reason to believe

Never occurred to me that the song in my head these last few weeks was Rod Stewart.
Brain, you've let me down. Unsurprising.
But it's interesting, the last person who lied while I cried was my first love. It makes sense the last would too. Sad that that's the tidy story arc end of the rainbow. All my parent issues, wrapped up in a bow.
Anyway, this time there's no deep lesson. It's just that life is ultimately unfair for most people. Vulnerability is rewarded with abandonment, love rewarded with lies, and not everyone who tries hard wins. I'm not special here. I remain extremely lucky and privileged in almost all other ways.
I will say, this last partner was special. I've never been involved with someone with such an out of control personality disorder before. One I'd never before encountered personally, even practicing medicine. So. That's a new experience, and for the future, I'll be able to recognize it in patients hopefully, and maybe get them help before it's too late.
One good thing?
I was crying the other night after I'd received the postal service notice that the address had been changed, trying to brush my teeth through red teary eyes and super ugly-face-making and gasps for breath. And I stood there after, leaning on the sink, and breathed. And saw in the mirror someone I do now solidly believe is worthwhile. Lovable. Kissable and huggable. Someone I enjoy being with. Someone who didn't do anything wrong this time really- nothing I wasn't committed to admitting to and fixing. I never lied or covered anything up. I never gave up, not while there was still a response to my attempts. Even for a while after. Until the response was "stop."
I did my absolute best to love well. And when I didn't do it super well I tried to do it better, alone.
I think I could love better, with some love and challenge and support back in my direction too. I do believe I could. I don't believe I'll get that chance- which would break my heart if it wasn't well torn apart already. But I could love better. And I'd take that chance, because I don't think I could choose to avoid it- it is, however, going to take a lot for me to trust anyone like that again. My intuition about these things has always been very wrong.
I very much miss loving someone like that- this was my first real experience of putting everything out there, while looking forward to opening even more of myself. It felt so expansive and free and joyful to be that open and trusting- for the first time in my whole life! Even though it was clearly the wrong person to trust. And even though I never got the chance to fully engage, because that part, the growing that happens when two people are going in the same direction within a relationship, requires participation of the other person. I feel robbed. It seemed so close this time, I'd never felt that before. I guess I was also more wrong than ever before too.
But now at least, I feel that I am worth someone else's time and love, especially my own.
And I'm learning how to live a life I think is worth it, with maybe only friend-love, because that's really good too. Nourishing and supportive, fun and joyful, and is good compassion practice all by itself.

(JWWaterhouse)

green vision of home

There's this email thread to myself I kept for years, calling it my green vision of home. It was an edited, curated, carefully detailed summary of my desire for what a safe and loving home would look like. But in my mind and intention, it was home defined by another person, and how I would feel based on the relationship. Which, fine, I guess, to a point. But it's time to stop defining the idea of 'being safe at home' based on a fictional human. A dream of home, a once upon a time fantasy.
There are a couple other email threads to myself about myself, what I wanted to be, I am statements. Aspirations. And as my close friend reminded me last night, the only person I can do anything about is myself, and I need to focus on what kind of partner I want to be and work on that.
So my recent massive failure has been very constructive.
I love easily, and forgive easily, and too much at times, largely because of my desire for connection and family and acceptance can become desperate when I fear someone walking away. "I love you but I can't be with you" I have heard second-hand since I was 2 years old. This year felt like that, and I didn't see it at first, and when I did, and tried to call it out, my panic seems to have made it worse. Sigh.
When stressed (by physical pain or life circumstance), I back myself into a familiar place, and put up walls, become more unskilled at listening/seeing, and too often turn fear to anger and demands to try to control someone's behavior when I'm hurt or failing to receive support or not feeling cared for. That didn't work at all, as you'd imagine.
I have thought that 'helping solve' was needed, that my small compassion (a rudimentary version based on my experience, because I was assuming I understood more than I actually did, and too quickly closed off my curiosity to seeking more information thinking I had the answer already) -  when understanding (and clear failure to understand) should have led to more questions, more listening, more quiet, so the other person could feel safe to be honest.
I failed badly. Failed to help certainly. Failed to connect. Failed to listen.
There's a note to myself from 2011: "people DO change, but don't attach to that. be love. change yourself." I have been trying to do change myself, over the years... but this year was so hard, I didn't have enough energy to pause and look deeply at what was happening, nor to see enough to change myself during a time it seemed I had to use all my available energy to not fall apart (and pass my test, and be in physical pain, and not have a functioning partner but a mostly absent troubled roommate instead).
I have made progress though. I thought I was being listened to, which was new. I thought I was being told truth from a partner (maybe just not the important or whole truth). I was able to say what I seemed to need (even if I was unable to listen? still progress) and what I felt. I just should have sat with my thoughts and feelings first before sharing or reacting- I did at the beginning (I had more time, forced, which at this point was another flag I missed), and when I thought it was settled and safe, depending on circumstance, I got lazy, complacent, frustrated... disconnected. So that blame or anger or neediness was easier when I was exhausted by anxiety and pain.
So when I thought I'd run out of energy, when things came to a crisis, like they will do, I didn't fall apart this time. I saw my supports, I talked to them, I felt them, I listened, and they helped. I had not ever experienced inner strength clearly before. So that was a gift of this time, this crisis, this unhappiness, this suffering.
I am still scared, and hurt, and unsure what boundaries I need in my current state (because I am not a buddha yet, I would love to not need boundaries, but, alas, I am still human, and very unskilled), so I am frustrated and still have discomfort leading me to desire a less uncomfortable situation.
I guess that's what I sit with until I have more information, or more information arises in myself.
Life is good. I would like to share it more deeply. I will practice.

compassion practice

I learned something this year I thought might be worth writing about. Especially since it's a huge reason I'm taking this leap.

