Filled up with gratitude and love : today’s reflections

WordPress gives so much to me, it truly does. I am making an effort to get out and walk with Jasper before logging on these days and we managed that today after a tough but meaningful week of understandings and deep feelings emerging. I just got home from our walk and the markets a while ago and when I logged onto my page my heart was just filled to the brim with overflowing love to read such an encouraging comment on my recent blog from a fellow blogger who is so dear to my heart. And then to have connected with someone else. I know that even though we don’t get to meet in physical form the web is actually a kind of etheric connector for so many of us. It is here I can be honest. It is here I can find my refuge, It is here where I meet those who understand and go through very similar things to me.

I was just about to log on to write a post about how everyone we meet in life is some kind of mirror for us. I was thinking of how at times we attract just those people who will most trigger our wounds or shadow stuff. This often serves as a precious opportunity for us to deepen in self love, wisdom, understanding and compassion. Often this works best when we choose to stop blaming others and see the part we both play in things that go down that may have lessons or learnings for us. In this way even deeply painful experiences can be turned to our advantage when we see from deeper levels of understanding, insight and forgiveness.

I noticed that on Tuesday after my fellowship friend let me down as soon as I was able to non judgementally express how it effected me immediately we were able to reconnect, she apologised and there was an opening whereas just moments before when I was deep in my abandonment wound I was feeling suicidal again. I then connected that back to how it felt in my family not to be related with emotionally, to be forgotten or blocked from expressing my true feelings. I also thought a lot about my difficulties with my living sister. I find it hard at times to express how she hurts me by her self involvement. I would never want to hurt her or make her feel judged because on one level I feel its not her fault she never reaches out (due to her anxiety and depression) or seems to have the capacity to imagine how much joy it would give me hear from her and know she cared. I just assume now she does care but cannot reach out because she is struggling so hard with her own illness which makes it impossible for her to reach out. That said even as I write this I feel the stabbing and aching in my heart and I thought just a moment ago when I began to write this how its actually heart to heart connection that I seem to most live for, but how important too it is for me to connect to my own heart and hidden longings and needs too.

Often we can let past hurt or pain block us from opening up and empowering ourselves by having the courage to express our truth in a non harming way with others. that said when we tend to make demands of others maybe what we are most hungry for is just some self love, self care and nurture.

I love the work of Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn as a lot of his teachings revolve around this. He says that if someone makes us suffer we are best to find a compassionate and loving way to tell them and ask if they will help us with our suffering. Of course my experience with those who lack empathy is that they may try to shut us down, they may try to tell us its all our fault for feeling upset Spiritual and emotional teacher Teal Swan reminds us that it is only natural for us to feel the way we feel in response to certain hurtful experiences and discounting our feelings never really works, but just reacting unconsciously from them may not always be a skilful way of dealing with hurt or injury. A key sign of narcissism or lack of true empathy would be someone telling us no one can ’cause’ us to feel hurt or upset, but that is not strictly true we do have genuine responses in connection with certain treatment, the most loving thing we can do is to suffer the hurt in a containing way while reaching for healthy ways of self soothing, even if it is only a matter of being all too human when we do lash out.

I know how much guilt I often suffer when I have pushed people away in the past. When all I desired was connection it can hurt a lot to see how actions actually drove that connection away. That said those who love us unconditionally tend to want to show our hearts empathy when they feel we are suffering. This is an act of love which may often come more from a person who has suffered a lot themselves. Those who go through the school of hard knocks may often become tougher and harder or alternatively they may choose to soften into their vulnerability, explore their wounds or breakages and allow the healing light of self love in, finding ways to be strong in a more gentle way.

I love the chapters of the Chinese spiritual text the Tao Te Ching which speak of how it is best to be strong and supple like a reed that can bend in high winds and submit itself to the movement or full onslaught of life. The more rigid we are the more we tend to break apart when the going gets tough. That said, after breaking apart we may be able in some way to reassemble the shattered pieces over time into a beautiful mosaic of meaning and art. Much depends upon how we respond to our own suffering and the suffering of others in our lives, how rigid or defended we choose to become in the aftermath, and how willing we are to bend whilst retaining the power to sustain our true being, life essence, feelings and soul integrity.