The Mystery of it All

You may not want someone to leave your life, you feel you are deeply connected and that you have something great to offer them, they even make you feel that way. But then they do leave (or you may do the leaving because of their actions) and you feel despondent – having you believe that you do not have something great to offer…why else would they leave, or move on?

Perhaps, and most likely, they do not have something great to offer YOU, and that they do NOT add value to YOUR life. And perhaps they were unable to accept the great things you do have to offer because they are filled with too much insecurities of their own. They block good and healthy things from their life because it threatens their security, their deep-seated beliefs, and arouses uncomfortable feelings. Feelings that are buried, unresolved and they are likely in denial of.

They seem so confident in themselves, that you will believe that what they think and believe must be right, because you are not as confident in your thoughts and feelings. And you begin to doubt your own. That confidence is more than likely a survival mask, an amour, ego pride, arrogance and a selfish resolve of their beliefs being right. You threaten this very fragile sense of self…so they leave.

They move on quickly to appease this insecure sense of self, to feel “whole” again, to feel right, to bandage up a wound before it gets to breath. A new companion that, in their mind, proves they are okay, yet in reality it is one that doesn’t threaten their comfortable sense of self, or the status quo. Someone that doesn’t ask them to LOOK at the wounds that are buried within, doesn’t ask them to step up, to become stronger and to heal. Someone who is likely codependent and has the same level of insecurities…someone that is a better match to their level of evolution at this time.

NO, them leaving is NOT proof that you don’t have anything good to offer them, or that you were not good enough, or that you are not worth fighting for. Them finding a new companion so soon does NOT mean you are easily forgotten, that your thoughts and feelings were wrong, that you made a mistake, rather it is proof that they are too weak and too insecure and too in denial to be with you.

Them leaving is a gift from the Universe. Yes, you do have something to offer them, in which they are not ready to receive, but more importantly they do NOT have something great to offer you. So if you won’t leave, if your shadows have taken a hold of you and your fears set it, the Universe will make sure that they leave you…because you are ready to come into your own greatness.

You have healed on so many levels (you just don't know it) and this time the Universe will not let you slip back. So often we wonder ‘why is this bad thing happening to me?’ ‘Why doesn’t the world give me a break?’ This is your break! Taking that person away from you IS because of the grace of the Universe. Allowing you to grow, to find your inner power and move further down your path and toward your destiny.

Our answers don’t come in the way we expect them; if they did then we wouldn’t learn anything because we wouldn’t have anything to learn – we’d already know it if it came the way we thought it would. When the Universe is helping you in this way, making damn sure that you cannot fall back into your self-defeating patterns and staying small, then you are beginning to align your soul with all that is true for you.

The Universe works in mysterious ways, we are not supposed to know it all, or our life would not unravel as it should and the lessons that teach us who we are and what or destiny is would not be learned. I think if we could stop analyzing it all, stop trying to figure it all out, and stop forcing our will (ego wounds), not only would we lessen our suffering, we would also get out of our own way so that we can see the blessing the Universe has bestowed upon us. And really, wouldn’t it be boring if we knew it all?

Everyone loves a mystery. Life is the great circle of mystery. 

Love the mystery of your life.

What are you hooked on?

When we are not aware of or have healed our own wounds, we end up chasing them out there and become hooked on to other people's wounds and issues. Instead of listening to our own inner wisdom and being guided by our own feelings, we dismiss them. We tolerate behaviour that is unhealthy, or makes us feel uncomfortable, or is hurtful to us. We try to get them to change, behave differently, think differently, so they’ll treat us better – the way we want to be treated. And when the other doesn’t change, we start pushing down our own feelings, justifying their behaviours, making excuses for them or for ourselves, fooling ourselves, and doubting our own thoughts.

What we are really trying to do, I believe, is have the other validate us and the more they don’t, the more we try to prove our worth to them. BUT, what we are really trying to do is prove our worth to ourselves. It is us who do not believe we are worthy or special enough.

And there is my hook.

That’s why I kept sticking around, even though my head and heart were saying, “this seems unhealthy”, “he has unresolved emotional issues around relationships”. When I felt his actions (not his words, so much) were not honouring me, respecting me or valuing me…I stayed. Hoping he’d see my worth and change. Yes there is many “wrongs” in that statement.

