I Forgive

“Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different” Oprah Winfrey.

I’d heard this a while ago and thought it was fantastic. When I thought, had I forgiven My Love?? No! Why would I want to hope that I hadn’t been cheated on?

Tonight, midway through my moving meditation in the park, I wanted to yell out to my teacher “I am just so happy!!!” for no reason. I was joyful for the experience I was having, I felt free. I glided through the moves with excitement bubbling inside me, feeling flexible and focused on my postures.

We moved into ‘Triple Headed Serpent’ and she said something about forgiveness that triggered my memory of the Oprah Quote.

Suddenly, mid posture, I thought, I FORGIVE! I stopped the move and stood still, my hands in prayer, focusing, feeling the emotion come to the surface.

I didn’t wish it had been any different otherwise I wouldn’t have been here in the park having a beautiful time with these beautiful souls I had met in my class.

I never would have met my spiritual teacher, and I never would have been on this amazing journey. I never would have been the better version of myself that I am now, with all that I know about Love.

I never would have learnt that I am not my ego. I am not me personality, I am my soul. My soul has a voice that will tell me what my path is, what my purpose is, where my passion lies.

I never would have deepened my friendships by sharing my soul journey.

I never would have spent two years with my best friend, creating memories and growing together.

I never would have made up with my sister and learnt how to love her and support her, without being jealous of her success.

I never would have finally figured out how to connect with my Dad and why his uniqueness is necessary for my journey.

I never would have started my website, and finally visualised by book I’m going to start writing on my newly planned trip to Italy!

I never would have found my five year old me at the bottom of a jungle in my meditation in Bali. I admired her, reassured her, loved her and all her quirks which make my own Mum uncomfortable. I am in awe of her.

I never would have become who I am today and pushed My Love to be a better man. I never would have created this opportunity for us to start again, as more mature people, assured in our love for each other, despite the distance, the uncertainty, and without promise we will end up together.

I never would have been strong enough to negotiate marriage or no marriage, depending on what I feel is right for me.

I never would have been ready to have kids with you.

I never would have known I could love you still, even though I could not forgive you,

Until today,

When I give up the hope that the past could have been any different.

What would Letting Go Mean?

Last week in meditation I thought about seeing him one last time.

I heard “You will then be ready to let you. You will be ready to let go”.

Thats not what I want! I don’t want to let him go! I don’t want the final disappointment that he isn’t what I want, that he’s not the one for me. I don’t want the certainty and I don’t want to have to let go. I don’t want to lose the fantasy of ‘Maybe’.

That would require me to step out in faith, that I will be self-fulfilled in this life, or that some great love will come along and bowl me over with certainty. That requires that I am entirely responsible for my own life, my own path, my own decisions, my own happiness.

The thought of continuing to go through anxious relationships that end in heart ache, is not what I want for myself. I don’t want old stories and beliefs to be reinforced because I manifested them.

If he is not meant to be, it would mean I will worry about not having kids, I worry about running out of time, of not getting over my self, and working myself out before it was too late. It means we will never have the daughter we dreamed of and never get married under the wisteria vin in Lake Como. I’ll never get to say my wedding speech that I have written and rehearsed for the last 4 years.

It means that one day I will get a call that he’s met someone, that its serious. That the intimacy in his voice will go, I won’t be able to make him soften and melt around me. Then I’ll really be on my own

Then I’ll really panic. Who will love this chubby faced, complicated, demanding, non-working unpublished wanna be writer? Who is going to chisel away at the walls of someone claiming they don’t want to get married or have kids. Who is going to tell me everyday I’m the most beautiful woman in the world? Who is going to financially support me so i can go to yoga, write and visit my psychic every day?

I guess the answer is me!

I will have to love this complicated being. I will have to write until I am published, until I am no longer a wanna be. I will have to break down my own walls to be open to committing to some one, to be open to giving myself the gift of a child. To love myself enough not to be scared by daughter will turn out just like me, but hope she does because I think I am a gift to the world.

I am going to have to look at myself everyday and tell myself I am the most beautiful woman in the world. I am going to have to figure out a way to financially support myself so that I can go to yoga, write and see my psychic every day.

I will have to love myself louder than my ego hates me. I will have to break down my own walls. I will have to back myself.

I will have to be a whole, not looking for another half.

Secret Life

Secret life

What would I do if no one knew?

If no one would find out?

If no one could give their opinion or state their fears?

If no one would need me or miss me or want me back?

I need to live my life as if it’s in secret; freeing me entirely.

First order of business in my new secret life, go get my Love. Roll in the sheets and look him in his eyes again.

Second order, avoid work for as long as possible and travel and write for as long as I can.

I must master this to save myself, to free myself. To live without fear or what other people, think, want, don’ like.

I want to be gone and not have to reassure any one. To never have to explain or justify.

I want to be free, hearing only my own voice.

