Can you shelter your heart from pain that already exists within it?
What is the line that divides love of self from humility to events that are brought to us by the law of attraction?
Things have been moving fast in the past couple of months.
After years of self-work and growth, finally things started to shift in my love life.
Days ago I was reading an article and this sentence struck me: “Our most damning limitations are the ones we impose on ourselves”.
What a powerful sentence.
How often we hold on to beliefs that we accept as true, and steer our actions in a direction that aligns with them, without realizing how false and misleading they are? I was reflecting on how difficult it is to remove self imposed limitations, and how even more difficult it is to identify a wrong belief as such. That is probably the greatest challenge. How can we find a solution to a problem if we don’t think there is a problem in the first place?
Self-limitations and wrong beliefs are some of the worst enemies towards our progression.
Over the past few months I have identified many wrong beliefs and self limitations associated with my love life, and as I’ve worked through some of them, I’ve quickly realized how my “singleness” is nothing but the reflection of my soul condition. So weeks ago I brought the issue to God. Many times I have prayed to him to help me see my blocks, but never before I have been ready to listen to an answer. This time around things were different. My soul was ready to receive the answer, and of course God didn’t hesitate to provide it to me.
On August 25th , Mary published a post on her blog* that talked about the law of compensation in the spirit world. A spirit called Gregor volunteered to share his story as an illustration of the contrast between the speed of progression when operating under the law of compensation versus when embracing the law of repentance. The beginning of his life in the spirit world was marked by the working of the law of compensation, and this process was very painful and very slow. As years pass by, his heart started to soften to the idea that there was some justice in the condition he was in, and that maybe he could do something to change his situation. This new thought slowly brought him to embrace a relationship with God and to engage the law of repentance. From that moment onwards, his spiritual progression accelerated visibly.
At the end of the story, Jesus makes a comment about the reasons behind Gregor’s apparent slow progression. Here below an excerpt of it:
Mary (Gregor): I feel … I’m not in the rush for heavenly things, in the sense that I know that when I make things right, I’ll be there, and that feels right to me; that feels just also. Do you know what I mean?
Jesus: Yes, I feel one thing that might help you a bit though is, I feel at the moment you are slowing your progress down because you feel … a still fairly strong judgement of yourself. So, there’s a resistance to receiving God’s Love because of that judgement of yourself.
Mary (Gregor): I feel I will receive God’s Love to that degree when I am worthy of it.
Jesus: Yes, and that’s where the error is. It’s like there’s still the feeling that you have to almost earn it because of the past.
Mary (Gregor): Well, repair what I have done, I suppose.
Jesus: Well, that’s true but my suggestion would be to let more of God’s Love flow into your soul, ask for more. At the moment I feel you’re managing how much flows, because of that feeling of guilt about what you’ve done still existing. Sort of managing how much flows into your heart, do you know what I mean?”
This paragraph resonated with me. I read it again, slowly. Then thought to myself: This is exactly how I feel about my ex husband, though I never really realized it!
How many times in the past I mentioned to my friends that I would be happier if he got into a new relationship? Little I knew that I was actually putting my life on hold because of that. I looked back at the many months spent crying about my soulmate and I saw how self deceiving that was. I was crying incessantly for not having him in my life, but deep in my soul I wasn’t ready to welcome him.
I suddenly realized how emotionally inaccessible I had been.
For years I held on to the belief that I did not deserve to be happy until my ex was, and that became the thought that directed my actions.
The week I read the post, my ex was out of town with my daughter, visiting some family. When he came back, I went to pick him up at the airport and, on the way back home, I decided to talk to him about this new realization of mine. As soon as I mentioned about letting go of him, my eyes welled up (and so did his) and I felt deep sadness. I explained that I wanted to let go of the sense of guilt that held me back and that I wanted both of us to move forward with our lives. That conversation didn’t finish once we got home. We kept talking for days about our views, and the reasons why this was (or was not) a good idea.
At the end of that week, I decided it was time for me to take the bull by his horns so I decided to join an online dating app. Within a few days I met someone that sparked some sort of interest in me and so we began to chat.
That same week, one of my colleagues from work invited me to play pickleball at a local gym and, much with my surprise, we ended up connecting quite strongly on the court. He was not the type of person I would normally go for, so when I started to feel an attraction towards him I got in a deep state of confusion and rebellion. The confusion came from the fact that within a span of few days I had 3 different people in my mind. The rebellion came from the fact that I felt there was something at the soul level that attracted me to him, but I had many reservations on him based on the multiple interactions we had at work. So I kept telling to God “Why him? Of so many people, why him???” and one day I even found myself stomping my feet on the floor and saying “I don’t give a crap if YOU feel he is the right person for me at this time, I DON’T WANT THIS!".
