Love and only (true) love

There has been many years when I did not allow what is natural to flow. Until one day, I decided to write, not just write, but share what I have written. Then I realized, not only was I holding myself back for all those years, I was also holding back every single person in this world.

I had to share life. Life as how I have chosen and how it has been my teacher, my medicine. Did I always do life right? Hardly. What I wish to share about life is, it could have hardened me, and I have chosen many experiences that point to the road of big time hardening.

There was a spark, at times although so dimly felt, not because it is small, but because of my own self neglect and choice to not want to feel it, yet throughout my life it is always there within my heart. This spark, is my connection to love.

Did I always know love? I have always known love, but I did not always live it. Knowing love and witnessing myself not living it, is one of the greatest pains I have ever felt. Did I give up on myself? Almost, I almost bought into the guilt that does not fail to debilitate and cripple, because I have given my power to it.

What I did not envision after that was the beginning of truly living love. Not speaking or fantasizing or intellectualizing about love. But truly, responsibility, seriously, playfully, commitedly, consistently living love. This has nothing to do with being flirtatious or sexual with anyone else, but it is about being love and making love with myself every moment (again, nothing sexual is implied here). Making love every moment of my every day, what does that even mean? Imagine waking up, the first thought and the accompanying action—is that me being love, first and foremost to me? Am I being gentle to myself from the every mouthful I put in my body, to every word uttered to another, to the choices of what to select and put in my shopping basket and consequently carrying home? Am I putting love first when in a situation where emotions attempt to take over? Do I feel and honor every being in this world knowing we are all equal? Are any of my subtle expressions conveying separation that even I am unaware of? Can I continue to be love if everyone else chooses differently?

Am I being “hard” on myself for attempting not to harden in life, you may ask. There are no rules in how I live. I do not abstain from eating any foods because I don’t allow myself to. I do not go to bed early because I have to. There is nothing in life I have to do. Every single action though is a choice from my heart, knowing it would support me in being love. Why is love so important? Who would even notice if we slip once or twice, and not be love to ourselves or to others? My body would register every choice of love and lovelessness I have ever made, and I am always responsible for all the choices I have ever made and will ever make. All diseases as well as incidents/accidents in life are a result of all the choices I have made. I cannot avoid the consequences of my past choices but I can always choose new choices from now on.

Why I am sharing this is, life is constantly a learning. I have not mastered anything in perfection, and I never will. Every day I may make an unconscious choice or I may override the knowing in my heart for convenience, but it is also I who has to suffer ultimately, sooner or later. And writing while living life in love, knowing it is surely and truly a discipline, in steadiness and consistency. And the first love we show ourselves is to be more accepting and less critical in what we have missed. In-truth, we are already there. We are already enough. We are ready. Don’t let the imperfections of what entails a human experience cloud truth. Truth can only be felt within the heart.

Without honesty and responsibility, there is no true love. And knowing love, and allowing ourselves to feel the love within us, the spark which I mentioned earlier, is actually a blazing flame. And no matter how far from it we have tread, its warmth and light will always be there for us to feel, if we decide to return.

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Speak with Love

Before we open our mouths to express love, what comes forth is already in the heart, when it is called for, our lips and tongue move so love takes shape and form in words and sounds in expression.

Love in expression does not always mean sweetness, and it never is the kind of sweetness that attaches like silly putty and does not come off.  But love in expression is always gentle and non-imposing.  Never is love something that is spoken in judgement.  Simply, expression in love is just stating what it truly is.

Sometimes love is a consistent firmness, not in resistance, but repetitively conveying in livingness of who we are, with words and beyond that of words.  We may have to repeatedly express, what is simple, perhaps sometimes too simple, for the mind to comprehend.

Recently, speaking with love is my learning, with family, with co-workers, with strangers.  Not shying from what wishes to truthfully express from the heart, is my first commitment in speaking with love.  Love speaks, not what society wishes to be pandered to, but how it truly is.

