Some of you who know me will have witnessed my recent breakup. Honestly, it has been an impactful and stressful time for me. Truly, separating from my would-be-life-partner was and is perhaps the most painful experience I've ever been through. Anyone who has felt the despair of a broken heart knows what I mean, and if you haven't - perhaps question if you've really given all of yourself to anything. That is what heartbreak is - the feeling that we gave it our all, and our all was still not enough, because something moved us away from the thing we desired most. This occurs in various ways in our life, but to experience it with another human being is perhaps the most life-changing and transformative. We have to dig deep down into our soul, diving into murky water strewn with garbage and other junk that's not at all worth mentioning to find the treasure buried in the lost ship. The most difficult part of this is that there might not even be any treasure buried down there, yet we are willing to take the plunge into darkness anyways with the potential of some great reward.
That is what love has shown me. True, romantic love - the kind where you would do anything for the other person, even die - reveals the power behind our consciousness. When are willing to give it all up, we are rewarded with everything we could want. But if we waver from this in any way, if we allow our past to creep in and color the scene with shadows of a previous life, we end up giving up MOST of everything, and in return experience the pain of the apparent deficit between our giving and what we hope to receive. The 'loss' is too much to bear, and although we strive to balance it out (many times through additional giving), it is not enough. This fosters resentment in the heart, which clouds our ability to see with pure eyes our beloved. And our beloved isn't just before us as another human - it is in front of us in every thing that we could 'see'...
What we are actually looking for, is the One who is capable of love to begin with. The One hidden in the folds and crevasses of our heart's cave, which peaks out time to time, or reveals its beautiful head for the entire world to see when we fall deeply in love with someone. The reward for giving everything is that we experience the ultimate love which is divine in origin. It is beyond our limited framework of human understanding. It is the love that bathed us during conception when we were a mass of cells dividing and redividing a million times to make a beautiful human baby. It is the love that Nature has for Her children, offering us the greatest gift anyone could receive: life itself. It is this love that gives us a heart that beats, that breathes life into our lungs without us needing to even be conscious of it; this is the love that digests our food, transfers oxygen through our bloodstream and diffuses it into the tissues that need it, and fights off invaders hoping to kill off our physical bodies from dis-ease and infection.
These things are transcendent in origin which is why I refer to this as divine love. We can only oggle at the magic and mystery of life and even our best scientists are stumped when it comes to explaining the miracle of consciousness. For these reasons, perhaps it is wise that we seek to accept ourselves as the miracle that we are rather than rationalize and explain it into neat and concise terms that can be written down and passed on. Maybe the only thing humans are here to 'learn' is how to accept this highest form of love into their hearts and let THAT be the thing that tells them what to do. Instead of society, government, parents, or even our most cherished relationships telling us what to do - maybe all of these outside parties are just here to show us how to love ourselves so fully and so completely that any ideas about what we are supposed to do or be are blown to smithereens, and all that is left in the wake of this destruction is the pure light of a Soul and Spirit that we really are, illuminating our highest truth as we see it.
Heartbreak can be a f***ing painful, soul wrenching thing. But you know what? Thank God for this pain, and this broken heart, for it shows us that there was still something there that could be damaged. There was still part of us that was not whole, and the entire foundation was shaken up, causing everything built above it to come crashing down. It is in the ashes of this immolation that the soil is fertilized and what was never true is carried away on wisps of wind whilst the seeds of what is real are nourished and watered by truth, integrity, and honesty to oneself.
Love on, little one. Amidst the chaos of the sometimes painful and dark storms of life, there is a lighthouse flashing its light periodically. We might feel like we are onboard a sinking ship, tossed by heaving seas, but we are also manning the lighthouse. Hell, we're even in the Coast Guard para-rescue squad awaiting our SOS. These are all analogies and metaphors to the archetypes that exist within us all, for occasionally we are asked to become the warrior, or the captain, or the deckhand, or the fisherman, or the teacher, or the student.
Perhaps we are all these things simultaneously, and it is only the hesitation of leaving behind one role and entering into another that causes us fear and confusion in life. If life was asking you to be the captain and have a clear sight as to where your ship is headed, but you couldn't let go of being the hardened deckhand sailor you were used to being, or the soft maiden on board the voyage set for a new land.... what would happen? Calloused, worker's hands can still prepare food for many people. A soldier should just as easily tend to the wounded as he can fire a weapon with intent to kill.
Where is the lesson in all of this? We are not limited to any one thing in life, whether that be one job, one career path, or even one relationship. It is in this realization that, although we're capable of anything, we end up choosing One thing. It is in the choosing of this thing that we end up with the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment of life - the paradox of purpose. Despite the obvious other choices, some 'better' and some 'worse', we land on this one because it lights us up inside. The recipient of this choosing is now animated with the entire force of the Universe behind it. When we see this ,we are inspired (in-spirit-ed). It is the reason we see a couple madly in love and find inspiration, even if we ourselves are or are not in love. It is why when someone speaks passionately about something, we feel a stir inside. It's what makes us remember our favorite teachers - the Ones who've come before us and shown us what love really is.
This is what sets me on fire. This potential in all of us to choose something, and really choose it, then watch the whole world come around to support that endeavor. Don't worry if you don't 'know' what to choose. It doesn't matter. The ability and willingness to choose any THING is your gift, as the Conscious One that you are. Choose to wake up. Choose to put your feet on the ground, and choose to be thankful for another day. Choose to smile. Choose to call your Mom and tell her that you love her. Whatever you choose to do, just make sure that you choose. In the choosing, love grows, because then we find out we can choose any 'thing' and still experience love, as we are the Source of it all.