The Power of Love

Dear Sweet Friend,

Yes, I left my former husband of 34 years, last year in January.  It’s been over a year and a half.  He’s a good man but I had to leave him.  I was enabling his belief that he was not worthy of creating a life for himself.  He was stuck on the couch watching NCIS.

It was the hardest decision of my life.  But as it turns out it was the wisest I’d ever made. If you truly love someone, you want what’s best for that person.  I had to let go of my ego which was telling me to stay, and listen to my heart, which knew the truth.  I had to believe that my leaving would allow him to find his own happiness and not rely on me to be his happiness.

Within 10 months of my leaving, he landed a job.  He packed up his things and moved to the state of Washington.  He’s now running a company whose mission is to place disabled adults into the job market through vocational training.  It’s the most beautiful position of responsibility, compassion and growth, and I can see that he’s finding his self worth, and loving what he’s doing for himself and others.  He’s no longer on the couch.

After ten years of serious struggles, he and I were able to discover love, self-love, compassion, forgiveness and healing.  We talk, email and text.  The kids support us both, and are committed to family gatherings and family love.  Love doesn’t end, but it does transform.  He and I no longer love each other as husband and wife, but we do love each other as close friends, and always as the parents of our sweet children.  I will always be grateful for the life and children he and I created together.

 

Growth Begins with Being Open to Change

It’s not often that I can break away from my parents, but I know it’s healthy for me to.  Culturally, I was raised to believe that caring for my elderly parents was my responsibility.   ‘you must become a doctor.  Who else will take care of us if you don’t?’  Knowing that I let them down by not becoming the doctor they wanted me to become, somehow bound me to fulfill their idea of the dutiful daughter.

For years, I was trapped in the box of the dutiful daughter.  Over the years I’ve learned to break out of the box.  Taking actions that were not considered ‘dutiful’ definitely were out of my comfort zone.  It began with the awareness that my past, my parents’ expectations, my habits, including my feelings of guilt when I couldn’t please my parents, didn’t define me – what was familiar to me was not my identity.

Now whenever I find myself saying, “It’s just who I am,” and if I then experience resentment, or conflict, I know I have to pause and realize that I have choices – choices that have to do with healthy growth.  Stepping out the box, allows me to live large.  It’s a choice to no longer live small, and to be okay with choosing to take a step that may at first feel like guilt.  Engaging in healthy relationships is about loving myself enough to live in such a way the people I love feel free, which means I have to experience the people in my life wishing the same for me.  In other words, I have to imagine what it is to be loved in such a way that the person I love wants that same guilt free responsibility for me as much as I want it for them, even when they may be moaning and groaning, and complaining that’s it’s too long for me to be away.

Here I am, miles away from my parents.  I’m in England traveling the countryside, and then heading to London to visit friends and to explore some museums and gardens.  I trust that my parents are in good hands and that they are happy knowing that I’m taking care of myself and living large.

And I trust they love me and I love them.  It’s not my responsibility to make them happy.

 

living with no expectations of others, liberates me

Having choices is the ultimate freedom that empowers me.   Am I making choices that are healthy?  Or am I making choices to please you,  hoping that your reaction will give me self worth?

Giving freely, expecting nothing in return, is true love and I experience happiness.  I’m not depending on your response to give me a feeling of value.

Giving, expecting something in return, is conditioned happiness, because I’m then relying on you to make me happy  – whether it be praise, recognition, a hug, a gift…the expectation is what sets me up for relying on an outside source for my happiness.

My choices are not about trying to make you happy.  My choices are about me giving my love to you because I simply love you.  If my act puts a smile on your face, lets you experience gratitude, that’s all wonderful, but I’m not taking credit for anything.  I’m just happy to be loving you.  This is when I feel our spirits connect – when we’re free of the other’s expectations.  This is when I feel most intimate with you.

