Seeking What We Carry Within

Love’s a funny thing. At dinner last night with friends, they remarked that I spoke of my exes highly despite how the relationships turns out.

But I do think of them well. A rare few have slipped through the emotional cracks and fallen squarely into my distant memory. But most, I love still.

Or, at least, I can conjure a warm feeling towards them momentarily. Though it’s often quickly replaced by hurt, disgust, and shame.

Because I’m not sure I know what love is to be honest.

Fear – yes. Anger – for sure. But love? It feels like attachment. Like needing. And I suspect that’s not love at all.

The few times I’ve felt the free, open, unconstrained wish of real love, it scared me in its impersonal-ness. Like it didn’t need me or them. It just loved the space between.

I both felt grounded and insecure, like I wouldn’t know how to relate without owning.

It was unsettling. It required a wholeness in me I wasn’t ready to hold.

So I settled for grasping.

Wednesday I heard a revered Swami speak about the nature of spiritualism. He said life is the guru and the lesson is to learn to flow. To let in and let go.

He said that time continually passes and if you don’t know how to let go, you’ll have problems as you age – losing your youth and vitality.

I suspect he’s right. But to me life feels like a continual process of decision-making.

You set your sights on the goal and then keep assessing – is this a step closer? Or this?

For those of us who travel the world seeking what we carry within, it’s tempting to cling to anyone and anything that feels like it holds an answer. Even if it’s the wrong answer.

But deep down you know. The vibration is wrong. It feels like a welcome respite because it’s where you’ve been before, but you’ve evolved past that now. You’re spinning faster.

So you have to let go and move on.

You have to open yourself to the new possibility life brings.

But that means you’re always on the road. You’re always moving to the next thing, even when you desperately want to stop and be held and rest for awhile.

As I prepare to leave this place I feel so calm, I’m aware that this time – 2.5 years later – I’m not hoping to take it with me like before. I’m not trying to soak in each scene and remember each face in the hopes that it will connect me somehow.

For the first time, I didn’t return through time and space to find myself. I returned to collect the parts I’d left so I can move on. Complete. Whole.

I suspect this is what true love is like. A gentle belonging. A knowing acknowledgment. A peace within.

If you have that today, send it a thought or two of thanks. And if you don’t, feel into the space within yourself and find it there. You are always home.

Be free. Be brave. Be YOU!

Love,
Alexis