But what really awoke those painful, almost hidden beliefs was what happened after the relationship. After the break up. Sure my insecurities and lack of belief in myself had me be and stay in the relationship, but I am not a wimp or a pushover in a relationship. It was the break up that woke up the beast! The wounds broken wide open! He didn’t fight for me, he didn’t change, he didn’t fall apart (that I saw), he didn’t validate me, rather he disconnected from me AND he found a new girlfriend soon after…one that is still with him almost 2 years later (how invalidating to my thoughts and feelings). Not fighting for me, not falling apart without me, seeming ‘okay’ to let me go and getting a new gf fairly quickly had me hearing my old wounds and beliefs LOUD & CLEAR: “YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH”.

And I realize it was this feeling “I am not good enough” that had me clinging, obsessing over him, holding on to the pain, doubting myself, and a plethora of other self-defeating behaviours, not the break up…not him. I was just chasing my own wound and trying to get it healed by him!?

The more I tried to get him to validate me and prove to me that I am worthy and special enough to fight for, change for, stay with, the more I was invalidated and ‘proved’ otherwise…and then the more I clung and obsessed and held on to the story and the pain of the ‘break up’. Ironically, it is these actions, that not only reinforce those feelings within ourselves, but also adds yet another layer of pain onto that self-defeating belief.

All the clinging and obsessing is not really because I want him (or I wouldn’t have broke it off in the first place), nor is it a measure of my love for that person, it is because I am now looking for proof that I AM GOOD ENOUGH, so I don't have to believe my own demons. And who I am ultimately trying to prove it to, is not him, it’s myself. And I am looking out there for proof of it, driving me to behave in codependent, obsessive, and unhealthy ways which are self-defeating and get me further and further away from “I am good enough!”

The fact is no matter what he did or does, no matter how much I obsess, cling, beat myself up, doubt myself, analyze it all or get the 'proof' that I am looking for to validate my thoughts and feelings regarding him and that relationship,  it is not ultimately going to make me feel like I am good enough because the truth is, deep down it is me that does not believe I am good enough.

My wound just hooked on to him. I'm hooked on to my wound.

Shadow Dancing

Come join the dance


Here you will find the partner that has all the qualities you are looking for
Immediately, like magnets, you are drawn to each other
The lights go dim and the music begins
You sway to the music, you are twirled and whirled
As you hold each other close on the dance floor
Your bodies melt into one another
His scent, you breathe in as if it is life itself
You feel alive, elated.

You admire your partner’s charisma
His confidence and how he takes the lead
His talented footwork sweeps you off your feet
His sweet words fall gently on to your heart
So perfect, all of this, you want to hold on to it
You attach yourself to him to make it more real-like.

You put your treasure under lock and key to keep it safe
As if you were guarding your life
And you give him the key
Your dance partner, now the holder of the treasure you have found
You close your eyes, hypnotized by the music
You feel yourself floating away … floating into him
Attached as if one on the dance floor.

Then the music stops and the lights turn on
You begin to awaken from your trance-like state
You’re confused and feel lost
Things start looking different, feeling different
It appears empty, but you see shadows … like ghosts almost
It feels scary and dark, even in the light
What kind of dance was that?

It felt so good and now it feels so bad
You beg the music man to play another song
But nothing happens
It’s become very quiet except the noise in your head
Still spinning from the dance of your life
But now it sounds distorted
You beg the music man again, to play music like he did before
But only more distortion.

And where is your treasure? Where is your treasure?!
You no longer have access to it because you gave the key away
You look for the key in your partner but you can’t find it anymore
He’s the one that has it after all.

You continue to look to him for the key to your treasure
You try to hold on to him, pull him in close again … dance again
You need the treasure that he has
It is your life-line
You want answers
From him … from the music man … from anyone.

But no answers come from anyone or anyplace
Out there
Beaten, exhausted and ready to give up the fight
In your surrender, you begin to look for the key to your treasure
In a place you were certain it would never be found
Inside. Yourself.

It’s no longer so loud
You begin to hear the music again, but it’s not as distorted
There is clarity
Although fearful that you may be hypnotized again and fall
You remain somewhat doubtful, slowly
Step by step you move alone on the dance floor
The shadows begin to disappear one by one
Soon you realize that the gifts you thought belonged to another
Were really yours all along.