 

when i have a hard time finding the love within, i remember the sun and the moon

i used to be a people pleaser, so concerned about what others would think of me, always trying my best to find my self worth through the actions i would do for others.

when my intentions are purely from the heart and not my head, i find my true self.  my true self loves to give, but not to get attention or praise or even to be loved in return.  my true self simply loves.  just as the sun sends its rays to shine on every being, never asking or expecting anything in return, i feel its warmth, its love and i say thank you beautiful one.  i want to learn from the sun.

when i live through the heart, i don’t have to experience sadness or hurt when my actions go unnoticed or get criticized – when my dad says the soup i made for him is salty.

when i live through the heart, i don’t have to feel guilty when i can’t visit them every week or every day – when my dad tells me he’s so much happier when i’m around.

when i live through the heart, and i realize that for years i haven’t been nurturing my heart and i’ve been caring for others before loving myself, i don’t have to feel shame for leaving a marriage of 34 years.

i’m forever teachable, and this lesson of self love is the hardest one ever.  i can look and up and remember to love myself first – that it begins with me deep inside.

facing the truth, i find freedom

when i meditate i am closest to my heart. it is so open that i feel emotions that i don’t even know exist in my conscious state. powerful feelings surface,  feelings that are deep, hidden and unspoken, and as i let them move through me, i recognize them, and allow them to be and that’s when i feel my heart sing, and sometimes the singing turn to tears.

“opening the heart begins by opening to a lifetime’s accumulation of unacknowledged sorrow….at times we may experience this sorrow physically as contractions and barriers around our heart, but more often we feel the depth of our wounds, our abandonment, our pain as unshed tears. the Buddhist describe this as an ocean of human tears larger than the four great oceans.” – jack kornfield

and there i sat drowning in an ocean of tears.

at first i just let myself honor those feelings, and then i released them all, not really trying to understand why. i realized that i’d spent many years trying to make the most of a sad situation, afraid to allow the truth to surface, afraid to think i could ever leave someone who’s in pain, someone who’s sick.  there i sat remembering the pain, the lies, and acknowledging the truth.

“we grieve for our past traumas and present fears, for all of the feelings we never dared experience consciously.”

and so it is with my open heart, that i honor and release the pain, and welcome the loving compassion i have for myself.

i reach in my pocket, find the key, open the door and fly from my cage of denial, into the open space of honesty.

true love is freeing, not binding

love

“love in such a way the person you love feels free.”

one of my favorite quotes from the beautiful thich nat hahn

and that love begins with me.

i wake every morning feeling free and loving myself.

and every person i encounter, i share that love.

a love that is liberating is one that people want to be around.

a love with no demands, that simply accepts people and situations as they are, attracts more love.

the love that isn’t liberating, you want to run from.

the love that is about fear, because you’re afraid of losing it, is suffocating.

that kind of love makes you feel obligated and guilty.

it’s that kind of unhealthy love – the kind of love that makes you responsible for another person’s well being. the love where you’re the one expected to fill another person’s hole of deep despair, and if you don’t, then you’ve failed – it’s that kind of love that chains you down and chokes you and drains you, and makes you want to run away and breathe.

in order to spread the love, i have to love myself first

one of the greatest lessons that i’m learning on this journey of life, is to love myself first. all my life i’ve been taught to think of others first, and to help as best i can, but not if it means helping others defines me and gives me my self worth.

helping others is all good, if i love myself first.  because caring for someone else thinking that i am helping them, or that i will bring them happiness, leaves me unfulfilled because in the end it is not me that will make them happy; they must find their own happiness within.  by serving others to find self fulfillment will leave me feeling empty if that is the only source of my happiness.

when i stopped believing that it was up to me to make him feel better,

when i stopped believing that i could make him a happy person,

when i stopped believing that unconditional love meant loving someone more than myself,

i became acutely aware of what i needed to do to take care of myself.

i became acutely aware of my needs and started loving myself first.

i became acutely aware of the changes and choices i need to make to nourish the self love.

 

do i love myself enough to say ‘no’?

in living through the heart it’s about connecting, relating, understanding, but when i live this way, there are times when i find myself agreeing to everything everyone wants me to do.

in having compassion for others, it’s important you have compassion and love for yourself first. as your heart serves as your guide, it’s not always about serving others.

take my father for example. if he had his way, he would want me to be there everyday, all day. as much as i would love to be there for them, i do have a life outside their village. in saying ‘no, i’m sorry i can’t’, i choose not to experience guilt. instead, i see myself loving me, nurturing my soul.

i know in my heart that i wouldn’t be happy taking care of my mom all the time. it would be a loving gesture, but i know it wouldn’t be good for me. it wouldn’t be good for anyone.

it’s not a selfish me that is saying ‘no’, it’s a me who is caring for her heart, nourishing her heart, giving her heart the respect from which she grows. if i experience confusion as to when to say ‘no’, i ask myself, ‘would i put my own children in that position?’ because the clarity with which i love my own children is sometimes clearer than the love i have for myself because i was taught not to be selfish.

caring and loving my heart and being selfish are two very different things.  caring for my heart is caring for the little manette in me who never asks for anything and is always giving, being selfish is like giving in to the bratty manette, the ego, who demands things be her way and thinks she deserves more.

yes, i want to connect and give. but if i’m ever feeling walked upon, manipulated, used or abused, i pause and ask myself, ‘am i loving myself?’ ‘do i need to set a boundary that supports my loving heart?”do i need to say, ‘no’?’

