There is very little that I grasp and cling to these days. Not to say that I don’t feel the initial anxiety and disappointment from a hoped for connection that falls short of the possibilities I see for it, or that I don’t feel a real dedication for the friend and family bonds that have existed in my movie through the years. However to be totally honest– though I might love you, care deeply for you, respect you, meditate on what you’ve brought to my life and shared with me…. When you leave, when what we had has no future, when the end of what was comes….
I’m ok.
Isn’t it incredible how much space and wonder the concept of accepting something brings? Be it accepting loss, accepting success, accepting whatever shows up. Just the word “accept” feels good. It makes me smile.
Accept is similar in its feeling to my spirit as surrender. Like accepting, though surrendering can appear to be a position of powerlessness, there is truly nothing more powerful.
I surrender! I’m done resisting. I’m done fighting. I’m ok with what’s presented to me. This doesn’t mean I’m happy with a situation that involves pain or loss, it just means I accept and surrender to the experience of it and I choose not to resist that it has come.
In love relationships and the loss or gain of them– acceptance and surrender to pain or rejection is extremely difficult to navigate. Perhaps this could be explained by the values of our culture?
Supposedly it’s very romantic to need and to be needed by other people. Supposedly it’s a sign of something very deep and of true love when you are so connected to someone that you will kill for them, die without them, place them above all others and fight to keep them when they threaten to leave you. Isn’t this what’s celebrated as the ideal for romantic love in our movies, TV shows, novels and the like?
This is love.
Is this love?
From my humble 29 years of personal perspective I’ve learned that I prefer to be in relationships where I can focus and meditate on one person even though I am a rather free spirit who ‘falls in love’ frequently. The obvious reason for being in relationship rather than a free agent is that I can pay attention and work through issues that are intimate with total intensity when engaged in something exclusive and monogamous. I like to give one man my whole attention for the time we are together. Someday I’d like to pick someone I can do that with for life. So, this mind exploration is not a rejection of commitment or marriage.
BUT, choosing exclusivity and adventuring through that experience does not mean that I’m in need of anything outside of myself and that I find comfort in clinging to a person or experience and having them cling to me. This of course is something I’ve had to learn how to do. I’ve learned how to not cling and how to let things go. If you leave me or reject me, if you die or change, if you decide to be interested in another woman or another friend more than you were or are interested in me…. I’ll be just fine. Perhaps my ego will convulse and react…. But in essence, the real Katie, my spirit, is going to be just fine. And more and more the people who come into my picture will be just fine without me. That’s why I’m attracted to them in the first place. I’m not necessary, not essential, not particularly needed. This is the true definition of freedom, no? But freedom from what?
Can you honestly say that you value the moment and what is, without anxiety abo
