Tag: love

Who Shapes You?

Lately, I’ve been reminded how outdated some of my thinking is. Some days, it feels like all of my thinking may be outdated. That is excessively harsh, I expect.

I was raised with the understanding that growing up meant we experimented with life through its various stages to test ourselves and discover who we are.

As children, we try different things (our parents usually make sure we do!) to see if they take hold in our lives and psyches or whether they get tossed. Do you really want to go back for another season of ballet lessons this year? Or maybe you’d rather try karate on for size? Or raising goats?

Today the message and mantra floating around in the Great out there seems simply to be: “Be whoever you need you to be.” To be accepted. To be hired. To be liked. To be loved.

And if whatever that is doesn’t fully synch up with who you are or what you believe, there’s a reason for that:  “Hey. We all need to pay the bills.”

Be yourself? Don’t be ridiculous! Nobody wants any part of that. Listen instead for these insightful messages! “Try this eyeliner with that mascara” intones some teenager, who chirps: “Your eyes are really going to “pop.” (For a time, that saying conjured up quite an image that alarmed me. Until I learned that it meant the eyes would “stand out” and not “pop out.”)

I’ve had a lot of opportunities in my life. I’ve been able to marinate in numerous environments and activities long enough to give me invaluable feedback about who I am and who I am not. These experiences and preferences and I dare say, passions largely influenced and still influence my day-to-day choices and preoccupation.

I grieve the abject superficiality out there in the Great Beyond and yes, the silly sameness of the expectations placed on the current generation. “You are only as good as your last Tik Tok post.” Apparently. And what is the soul-nourishing learning about self that comes from these noisy, public, repetitive posts? “I applied my eyeliner in that video WAY better than she did.” Un-hunh.

That is supposed to build character and inner resilience??

Intrinsic qualities like patience and discernment and willpower aren’t easy to determine in someone at first glance. But they often might be assumed as qualities in someone possessed of quiet grace. Something who doesn’t have anything to show off about or prove.

Maybe that’s when maturity kicks in. Unless you choose to grow old without growing up … that’s common.

I was thinking about things in life that take time to mature to a point where we can enjoy themin their finest incarnation. Their peak of perfection.

Cheese. Fine wines. The vapors and rhythms that swirl in old buildings where the outpourings of legions have been comforted. A love or marriage you have nurtured from Day One (and a few days no doubt before that) with unwavering devotion.

Those values seem to have gone the way of the Dodo bird. But I’m not convinced all that many people are totally buying into the superficiality and sameness. Little wonder the therapy industry is booming and antidepressant sales are off the charts.

When the environment you are in (i.e. the world) does not feed your dreams and passions; if that environment does not allow you the time and space you need to explore yourself in pursuit of your chosen interests; failure to thrive is not a surprising consequence.

The danger is waking up one day to find you “beside yourself” instead of “inside yourself.” May not seem all that far but, trust me; it is a hell of a lot of ground to cover to get back to you when you’ve lost yourself. Or worse, never found yourself in the first place ….

Plus One Year’s Eve

Well, folks. I made it. This is my 366th post in a row having officially started writing this blog one year ago tomorrow. Happy anniversary to me.

Funny how anniversaries and life just seem to creep up on you. No fanfare or fireworks. Just progression.

I started this blog as a place to gather my thoughts while I committed to writing a book. There has been a book sitting in me for years, or so I’ve been told. I finally wanted to let it out.

So did that book get written? That depends on how you look at it. I wrote enough copy to fill a book certainly. But the technical aspects of book writing were never brought to bear on this project.

A beginning, middle and end to start. No. I chose to share my thoughts and insights into a range of eclectic topics as they arose or came to my attention. In that sense, I honored my own unfolding process and not a publisher’s checklist.

It has been an opportunity to share wisdom I’ve gleaned over the years through the writings of others.

It has been an opportunity to explore and share where I came from and how I healed from it.

It has given me a chance to publicly grieve the loss and raise up some people I admired.

I have a better sense of what matters to me and what I will no longer tolerate. Peace is top item on the list of goals these days. I have turned my back on drama.

This has not been a journal. I’ve done that before. In journals, I shared my deepest fears and insecurities. I bitched and wailed and generally pursued a story line of “woe is me.” This blog was deliberately something other than that.

I distilled the key learnings and strategies that kept me going on my “woe is me” days. I shared what I did to endure and prevail over “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” I worked at learning to forgive myself.