 

 

adjusting to the imperfections in life, and finding peace and the deepness of love

life is really about learning to live with each other’s shortcomings. and if you think about it, the joy in life is realizing that i have choices, choices in how i’m going to respond to life’s shortcomings. in other words, my relationship to the imperfections of life – the good and the bad that is simply the reality of our existence as humans.

if i’m willing to see my imperfections, and that i’m forever changing, my relationships with others and with life’s circumstances improve.  if i can see that we all have defects of character, that no one is perfect, i find a peace within me that is simple and loving.

if i find myself making demands of myself and others, demands that fit some idealistic image of what it should be, i experience conflict and turmoil within.  if i’m making  demands of others to be the way i want them to be, or demands of god to give me a life i want not the one that is unfolding before me, then i experience frustration and discontent.

when i’m in conflict with what is, life on it’s own terms, i can’t sleep and want to force solutions that i think will make me happy. when i learn to let go of trying to make things the way i want them to be, including other people, i find peace and happiness.

my soul mate struggles with depression. if i focus on trying to change him, trying to get him to create a life for himself, i find myself wanting to control or criticize him. if i focus on his many beautiful qualities, and have compassion for his condition, i experience peace.

if i focus on creating a life for myself that includes him, but one that isn’t determined by his emotional state, i have an awareness that i have choices.  i can choose to be miserable with him if he’s having a bad day, or i can choose to have my own emotional state of being, and realize that his emotions are not mine, that’s it’s okay to be happy even he’s not.

‘why are you yelling at me?’ is no longer a part of our dance. he rarely yells anymore. but it started with me making the change. it started with me allowing him to have his emotions, and not taking them personally.  i began to see that i could choose to feel that i was responsible for his anger or i could choose to understand and have compassion. i didn’t have to choose to feel a victim.  i didn’t have to allow his emotions to become mine. i started to give him the space to have his own emotions, and i began to see that my emotions were separate from his.

we all have our shortcomings, humans were not created to be perfect. and as i get to know my man and all that he’s been through, and i make adjustments in the choices i make as i respond to him, my love for him grows and runs deep. really deep.

there is no judgement in simple pure love – it comes from the heart

there is no comparing, there is no prioritizing, and one being more important than the other in love. with love it’s in the knowing coming from inside and it grows without conditions, it grows with understanding and total complete acceptance.

i speak from experience, as i’m surrounded daily in pure and simple love. the love i have for our four children and my husband, my parents, siblings, friends, the love just grows and spreads and is infectious. the love they have for me is the same. it just fills every possible space, every part of my being, the way light sneaks under a door, or the sun’s rays filter through a seemingly opaque set of curtains, or through a thick, cumulus cloud.

love cannot be stopped. but it does have to be mutual for it to grow. for love to grow there are no making assumptions, it’s total acceptance. once there is judgement about how the other is expressing their love – ‘that’s not what i wanted to hear’, or ‘he was late’, or ‘he probably wanted to be with somebody else, but they weren’t available so he chose me’ – it has trouble growing. getting into the head about love is a dangerous place because we want to interpret and guess what the other’s intentions are; pure love that comes from the heart doesn’t judge or compare, it just holds you, warms you, makes you laugh, or cry, touches you and fills you.

it’s in the detail in the heart that love expands. it connects and relates. if i focus on the things i want from idealized love of the head, the hallmark kind of love – flowers, cards, gifts, even time – we want love to be defined, when really love can’t be explained. love exists the way the sun exists. love is timeless and borderless. there is no counting minutes in love, every second is precious and appreciated. love is freeing, not demanding.

love touches you in the tiniest moments in the biggest ways.

love is the way our 25 year old son chih shared with me yesterday as we were driving by a corner flower shop how he always remembers that building, and how i was with him as he was trying to sound out the word b-a-l-l-o-o-n-s 20 years ago. the word was plastered on their wall, and his memory was so vivid. it was the first time reading made sense to him. and that all those times i had spent with him sounding out words, suddenly clicked.

now that’s love. it filled me and warmed me and brought me to tears.