For a few days I stayed in this emotional state until I worked my way through the rebellion and eventually decided to sort it out.
I knew there was something to explore when it came to my colleague, but I also felt a deep connection towards my ex, especially after connecting so deeply with each other.
The simple fact that I had forced myself to see other people didn’t mean I had emotionally overcome my bond with him and, until that bond existed, I had no hope to explore another relationship. So I did what seemed the most logical thing to do. I decided to close all contacts with the person from the app, to cut down the texting with the colleague and I jumped back into a relationship with him.
Many times before I had thought of giving him another shot, but I always refrained to do so because of many different reasons. At this point in my life though, I realized I couldn’t move forward without giving us another chance. I didn’t want to look back with regret and have the doubt that MAYBE we could have been happy, had I only dared trying.
Going back seemed the only way to move forward (and to get out of the limbo I was in), and this theory proved to be right. After about a week of hanging out together like a couple, I gained extreme clarity about what needed to be done next. I realized that while the toxic part of the relationship was gone, the frustration and the dissatisfaction were still there, therefore going our separate ways was not only the most loving thing for me, but also for him.
The day I talked to him about my attempt to be back and the decision to finally move on was an interesting one, because I felt like living a dejavu. He still held on to some of the believes he had when we were together, and I could see how the strength of his conviction would many times influence my will in the direction of staying together rather than leaving. I realized that too many times in the past I had allowed him to lead the path when he had absolutely no idea of where we were heading. His intentions were good, but his beliefs were totally wrong and he had no awareness of it. I also realized how many times I had given up my will to him thinking he knew better when, in reality, between the two of us I was the one who had the clearest vision.
I had a flashback of a vision I would often get during periods of uncertainty in our relationship: the vision of a stubborn blind person insisting to lead the way to a person who could see exactly everything that was in front of them. I think this was the way my spirit friends would try to help me understand what I was doing with my life.
This time things were different though. When the stubborn blind person tried to take the torch to lead the way, I didn’t give it away. I gently pushed back and stood up for what it was evidently the right thing to do for us. I realized that, with time, I’ve learned to value what I feel, regardless of anybody else’s opinion or validation. It was ok for him not to see what I was trying to explain, because I knew he would eventually come to see it anyways. I also felt it was ok for us to not agree on my vision, and I didn’t feel the need to receive his approval or validation to move forward with my ideas. Coming out of that conversation, I felt relieved but also strong and grounded. I no longer felt like a flag at the mercy of the strongest wind, but like a lighthouse shining bright and firmly through the darkness of the storm.
The day after having this conversation with my ex, I had a sudden, powerful opening towards my colleague.
It felt as if the wall of a dam broke down and water started to stream down the valley with uncontrollable force.
I realized what a powerful role my emotions were playing in my romantic life and when the interest towards my colleague became strong enough, I decided to dive deep into this new experience and see what the law of attraction had in store for me.
As we started to date, I felt a strong desire to build something together with him. I didn’t know if we could work as a long term couple, but I felt that we had the potential to make this a long lasting relationship. Within few days of dating though, his behavior changed drastically, and he went from being very interested in me to being extremely distant. I tried to talk to him about it, but he would always somewhat reassure me that there was nothing to worry about. I knew something was wrong but I couldn’t understand what caused that shift in him. He did not show any interest in finding time to meet each other, he would only reply to my texts but never initiate a conversation, and slowly but gradually moved away from me to the point that for 3 days I didn’t hear from him at all.
My heart was aching so badly and for a few days I kept flirting with the idea that maybe he was just very busy with his own life.
So many thoughts were crowding my mind:
What caused him to change his behavior?
Did I scare him away by being too open and too ready for a serious relationship?
Was I “too much”?
Was I overthinking it or what I felt was real? He sounded always very normal but his behaviour was so strange…
After couple of days of resistance, I finally decided to stop rationalizing and let myself experience the feelings that were coming up from our interactions.
For 3-4 days I cried on an off about feeling unvalued, unseen, unimportant, second to another woman (his daughter), unworthy of love, unworthy of an explanation, used, disrespected, unwanted and gullible. I also realized I had an expectation that he would match the level of interest that I had for him and a demand that he would make me feel loved, wanted and special.