Black Dove

You are home

To me

I can fly and fly

Boast and soar around every country

Seeing all beautify

All terror

Having no boundaries

Never having my wings clipped

I can even fly with other birds

Doubles, or in a pack

Flying free. Flying wild

I get to a point

Where I’ve seen everything

All the beauty and all the terror

All the seas and all the deserts

Now I’m tired

I haven’t had a drink and my feathers are worn and bare

My bones start to show

Chilling in the wind

I fly around all night

Through the stars

And through the fog

With nowhere to go

Until sunrise when the others find me

When I’m 105

I see this phone line

With a single bird sitting on the end

Wings opened wide up

Shaking, like he’s been holding them open for years

I land, for the first time

On the other end of the line

Staring at this black dove

With open, shaking arms

And I start to cry

For all the beautiful sparrows I’ve flown with

For all the colourful galahs I’ve made fly behind me

I’ve never found a place to rest in 105 years

Until now

I edge closer to the slump in the middle of the wire

You see me, turn towards me

And waddle down your half of the line

With your arms still open wide

Trembling painfully

I waddle down my half of the line

Finally, we meet together in the middle

His exhausted wings wrap them selves around me

And I feel complete

For the next 95 years we sit there together

Looking at the same road, the same house

The same family go and come back everyday

During the day we talk

And night we’re silent in each others wings

I’m never bored

I never want to leave

You think I will

But I never do

Because flying through the fog, the forests, the deserts

Seeing the beauty and the terror

Flying in packs of pure white doves and brilliant coloured parrots

Wouldn’t be the same, without the dusty wings

Of my black dove

Wrapped around my body.

Luminous

Your welcome

Feels like a new beginning

No matter how many beginnings
Have begun before.

Each beaming greeting
Blooms blissful relief

Like the breaking of a New Year
The dawning of a new day

Your presence
In my life
Is luminous.

Does he nourish you?

I’m ranting and raving to my spiritual teacher in a one-on-one session about how I think I’ve fallen back in love with my ex.

This is a total set back to what we have been working on in my sessions; I am meant to be transitioning, growing, moving forward, creating a new life. I take up the whole session by dumping my welling heart on the table and asking her to tell me what to do with it. I have done this many times before with my psychologist, kinesiologist, cranio-sacral something-or-other hippie, and any one else who would listen.

 I’m asking for her guidance, a sign, permission. I’m asking for the go-ahead and confirmation that “It really is meant to be!” Or is it not? And if it is not, why do I carry this water well of emotion for him?

I have been through this cycle many times before, wishing I would feel 100% sure, even 75% sure, but I never have. Emotion and longing for him swirls every time he calls me out of the blue, but disappears every time he leaves and says its too hard to talk when I can’t commit. 

I’m telling her how handsome he is, how big and beautiful he his, his beautiful nose and his beautiful lips. How he’s been to counselling and how he’s finally stood up to his family. I’m telling her how much I have changed and that maybe this time it would be different. I’m crying with emotion, wanting her to tell me its right, that its meant to be, that I do truly love him its just been a buried emotion.

She let’s me rant on and on, but never answers any of my questions directly, only cryptically. I challenge after all of her philosophical stories and big ideas, growing more and more impatient.

“Ok, I get that, yeah, but is it meant to be? What is the difference between destiny and fate? Are we meant to be lovers? What are you saying? Just tell me!”.

She never would. 

After much more ranting and raving and explanations as to how it could be different and how much I love him, She looks at me and simply asks;

“What part of you does he nourish?”

I feel a sinking in my stomach and a silencing of my thoughts.

I have nothing to say. 

She prods me “ You know, spiritually? Mentally? Emotionally? Physically? What part of you does he nourish?”

She gives this fake quizzical looks, attempting to cover up her slyness and knowing that He doesn’t.

I had nothing to say, but my question was answered.

How to love a man

 

This Video above has to be one of the most profound I have ever watched. I wish I knew better and I wish I could have been more patient. T.D Jakes gives us women these golden rules:

1. When we do talk, let us finish! Don’t interrupt me!
2. Don’t use what I told you against me, because you will teach me to never open my mouth again. We are often taught not to talk when we have learned that our words will be used as weapons against us.
3. Vulnerability doesn’t come easy: you’re changing the class. The first class you taught us is “Big boys don’t cry, stand up and be a man, don’t’ show emotion”, and then later you say “Open up, show emotion, communicate”. Well you spend 16 years telling me not to do that, so give me a minute to learn how to do that, and don’t cut me off when I try!
4. What we need to know is- If you saw my failures, would you still love me?
5. If you love your man the way you would love your son, then we will talk to you. Because you love your son, you will fight for your son, I don’t care what he did wrong, you will come after him! If you would give us what you gave your son, we’re good! We got you, we can do this! That’s why he secretly yearns for his Mama, because he wants the love his mother gave him, which is simply put: unconditional love.
6. Let him know that I can see the worst in you but still believe in the best for you.

Number 4 just makes me melt. Yes, I still love you, but I haven’t shown you that. I have flogged you and held you in the doghouse for so long. I didn’t encourage you to get back up when you fell, I wanted you to stay down and think about what you’ve done.

I didn’t tell him you that you were doing a good job becoming a man, I pointed outyou’re your weaknesses. I used what you told me against you; I would throw it back in your face and ask you about it again and again and again. I bet you wished he never told me.