The gap between intellect and emotion can be vast. Such is the process of learning and growth. All of us seem to be slaves to unconscious programming we work our whole lives to understand and overcome.

I have carved out a little niche. An intellectual mini-garden that I can nurture and visit frequently. I don’t yet know what my next steps are. I will write a final post tomorrow just for the symmetry of ending on the same date I started last year.

I will once again this year attend the Getting Away to Write workshop in New Smyrna Beach, Florida next week. A geographic coda to this writing exercise as I started this blog there last year.

I must thank all of you who subscribed and read what I wrote. The comments were usually spot on. Insightful and helpful. The likes were encouraging and kept me motivated. I’ll pop up again from time to time in your inbox like other bloggers.

It’s time now for coffee and morning meditation. Time to ground myself and prepare for the day. It will be deliberately low-key as most of my days are lately. Such a welcome gift.

I love living this way. Forgiving myself as well as forgiving those who trespassed against me. Marinating in the memories of a lifetime and looking back with gratitude. Enjoying the living environment I’ve created whilst living with someone I love who loves me back.

Above all else, I’m certain that my journey – like a billion other journeys taking place in the world out there at this moment – is but a single cell in the vast corpus of life on our planet. Both unique and utterly ordinary.

Whatever is ahead, I plan to enjoy the remainder of the ride to the best of my ability.

Thank you for sharing part of the journey with me.

Fun, You Say? Maybe

If I have a kindred spirit I look to most often among dead writers. I cleave toward Dorothy Parker. She was raw and incisive in her observations and commentary.

Parker was famously known for her wit and sharp repartee. She also talked – and wrote – about sex more than her contemporaries, especially women.

That set her apart. To approach the subject of sex and relationships with a certain derring-do endeared her to me.

I haven’t yet found the courage to talk about sex as I experienced it in my lifetime. Too heavy and loaded in certain memories and affect.

I admit to a certain enviousness in Parker’s ability to write teasingly and often sardonically about men and sex and love.

When asked to use “horticulture” in a sentence, Parker snapped: “You can lead a whore to culture, but you cant make her think.”

Of high-brow college girls, she quipped: “If all the girls at Vassar were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”

A high-brow form of Mae West was Parker. She taunted and teased and treated the subject matter with both a sense of familiarity and emotional distance.

It is not surprising to me that her own romantic and love life was less sizzling than her prose on the subject matter. Sayin’ – as I’ve often said before – ain’t doin’.

Such life experiences often scan better in the written word than they do in reality. I can relate.

Herewith, her poem reflecting on trysts and other manifestations of love and sex at the dawn of its disappearance.

No doubt, like Parker says, some men I knew were a lot of fun.

Good for a good time if not for a long time. Others, not so much

The Little Old Lady in Lavender Silk

I was seventy-seven, come August,
  I shall shortly be losing my bloom;
I’ve experienced zephyr and raw gust
  And (symbolical) flood and simoom.

When you come to this time of abatement,
  To this passing from Summer to Fall,
It is manners to issue a statement
  As to what you got out of it all.

So I’ll say, though reflection unnerves me
  And pronouncements I dodge as I can,
That I think (if my memory serves me)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

In my youth, when the crescent was too wan
  To embarrass with beams from above,
By the aid of some local Don Juan
  I fell into the habit of love.

And I learned how to kiss and be merry- an
  Education left better unsung.
My neglect of the waters Pierian
  Was a scandal, when Grandma was young.

Though the shabby unbalanced the splendid,
  And the bitter outmeasured the sweet,
I should certainly do as I then did,
  Were I given the chance to repeat.

For contrition is hollow and wraithful,
  And regret is no part of my plan,
And I think (if my memory’s faithful)
  There was nothing more fun than a man!

Dorothy Parker

This Way or That

I watched an encaenia address online by actor/comedian Jim Carrey in which he told the graduating class they would consistently have two choices moving forward in their lives: love or fear. It made me deeply uncomfortable.

Fear is my old buddy. My go-to companion when I face something new and scary. In the old days, it was before a date maybe. Or before starting a new job. Or traveling somewhere I’d never been before to do something I’d never tried.

I know fear intimately and had spent years building that relationship. It is comfortable like wearing a broken in pair of slippers is comfortable or slipping into a well-worn bathrobe.

