Showing of Love
April 11,
2022
Isn't it interesting how life can become distracting and how easy it is to lose one's focus? Our greatest gifts and abilities are too often put aside for various reasons, and how one brief moment of delay can turn into over a year of time passing. One can argue that is the Alchemist process happening in our lives, and those diversions make us a more refined version of who we were yesterday. Although when I look back over the past year – I see what I have lost versus what I have gained. I am talking about non-financial losses of family and the lost ability of creativity. As time marches forward, the recent alchemist lesson for me is now a lot clearer than only a few months ago. The pain of the loss hurts every day, but the lesson grows stronger each day and has taken such deep root; I know now I am not the same person I was last year, and I know what self-love means to me.
I feel the ability to love oneself profoundly comes from the ability to love someone unconditionally and experience that moment, as does Jesus Christ love us. Until the moment in times comes in your life when you love a non-family member like Jesus loved humanity when he walked with us is the moment you understand that life lesson. In that moment of the extreme emotional pain of extending oneself to someone you love, you only feel extreme discontentment in return.
That moment in time is locked into my memory forever. The pain of that event still haunts me, and when it happened, I sat in my car afterwards for 20 minutes, left with a sense of a complete and utter state of emotional shock. This moment was at a couples therapy session, where the goal was to share issues in a relationship. The entire hour was dominated by my ex-partner with the negative energy of my "issues." Many concerns were brought about my past behaviour, and I could feel the hatred extended to me from years of abuse that person experienced from others in her life. It was as if the last 30 years of pain she experienced from others were downloaded to me over that hour-long session. Even though I repeatedly tried to extend love and kindness, those attempts were met with higher even levels of contempt towards me.
I am not comparing myself to what Christ went through on his last days on earth walking amongst us, but I do have a sense now, after reflecting, a glimpse of what he may have felt. It is horrific when you lay down emotionally and put your needs aside for someone else with perhaps getting loved in return, yet love doesn't come. The moment wasn't met by me with escalating emotional violence but with love, like a lamb to an emotional slaughterhouse.
When the moment was over, and I sat in my car by myself, I realized I had thoughts of self-harm. I am very blessed and grateful that I was able to call a friend, and from my past therapy, I recognized where I was mentally at, and I was able to take steps to stop that negative pain from taking root deep within me. I had a business development meeting that day, and as I drove out to the meeting, I had tears running down under my sunglasses. I can only imagine taking all of the world's pain during those last moments of Christ, as the pain I felt from one person was almost emotionally crippling.
This experience has led me to feel even more profound the impact my behaviours have on others. But more importantly for me, now I know what giving unconditional love is. Up to that moment in my life, I never had genuinely given myself without expectations in return or ready to put the walls up to full height when things became unsettling. I am grateful I am leaning into that experience, even though it was painful at the time, as it has taught me the foundational need I have (that we all have) is to love oneself. This has changed me in many ways, and one specific area is a strong understanding of personal boundaries. In the past, in the search for love, I would give away my boundaries with the hope of building something significant with someone else. To avoid conflict or prevent the fear of abandonment, I learned that it only delays conflict, leading to unhealthy conflict followed soon after by abandonment. For me, lacking self-love, the foundation of any relationship, all relationships for me were doomed right from the beginning and never had a long-term chance for fulfillment.
Maslow's hierarchy of self-actualization for needs could never be reached in my past because of this critical flaw in me. I had to have this painful lesson to get to my next level of development and be ready for the next chapter in my life. Since that event, I have spent many hours of healing time and reflection on love and its meaning to me. All of which seemed so perfect in the beginning turned into a waking nightmare of trauma followed by the clouds now clearing.
Even though I still experience the daily loss of some of my family through this experience, it has made me demand more of myself and, through this expectation of self, require more of others. I knew the importance of ensuring I surrounded myself with people of value, but I didn't always act on that. There was a part of me that felt that those choices were safe, as I felt the relationship subconsciously would fail, and I could say, "See, they never work out." Even though they all were painful, it was what I was used to and repeated what was familiar to me.
In January
of this year, I started taking slow steps to find myself again, regularly
attending a focused moment of time to restart my relationship with Christ, read
His Word, and go back to my physical activity. This has taken months to this
moment where I have the energy to create with words and the hope to help
someone else struggling. Please be kind to yourself, and it takes time and hard
work. When you are the most discouraged and ask when will I ever emerge from
the darkness, it suddenly does, and the sun will pierce through the dark clouds
of despair. Keep your focus on where your heart is leading you to go and
reflect. Don't let that painful experience stop you from moving forward forever
when you stumble. You will stumble and fail but fail forward and know that
Christ will be there to love you unconditionally. Let your ego go and extend
unconditionally love even though you are scared and face adversity – lean into
it, and you will start your Journey Home.