The shadow dance is now over.

Taking my projections back

People come into our life and it may be a painful experience in order to help our souls emerge into who we are. It’s just like a birth process and that in itself is painful, but ultimately rewarding (I am guessing as I do not have children). These experiences can trigger our deepest fears of abandonment and rejection and our insecurities.

The person that catalyzes these feelings represent an aspect of ourselves that we are trying to reclaim and get back or that we have never come into. For me it is knowing my self-worth, believing in myself, self-value, self-trust and just a strong sense of self. If I could just see this symbolically, see him a symbol of the power I lost in childhood. What does he symbolize about who I am? About what I am trying to reclaim? Because I do know that it is really about me.

Projections. Often when this is talked about it’s about how we project our shit on to other people, as in misdirected anger, but often we project our “good” stuff on to others too. And maybe more so if you have codependent tendencies... I dunno. So I made a list of the things that I admired in him, that I thought were him, but perhaps really weren’t. We can perceive things in different lights depending on how we feel about the person or rather more correct, how we want that person to be for us.

The Projection List:

Stage Presence

Charisma

Confident
Sexy
Talented
Creative
Profound
Wise
Strong
Responsible
Committed
Loving
Spiritual
Intellectual
Awesome


And most of those perceptions came from him being a musician and song writer. In reality, that was more his stage persona or narcissism, a word he used once to describe why he had to be the singer even though his singing voice isn’t so great. Some of the other perceptions came from him being married for 16 years, him having the son live with him most the time, him having such a close relationship with ex and an extra close (read clingy) relationship with son. In reality, this all had to do with his addiction issues, codependency and deep-seated insecurity.

So perhaps all these projections I put on him are really aspects of me. I don’t claim many of them because I don’t believe them about me. And it’s just that, self-beliefs that hold us back. It’s what we believe about ourselves that directs our lives and feeds our experiences. What we believe is not necessarily the truth. Truth is, these are likely all my unclaimed power. I see it in others because I am unable to see it in myself. After all, people and relationships just hold up mirrors to us. Maybe I was never really seeing HIM, rather I saw my own strengths and power that was cut off from me in childhood.

I am here to reclaim my power and give his stuff back!

One day, if you are lucky...

...you will be in pain.

Why do we hang on so long after someone is gone or something is done? We go over and over it in our heads, rehashing the conversations, what we said, what they said, what we should have said. Keeping the story alive. Giving the “sad” story more power than it had even to begin with. We feed the demons, feed the sadness, feed the pain, feed our own story that we created a long time ago about who we are. Or rather, who we believe we are. Our conditioned self, the role we played in our family, our patterns of behavior, our way of coping and surviving in our family structure. And we take these roles and wounds out into the world, projecting them everywhere and on to everyone, especially in our intimate relationships. 

Whether we want to admit or not, or whether we are even aware of it, most of us recreate our family patterns in our relationships. We approach love the same way we did as children, whether that is through shutting down, acting out, seeking constant approval or trying to be really good to prove our worth. We keep chasing that wound. Searching out there so we can feel good in here.

And it works for a while; all the same familiar patterns over and over again feels strangely comforting, feels like home, feels like what you know even if it isn’t healthy. 

But one day if you are lucky, you will hurt so much that you will no longer be able to bear the pain of living these old beliefs, behaving from your conditioned self and allowing that wounded child to steer the wheel that keeps you from the path of finding who you really are. Keeps you from owning your own power and from living from that space. The very space that will provide you with what you are seeking out there for: love…happiness. 

One day, if you are lucky, you will be cracked open so wide that you will need to look inside and from there the real you will begin to emerge.

RIP - Pieces of Me

Rebuilding. I didn’t realize it would take so long to build a home with a good, solid foundation, but that’s what I have been doing for the past year – rebuilding from the ground up.

My old home shattered, fell apart, collapsed from a life storm, but it had slowly been crumbling over the years from many other life conditions. The hurricane swept my home away and took away everything I clung to, including my self-beliefs. This home could not simply be repaired; I could no longer live here safely and certainly not happily. All the mortar in the world wasn’t enough to fill these gaping holes in the foundation; it had to be torn down and rebuilt from the beginning.