Fear has not served me particularly well, however. It often scuppered new opportunities before they had a chance to develop. Bear in mind that younger me was pretty much an emotional basket case, somewhat beyond a normal young person’s insecurities.

I had a tiny, little suitcase full of tricks I pulled out regularly to get me through daily life. An innate intelligence. A strong survival instinct. A pleasing and mostly acquiescent personality.

What I tried to hide – unsuccessfully – was the trunk of insecurities that suitcase sat on top of. I could suss out negative perspectives and opinions people were going to have of me before I even met them. I was my own self-contained judge, jury and executioner in social and work situations before I even showed up.

For the most part, my little bag of tricks worked sufficiently to allow me to “get by” in life. My father explicitly expressed that as a reasonable expectation for me. For my Dad, “getting by” was sufficient. Happiness and success were unrealistic, and mostly unattainable, life goals.

I was one of those kids who was held in sway by parental neuroses and limitations for far longer than I am comfortable admitting. In retrospect, it is clear from their own failures that they had no authority to advise anyone on the ingredients for making a happy life.

At a point, I honestly believed taking advice from anyone other than them would have, in some weird way, meant disrespecting them. After all, they knew me best, I believed. Didn’t they? Over time, I came to realize that wasn’t true. How could they? I didn’t even know myself.

So choosing love as a starting point is something of a weird choice for me. My old buddy fear largely dictates the script. “They’ll hate me.” “They are out to get me.” “I won’t measure up.” And because I leaned into that mantra in the past, fear turned out to be most often correct.

What shook me out of it? Seeing my parents as they were and not as I conceived them to be was the starting point. Learning that love is an action and not just words was another. They loved me and said it often – in their own way and within their own limited view of what love was.

That turning point also came – a little later than I care to admit – when I realized my children did not need to hear me natter on or share my wisdom about avoiding life mistakes. All they needed from me was love and support.

Instead of absorbing my well-meaning but misplaced advice, they were and are completely capable of figuring out the rest for themselves. I’ve got two smart kids.

So the internal struggle between choosing love over fear is still at play within me. I have recently been choosing fear and revenge fantasies over acceptance and opening my heart to the consequences of a crushing disappointment.

All my spiritual readings tell me there is learning to be had here. To face disappointment as if you had actually chosen it. That the Universe is folding as it should.

Fear takes all together too much pleasure in the petty and picayune scenarios it is able to devise that are – I realize – completely and utterly within my own head. I am at a learning crossroads. And I hate it.

I appreciate the comfort and utility of my old bathrobe and slippers. Even though they embarrass me, I am loathe to cast them aside to see what better offerings might be out there for me.

I may be talking in circles because I am in the middle of one. Unsure of what to do next or what the best course of action is. The only comfort I take from this rumination is that at least I am still thinking about.

I have not acted on my petty revenge fantasies or anything similarly boneheaded. I believe I am being encouraged to let go, shed my fear, work through my disappointment and see what might be on the other side of this emotional mountain.

I will either sit at this dreary way station and fester in a misery I am electing to hang on to. Or I can put on my hiking boots and start walking. The choice is – I realize -entirely up to me.

Fear or love. What’s it going to be?

Sayin’ Ain’t Doin’

I heard “I love you” a lot when I was growing up. I wasn’t one of those who could complain their parents never told them they loved them. Quite the opposite. I heard those three words repeatedly.

As a consequence, I had a hard time knowing or showing love when I grew up. I guess I believed it was enough to say those three magic words to cement and support a relationship.

In spite of this conviction, my relationships kept falling apart. Friendships foundered. Romantic relationships sizzled for about three months and then fizzled out. I was a great sprinter but a poor marathoner. My education was just beginning.

I had no idea how to back up professions of love with action. It never occurred to me that three square meals on the table every day was love. Or that clean clothes washed, dried, folded and put away in my chest of drawers meant love.

That someone would stand up for you or step in for you when you were flailing and out of your depth was a show of caring. And protection. Which is a form of love.

I am not sure when the disconnect between “sayin’” and “doin’” started to become obvious. My family lauded my early accomplishments and were happy to associate and claim me as their own. Every scholarship I earned, every public show of support was backed up by my family 100%.

It all seemed to fall apart when I foundered. There wasn’t an iota of support from my family when I was hurt or vulnerable or – God forfend – if I failed.

