(no subject)
We are all we ever need.
No one can diminish our worth by taking away their love and affection. Love is always with us, always within us.
Love and praise we receive from others is nice, like dessert - but we must set our own tables with the main course.
We generate it, we share it.
_____________
I guess the above was saved to a draft from several months ago. I still believe that, which I consider a positive sign of some sort of significant growth - or, at the very least, an indicator of consistency.
I'm motivated to write today by a number of things. Primarily, it's the other things I have to do. Secondarily, it's all these ideas I have swirling around my head on a number of topics ranging from love, sex and marriage, to life in a new place, to the study of Oriental Medicine, to the nightmare that is the McCain/Palin ticket.
I.
Learned a lot about love these past few months. These days I'm convinced that the notion of a soul mate is romantic and sweet, makes for good stories and songs... and is completely irrelevant, impossible, and unfair when it comes to real life. We grew up on these tales and shaped our expectations around this impossible ideal. As adults, we look deeply in the eyes of passersby for that spark, that moment that will change everything for us, that will jettison us into "happily ever after"... and spend long lonely nights sighing and wishing for it when it (inevitably) does not happen.
Recently thought I'd met my soul mate, and to be honest - in meeting him and getting to know him, there was a spark. And there was fire. And the glow of that fire was like the match that shows you the room you've been standing in is actually much larger than you originally thought. I felt love on levels and in ways I'd never imagined possible. What I felt was real, undeniable, true.
After just a few months, it became apparent neither of us were ready for it. The pressure we'd put on ourselves and what we were creating was too much - we fell into old habits as a result of unresolved issues from past relationships. So we agreed to give each other space to heal. I decided to love him unconditionally, to support him in his process, whatever that might be - including other relationships, total distance, all the time in the world, etc.
One day a couple weeks after our last conversation, I was feeling anxious and sad. Missing him, feeling empty and scared - all that stuff. But I was also feeling proud, like a patriotic warrior convinced of the goodness and rightness of my fight. Something - not sure what - made me stop and realize: I'd never given MYSELF unconditional love. I'd offered it more than once before, and to people I hardly knew, but I'd never given it to myself - the person I supposedly knew better than anyone else in the world. How the fuck could I give it to someone else if I'd never been there, completely, for me - no matter what?
A major shift occurred at that moment. I'd been longing for him, for his love, for the way he made me feel, for his spark. I'd been psychically reaching out like a person, again, with an electrical cord in a pitch-black room trying to find an outlet in which to plug a lamp. In that moment, I stopped reaching out... and I plugged into myself... and light flooded everything. All fear, anxiety and sadness disappeared - and it was like I saw myself for the first time. It dawned on me that I'd never taken the time to appreciate or truly love MYSELF, and I realized too that it would be a long, LONG time before loving myself was something automatic and unconditional. Had to ask myself - if learning how to love ME without condition was going to take a huge amount of practice and vigilance, what would it take to truly love someone ELSE without condition? I still don't have an answer for that.
I realized no one would ever be able to love me the way I wanted to be loved, no matter how badly I wanted them to - except for me. No one would be consistent, or present, or available enough to love me the way I wanted to be loved - except for me. This is not cynical, and I haven't "given up on love" in the least. But it feels right to say it's fair. To demand such love or wish for that from someone is unreasonable and unrealistic. I realized that's why so many people are regularly unhappy in relationships; infused with tales of lifelong romance, they expect the impossible from their lovers and then decide to be disappointed when their expectations are not fulfilled. They are hurt, or angry, or resentful when they don't get the love they want consistently and regularly - and all they really needed to do was find their own love inside themselves.
Everyone is struggling with their own demons all the time. Consistency of behavior or reaction, or intensity of LUUHV and support, is impossible under such conditions. And yet we expect and demand such consistency - even though we don't, and can't, honestly, deliver it ourselves.
So. The unbearable pressure in the idea of wanting someone to be - and being someone's - soul mate or "The One" also became suddenly clear. The "soul mate" thing, too, kind of sells us all short. Are we all half-people, looking for our other halves? What if the "soul mate" thing started out as an idea of finding our SELVES, of uniting the physical and meta-physical aspects within us? What if it just got distorted over time, and somehow the "soul mate" became some idealized individual outside of us?
And that "til death do us part" aspect of marriage?! Jesus Christ! How do people breathe under those circumstances? It is romantic, and sweet, of course. And I'm sure there are people who have successfully lived this, and believed in it, and felt immense reward in it. But one has only to look at divorce rates for evidence that the majority of people ultimately find such a commitment oppressive and impossible to fulfill. All we ever have is right now, all I can promise someone - and all he can promise me - is this very moment.
Among all the little details of this deeply personal growth (which I feel compelled, apparently, to share with the internet), the coolest thing about my experience with this person is that he showed me the infinite capacity for loving - ourselves and others - we all possess. I thought I needed him to feel as amazing as I'd felt when he was in my life, but now I know - the love I felt coming from him was always inside of me; he just did me the huge favor of shedding light on it.
