Friends couldn’t believe it. They said that if there were two people who should be able to work it out it was us. In hindsight I don’t see separation or divorce as a bad thing. It was an opportunity for each of us to explore our independence and aloneness. Hannah was empowered by learning survival in the world. She lived alone in our housebus, traveling around New Zealand and promoting her beadwork.
I went through all the stages of feeling lost without her and self-love was to be the healing solution but first I indulged in substance abuse and workaholism to distract myself from the pain.
In times of pain we are given the best opportunity to create a new way of being. It is the soul’s way of encouraging us to evolve and, if we resist, the pain persists until we change.
It took me a while to change from needing her to wanting, then eventually accepting the current reality. "Acceptance is the art of letting go."
I learned that with any wanting comes anxiety and potential pain. Changing wants to preferences is one way to lower our expectations. Relinquishing preferences and replacing them with acceptance is a way of peace. Wanting something produces just that – the feeling of wanting. It does not produce what you want as the focus is on asking the Universe for the experience of wanting. Te relieve myself of the self-inflicted misery of wanting the love of others I try and release my attachment by channeling my love as appreciation.
When Shah and I became close we created many fantasy futures which felt good at the time, but I realize that I set myself up for more pain and misery when they didn’t happen. Life had moved on and the dream was shattered.
Then I was given the gift of hope which I now believe to be the single most destructive advice you can give to an ex-lover. It is offered to cushion the blow to the ego to reduce the immediate pain of detachment but it just creates more longing or fantasy of possibilities which in turn usually carries more pain. It would have been easier to have learned the reality of no longer being wanted so the healing process could begin and I could get on with my life.
It is so easy to improve our vision of the perfect partner each time but the quest is better discarded for living for the present, following our own dreams and being our own ideal rather that needing or wanting another to feel complete. In the words of Oscar Wilde "To love yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance".
Rejection by another is often inevitable so we rationalize our imperfections to seek clarity for our bruised egos.
Sometimes trying to be perfect stops me from being so. Everyone has a different ideal to which they are attracted irrespective of who we change into. As long as I learn and grow from each relationship I can see, taste and share the beauty created but ultimately through death abandonment is inevitable and we must feel complete in ourselves. I have given up the search for a mate as they always seem to turn up when I’m not looking and the single life allows possibilities I couldn’t invent.
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With further reflection I remembered my father had nightmares after having, on only one occasion, caned a boy at the school. He was a well-respected teacher for twenty-five years. Yet he, a loveable man, could punish his children in a similar way while our mother stood by and allowed it.
A book, For Your Own Good, by Alice Miller, reflected on childhood discipline. There were excerpts from seventeenth century child-rearing books. I saw the comparison with the way our family was raised. These techniques included ‘taking the willfulness out of children’, and the belief that if you ‘spare the rod you will spoil the child’. As a child I saw my parents as monsters and made up a story about them. I spent the rest of my time looking for evidence that I was right. It was easy to find, and had nothing to do with reality.
On a later trip back to Findhorn I met a friend who was assisting in past life regressions through hypnosis. I was curious to explore who I’ve been before but he couldn’t get me out of this life so he asked me to stay in it and explore my childhood and, particularly, get in touch with a time when my father was about to punish me.
I was asked to go inside my father’s body to examine his feelings, and it blew me out. It was love. He was loving me as best as he could. This changed my attitude of anger towards my parents forever. It was the missing link in the years of confusion. I was given the opportunity to say all the things I would say as an adult, through the child, to my father.
As I was still under hypnosis and feeling years of frustration and anger, I was encouraged to vent that anger on a pillow. I beat it to tiny pieces.
I had know, for a long time, that I never wanted children and I finally understood why. I didn’t want to pass on what had happened to me to my children. Only after allowing myself the opportunity to examine and heal, am I ready to embrace the possibility of raising a child consciously instead of reacting.
I apologized for withholding my love from my parents, which has allowed another level of communication to take place, and my father can hug now without getting too freaked out about being close.
My mother sometimes accuses two of my brothers, Jonathan and Tim as well as myself of being selfish for choosing spiritual paths in life. While I would not recommend the belief in the fearful
judgemental God of the catholic tradition it did give me a sense that wherever the truth lay it wasn’t in what I was being taught and so I turned inside for what felt like my truth. Spiritual growth can appear to be a selfish act but we are all one spirit and who we become reflects on everyone.
To love someone is to encourage their spiritual growth. Giving money to a church or attending confession every week does not necessarily mean one has embraced a spiritual life. How can one God grant eternal salvation in a dream world called heaven to some people whilst being prejudiced against others, sometimes only because they believe in a God with a different name. Have you considered that you are already in heaven and if you feel you are in hell it is your own creation?
I have learned a lot from being born into my family and seen how words have the power to create hell. I know people whose favourite word is ‘should’ and have watched them anguish over the ‘shoulds’ and the anxiety and disappointments they attract because of their attachment to outcome.