If I followed these rules, I could have loved you better, but I didn’t know this at the time. I didn’t know how.

I begged and begged and begged my love to open up. Over the years I have slowly tapped away at the lock around your heart, day by day by day. I asked you thousands of questions, daily, over and over again; Its like taking a hammer and chipping away at some wood over and over again, splinter by splinter. I never felt like I knew you. I never felt like you were mine.

* * *

So many times after we broke up, he would come out and tell me the exact thing I had asked him hundreds of times about.  I used to ask him to tell me the “story” he tells other people about how we met, how we fell in love. He would tease me and say there is not story! That I cornered him and it was ‘Game Over!’ That I just wouldn’t let him go so he had no choice. 18 months after we ended our relationship, I asked him again out of the blue and he suddenly decided to tell me:

“I have been in love with you from the first moment I heard your voice again, that first Skype, when you said “Hi stranger, long time no speak”, I was gone. True story. I knew you were good for me from that very instance. I was just stubborn. I never knew if I was ever going to speak to you again, let alone see you. Something in your voice touched me- it made me feel calm. I didn’t know if it was real, if you would stick around, and I wasn’t ready for you. I was denying it, but I was in love with you from that first moment”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I yelled at him! “You see! This is why I ask you everything 5,000 times!!!!!! Why can’t you just tell me the first time!”

What a beautiful story! What a romantic story! How deeply touched I am that he even remember the words I spoke when I hadn’t. I just fell all the way back in love with him listening to him talk. Why oh why has it taken you three years and a break up to tell me? He had no answer.

Later in that conversation, and in many others we had post-break up, the reason for so many problems we had, which I asked him about over and over again, were answered.

I always assumed his mother was ignoring me, that she didn’t approve and wouldn’t take the time to meet me. We spoke many times about this, but only recently I learned that he actually hadn’t told her how serious we were. Well darling, THAT would have saved a couple of tears! 

I dreamed of pillow talk with my beloved, of taking after-work strolls and chit-chatting about the day. I hoped that every romantic dinner we had he would tell me about what was going on in his world, his mind and what was on his heart.

 

Instead, he would pull his chair next to me, put his arm around me or pull me towards him, and face the direction I was facing, wanting to only be near me, relaxed, in silence.

 

I resented the secrets he held back and that getting him to open up was like drawing blood from a stone. Still today we struggle to have a ‘conversation’, he just announces what he has come to a decision about, leaving out all the mulling and thoughts a long the way, and then there is nothing left for me to say.

 

I have known him for ten years now, and seen many failures. Some from afar, many close up, with me. Now I watch him from afar, refusing to risk becoming another victim of his failures.

 

I wish I could tell you that I have seen all your failures, and I still love you.

Eagle Launch

In my moving meditation class, there’s a move I love, that is often right at the end of the class. As the music softens, we move into “Eagle”. In a squat position, you lean forward and almost rest your torso on your thighs, rotating you arms over your head so they are outstretched like eagle wings.

Your calves start to shake and pain often shoots up my right leg, always the right side. The instructor encourages you pull your sacrum towards the sky and lean forward, promising us won’t we fall.

I have done this pose many times, but today I felt like I wanted to fly. My feet arched up and I fell forward many times, catching myself with my finger tips, whipping my arms around to save me in just the knick of time.

 The instructor comes around and comforts me. I am not weak, or falling, or not doing it properly. “You are ready, you are so ready”, indeed I am I am ready to launch.

I am ready to fly.

Like an eagle preparing to launch, I am ready for the next chapter in my life.

 

Love is a Continuum

In my last meditation I started by waving goodbye to Africa, healing and transforming my life in moments. As I laid down to meditate  the next day after my moving meditation class, I tried to wave good bye to my ex, my love, my muse, the one I can’t let go of.

I stood there, trying to say goodbye, but I didn’t want to. There are never the right words to end this relationship, any last sayings that can speak to how much he means to me. There is never a reason to say goodbye. The relationship has long ended, but the heart to heart connection will always be so.

I never want there to be final words, a last good bye, a real ending. I want this window to stay open forever. 

So we don’t say good bye.

 

Law of detachment: Love

The last few nights I have been reading Deepak Chopra’s “The seven laws of success”, flicking through the first five until I was struck by spiritual Law 6: the Law of detachment”. Deepak notes that:

“The law of detachment says that in order to aquire anything in the physical universe, you have to relinquish your attachment to it. This doesn’t mean you give up your intention to create your desire. You don’t give up you attachment or the desire. You give up your attachment to the result… the moment you relinquish your attachment to the result, combining one-pointed intention with detachment at the same time, you will have that which you desire”

This provides a world of relief from going back and forth on decisions. Rather than focusing on the outcome, I bring my focus back to my intention, why I am making a decision in the first place. I want to love someone, but I don’t know in what form. Should we be friends, or nothing, or get married or just have kids? What should I do? I run myself ragged with options which never stick, none of which feel right. Consequently, I never make a decision. Years rave on.