Get to the Heart of the Matter

I got the call today I didn’t want to hear.

Okay, in this day and age it’s the status update.

I got the status update that I didn’t want to hear.

My ex-boyfriend is in a new relationship.

As soon as I saw it, I had a visceral reaction. I felt my whole body rush with energy. A flush of heat. I stopped. Closed my computer. Said to myself, “Okay, I’m just going to feel this.”

I burst into tears. I cried.

As the day carried on, I mulled it over in my head. I wanted to get down to the heart of the matter. I realized that I’ve had this same old, tired story, with this particular person, for a long time now.

The one where I am sad, hurt, left. The one where someone else is getting the attention I deserved.

Why, after so many years, and knowing that it doesn’t work between us and I don’t want to be in relationship with him, why does it hurt so bad?

I meditated. I exercised. I sweat it out in the sauna. I prayed about it. Finally, I asked myself a question: What if this is good news? What if, as A Course in Miracles says, all change is helpful?

If it’s good news, then, that means it’s over. The drama, the cycle, the push-pull pattern we’ve co-created together for over three years, it’s over.

The hurt, the anger, the frustration, the rage. It’s over.

The blame, the hoping, the wanting, the nagging. It’s over.

It means that he and I, together, have set healthy boundaries and kept them for the first time since we met.

It means that we’ve matured. Evolved. Grown.

We’ve made new choices. We are seeing different results. The insanity is over.

Underneath the rubble that was the end of our relationship, we were two people who love deeply. Two people who have their share of wounding…just like everybody else…who found a way to work it out in a maddening and perfect storm of codependency.

In the mire of that way of relating, I learned about myself more deeply than I ever have in any relationship. In the mirror that was him, I saw my patterns. I witnessed my wounds. I exposed my grossest ways of being so I could bring them into the light and heal them.

That’s what we do in the mess we sometimes call relationships.

We bring our guck to the surface so we can see it, feel it, and heal it. Sometimes our greatest offenders are our most courageous teachers. It is they who spray the harsh fire hose of truth to wash away our years of soot and reveal the marvelous trove of jewels hidden beneath.

Without their engagement we would not know ourselves in the way that we do. It is, in the end, the most gracious of gifts.

So, if he is in a new relationship, then…WE WON!!!!!

We got out. We did it! We made it! We are free!!!!

He and I, together, we did it! Friends, loves, family, it’s over.

This is news that calls for celebrating, and I mean that with the truest of heart. We were two lovers with rich love, respect and co-creative power and we enjoyed our time in the sun, but the clouds came and we were blinded by the gray areas of intimacy and it was time to part ways.

The heart of the matter is this…if he has found love, then that means that my best friend for the last three years, a man I love dearly, has found new love and that is a beautiful thing. The abiding, faithful, unconditionally loving queen in my heart rejoices at the triumph of her dearly beloved…

The past is over. We keep it alive by obsessing about it, mulling it over, re-living it. We keep it alive by blaming others, being righteous, and creating a stance of hard lines.

The truth is, we are infinite beings of light. We are here for a short time in this dimension. We are making choices as we go along and sometimes they are messy and don’t work out the way we planned.

We do and say things that in retrospect, we would not have. Sometimes, in an attempt to love and be loved, we fail, our wounding wins, and we push away the very ones who offer us real love.

We must understand our innocence in all of this.

We must be gentle and tender with the parts of ourselves that come out in intimate relating as scared children, angry avengers, or avoidant, passive/aggressives. We learned those patterns in our families of origin. We knew no other way.

With love, with questioning, therapy, willingness to reflect, we can say we are sorry, and change the way our relationships emerge.

The key is to forgive ourselves and others for everything. Beyond that, the key is realizing that really, there is nothing to forgive. Each of us, so holy and pure in our innocent nature, deserve only compassionate care and deep, abiding love.

So, if my darling beloved, who came and taught me so much by ripping open the places where I harbored shame and blame, has found love, then let there be a celebration in my heart tonight. Let me rejoice in the possibility of evolution, of growth, of choosing new pathways that lead us to lighter, joyful places of having our needs met. If he can do it, I can too.

When we receive a hard pill to swallow, stop. Feel it. Know that it is just energy. It will channel through, and then be done.

Know that you can choose, today, right now, to tell a different story.

Choose one that frees you to love and be loved. Choose one that feels light in your heart and gives rise to your dance. Throw your hands up and rejoice that love lives!

Be whole in your holiness. We are divine. This is all a dream…anyway…

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2JXAgZybOE