Pieces of me scattered everywhere. Pieces I didn’t even know existed. Dark, ugly demonic-like pieces lay there claiming to be a piece of me. I couldn’t even pick them up and look at them. ‘No these pieces belonged to someone else, they belonged to the person who caused the storm in my home.’

But in the light of day, after the storm passed through and after the year it took for the dust to settle and clear, I could see that these pieces were indeed a part of me.I came to see that the dark storm lived inside these pieces and inside my home for most of my life. That these pieces were the cause of this destructive force.

And as I started to rebuild, these pieces just weren’t fitting in anymore, in fact they just kept hindering and delaying the rebuilding project making it extremely difficult to continue to build. I had to rid my home of these pieces of debris that caused my home to be weak and insecure even in the best of weather conditions.

A painful and arduous task to rid yourself of pieces that have been with you for so long, even if you have learned they are threatening your survival. They are a part of you, you believed them, you took comfort in them and they are so familiar after all these years that they feel right.

It feels like I am ripping pieces of my flesh away from my bones, reaching in and tearing out a living, breathing organ from inside of me causing me to want to hold on to them or else I will die. Yet this is exactly what needs to happen. A part of me must die, so that the healthy part can live … can thrive … can find peace.

Score 1 for the Devil

Why do we sabotage ourselves? We do things that we know that will hurt us or are not good for us, yet we do it anyway. Expecting a different outcome, but it is never a different outcome.
I put these ridiculous absolutes in my head that feed into my self-defeating story that if this person is doing this or if I see that, then it must mean I am (insert any self-defeating adjective here).

I use someone else’s behaviours to gauge how I feel about myself, rather than seeing it as something completely detached from me, nothing to do with me. And I rationally know this, but if it will feed my false self-beliefs, the self-defeating story of I am not good enough, special enough, loveable enough, I will believe it over rationale. And then I am on a role as I further feed my story with skewed perceptions of what I see or hear and make it mean something negative about me. “Oh my ex is still with that girl that he met just 2 months after we broke up, then I mustn’t be very special, I mustn’t have meant very much to him, he mustn’t have cared about me, she must be better than me” and on it goes….feeding the story, feeding the demons.
My wisdom and all the things I claim to believe and know about the human psyche goes out the window.

I claim to believe that we draw to us how we feel about ourselves, yet if I really believed that then that would negate my self-defeating story. I would see that he only drew to him exactly what he is, exactly what he always has. Someone that is codependent and insecure, someone that will tolerate being treated poorly.

I would believe that he just defaulted back to who he always was and how he has always been because he never did the hard work of facing his own demons, his shadows, rather he ran away like a coward and stayed in denial. If I believed what I claim to and believe what I know strongly enough then my self-defeating story would be squashed and I wouldn’t be tormented by my thoughts. I wouldn’t perceive his behaviours as proof of a negative self-belief. Yet I do. Thus, the demons have won this round.

The old stories and self-defeating beliefs are still winning. My inner demons are still stronger than my wiser, more evolved, esteemed self.

These demons need to be slain once and for all so I can LIVE.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. A time I usually look back on the year and reflect. Reflect on where I have been and where I am now. I'll start by saying that this birthday is better than last year's. Last year I was in a place of pain and confusion as I just ended a relationship with someone I adored. It ended suddenly, no time for falling out of love or getting tired of the person or arguing or not getting along. I felt alone, abandoned and heartbroken.

But the break up ended up being a catalyst for me in finding me. Leading me on a long and painful journey of healing as I began to realize where I was deeply wounded. A year of coming face-to-face with my shadow. Old wounds I had been carrying around unconsciously for my whole life and definitely what drew this person, this relationship to me in the first place.

I am very aware that it is my own wounds and ego that keep me stuck and holding on and that he was merely a mirror of my deep inner wounds. Wounds needing to see the light of day and be questioned and analyzed. An old story that needs to stop being told to myself. And, oh, did this person fit perfectly into my story. The break up fit into my story of “not good enough, special enough” even better. Yet he never said these things to me, in fact he adored me. All he did was be who he is: emotionally dysfunctional, codependent, insecure, fearful, cowardly and stuck. I am the one that made it mean something about me.

So, I guess I could say in the past year, where I have been is Hell. In my own dark, self-created hell. Where my shadow, my wounds, my fears, my insecurities, my obsessions and my codependency dwell. In hiding, yet were the silent but deadly drivers of my life.