And it is amazing, how when love is spoken, it is unlike how poetry portrays it to be throughout the ages, that hearts are swooned and the senses are mesmerized; rather, to many, love sometimes stuns, and it becomes our choice to either feel in depth with self-honesty, or distract from it through a myriad of ways.

Love, though, is very patient.

I am a little boy with little boy feelings

From the very beginning, I had a knowingness that there was a path waiting for me to carve out that goes beyond what we recognize as our confined roles in life.  The “roles” in life appeared fluid to me rather than strictly inclusive.

You could say this was a chicken and egg story.  I became a single mom and so balancing family together with career as well as with one’s inner growth is an every single day exploration.  Being a parent as well as a friend was also a delicate endeavor.

This path of fluidity is not forged with force or the feelings of insufficiency.  Rather it has  been walked with joy and anticipation, most of the time.  It was all an exploration, but mostly, deep within I know the spherical nature of an exploration is much more natural to me than a box constructed with straight lines and impenetrable walls.  It was like seeing life with the eyes of a child, nothing is impossible, everything is an adventure.  And as I approached life with a wide-eyed wonder, life greets me back with many miracles.

As the boundaries blended within my life, such as, work is not just work, it was also work with parenting; and self growth was almost always done in tandem with my child, my child and I are always learning in each moment, how to balance our own roles.  If I am to be honest and gentle to myself, there was no way I can be a parent who always uphold an invincible shield.  There are times when I am fragile and these moments had to be honored too.

Therefore feeling my own fragility and that of my child also, recognizing them in full and accepting these are a part of life, that no matter what, will keep happening.  When I am too focused on a certain role, my boy would remind me in a myriad of ways to come back to harmony.

Yesterday, he did that by saying “Mommy, I am a little boy with little boy feelings.”  This simple statement had so much gentleness but also immense power in it, that I stopped completely, then and there.  This reflection was so poignant–that whatever I have been doing, I have not been gentle enough.  And so I was reminded to be more gentle, to the both of us.  But what touched me most, is the willingness of my little boy, who is now in the tender stage of growing up into a pre-adolescent, to express the fragility that he is feeling.  No matter how much he wants to mask this tenderness in many of the circumstances in life recently, his continued opening to acknowledging these feelings to someone he trusts, is truly beauty-full.

And it is with continued honesty to myself through the impulses in the heart, as well as the clear reflections from all around,  that renews every single day, my commitment to life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rambling on the 29th night of September

I am not going to lie.

I have never had much interest in the external world. Mastering myself is the only full time occupation for me. I like to journey within myself and poke at all the dodgy and curious places, sometimes they turn out to be quite overwhelming and amazing too. When the world is interested in the financial market or America or ending poverty, I just wish to go to my room and look within myself. This may not be a conventional way for most human beings to live, living in such aloneness and isolation to our surroundings, but it is my way, I don’t know any other way. It is natural for me and call me crazy, but I would be very uncomfortable living in an apartment or working 9 to 5 in an office or watching TV every night. Just a choice I guess.

Most of my life I have hoped to be like everyone else. I have tried many times to do everything possible to remain in my comfort zone. I just wanted to be a cashier or work in a small book shop. However something within my heart, always successfully convince me my path is otherwise. I never plan much what I do, I just know and then somehow I follow through with the immense help of the Universe. Most of the times I do not know how it happened. And before I have time to reflect about it logically, I am already on another part of my journey.

We know that whatever that we resist the most, is usually what we have to learn to master the most. I still have many dreams of being invisible, I just want to hide in my isolated house within the hills and talk to the eagles all day long.

But what I want, and what I feel the most comfortable, is not what I am here to be. I am here to extend myself, to expand into horizons I don’t know existed. I am here to grow more than I have ever had. I am here to serve. Many moments I feel fear is surely going to consume me, and each time I feel this is the definitely the biggest challenge ever, I surprise myself by jumping through another hurdle.

No one says it would be easy, but perhaps this is the life we have decided enough is enough. We are no longer content to keep pretending just to feel safe. The pain of not being who we are is greater than the fear preventing us to move forward. I could only look forward to the moment when I come out of the water for another first breath.