No one can diminish our worth by taking away their love and affection. Love is always with us, always within us.
Love and praise we receive from others is nice, like dessert - but we must set our own tables with the main course.
We generate it, we share it.
_____________
I guess the above was saved to a draft from several months ago. I still believe that, which I consider a positive sign of some sort of significant growth - or, at the very least, an indicator of consistency.
I'm motivated to write today by a number of things. Primarily, it's the other things I have to do. Secondarily, it's all these ideas I have swirling around my head on a number of topics ranging from love, sex and marriage, to life in a new place, to the study of Oriental Medicine, to the nightmare that is the McCain/Palin ticket.
I.
Learned a lot about love these past few months. These days I'm convinced that the notion of a soul mate is romantic and sweet, makes for good stories and songs... and is completely irrelevant, impossible, and unfair when it comes to real life. We grew up on these tales and shaped our expectations around this impossible ideal. As adults, we look deeply in the eyes of passersby for that spark, that moment that will change everything for us, that will jettison us into "happily ever after"... and spend long lonely nights sighing and wishing for it when it (inevitably) does not happen.
Recently thought I'd met my soul mate, and to be honest - in meeting him and getting to know him, there was a spark. And there was fire. And the glow of that fire was like the match that shows you the room you've been standing in is actually much larger than you originally thought. I felt love on levels and in ways I'd never imagined possible. What I felt was real, undeniable, true.
After just a few months, it became apparent neither of us were ready for it. The pressure we'd put on ourselves and what we were creating was too much - we fell into old habits as a result of unresolved issues from past relationships. So we agreed to give each other space to heal. I decided to love him unconditionally, to support him in his process, whatever that might be - including other relationships, total distance, all the time in the world, etc.
One day a couple weeks after our last conversation, I was feeling anxious and sad. Missing him, feeling empty and scared - all that stuff. But I was also feeling proud, like a patriotic warrior convinced of the goodness and rightness of my fight. Something - not sure what - made me stop and realize: I'd never given MYSELF unconditional love. I'd offered it more than once before, and to people I hardly knew, but I'd never given it to myself - the person I supposedly knew better than anyone else in the world. How the fuck could I give it to someone else if I'd never been there, completely, for me - no matter what?
A major shift occurred at that moment. I'd been longing for him, for his love, for the way he made me feel, for his spark. I'd been psychically reaching out like a person, again, with an electrical cord in a pitch-black room trying to find an outlet in which to plug a lamp. In that moment, I stopped reaching out... and I plugged into myself... and light flooded everything. All fear, anxiety and sadness disappeared - and it was like I saw myself for the first time. It dawned on me that I'd never taken the time to appreciate or truly love MYSELF, and I realized too that it would be a long, LONG time before loving myself was something automatic and unconditional. Had to ask myself - if learning how to love ME without condition was going to take a huge amount of practice and vigilance, what would it take to truly love someone ELSE without condition? I still don't have an answer for that.
I realized no one would ever be able to love me the way I wanted to be loved, no matter how badly I wanted them to - except for me. No one would be consistent, or present, or available enough to love me the way I wanted to be loved - except for me. This is not cynical, and I haven't "given up on love" in the least. But it feels right to say it's fair. To demand such love or wish for that from someone is unreasonable and unrealistic. I realized that's why so many people are regularly unhappy in relationships; infused with tales of lifelong romance, they expect the impossible from their lovers and then decide to be disappointed when their expectations are not fulfilled. They are hurt, or angry, or resentful when they don't get the love they want consistently and regularly - and all they really needed to do was find their own love inside themselves.
Everyone is struggling with their own demons all the time. Consistency of behavior or reaction, or intensity of LUUHV and support, is impossible under such conditions. And yet we expect and demand such consistency - even though we don't, and can't, honestly, deliver it ourselves.
So. The unbearable pressure in the idea of wanting someone to be - and being someone's - soul mate or "The One" also became suddenly clear. The "soul mate" thing, too, kind of sells us all short. Are we all half-people, looking for our other halves? What if the "soul mate" thing started out as an idea of finding our SELVES, of uniting the physical and meta-physical aspects within us? What if it just got distorted over time, and somehow the "soul mate" became some idealized individual outside of us?
And that "til death do us part" aspect of marriage?! Jesus Christ! How do people breathe under those circumstances? It is romantic, and sweet, of course. And I'm sure there are people who have successfully lived this, and believed in it, and felt immense reward in it. But one has only to look at divorce rates for evidence that the majority of people ultimately find such a commitment oppressive and impossible to fulfill. All we ever have is right now, all I can promise someone - and all he can promise me - is this very moment.
Among all the little details of this deeply personal growth (which I feel compelled, apparently, to share with the internet), the coolest thing about my experience with this person is that he showed me the infinite capacity for loving - ourselves and others - we all possess. I thought I needed him to feel as amazing as I'd felt when he was in my life, but now I know - the love I felt coming from him was always inside of me; he just did me the huge favor of shedding light on it.