Play Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Mc-NYPHaQ
It's just about Valentines Day - and for the first time in my life I am in love. Totally - completely and honestly in love. And I am in love and obsessed with my very own broken heart. If I look back on this day 12 months ago - I am looking at a very different picture -well, mostly. I was alone then, as I am now. I just didn't know it yet.
When we talk about our broken hearts - it's usually about when someone you love leaves you - they hurt you and it feels like they have come into your soul in the middle of the night and they have stolen the parts of you that you thought were safe with them,
Friends and family will actively try to fill you back up with all of the reasons why you should hate the person that left - tell you how they never deserved you - how they will regret it - how you can do so much better. Our support systems - the people who hold us up, who are willing to go to battle for us, who want to hurt the people who have hurt us - just want us to feel better. They want us to see ourselves as they see us - as our beautiful selves. And for this and for all of these people - we are so lucky.
Here is what I am learning.
Deciding to love someone is not a fall - its a choice. I wouldn't say that I really believed that until now.
Now I have had the experience of "being left". Honestly, it has not been the best - until now. Now I am fully present to my own heart - I am learning exactly what it means to love someone, unconditionally, even if they left you.
As I was reeling from this break-up, a friend of mine lost the love of her life - to death. I consider her and her loss daily. Each time I think of them, I brake more. I brake for her, for them. For all that was truly lost. The compassion I have for her grossly outweighs the sadness I feel for myself.
Compassion has been the single most valuable experience in my life. The compassion that I feel for my friends transferred to the person who hurt me, I no longer wanted to strike back at him. Instead, what I felt was more love for him. I felt relief and gratitude that he was still alive, that I still had the opportunity to see him and maybe even fight with him again, but more so that he still had a chance to live a happy life - even it if wasn't with me. It was then when I truly understood unconditional love. When you love someone unconditionally - by definition, it cannot be conditional on whether or not you are in a relationship - it can only exist.
Here's the other part of that.
I have read every article on how you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else fully, and although I thought I knew that, it never moved beyond my surface. And as a great student, I could recite all of the words around this tenant of life - however - what I practiced was ladling out all of "my" love and feeding the soul of someone who sat next to me. When they were finished with it - they stacked their empty bowl on the table and walked away. There I remained - empty pot - empty ladle - I was totally empty without someone to feed. That was a shattering revelation.
Over the past 3 months, I have been inundated with love - in ways that are beyond explanation - in ways that seem to be landing on me from heaven - from Earth - from the moon, the stars and the sun. Each time I felt my heart break, when the rumble of tears that shook from my toes to my worn out ducts that seem to have lost their shut off valve, the sky parted and love from every source came in an around me over and over and over again. As I think about it - the level of love that I received was commensurate with the level of pain I was experiencing - in fact it was so much more.
People from every part of my life were showing up. From the very first love of my life more than 30 yrs ago, to the very last person I met on the street who smiled at me - I was being cared for. I was and continue to be overwhelmed by love. My heart continued breaking over and over and OVER - not with pain, with LOVE - the shift in perspective was and continues to be profound.
Finally, last week, when a note came through my door one afternoon - that read "just keep doing amazing things" - it was then, in that very moment when I literally fell to the ground, head over heels in love. And I chose to fall so deeply in love with my broken beautiful heart. I realized then if not for this beautiful brokenness - I would not have known the depths of love that I do now.
I am filling my own pot now. I am savoring it, tending to it, allowing it to rise and to rest. I am going to let it simmer and layer in the depth of the experiences I am having now. This perfect meal that I am making - it's just for me.
Someday, when I am full - when I am ready I will share it again.
For the first time she was in no hurry.
#andshewas
