Falling in Love with YOU

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After my separation from my last ex-husband, I not only had to clear out a whole house by myself, but I also had to shed years of emotional shrapnel. And there was a lot of shrapnel.

I’m very sociable, yet I remember going out and being afraid to look at people, afraid my gaze would happen to spot a good-looking man, or someone my ex would consider good-looking and accuse me of ogling. It took me awhile to realize no one was tracking my eye movements or keeping me awake at night trying to get into my head and twisting my words to the point that I no longer knew what I had said just seconds before. I realized that I didn’t have to walk on eggshells anymore. That it was just me now. That the crazy making had stopped. That I could finally be myself.

But who was I?  

The friends who knew what a dysfunctional relationship I had just left, after a while started asking me if I was dating yet. My response was “Are you kidding me? I’m dating myself. I don’t even know who I am.”  I really didn’t recognize who I was. And it took me about a year to get back to me and eventually start dating.

I remember talking to other women who were also dating at the time, and I’d hear the usual complaint that there are no good men to be had – they’re all either married or in relationships. Coming out of a 13-year nightmare, I begged to differ. But as far as I was concerned, I was just going to have fun. To me every date was like going on a job interview. I never knew what to expect and because I was so open, I learned A LOT about men.

What I learned from men about men, was enlightening, but it was nothing compared to what I learned about myself.  Because, people, after all, are in our lives as mirrors, as reflections of how we feel and how we act, how we want to be.

And what the mirror was showing me was that underneath the layers of old beliefs I had collected as I was doing life, like clothes you keep piling on, even though they may not be your style or even fit you well, underneath all that conditioning, I was still who I was as a child. That nothing had changed. That I was and always will be open and transparent, that I’m like a puppy – bouncy, playful, loving. I don’t hold back. I don’t have an agenda, except to eat, drink and go for walks. I learned that freedom is still one my favorite words in the English language; that I love adventures, crave intellectual stimulation and physical exercise. Nothing surprised me about this knowledge except that I had allowed myself to hide it for so long.

After a while of online dating, though, I started feeling that I wanted more than just free dinners, but that I wasn’t going to find it on the Internet, so I started closing down all the dating sites, but before I did, I reached out to someone who caught my eye. This person became extremely important in my life and I will tell you more about him … in the coming weeks.

But for now, I just want to say that it was during the time I was dating him that I came to the realization that while there was a phenomenal connection and an immense love between us – unlike anything I had ever experienced before, that love and that connection was not greater than what I felt was inside me of me. In fact, it was because of what I felt that the relationship was so powerful for me.

What I mean is that no one, no matter who they are and how they treat you, can give you the love that you already ARE. You see …

… more than a feeling, LOVE is a state of being. It’s what we’re made of.

I’m talking about universal consciousness, the essence that connects us all, according to Einstein, anyways. It’s something that once you tap into it, nothing else compares. And you do that when you become aware. We all get glimpses of this when we “fall” in love, of course, because that’s what that experience is – we’re falling into ourselves. We’re filling ourselves in the deep well of love and appreciation and then we’re opening up and sharing it. You’ve all heard the saying “It’s better to give than to receive”. That is exactly it.  

Love is wonderful not because it’s coming at you, but because it’s coming from you!

If you don’t believe me, think about a situation where someone expressed their love for you, but you didn’t feel the same way toward them. Maybe you felt indifference or sympathy (you felt sorry for them), or even repulsion, depending on who it was, and the circumstances.

Now compare that to a situation where you were in love with someone, but they didn’t love you back. Even though your love was not reciprocated, the experience of holding them as your object of desire, while it might have been gut-wrenchingly painful at times was also hopeful and exhilarating, euphoric even. Because from this love that emanated from you, you could imagine things, you could create scenarios with that person, and that brought you joy for the moment. So, it’s in the outpouring of love that we feel ecstatic, not in the receiving of it.

Don’t get me wrong – if it’s reciprocal it’s pretty freakin’ awesome. What happens often, though, is that after the initial infatuation, we start intellectualizing our relationship, or placing conditions on the beloved or replaying old scenarios in our minds that don’t allow the relationship to be fresh and new. Deep, long lasting relationships are only possible when we continue to tap into the well of love and keep sharing it. 

In this last relationship I was in, during one of our breakups, I experienced something extremely powerful and revealing, which has truly changed my life. I was in my car, right after getting home, and I was feeling sad. I remember closing my eyes and just sitting there, and suddenly I saw myself inside of me, teeny tiny, and I thought “Oh, that must be my inner child, but then noticed it was me as an adult.” Then I saw another teeny tiny version of me – also an adult - this one awash in this bright yellow glow, which happens to be one of my favorite colors, and the color of my energy. And suddenly, there was a mesh of these two entities, as if they had melded together, and while it felt a bit awkward at first, it also felt like total acceptance, total forgiveness. It felt safe. It felt like home.

To give you an idea of what that feeling was like, it’s as if you just stepped into your favorite grandmother’s house, who no matter what you do, or how you behave or how down on your luck you are, always greets you with a wrap-around hug and makes you feel like your God’s gift to the world. And this was that kind of feeling.

Total. Unconditional. Love.

I realized then that I had just tapped into my inner me. And while it took a while to reacquaint ourselves, she’s now my best buddy. Her name is Yellow. I thought about giving her a Spanish name, but calling her Amarillo just reminded me of Texas too much.

You see, while we may think that we’re physical beings with some beliefs of spirituality, the truth is we’re spiritual beings in a physical world and we have this physical body to help us navigate it.

So theoretically, (and it’s not a theory; I just like that word), it’s as if we’re always playing a virtual reality game of life. Like we’re two people in one. There’s the outer you: the physical person we can see, hear, smell and touch – the one that’s holding the commands. The one that goes to school, to work, has kids, goes on diets, Zooms with friends, and watches Netflix. The external, physical, palpable you. The one that’s constantly thinking and doing.

And then there’s the inner you. Now, this inner you is always with you but it doesn’t react to things like the outer you does. The inner you is not constantly reliving the past – what was said, what wasn’t said – why you acted or didn’t act a certain way. The inner you doesn’t live in the future, waiting for the day when you bump into Mr. Right in the produce aisle or your husband starts paying attention to you after years of focusing on your children, or you land the new job or buy the new house. The inner you is just enjoying the moment. She’s like an observer: peaceful, wise, accepting, appreciative, all knowing, joyful, creative and, most of all, LOVING.

If you’ve ever had wonderful ideas come out of nowhere, your “aha” moments, they didn’t come out of nowhere. They came from your inner you. If, on the other hand, once you got those wonderful ideas, you wrecked your brain trying to figure out how to make them happen, that’s the outer you. If you’ve fallen in love, yep, inner you. If you started making demands on your lover, outer you. If you were mesmerized while looking at a rainbow or a waterfall, or staring into a buffalo’s eyes, inner you. If suddenly you wanted to bring the buffalo home, outer you. Because for the inner you, there’s no clinging to anything or avoidance of anything. There’s no judgement. Every moment, every person, every situation is as it is.

This kind of peaceful, joyful appreciation and acceptance, this unconditional love, no one else can give you. BUT THEY DON’T NEED TO!

You don’t have to go to anyone for this. All you need to do is lean back into awareness.