Shift happens

SHIFT.

For me it happened slowly...then all at once.


In four months time:
Life as I knew it changed completely. 
I underwent the most radical inward journey.
My thinking rewired. 
I ended up in a place I didn't think I'd get to for years. 


In four months time I deeply grasped:
People can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves.
I am responsible for what I say, not for what you hear. 
Hurt people hurt people.
I am responsible for my own happiness. 
It costs nothing to be kind.

My biggest takeaway from the above, is that I AM OKAY. Not only am I okay, but I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN OKAY. I will ALWAYS BE OKAY. And NOBODY CAN EVER TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME. Let me explain. I recently delved into what MY responsibility was in various situations, and relationships from past. I've been digging through the why's. Why I've chosen the romantic partners that I have over the years of my life, the friendships, why I've experienced certain situations as hardships. What was I believing to be true about both these trials, and various connections that kept me there? What was I believing to be true that sent me away? That made me sad? That made me mad? I looked at blame. If I blamed anyone through the years for letting me down, for breaking my heart, for ruining my life, for diminishing my sense of self, for disappointing me, I started to examine. I was a part of the experience. I brought something to it. My energy. Myself. My time. Me. When I look at me, what could I take responsibility for?

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a Byron Katie workshop. I was introduced to her teachings, The Work years ago by one of my best friends. I thought I grasped the concept, and I did...simply. The in-person crashed course CHANGED MY LIFE. I do not say that lightly. I will NEVER be the same. In the smallest nutshell, The Work boiled down asks 4 questions. When we're in distress, having anxiety, sadness, surrounding a disturbing thought, you ask: 1.) Is it true? 2.) Can I absolutely know that it's true? 3.) How do you react -what happens- when you believe that thought? 4.) Who would you be without that thought?

Through meditation on stressful situations, and inquiry of the thoughts we are believing to be true, we can begin to break it down and see things as they really are.

I am who you believe me to be. 
No person has ever hurt another. 

We are believers. It's innocent. A trick of the mind. It's impossible to change your mind from what you are believing in that moment when you're in the throes. But everything ends, and then you can begin to question. You place yourself back in that stressful situation. You may be surprised at what you find. What you're believing to be true you still may find is true for you. You may find it is not true for you. When you examine who you are without that thought about the situation, or person, you see them in your minds-eye completely differently. They may not look malicious, or cruel, or arrogant. They may in fact look scared, confused, hurt.

There is SO much more to it, and a process of turning what you have believed to be true about another back onto yourself, and an examination of your role. For example, you say of someone: "they're a coward". You say, "I'm a coward." You then find ways this is true of yourself in that situation.

Through this, I've realized many of my romantic attachments in the past were based out of my own fear. Fear time was running out. Fear there was no one better suited for me. Fear options were slim.

Fear I couldn't do better. 

Lifelong issues have rushed to the surface, and I can pinpoint and articulate them for once. There are old "truths" for me to now confront:

That I need a man to be happy. 
That I can't take care of myself financially without a man's help. 
That if a relationship is easy, something must be wrong. 
That romance is tragic. 
That there must be struggle. 

Romantic relationships have been a glaring want/need/priority through my life, as long as I can remember. Maybe because I never saw my parents in one. I can't imagine what it would have been like to see parents kiss, sleep in the same bed, go on a date, or say I love you. I wanted what I never had, desperately. I also feared I wouldn't have it. I feared divorce. Never, ever was I going to get a divorce. Well, I've got two (drastically different) divorces under my belt, and surprisingly, I am okay. I fully do accept my life. It's mine. It's what happened, it's all in, it's made me me.

No person has ever made me do anything! I have left when I thought I should leave. No one pushed me away. I have stayed when I thought I should stay. I could have walked out the door at any time.

I have wrongly and selfishly loved versions of men I've been with other than the version that was right in front of me. I've loved past versions, and future versions. Because of this, I've poked and prodded and wished for them to be things they are not, and I have experienced being poked and prodded and wished to be what I am not.

You can't teach a cat to bark. Some people spend a lifetime trying, and at the end of their lives the cat looks at them and says...meow.

Of her now husband, BK says, "he can't move me. I'll keep going with or without him." Imagine this said in the most loving, and grounded way. It makes all the sense in the world, right?! Why should anyone want anything less of me? Why should I want anything less of the partner I love?

But we blame each other for not living up to our visions. How could we? How could someone live up to my vision? It's MY vision! How could I live up to their vision? It's THEIR vision! Blame. The blamers, BK says are the most important people in our lives. They are the ones who wake us up. Those who agree with us don't teach us anything. We become the people we don't like. We ARE them. We see ourselves in others, and we become self-righteous. Advice you give to others is always advice for yourself.

I (you) am the problem. If I am the problem, I can take care of it. It's JUST ME. It's user-friendly. Everything that happens is FOR me (you).

