Love is what we were
born with.
Fear is what we have
learned here.
~ Marianne Williamson
Rarely DO two simple statements encompass such immense
truths. For all my years writing of my
Life I have tried to keep my observations, especially those spoken aloud or
written where others might read them, as succinct. I owe Marianne a debt of
Gratitude for her words and her keen simplicity. As well I owe C.A. deep
appreciation for placing this at the start of this week’s rich treasury of
reading.
I think, too, that Chapter 4 has been the most resonant for
me so far. I am involved in this process called loving ME with an intensity
unparalleled prior to the past 6 years. It was 2006 when I first really BEcame aware that I was clueless
about the dark place I’d come to call my Normal Life. I was experiencing greater
health challenges and had been on disability for 4 years. My relationship of 12
years was a ship tossing and pitching in a frantic sea, and I rarely felt
anything like JOY, much less love for myself or any sort of self-acceptance
that would pass muster.
I was fortunate to have the health challenges I did or I’d
likely NOT have found the path to what I can only call The New Sanity. It all
BEgan with a decision I made and a question I was asked. Simple things, both. Like
Marianne’s quote and C.A.’s including it at the start of this chapter.
As I’ve read and reread this chapter, letting it soak into
me, making the space for it to walk and sit and yes, even sleep BEside me, I have uncovered and discovered an entirely new
perspective. Actually, a collection of the little buggers!!! Ronna’s prompt,
while NOT completely new to me as I was fortunate to have crossed paths with
her and her wondrous Truth-Telling Template during 2011, has brought me once
again to a place of deep willingness. Asking myself her questions, responding,
telling MY truth, and over and over again and again lifting the veil off trying
to control what I am, how I think, where I ache, long, or simply itch to break
free and break through has BEcome my practise, as ordinary to me Now as washing
Gracie’s food bowl and according her the same sort of respect I DO myself.
That last bit may sound odd yet in my head it makes
beautiful sense. DOES Gracie care that I feed her in a clean bowl?! I don’t
know. In fact, what I DO know is that she is incorrigible about picking up “ground
treasures,” most of which are disgusting and only occasionally relinquished,
albeit stubbornly. But loving her and taking exquisite care of and for her, I
DO this small thing with great love.
All day and night and day after day and week after week
there is a ticker tape running underneath and over top my mind’s “newsreel.” I
used to ignore it, like turning the sound off on a television. Yet I was still “run”
by it, still slave to its insistence and noise. With Truth-Telling this is no
longer possible. I cannot unknow what I know as I continue to commit myself to
the “unlearning” of what Life has taught me.
To DO a simple repetitive task like washing a bowl for my
dog is evidence of my listening to the internal voice inside of me. It is such
an ordinary and seemingly small gesture yet it speaks volumes.
Ronna says, The cage
begins to feel like home and freedom feels dangerous, difficult, and nearly
impossible to imagine. She goes on to encourage taking this shift upon ourselves
one “baby step” at a time. Little by slowly [and yet oftentimes with a
super-human speed] this is changed through making one bold decision, choosing
an uncharted path [or simply one I’d never seen until Now], and leaning then leaping into the dangerous, difficult, and nearly impossible
to imagine.
The “cage” she speaks of is the “Normal Life” I spoke of
earlier. Now, 5 years plus out of my relationship, I finally can
see how unhappy and utterly terrified I was to even think about leaving that
Life. I’d allowed myself to just morph into someone I no longer recognise and
certainly I don’t want to “love” that Currie, much less embrace her unconditionally.
BUT… this is NOT EVEN what loving myself, or getting good at
it, even slightly less bad at it is about. In fact I am pretty certain that had
I NOT travelled through that bit of the forest I’d never have found the path I
Now travel. This is the unconditional piece, the part where Jackie bravely goes,
boldly stating the “filling gaps” secret I thought was just some perverse and
twisted thing I DO. [yes, present tense… this is indeed a long journey of
unlearning and reshaping I am on…]
I suppose I KNOW that I am far from unique, that my
particular sets of odd BEhaviours and bizarre Beliefs aren’t anything close to
mine alone. But you see, I think this is what we’ve all convinced ourselves to
BElieve. I mean, how often DO we hear ourselves talking of our wee or grandiose
brands of insanity without some buffer to blame it on, some experience, event,
or person? And what I NOW know, for certain, is that until I claim it, even
just by seeing it in myself, the reflex is ALWAYS to lay blame outside of
myself.
Earlier I spoke of my relationship’s demise and my “rising
above” as though one preceded and the other followed. NOT really. NOT even
close, if I am telling the truth about what Jackie says so poignantly, … it was unconscious, but it is true, I was
unloveable. My heart was hidden behind walls and barbed wire. I, too, was
NOT keen to rock the boat and upend my security. Already I had accommodated my multiplying
health challenges; why then NOT accommodate this as well? I probably didn’t
even see them as one then the other. It was the whole lot of Life, my Now
Normal Life, that was spinning madly out of control. It was all I could DO most
days to simply hold on. I think I had completely relinquished all intention; I
lived in reaction after reaction after reaction, never knowing where the wave
had started to overtake me.
For more than 4 of the 5+ years we’ve been separated, I
still held onto the notion that one day my partner would come round to
realising just what a treasure she’d left BEhind. I clung to her continued
financial support BEcause I had made myself indispensable to HER by taking on
all of her responsibilities when she, to appease me, initially, and keep me
from leaving her, took on the
challenge of confronting her addiction. I went home to sell our home while she
stayed on, a year, another year, and then another, and finally I grew a bit of
courage and moved back to the East Coast myself, with Gracie, knowing I needed
to make a Life for ME [and Gracie] but hope hope hoping I’d BE rescued from it,
taken back, reclaimed like a lost suitcase in an airport’s lost luggage
department.
Even here I continued to hold onto that financial support,
terrified to let it go, to have to figure out how to support myself on just the
disability check I receive. I was, literally, unconscious of how once again I
had morphed myself into someone I couldn’t respect, trust, or count upon to
take care of me. Ultimately she moved her accounts to another bank in order to
get me to really and truly Let Go. It was like she had to pry my fingers off
one by one. And I didn’t see it, wouldn’t look it in the eyes until there was
no choice. This lesson was bitter and filled me with a shame that seems impossibly
anything BUT the root of the blooming self-love and self-acceptance I have
today.
This entire scenario has finally emerged from the dark
recess of my turning a blind eye to it. I have, as Kimberly speaks of, come to
a place where I truly appreciate,
validate, and accept who you are right now – even those parts that you dislike
and would eventually like to shift or change. Daily, in a myriad of ways, I
am “getting naked” and learning to know ME. I love how Jackie says, It’s not a take a bath once and stay clean
forever process, BEcause I can sometimes forget that it’s a process, an
attitude, and even a practise.
In the shame I felt when suddenly nothing was there I found
a part of me who has lived too long with clipped wings, dependencies, and
unloving-unkindness. She was, and is, undaunted by the challenges. I often have
to sit and patiently let her talk to me, or mayBE it is I who I must practise
patience with, learning to listen to the other bit of me. Whatever the case,
patience and listening are key.
As I try to imagine a Future Me, I notice immediately a
calmer more comfortably at home in her own skin Currie. She is simpler, too,
and in no way at all “high-maintenance” the way I’ve long seen myself. She’s
smiling, happy to BE wherever DOing whatever with [or without] anyone else. She
comforts me… Deeply.