Lately I have been practicing being in a state of love. I have found I like myself much better when I am in love. So full of joy that it spills over. Exuberant, but gentle. By truly paying attention and practicing being in love with everyone I encounter, it does not inflict itself on others with cloying indecency- rather, someone deeply and safely in a state of love simply brightens a room while normal interactions go on. I'm sure you've all seen this before, it's just new to me.
I noticed that after the initial millisecond of a chemical reaction, being in love has little to do with anyone besides myself. The opening, the clarity, and the newly accessible energy all come from inside me. And they stay, long after the person is far out of reach.
I noticed that I am able to re-evoke a feeling I have explored and encouraged the growth of, regardless of someone else's behavior that may have started it off...
A person can be an safe anchor, a trigger, a catalyst, but another person could never be the source of my love.

(ok ok, metaphysically, yes, we're all one. those of you that are enlightened already can roll your eyes at this post as usual... :) )

So why do I call this a practice? Well, I've found that the moment I allow my desire for a specific outcome to become solid, to become a condition for my happiness, to become an expectation, I am no longer in an open state of love. At that point I have narrowed the possibilities available, I have tried to imagine that I am a better judge of what I want than the universe. I am in expectation. And scheduling disappointment for myself. Life can never go as expected. So there seems to be a need to continually remind myself to return to nurturing behaviors that are more skillful and positive: to practice.

Over the years I have learned ways to refocus if I find my mind latching on to longing or yearning or disappointment or despair: Schedule time with loved ones. Get the feelings down on paper because self-induced melodrama makes for potentially interesting word salads. Exercise. Help someone else.

But the best way didn't come from my mind at all. I remember I said to my catalyst at one point: this is my practice. And I didn't even know how very deeply true that was at the time, but my heart did, and my heart spoke directly through my mouth for the first time in my life.

And so, I found my practice- being in a state of love. Years of meditation finally allowed me to recognize love when it arose for the millionth time... and by finally becoming aware of it, I began to actively practice to help it grow.
There have been moments wherein my BEing in love was also what I was DOing, without expectation, without needs, with desires that didn't need to be fulfilled in any particular way for me to feel complete. This is what meditation has taught me to recognize. To notice these fleeting moments when I am actually aware of the unity within myself. Because this experience is a tiny fractal of what is possible with the entire universe- but for me, a small frail little human, it starts with this little piece of consciousness that I label 'me.'

So this practice is to be in love, to fill with it and do it, to remain filled and grounded in love as often as possible. The more one practices, the more skillful one becomes. I practice with close friends, with family, with acquaintances with expectations of me, with friends that want more, with friends that want less, with patients that are suffering, with students and children with minds like innocent sponges, with the ocean, with my favorite checker at my local health food store, with the cat from next door, with my future dog, with the whales in the channel, with the writer I'll likely never meet whose posts on elephant journal cause me to seriously consider kidnapping him for coffee one day...

And this doesn't mean in any way that I have evolved to a point of boundary-less-ness and oneness. I'm not a buddha, at least, I haven't recognized my own buddha nature to the point where I am one (ahhhhh devolving into philosophy again, whoops)... And since this catalyzing shapeshifting has started I've had plenty of ups and downs and unskillful behavior. But I've finally discovered, with a totally non-intellectual understanding, that the way I behave, the way I think, and the way I feel, are all generated from inside myself. I have choices every time something arises- do I act on it at all and if so, how far do I roll with it? I am lucky enough to be able to practice when I'm not good at something. The teachers in my life have fortunately been myriad and angelic, and my best teacher is always my own commitment to pay attention and learn, to use each miserable failure as a valuable lesson.

So how do I practice? When I realize I've slipped away from love, I return to my intention to understand, to maintain curiosity, to stay open, and to be committed to absolute honesty no matter what. Just like in meditation. Just keep practicing. I practice with myself first, meditating twice daily, and during the day whenever I manage to remember.
The act of loving, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, is to intend to understand. Compassion is "feeling with," and means that I want to understand first my own experience, to build compassion inside myself. I can then maybe be more skillful at trying to understand someone else's experience, to feel what they feel. I might even be able to lighten their burden of suffering by caring, by trying to understand, by asking how I can help.

And this all means I am finally learning how to be in love with myself, so now I have enough to share...
Which is the beginning of a much truer journey, beyond this physical travel plan that is developing as I go... learning how to love, and to love well, is more important to me than anything else.
And I will keep practicing, and failing, and practicing.
Everything is my teacher.