In generous moments, I like to think that my family was “training” me to be successful. A sort of weird Pavlovian positive reinforcement thing. I came to realize it wasn’t that at all.

When friends would tell me my family was jealous of me, I couldn’t wrap my head around that. “Jealous of what?” I would wonder. I could never really put my finger on the source of the disconnect between how they said they felt and how they made me feel.

If I didn’t “feel” the love they clearly had for me, I was deficient. Not them. Then, one day, everything became clear. The learnings came hard and fast once I had a baby. Whatever else a woman may be and however strong and confident she is in life, a baby will make her vulnerable. Physically and emotionally.

I assume most families get that and support women through the process of pregnancy, birth and early infancy. Mine didn’t. It wasn’t built into our family mantra of external success and worldly accomplishments.

Having a baby was, after all, a common accomplishment almost any woman could achieve. (Fully knowing as I write that how heretical a statement that may be to women who have struggled to conceive.)

I don’t know if anyone is adequately prepared for the unrelenting and challenging needs of an infant. It is one of those “fine in theory” moments in life that becomes a stark, 24/7, non-stop arena of incessant demands that you ignore at your (and your infant’s) peril.

I remember the mantra I devised when my son was crying. “Is he hungry? Is he tired? Is he wet?” If I was pretty sure all those boxes had been checked, I too rarely made the obvious conclusion that the infant just needed to be cuddled, hugged, rocked and reassured that he was safe and not alone on the planet. That there would always be someone there for him to rely on.

I did not learn that at home. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the controversial baby doctor from the 50s, was no help either. Let them cry themselves to sleep,” he exhorted. “It builds self-sufficiency.”
I don’t agree.

It was another lightbulb moment when I realized my children needed little else from me BUT love. My presence and listening to them and my implicit support was pretty much the whole package. Plus the occasional twenty bucks now and then.

Sure, they needed constant material support when they were little. But I honestly believe, as I have read about some families, that if there was enough joy and love in their upbringing, their material situation didn’t matter all that much.

So I am wary now when I hear the words, “I love you” and more cautious when and to who I say them. The ones I say those words to frequently have earned them. The friends who hear those words have been there with and for me. There are friends who literally lived through thick and thin with me. There are some about whom I truly believe I would not still be here without them.

“Sayin’ ain’t doin’.” This rule has served me well in later life. Where I used to easily trust, I am now inclined to wait until people prove what I mean to them before I grant them access to my inner world. It was pretty junky in there for a while when I was awash in confusion, regrets and unmet promises – given or received.

Because life is a marathon and not a sprint. Once I recognized that, I was more inclined to rely on others who consistently showed up in the race with me than those who sat far away on the sidelines – cheering me on.

Listen Up

I like the piece below because it is sensible and realistic. Platitudes abound in society and they can be useful. For a minute or two.

But there are a few widely shared platitudes in life that are a little TOO optimistic. They prevent us from internalizing and accepting how life really is for us at any given age and stage.

There are platitudes that prevent us from taking full responsibility for our lives whatever situation we find ourselves in. Not doing do can open us up to crushing disappointment and regret. It is all up to us.

This is a helpful guide (I found) for adding perspective to those helpful comments people make that aren’t quite as easy to attain as they sound. Accept the reality of these prescriptions and you have a better than average chance of making it to the end of your life with your eyes wide open.

That is, having lived a real life based on the real opportunities and people you have had come into it and those you built your life around.

Only then do you really have a better than average chance of dying in peace and acceptance with minimal regrets. When you have only yourself to blame or thank for its outcome.

The older you get the more you realize that a lot of things you were taught in your youth are just plain wrong.