Over the past year, I lost my relationship, lost my job, got rid of my car and moved across country. And where I am now is in a new home, a new car, new friends and in a new job that I love – teaching yoga. I am in a much lighter place, perhaps not Heaven or a place of peace yet, but I have escaped the captivity of my personal demons. I have the key in my hand to unlock this cage, now I just need to figure out how to use the key.

My ex wrote a very heart wrenching, soulful song when he escaped his substance addiction years before we met, called “Happy Birthday to me, I think I’m finally free”. My birthday wish is to be free of the deep hurt this relationship brought about in me.

Looking forward to my new journey this year.

Happy New Me

Just as today, November 1st, marked the New Year for the Celts: the end of one cycle and the beginning of a new cycle, today also marks an end of one cycle and a beginning of a new one for me.

One year ago today, I ended a relationship I really didn’t want to come to an end, but something inside of me told me something was unhealthy. His extra close relationship with his ex, although healthy in some aspects, seemed really unhealthy and bizarre in other aspects. And I knew it, felt it all along…but I tried to ignore it or allow his dysfunctional logic to override my own thoughts and feelings. Upon hearing that his ex was now sleeping over, so he could help her recover from cosmetic plastic surgery was the last straw.

Amongst the many other situations that I won’t bore you with, this was the two by four I needed to be hit over the head with. This is codependency, an unhealthy attachment, a non-letting go. I should have known there was codependency at play here, so I told myself as self punishment, after all he was an alcoholic and drug abuser for 20 years of his life and all during his marriage. She stayed with him through drama, selfish behavior, violent lifestyle, lies and whatever else goes on in those types of relationships. A part of him I had never known, but only heard about from him. It was only when he became sober, that she fell out of love with him and in love with another heavy drinker for 4 years. Yet she and her ex, my ex, kept on carrying on like a happy little family, or maybe for the first time as it may not have been so during their 16 year marriage.

Now living a platonic marriage? They would even celebrate each other's birthdays together and Mother's Day, Father's Day with their son, but still.... where is the separation in this scenario? Besides not sleeping together anymore or having "romantic feelings". Is it not just a platonic marriage now but still a marriage like, bizarre, unhealthy thing? No?! She even had a key to his place! And all the while she was living with another man and leaving him at home for these ex-husband excursions! So why did I not listen to my first instincts? I was so confused with my own thoughts and feelings (still am to this day). I suppose because I cared for him so much I pushed away my inner knowing. I should have listened to myself in the first place, continued the self punishing voice.

And this day marked my own descent into codependency, obsessive behavior and my own inner addict. A year where all my own deep, dormant wounds came to wake and wreak havoc with my life. Self-pitying, self-doubting and self-loathing. Along this dark, long, winding road I learned a lot about myself at an even deeper level than I had already explored. I seem to be low on self-value, self-respect, self-worth, self-trust. Why? Where did this come from and how has this affected my life? All these questions were answered through painful bouts of sadness and loneliness and immense inner turmoil. Old wounds, old beliefs and subsequent old patterns were exposed.

Dragged out of the comfort of darkness kicking and screaming into the harsh light of day. No longer able to hide and subtly control my life from an undetected place from deep within. Wounds and beliefs and patterns that now had to answer to these questions because they had nowhere to go anymore; their shelter had been exposed and demolished. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. I had to sit with them for a year, calm them, interrogate them and then embrace them and learn to love them.

So why did this happen? Why did this relationship, with this person whom I had such strong feelings for, such a pull towards and vice versa, end? Or happen at all? I conclude that it is because he had all the “right” qualities, wounds, dysfunctions to awaken my deep wounds. It was because he had some wonderful qualities that I adored and commonalities that we shared that drew me to him, but it turns out he had all the similar dysfunctional characteristics as the person who originally wounded me and lead me to create these false beliefs about myself in the first place ... so I learned through lots of deep, painful self-reflection.

And I realized I needed to be wounded in the same way so that I could process these dormant, life-stealing wounds with the awareness and wisdom of an adult mind. It’s like homeopathy; you need to be given the same poison such that a greater healing can occur. In retrospect, maybe I should thank my ex for setting me free … but I am not quite there in my healing yet. It is said that the people that hurt us the most are our greatest teachers.