BK said, "The more work you do, the more you fall in love with a beautiful mind. The clearer you get, you'll fall in love with a beautiful mind. It's a match. Like you thought [previous relationships] were a match. It shows you the distance you have to travel." This was one of the most comforting takeaways. No relationship yet has been it. The end all, be all. I have so far to travel! I am only at the beginning. I am aware of the gap of what I've experienced, and what is yet to be. The gap is vast, the growth has begun, and the end result can be nothing other than the truth. HOW. EXCITING. IS. THAT?!

Learning and beginning to practice this new way of thinking brings this image to mind:

I undserand far deeper than ever before how much we trip ourselves up. WE do that. By what we think, and believe to be true. I have literally not been able to walk out of a door before because of what I believed?! I have been this horse?! Amazing. I have felt a new lightness, a new compassion.


Learning that I am okay has been nothing short of transformative...
I had the power all along...



The best BK bit was this. "You've just been told a bomb will go off in 30 seconds and will end the world. Despite what you are thinking and believing...are you okay? [PAUSE] Yes. Now 15 seconds. Despite what you are thinking and believing...are you okay? [PAUSE] Yes. But the minute you start focusing, thinking, and believing the scary or terrible thoughts upon hearing that news...you've already blown up your world."

Lightbulb, on. I get it.





A few more nuggets:
-There is no hell so dark you can't go in and clear it all up. 
-Love is the power. (Love by our own definition)
-There is no one not worth listening to. You can always walk away. Do you walk away with anger or peace? 
-If you didn't compare yourself with anything else in the world, aren't you perfect?
-It's just an experience. It doesn't mean you ever need to experience it again. 



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One big goodbye

I've been thinking a lot about something an ex once said. This ex was my longest relationship. 8 years. While I wasn't ready for him, nor did I experience the romantic love needed to keep me there, looking back years later I can appreciate lessons he taught me in a whole new way. With time, distance, and the ability to compare, and contrast, I see that what I took as "too simple" was pretty darn enlightened. 

Our nights, and our Sunday's were filled with conversation of incredible range. Socialism, theatre, the universe, love, the seven wonders of the world, our dog, our childhoods, you name it and we would discuss it at length. Nighttime was often like a slumber party. We'd talk, and talk, subjects bouncing all around. We'd dig in, he'd entertain my curiosity as a willing, and equal participant. Always gentle, always open to philosophizing, he taught me to embrace, and appreciate my sensitivity. He loved my inquisitive nature, my deep thoughts, and big feelings. He allowed me to unabashedly and unapologetically be ME. I wasn't quite aware of it then, because he did it so simply. 

He was there through the first of the two hardest times I've lived through, the first being back in 2012. At this point, I knew I needed to be out of the relationship, but didn't know how to say or do it. Just then, I experience a slew of losses, and stayed put awhile longer.

We talked for months about loss, and goodbye. You'd have to scroll a ways back to find it, but there's a post here where I talk about him saying  life's a series of goodbyes, how "we all meet in the middle of one big long goodbye." I remember when he said this. It seemed uncharacteristicly profound to me at the time, although l think now I wasn't aware of his profundity that probably happened regularly. 

Five years later, I imagine him saying this, in our old kitchen. The way the light filtered in, the sound of his voice. He seemed to be discovering these words and idea in the moment as he spoke. 

This memory makes me sad, but the good kind of sad. A wave of nostalgia hits my heart, but a small smile spreads across my lips. 

His words are  a reminder for me to embrace the goodbyes. To accept, to release, to move forward knowing I will always encounter them. It's all life is...we all just meet in the middle of one big long goodbye. 

So small, and so big, isn't it?

Each goodbye teaching you how you will invest your time from here on out, what kind of people are needed next to sooth your soul, or teach the next lesson. With each goodbye, we are one evolution closer to our greatest wisdom. 

The reminder of our inevitable departure from this earth fills me with love, entire. Even when I think back the moments I thought I would die from heartbreak, I find comfort. It's all IN. It all counts. It all happened. It's all OKAY.

It's just life. This is the way it has to be.

One of my favorite quotes comes to mind, "we are all just walking each other home." We are all teaching each other along this blip of a walk, and I am grateful for each of my radically different gurus along the way. 

I am okay with where I am, presently. I can see it, it's almost tangible. Like a dot moving slowly across a line, approaching a finite end. We are all meant to be EXACTLY where we are in this EXACT moment. 

The dot is seeking...moving toward something brand new, and very much earthed.

I look forward to the next goodbye, and the next, and the next...

🖤

Power

They've always been my love language.
They're what impact me most.
Just when I was made to question,
I was reminded of what I've always known to be true.


Words 
still 
carry 
weight 


How validating.
There was never a reason for self-doutb.


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