  1. You can be anything you want to be. No, no you can’t. There are tests you won’t score high enough on that will prevent you from being accepted into whatever program you desire. All this despite having the intelligence and skill needed to excel at whatever the profession may be. Even if you have the right credentials and experience, if they are not hiring for what you want to do…well…you may be out of luck. There are miles of reasons why you can’t be whatever you want to be.
    • But guess what? You can be the best at the opportunities life does present to you.
  2. Hard work is rewarded. No, not always. Sometimes the power of the universe conspires against hard working individuals and unfairly rewards our lazy, short cut seeking, less intelligent friends, co-workers, and acquaintances.
    • But if you knuckle down, and don’t let the unfairness of the world ruin your attitude, show up everyday, and do your best, then because of your hard work, you definitely increase the odds of having a fulfilling life.
  3. Money and wealth are your greatest asset. No, no they are not. They are important and provide security and freedom.
    • Your health is your greatest asset. If you have terminal cancer or some other horrible condition, all the money in the world does not matter. In fact, if you get type 2 diabetes or heart disease, what you can do is radically impacted. So invest in your health daily.
  4. That others care about your house, your clothes, your toys, and you in general. No, no they do not. We all think others are concerned with what we have or don’t have. They’re not. In fact the people we think are thinking about us, usually are not thinking about us at all. The world doesn’t really care about you.
    • But, if you are lucky, you have a few people who do truly care about you. It’s usually a very small number of people. They are the people that truly matter in your life and they probably could care less about all your toys.
  5. That we will all live forever. No, no you won’t. Sure, no one ever comes out and blatantly tells you that you will live forever. But every message we get on TV, social media, or culture in general seems to want us to believe we are immortal. Worse yet, our own minds seem to lead us around as if we are going to see the next two centuries.
    • But, you are going to die. Everyone you know is going to die. That should not scare us. It should free us. Free us to be present in every moment because this moment is all we really have. The past is gone. The future is not guaranteed. We have today. Embrace it and allow it to grow the love you have inside you. Then share that love.

Twelve to Thrive

I fell in love with American-Italian educator Leo Buscaglia in the 80s. And not specifically because he was known as the “Dr. Love” professor.

Felice Leonardo Buscaglia (March 31, 1924 – June 12, 1998) was a professor of special education at the University of Southern California. When one of his students committed suicide, he was moved to investigate the meaning of life and the causes of human disconnection.

For Buscaglia, love and learning were the keys to a meaningful life. He was a gifted public speaker and often appeared on PBS giving his lectures on our vital need for interconnection with fellow human beings. He also deeply believed in education and exploring the many wonders of human life here on this planet.

I remember one of the funnier anecdotes from his lectures about growing up with a “demanding” father. With warmth and humor, Buscaglia recalled how every night at the dinner table, he, and then his siblings, were asked in turn, “What did you learn today?” Woe betide the sibling who had nothing to share. The shame must have been withering!

Buscaglia eventually taught a course at the University of Southern California called Love 1A. They were always filled to capacity and often oversubscribed. He was the first to state and promote the concept of humanity’s need for hugs: 5 to survive, 8 to maintain, and 12 to thrive.[4]

He wrote a bunch of books. Fittingly, his greatest bestseller was simply called Love. At one point, three of Buscaglia’s books were on the New York Times’ best sellers list at the same time.

Buscaglia explored and promoted the importance of love and loving relationships to human beings. His lectures may be deemed a little over the top in a culture where the almighty dollar is touted to be the primary source of all happiness and pleasure.

I miss him and his voice. I miss his message.

In our troubled era of mass murders, and suicide and online bullying, I miss the presence of Leo Buscaglia more than ever.

Yay Me, Yay You

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Here is what I am learning these days about a theme I have explored before. I write for myself and only myself. If it hits a chord out there in the world, that’s good. Not essential but good. Welcome aboard.

I believe in the sanctity of the individual and exploring inside ourselves to find out who we really are. What we think, believe, care about, fear, love. Not because we are all that on our own, but because we as individuals are all there really is.

What is in your brain is your life. Full stop. Not a bit more complicated than that. Don’t believe me? Remove your brain from your body. See how that goes.

I hate to go all Henry David Thoreau on you, but I am going to. Collectively, we like to step-to and mind our ps and q’s to fit in and enjoy our perception of being “normal.” Being “seen” as normal in whatever society we are in is an important prerequisite for living a “normal” life. In other words, in larger society, to feel like a person “just like everyone else” and in smaller groups fitting in with people “just like us.”

We gauge our social success by the degree to which we have engendered the regard of our fellows. We spend a great deal of time in our youth preparing ourselves to become our version of what we believe a normal person is and should be.

There was such a brouhaha around Thoreau’s seminal book Walden, Or, Life in the Woods when it was published in 1854. He wrote a lot about being self-sufficient and celebrating himself. He was accused of all kinds of unseemly personal characteristics and hypocrisy and humorlessness. Mostly he was regarded by many as selfish for stepping outside the normal bounds of society. Even for a short two years.

