time.  But lunch was lovely.  I went to my spot at the cove on the Connecticut River, pulled up to the water, and read, watched the seagulls, listened to the wind on the water, and even did a 5 minute meditation.

I was in a good mood all day.  It was sunny (it’s been raining for 2 days here), and not cold yet, which is such a blessing.  It’s been exactly 2 weeks since the big drama, and I feel my blood pressure going down daily (not that it’s ever high.  I have pretty low blood pressure, happily.) My psyche is becoming my own again, I’m much more in balance than any time in the last 6 or 8 months.  I’m not obsessing over some man who was never going to offer me what I needed, or wanted.  I see him….I have always seen him.  I forgive him.  And I’m done with him.  Of course, sometimes I miss talking to him, that was just fun, but it always led to heartbreak, so when I remember that, I can let go of missing him pretty quick.  And easily.

Healing completely just takes time.  But I do believe Rumi is right, the wound is where the light enters us.  And I do believe that what results will be more beautiful than it was.

Actually Did Find Some Balance

Posted on by learning to live like water

I went to a group meditation in town this morning.  It is a new group, there were about a dozen of us.  It was a guided meditation, and was very nice, lasting about an hour.  The woman who guided it said it was her spiritual teacher’s birthday and this was her way of paying tribute.

After it was over, we each shared our feelings about it.  Most of the participants were not experienced with group meditation, but really, that’s how I learned to meditate.  I used to go to a weekly group.  We would lay on mats on the floor, with blankets, in the dark.  The facilitators would talk for awhile, we would contribute to the conversation, and then they would play crystal bowls for about an hour.  They had about a dozen, it was really lovely.

What I shared this morning, was that I loved the intensity of the meditation.  The energy of a dozen people participating is not 12 times the energy of a single person alone.  The energy increases exponentially, so that the energy of 12 people becomes more like 1200.  There is each person, and whatever they bring to it, and then there are the spirit entities that accompany them.  The energy increases exponentially.

It can be pretty amazing.  I could feel that spiritual guidance I have called upon so often this week, in more intensity, as everyone called in their own guides.

The girl at whose yoga studio this meditation took place knew my friends who do the gong baths.  We began to talk about the sweat lodge that they also put on, and I told her they are having one next Saturday, and I was considering going.  I’ve been once before and found it to be the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had.  However, you have to be able to give up a whole weekend day to it, because you come home so exhausted, emotionally and physically.  Since next weekend is a 4 day weekends, I am really considering going. I think it would do me a lot of good.

The girl I went with works with me.  I knew she had an interest in learning to meditate, and I offered to go with her, thinking that after all the drama/trauma of the week, a second group meditation after the gong bath might be good for me.  After it was over we chatted in the parking lot, and she said, “I keep wondering if I did it….”  Then she said, “I was surprised how fast the time went though. I thought it was about 20 minutes and the hour was up.”  I said, “Then you did it!  Because you escaped the time space continuum, if an hour turned into 20 minutes.”  It was fun to see her register that she may have visited another plane of existence for awhile.

After the meditation, I went to the grocery store with the rest of the town, lol, to do Thanks giving shopping.  And of course ran into a couple of my really good friends there, and had to stop and talk.  Finally, my son called  said, “Are you coming home Mom?”  LOL.  I have done a lot of bonding in the  pasta sauce aisle.

Talked to a good friend on the phone about our love lifes, or lack thereof, lol.  My cousin came over, and is starting a blog.  I will post a link to her blog when she puts up a post.

It’s a good day.  Feeling that I maybe achieved some of the balance I was looking for this morning.

Love and light.

 

 

 

Releasing

Posted on by learning to live like water

release-the-past-let-it-go

I managed to get through a 10 minute meditation this morning.  It was on releasing the past.  It reminded me to frame the past in such a way that I understand that what was done to me, was done from the level of consciousness that S was at when he did it.  It wasn’t done purposefully to hurt me, he is just unconscious of how his actions hurt, devastate people.  Because he fears vulnerability so much, and keeps so many walls around himself, he cannot possibly understand what it is like to have no walls up.

I always believed he had a higher level of consciousness, though I don’t know why I thought that.  Maybe because he is smart, it seemed something he would know.  He could discuss almost anything, intelligently.  I guess, the ability to speak about it, and have academic understanding, is a long ways from feeling it, and knowing it, and living from that level in your heart.

I was able to maybe release just a teeny bit of it.  There is still so much hurt, that if I think about it, I just fall apart.  Someone who is so smart, should be wise enough, compassionate enough not to willfully hurt someone who loves him.  Or so I thought.  But his level of consciousness is so wrapped up in his ego…I know it’s hard for him to even see me.