My ex had all the key ingredients to unlock my self-created cage and set me free. Free of my wounds, free of my false self-beliefs, free of my self-created limitations.

Free to fly.

Let the New Year begin….

Twisting out the Toxic

At the end of teaching my yoga class tonight, I found myself thinking, “Did they like the class?” “Did they like me?” “Did they think I was good or bad?” “What did they think of the words I said, the ‘wisdom’ I imparted during class?” “Did they think it was corny, did they think it was profound, did I talk too much?”

Rather than just approaching the class from a sharing experience, I was wrapped up in my fear of rejection or failure. And here I was again, working through these codependent behaviours. Patterns I have learned about myself in the past few years after a couple of broken relationships…with broken people.

In my relationships, intimate or friendships, I realized that I worry about what they think of me, if they like me, rather than what I may think of them or their behaviours. I seem to need people to like me and/or approve of me, no matter if I really like them or approve of their behaviours. Sounds crazy and it is, but so many people look externally for proof of their worth, their value because somewhere along the line (usually childhood) their worth and value were not validated.

Let’s face it, most of us were born into some level of family dysfunction and thus learned specific patterns of behavior that made us feel safe or loved, for example pleasing others so they will like you or not expressing your opinions for fear of being shot down or worse. Then we carry these patterns of behavior into our adult relationships, without even realizing it because these patterns and wounds are so embedded into our subconscious. And as a child we did not have the cognitive skills to realize this is their shit, their issues and their unresolved pain not yours.

But I am slowly waking up to these hidden wounds that seemed to have been driving my life. I am learning to trust myself, believe in myself and really love myself. Learning to pay attention to my feelings, my thoughts and my intuition and make me matter. Hopefully empowering myself to find my value and worth inside instead of chasing my wounds out there trying to heal them. When we look for it out there, all we are ever going to draw in is our own subconscious, hidden wounds. Our relationships mirror to us how we feel inside.

So I will continue to do just as I told my yoga students in class tonight during our twisting postures, "Keep twisting from deep within your core and release all your toxins".

When you are falling ... Let Go

This is what I learned in Yoga class tonight as I went into a pose I have went into successfully many times before – headstand.

I was getting up into my headstand at the top of my mat, my right leg was up and as I began to bring my left leg up in line with the right I started to lose a little balance, but that didn’t stop me, I kept going. I can do headstand! I’ll balance myself out as I keep going in this already unsturdy foundation, I thought. And as I started to sway more, the more I tried to get up into place. It wasn’t working, I was struggling and starting to fall out of it yet I continued to get into the “right” position rather than just go with it, to just fall. Go where I was going anyway. It would have been easier, less painful and certainly more graceful.

Wish I had this little piece of wisdom in my pocket about a year ago during a break up that caused me so much inner turmoil … I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go of the pain of breaking up, couldn’t let go of my expectations of the relationship, couldn’t let go of why he couldn’t understand, couldn’t let go of analyzing him, analyzing the relationship, couldn’t let go of the love we shared, the words he said, couldn’t let go of the why’s. Why did he do this? Why did this happen? Why couldn’t it work out? Why? And the more I held on, rather tried to hang on, the more suffering it caused me. My mind, my ego had a grip on me so tight that it was squeezing the life out of me. Yet it was the trying to hold on that caused the inner turmoil, the pain, the suffering more so than the actual break up, the fall.

Then I fell … awkwardly. Not awkwardly in a humiliating sense (although I am sure humility would have served me here instead of my ego mind), but in a potentially physically harmful way. My left leg fell over to the one side and I came crashing down on the side of my heel, my other leg fell forward over my head and my neck twisted sideways, while my hands were still grasping to hold on! When I fell, I felt a little stunned but I also had this weird sensation … an exhilaration. I had felt, for a very brief moment, like I was flying. Then I landed ... not so gracefully.

So, instead of all this time spent thinking, doubting, questioning, trying to get it right; instead of all these mental acrobatics that wouldn’t change the outcome anyway, all I needed to do was let go. LET GO. Just let go and land. On the solid ground beneath me. A stable place. Then try again from this new landing place.

Try again. I recommend falling, in fact, because it is your chance to really experience freedom, but try to fall with grace. You do that by letting go.

It is from falling that I have started to learn how to fly.