For some reason this scared the living bejeezus out of good folk. Many branded him a narcissist and ne’er do well. But I see Thoreau’s attempt to elevate himself as an individual as a call to all of us to respect and nurture our unique individuality. He urges each of us to respect the dictates of our individuality for indeed, without that, we ain’t got much.

It is funny, in retrospect, that Thoreau contributed so many great one-liners and dorm room poster fodder to our culture. March to the beat of your own drummer, for example. Celebrating myself, another. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.

What I like most in reading about Thoreau is that he didn’t seem to give a fiddler’s fig about what others thought of him or his odd lifestyle choice. He hied himself off to a cabin in the woods where he lived a sparse life for a time devoid of most creature comforts back in the days of mid-1800’s sensibilities. This bothered some people and marked him as distinctly odd.

But I liked that Thoreau subverted the expectations of people around him. He essentially said with his choices and musings: “Let others think what they will. This is what I am doing and how I choose to live my life. Deliberately. There is a price to pay for marching to the beat of a different drummer and I am paying it.” (He didn’t say any of that. I am writing what I think he might have said and thought. How presumptuous is that.)

However, it was Thoreau who said: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

It is a reminder and an invocation to explore our own inner dreams and pay attention to the directives of our “small, still voice.” It is a tall order. Swishing around in society’s daily routines and taking care of a hundred chores and necessaries every day, that voice is often hard to hear. Dead silent for many people. But it is always there. Small and still though that voice may be.

As fragile human beings who choose to act on the prescriptions inside each of us for each one of us, in the face of overwhelming odds by society to push down and push back our individuality, it is really all we have.

We don’t really need a cabin to figure that out and pay attention. Modern life is full of homilies and advice about getting in touch with that directive through meditation and mindfulness. But it is a wonderful occurrence when you and the voice connect occasionally and for the more attuned, regularly.

For that voice is ours and ours alone. Rare. Unique. Original. Just like we are. I feel it best to constantly listen for that voice and to remind myself that it is always available to us whether we can hear it at the minute or not. I celebrate myself. You celebrate you, too. The voice inside you will get louder.

Love Takes Time

A spiritual author and writer I follow reminded me today that things take time. I sometimes forget that. A counselor once said to me: “It took 25 years for you to get messed up. You can’t expect to undo that mess overnight.” Understatement of the century.

First, we have to recognize what is wrong. With us. With our environment. With how we were raised. That takes time to parse out. What is wrong with us usually manifests in unwelcome or uncomfortable feelings. Too anxious. Too scared. Too jumpy. Too intense. Some form of “too” that somehow doesn’t seem “normal.”

Dozens of jokes are made about “normalcy.” It is laughed at and derided. Unachievable say others. It is a definition that seeks to make us humans seem or be “all the same.” As if that were even possible. We all live life in our own way. We all learn how to love in our own unique way, too.

But when we feel too much inappropriately, it can hold us back from fully feeling the very emotions we want to express. Joy and love and peace. I remember a horrible feeling I had as a little girl. I would pick up a puppy and want to “love it” so much I was afraid I would crush it in my arms.

So I would look at it stupidly trying to mentally convey to it how much joy it brought me. I was paralyzed. That was weird but later I learned not so unusual when feeling big emotions. Remember the wild rush and uncontrollability of emotions around a “certain someone” when you first fell in love.

You stammered a little in trying to talk to them. If, in fact, you could even summon the courage to talk to them. You would blush like fury when they caught your gaze. Your stomach would turn over with butterflies so manic it would take you to the point of discomfort. If this was “love,” it felt like it was more trouble than it was worth.

And if that wasn’t enough distraction, in would wander unhelpful self-talk. “S/he is a dreamboat. I could never speak to her/him. S/he would never give me the time of day. S/he is much too good for me.” Talk about romance buzzkill.

Rockstar Tal Bachman – son of rock band BTO’s Randy Bachman – summed it up pretty well in his 1999 hit: She’s So High. Bachman’s lyrics play out entirely in his head as she idlizes the object of his affections with hyperbolic comparisons to Joan of Arc and Cleopatra and even, the Greek goddess of beauty, Aphrodite. When she wanders over to talk to him, he silently screams: “I freeze immediately.”

Roy Orbison’s Pretty Woman – arguably one of the best all-time country and western love songs ever written or performed – has a similar theme. He is convinced the gorgeous woman he sees walking by will have nothing to do with him. It turns out he is wrong.

