Good enough?

I haven't heard my inner voice much lately. I imagine it has something to do with the disconnect I have felt with myself. So outside of myself. So many changes in such a seemingly short amount of time.

My friend L and I were sharing margs on Cinqo de mayo when we started discussing relationships. She is a woman I look up to, even though she is a few years younger than me. She is a wise soul and it shows through her every word - even the silly ones. L was discussing her past love affair that has been in flux for a while now to the point where she was no longer telling her friends or family about it. I could relate. There's no dignity in it either. And then she told me how, in a moment of fragility and being pushed into a corner about the situation with her beau, she screamed, "what's wrong with good enough?" She was so ashamed those words would find their way to her lips! But in reality, I think it's a valid question that everyone probably asks themselves and like a caring mother, I think your soul answers right away - "because you deserve better."

I don't believe in love at first sight nor the idea that there is only one or two great loves in your life. I believe that you can have as many as you want, are open to, and can believe in....and you should! People change...that's the nature of life. The question remains: are you changing together?

I have been back and forth with someone who walked into my life at the wrong time and have been struggling with the situation, the way it makes me feel, the way I make him feel, the choices (bad and good) that I have made where he's concerned. I realized how very selfish I had been with him - b/c I do love him, it's just a different kind of love than I have had in the past. He's such an amazing person and in the process of figuring out that I needed to figure out how to be on my own, he fell in love with me and that scares me to death. It's confusing, this love thing. Feelings that are versions of love does not a healthy relationship make...but maybe..maybe what I've found with him is a version of love that I've just never had before. I found myself asking the question, "how do you feel about this wonderful man? Why are you holding back? Why do you go back and forth so much? Is it just fear?" He is truly what I've wanted in a man as far as how I want to be treated. He listens. He offers intelligent feedback. He looks at me like I've never been looked at before. He is sincere and he is steady. He doesn't falter in his feelings for me - he's a rock.

The older I get, the more I realize that the first love that you should have is the one with yourself. A full-on love affair! I feel like I am courting myself - finding out what I like, what I don't, what I am good at, what moves me, angers me, frightens me....makes me crazy...all of it! At 30, I have realized that it has been a really great run so far but the road stretched out in front of me looks so much more amazing than I could have ever, ever imagined.

I no longer focus on that though because it'll work itself out without my working at it. Love is funny that way - you have to love yourself first.

Interconnected and humming...

I am in love with life right now. It's not that my life doesn't have its challenges and that everything is perfect. It's merely because life fills me with such wonderment on a daily basis from the new baby leaves waving at me from the trees to the majestic mountains with the baby blue sky as their backdrop...to the generosity of people and the love that exists where I never imagined it would. I am aware of the amazing synchronicity of nature and life and my thoughts and heart that I feel humbled and lucky on a moment to moment basis. I have come to realize that all that I should ever need is right at my fingertips...and it has always been there but I've been too caught up in what I now realize doesn't matter to be ok with just that which I have.

On my way to work the other day, it occurred to me as I looked out at people driving, walking, riding their bikes, talking to their friends, walking their dogs... how each person has THEIR life...filled with their special people, their worries, their joys, their love, their disappointment, their jobs, their families, their IMPORTANCE...and everything that is important to each of us is sacred and should be honored as such. Yet, however individual each of those things are to us, the importance of it to the collective world body is so communal. We are not separate. We are in this together...so why do we fight? Why do we treat each other like the "other?" In essence, we are rejecting a part of us when we don't recognize how our lives intertwine - there is a cause and effect to our actions, our words, our thoughts. It's MIND-BLOWING but true.

Imagine how nice you would be, how UNDERSTANDING we could all be if we lived in this paradigm. How amazing it would be to experience that collective consciousness...how powerful that could be?

Ancient yogic teachings convey the idea that our physical life experience is no accident. And that humans do not come into physical form to life with a meaning...life doesn't necessarily have meaning...but it does have a purpose. How very lucky are we to have a PURPOSE...each of us as balls of energy, manifested into physical form to discover our purpose? Whether you believe in this cycle is of no consequence actually but what you do with your life - your brief period of time that you are walking on those feet of yours - is of the utmost consequence. Are you doing everything you can to make the world better?

We are also reminded in many yogic texts over that we are not our actions. Our actions, words, ideas are not who we truly are. Who we truly are is our true essence. Our minds control the rest, whether we acknowledge it or even know it (most of us have no idea really.) Imagine how people would occur to you if you could look past their actions or words and really get them...really SEE them for their true essence...and not the other stuff that is in the way?

Imagine how you would see yourself if you turned to the mirror and truly saw yourself. Your essence. Your true self.

Life is so amazingly simple, when you think about it. It is beautiful, don't 'cha think?

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky” - Buddha.

Laugh with me, won't you?