But I see him.  I wish I didn’t, but I always have, I always will.

Out of the Fog

Posted on by learning to live like water

  

My struggle seems to have taken a time-out this morning.

I went to a gong bath last night.  My hour long (or slightly longer) meditation spent in darkness, laying on the floor, blanket pulled up, and mask over my eyes, while 8 gongs vibrated, and crystal bowls sang, and drums beat and bells chimed in a wondrous cacophony of healing.  I set an intention last night going in.  It was to send love to all those in my life, love without strings, just send it to the universe and let the universe decide how to bring it to them.  I sent it to S, to my ex husband, to my son, to my friends.  To my mother, my sisters.  I visualized the pink energy threads spreading out from me, touching these people.

When the tsunami’s came (the tsunami is our name for when the gongs are played with such intensity that the vibrations wash over you like a tsunami, and you cannot hold a thought, whatever needs to bubble up for release is compelled then, there is no escape as the vibration of 8 gongs being wailed on reaches your very cellular level and finds what needs healing and opens the door) I sobbed.  For what, I didn’t know, but release is always good, and probably, at the gong bath, more common than not.

I had gone with a friend.  It’s nice to have a friend with me, I usually do, but last night I wished I was driving home alone, too many emotions, and none were coherent enough to put into words.  So, I let her talk, she is addicted to her phone, and I let her tell me all the funny memes that she was reading as I drove back to where we’d left her car.  (“I put $1 in an envelope every time my wife and I have sex, and what’s in there is all I’m spending on her for Christmas.  So far she’s getting a cup of coffee.”)  The time passed amicably.

Then I got stuck in traffic.  They are doing major major highway reconstruction at night, and it held me up a good half hour.  The emotions which the gongs shook to the surface began to appear, like a wound that won’t close.  I longed once more for what never would be, I couldn’t find a pathway between what I know I can accept and what I want more than anything.  I felt like all those pink threads that I sent out were pulling on me, painfully, 100 little threads pulling my heart apart. Struggle.

I sent out a text, to which there was no response.  Understandably, but still, painfully silent.

When I got home, late, because of the traffic, I wept as I wrote “Only You”.  More release.

I climbed into bed, and tried to read.  My book club is reading “The Sacred Year” by Michael Yankovich.  I wasn’t crazy about it at first, but I like it more and more as I read.  His year becomes a deeper and deeper search into his soul.  Finally, I shut the light out, it was late, I was exhausted.  But the struggle seems to like that time, when I am tired and it’s late, to make me think about it.

I have been trying to wean myself off of the Ambien to sleep.  Started with the carpal tunnel, because it helped me sleep through a lot of the pain.  Last weekend I made it through a night without it.  But not since.  I tried last night, but lay there, with a knot in my heart and the pit of my stomach, and finally got out of bed and took one more, so I wouldn’t be up all night, struggling.

I was thinking then, that I might ask for something today, that would probably not serve me well, except it would stop the pain, for a little while.  Not having any resolution but thanks to the Ambien, I fell soundly asleep for 6 hours.

This morning, it seems, the gongs work becomes evident.  What bubbled up last night, what was pulled out of me at the very cellular level, needed to come up, and I  needed to release it.  While I still feel the struggle, it is not so fresh, not like a new wound again.  More like one that is healing, a wound that brings bittersweet memories with it, but is healing, not bleeding anymore.

And really, who knows which wound causes the struggle?  There are many, we all have many.  I have chosen one, it seems, at which to direct my emotions.  I think, really, the struggle is multi-faceted, and not completely caused by present moment events.

I was surprised to walk out on my deck at 6 AM this morning and find the world shrouded in fog.  As if some greater power knew I needed this time alone, no distractions of bright golden sunrises, or even morning stars.  I know they are there, I know I will see them again, but I needed to focus on this this morning .

It is good to regain my focus, and to think I can move forward in letting go of things that have not served me, even if I love them.  I will always love them.  And that’s a good thing.  To love without attachment.  I’m trying, anyway.

Wish I Could Stay

Posted on by learning to live like water

I did my morning meditation as the sun broke through clouds

left over from yesterdays rain.

I sat in peace, quieted my mind

Of all the things I have to do today,

and want to have happen today,

And just let myself be.

When the meditation was over,

And I came back to this physical world

And opened my eyes,

I saw the lush green woods bordering my back yard.

I saw the sun in a hazy blue sky streaked with gray clouds.

I felt a cool early morning breeze across my shoulders,

Fills my head with the peaceful scent of the lavender from my herb garden.

All I felt was love

And gratitude.

Be here now,

The sages urge.

This morning,

I am here now.

And it’s a lovely place to be.

Would that I could figure out

How to stay here.