As I progressed through all these emotions, all doubts cleared away and I became very clear about what was the loving thing to do.
I went from feeling deeply in love and willing to put all efforts into this relationship, to wanting to jump out of this transaction like a cat who just saw a cucumber. This was not a loving situation for me and I was 100% sure I wanted to be out of it. So I took my phone, typed a few words and kindly informed him that I didn’t want to move forward with this relationship.
At that point, we hadn’t had a chance to talk in person about what led us to where we were, however I didn’t feel the need to clarify any further since I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the reasons that drove him to behave the way he did.
I came into this relationship with an open heart and a strong desire to build something together, but also with some wounds related to wanted to be loved and seen.
He came into the relationship with a lot of wounds from his previous relationships and (probably as a consequence of that) with an emotionally incestuous relationship with his daughter.
The fact that I jumped full force into this relationship made him feel as if I was being too demanding for him and he felt compelled to push me away. He didn’t want the emotional intimacy that I was searching for, since he had already one established with his own daughter. His desire was to have an emotionally “diluted” relationship where we would see each other a couple of times a month, mainly when he didn’t have anything else to do in his very busy schedule. This is also why he would constantly push me in the direction of being overly busy with my daughter. He would not encourage my attempts to create time for us as a couple and kept pushing me back towards an inexistent need to take care of my life first.
Had I had some fears related to opening up to him, I would have probably tried to protect my heart from potential pain, and in doing so I would have accommodated his desire for an emotionally diluted relationship. We probably would have dated for a few months, until I would have felt ready to ask for more, and that is probably when I would have realized that he was actually emotionally unavailable.
Trying to protect my heart from pain would have actually prepared the ground for much deeper pain. This is why it is so important to forgive those who hurt us in the past. Carrying the baggage of previous wounds only makes more space for further hurt. There is real strength in staying humble to our emotions and, ironically, that is when we are the most protected by God and our spirit friends.
Opening my heart to someone was painful, but it also helped me establish a new truth in my soul: there is no emotion that I cannot handle.
Days after breaking up, he reached out again to express what seemed to be second thoughts about the choice of moving forward and I could feel some sort of regret. Initially I felt there was no space for further interactions, but during one company event we were forced to interact on a closer level, and I realized that I still had a strong attraction towards him. I couldn’t explain why, but I felt it as strong as ever. That showed me that I didn’t work through all the emotions that made me gravitate towards him. I probably touched some causal emotions, but I clearly didn’t feel them all.
This is where the main questions came into my mind.
Can you shelter your heart from an existing heartache? When is it right to remove yourself from a painful situation and when is it loving to remain and feel your emotions?
If I attracted someone who is emotionally unavailable, it means that I already have that wound in my soul, so am I loving myself by stepping away from this interaction or I’m just avoiding feeling something that the law of attraction has served me on a silver plate?
When I think about it at an intellectual level, my instinct is to protect myself and step away from the interactions with him, however when I look at it from an emotional level, I find it quite hard to access the emotions that are causing me to gravitate towards him without directly interacting with him.
It’s as if my mind is telling me to run away while my soul is telling me to stay and feel.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what would be the loving thing to do for myself and for him, and (as always) I’m finding out that the greatest clarity comes after feeling through my emotions. As old errors leave my soul, they make space for new truths and the path ahead is slowly but steadily revealing itself.
It’s strange but, in spite of the pain I’ve felt so far, I have enjoyed this process of opening up my heart to someone new.
Having to work through all those emotions made me feel a step closer to my soulmate (or at least to a more loving relationship), and made me feel stronger and proud of myself. The more I feel, the more I see my true worth. And the more I feel, the more I want to feel.
We all have our damning limitations. Wrong beliefs we want to hold on to. Built on lies, self-deception and rebellion. They cause damage, blindness and pain.
But we also have God’s truth: absolute, enlightening, powerful and available to all who seek for it with a sincere heart.
Like a ray of light penetrating through the darkness, Truth opens our spiritual eyes to new realities. It enables us and empowers us. With truth in our Soul, we no longer need to explore the world gropingly. As we feel more, we see more; and as we see more, we enjoy more.
To find truth we need to challenge our current limitations, brake our boundaries and dare greatly.
“It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither defeat nor victory.”
Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France on 23 April, 1910
I dared greatly and met my defeat, but I know that this defeat will be the ground of my next victory. What about you, my friend? Are you willing to dare greatly and live fully?
photo credit: www.istockphoto.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Mary's blog:
To learn more about how to remove a wrong belief please watch: