Love No Matter What

You know I update this with random things...depending on what someone puts up on my Facebook page, what book I am reading at any one point in time or whatever thoughts I feel called to share with you. Also pictures, cute pictures.

Life jogs along and I try to be more present, more aware, of how I engineer the things that happen in my life, even when it seems that I am being carried upon a tide of randomness. It's funny but you only see things or feel things fully in hindsight. That's all there is to it.

All those people I want in my life, all those people I insist on having in my life, all those people I expend all my money and energy to try and force them to be in my life (because no matter what I say, I'm lonely and I'm scared of being alone. There! I said it). I realise that I put too much pressure on them to BE with me, constantly, and mostly, people have their own stuff to deal with. Those who try to live up to all I expect of them, end up drained, exhausted and not talking to me for the rest of their lives.

I'm reading Sonia Choquette's memoir of her time walking the Camino. It came out recently. The following passage was highlighted in my Kindle. And I would like to share it with you.

We cannot feel love unless we open our hearts, and yet, when we do open them, they can and do get broken. It just works that way. If we close our hearts off, however, as a means of protecting ourselves, and cover them over with anger and rage, we break our hearts from the inside. If we look to others to give us the love we are not giving ourselves, we become frustrated and disappointed and often feel rejected, creating even deeper wounds than before.

Only when we love ourselves fully and forgive all the people and experiences that have caused us pain, both inside and out, can we truly heal and find inner peace. There is no other way. We cannot avoid the pain of life, no matter how spiritually awakened we are. Life involves loss. It is impermanent and messy and causes suffering. Only when we feel our pain, feel our losses, and allow our feelings to move through us, and then onward, are we able to heal and live as fully empowered beings in the moment.