Most of these love and acceptance and belonging neuroses are afflictions of the young. But not always. I remember a colleague of a certain age uttering breathlessly how much more he loved his wife and childhood sweetheart now than he did when they first met. That buckled me.

So I am reflecting on time as my awareness grows of how long it took me to learn to love in a mature and healthy way. I was given an inadequate deck of cards with which to play the game of love. It took hard lessons to finally make my way to a place where it feeds my soul daily.

Not in a noisy, “take out an ad,” “plaster his name on a billboard” kind of way. It is quieter and deeper. I long to be where he is. I touch him at night just to feel his heat and energy. I am awash in tenderness whenever I look in and see the kindness and wisdom in those deep, blue eyes.

Then behold. I sense he is feeling the same for me. Changing from what was and who you were into something you want to be is not easy. It takes time. They say it is the journey that is most important, not necessarily the destination.

I would alter that only in this regard. When you arrive at the destination of your beloved, you can set off on another journey but together. That is the loveliest place of all to land.

A Healing Path

A young lady named Nicole recently asked me a simple question in an online forum I belong to: “What is a healing path?

That question gave me pause. I hadn’t heard the question put so simply before. So this is what I told her.

“My healing path started in earnest when I hit the proverbial brick wall. Everything I believed about my mother’s “love” for me was shattered when she went to bat for my husband in the wake of our divorce.

I went through what is best described as a “dark night of the soul” as I tried to make sense of her betrayal. I was in a very dark place for many years. I was living in an emotional and spiritual shitestorm.

My personal life was a mess. Recently released from my job contract. A new baby was on the way. Marriage breaking down. Mother’s defection.

I sought out a therapist at that time because I simply had no one else to turn to. I could not make rational sense of the many mistakes I had made and was making. I tried to drink away the pain. That stopped working long before I finally quit drinking for good.

My mother’s explanation for my acting out was that I was – possibly – a ” bad seed.” She skilfully omitted the neglect and abuse I experienced in my childhood in her summation of me. The bad things in our childhood were never discussed. It enraged her on the occasions when I tried to bring it up.

My next steps toward healing were because I desperately needed to protect my son. I had previously sought out counselors from time to time before but with the presence of my son on the planet, I was incentivized. There was nothing easy about making the choice to heal and get healthy. Nothing.

When I first started to confront my past and upbringing, everything got progressively worse before it got better. I clung to the belief that life would eventually change and improve. It took a lot of sheer faith to just keep going.

I was driven by my love for my son and the need to create a better, saner life for him. That was the carrot that kept me going. I recognized in those awful early days of my infant son’s life that if I went under, he would go under, too. It was sometime around then that I took full responsibility for my life.

Today I am comfortably estranged from my family of origin. They were not helpful to me and completely devoted to my mother and her narrative.

I realized the decision to create my own life and work through my pain was up to me and me alone. That totally sucked. But it has finally paid off in a certain peace of mind and internal calm that greets me every morning. I stopped drinking almost 23 years ago after several failed earlier attempts.

I am in no way suggesting that my healing path is or should be everyone’s path. But here are some questions to ask yourself to light a fire under the choice to embark on a healing path.

Am I happy with myself and where I am in my life? If not, why not? What’s in the way or holding me back from being happy? Are there patterns I can identify in myself that keep me unhappy? Am I comfortable in my own skin? This is hardly a comprehensive answer.

This is only an anecdote about one person’s path. You know you are on a healing path when you start acting every day in your own interests. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are progressively more in alignment with your core beliefs, wishes, desires, and goals. When this is happening, you know you are moving closer to yourself which is the ultimate goal of healing.

I don’t know if this answer is at all helpful. It is a profoundly personal journey. But good on you for asking the question. Ask others. Keep seeking. Failure is a given only when we stop moving forward.

Being confused about where you are heading on a healing path is not failure. Confusion is a legitimate place and an integral part of transitioning to a healthier way of living.

Good luck to you and I hope you do pick the healing path. Not everyone does. It requires a considerable amount of emotional heavy lifting and for quite a long time.

You may one day discover the healthier you are, the better role model and inspiration you can be for others in the world you live in. You can be a better friend, a better parent, and a better champion of your own good self. In short, a better human being. I hope this was of some use to you, Nicole, and wish you well if you elect to set out on your own healing path. It is so worth it.”