surrender | theotherwomanblog

REFLECTIONS

-the bloody stubbornness of getting

someone born.

Rowan Williamson, the Archbishop of Canterbury

Last week I laid to rest my loveless marriage. It now lies deep, at the bottom of a lake, absorbed into the surrounding beauty of trees, singing birds and majestic mountains. It will decompose, change shape and one day, become part of something new. And after this burial, I sat and wept the cold, cold tears of grief. I didn’t stifle my sound, nor care about how I appeared… for once I let myself sink deep into the sorrow of my unfulfilled dreams, sink deep into the agony at the loss of the husband I love. I had to surrender to what is, and not continue to cling to my desire for the life I had planned. I have had to feel and observe the unsightliness of death.

It does me no good to choke back my tears nor numb my pain with alcohol or food. That just postpones what is inevitable. As I young child I cried openly, whenever I saw injustice, but by age 10, I cried alone… hidden from the ridicule of older brothers and the judgement of parents. I’ve had to relearn the cry of the soul. The cry that mourns the injustices of life, the cry that rejoices at the miraculous…the cry of an unencumbered child, who breaks into sobs when a robin crashes into a window and drops to the pavement below. The cry of the soul is different from the cry of the child in the supermarket desiring candy, or the cry I had when my beautiful Italian candlestick broke into pieces. These tears are rooted in the desire of the known, the tangible, the material world. This cry is more temper than soul. This cry will not see the heaving chest nor the sobs that interfere with breathing, leaving the crier gasping for air.

But my cry at the shores of the lake was the cry of a broken heart. It was the cry of the soul, the cry for which there is no consolation. It was the cry of me surrendering.

THE WEEPING OF SURRENDER

This week, Week 13 of 52, marks the 1/4 point of my year long project of my transformation into The Other Woman. It’s fitting that I am at the point of surrender. I’m surrendering to what never was… I’m surrendering to what never will be…and I’m surrendering to what is. I have felt relief after this week of soulful tears. And every time I chastise myself for not surrendering sooner, I remember that I had to be strong enough to bear the weight of such a staggering grief.

In the deeply felt experience of grief, I acknowledged the finality of my dream. Gone is the dream that one day he will gaze into my eyes and say, “I love you!” and I will feel the truth of these words. Gone is the dream to walk through the streets of Europe, hand in hand, sharing our observations, our humour. Gone is the dream to grow old together, watching the next generations as they stumble upon life and love. Gone is the dream to lie side by side after death, entering the realm of the unknown, somehow together. What’s done is done. What’s gone is gone.

goodbye

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 13 OF 52

CHANGING FROM NEEDY TO SELF-SUFFICIENT

Last week I believed to be true, that which I have most dreaded. My husband doesn’t love me. In a tyrannical rage, I have hurled this accusation at him countless times, praying he would refute it, being mollified when he did. Thus was the collusion of our marriage. Ending this collusive agreement, meant facing the truth of what is. It meant pain, upheaval, loss and eventually, maybe, transformation.

In the hopes of becoming The Other Woman, I have been dissecting my notions of love. Not agape, the diffused love and good will towards all humanity, but the love shown towards one man or one woman, at close range. I believe all humans need love, but how is this need for love different from being needy. When I met with my husband a few days ago, I timidly said my mantra of the week, “You don’t love me.” Having only ever yelled these words, I wanted to experience the impact of just saying them.

(BTW A mantra is a collection of words that is considered capable of creating transformation)

Unexpected Dialogue #1

Me: You don’t love me.

Him: Do you think that was love you showed me or just behaviour born out of your neediness?

Me: (demoralized) Good point, maybe you are right – my sacrifices and thoughtfulness, and the love I felt for you existed just because I was in desperate need of your love. Hmmm, maybe that isn’t really love. sigh

…some silence…followed by a heightened alertness in the core of my body…leading to a surge of anger which resulted in assertive behaviour in defence of myself…

Me: Yes, I was needy and I was loving. I can see now that a person can be both. But my neediness blinded me to the fact that you refused to share your heart with me.

Unexpected Dialogue #2

Him: But I gave to you! I cared about you! Don’t you see that as a manifestation of love. Isn’t this what you just said you did? What you gave to me?

Me: (not quite as demoralized)You did give to me …but you gave material goods; a beautiful home, exotic trips, a BMW, a Rolex watch, an Armani suit to name but a few. There is an element of control though, in materialism. You decide how many dollars you want to spend and when you will give. But in a gesture of open-hearted love, the giving comes from a different source. Through your open heart, you access the unified field of infinite energy. So a gesture of love that costs nothing from your wallet, becomes a source of ever replenishing joy, inspiration and fulfillment. This priceless gift, I never received from you.

Him: You are right, I never gave you that.

Finally I spoke from my heart, without rage or self pity. I spoke clearly about my experience of not being loved, without regret or expectation. I also accepted that having love in my heart for him, is not a guarantee of reciprocity. And in fact, such a belief can eventually contaminate the purest of loves.

So for Week 13 of 52, I will be receptive to love while I learn the art of being self-possessed, remembering that a needy woman is a blind woman.

A Needy Woman is a Blind Woman

REFLECTIONS

Was it worth it, I ask myself? 5000 kilometres, 2 weeks, 10 beds. Why did I have to actually experience the town, the house, the street, the school, the people, where I spent my first 12 years? Wouldn’t it have been enough to look up the town’s news on Google? Check out my old house on ‘Street View’ of Google Maps? If I wanted to change my perception of my childhood in the hopes of feeling more positive about it, why not just try some of the suggestions from my .28 second search that produced 137,000,000 sites about positive thinking!! For example:

Always use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
Allow into my awareness only feelings of happiness, strength and success.
In my conversation use words that evoke feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome.
Associate yourself with people who think positively.
Always sit and walk with my back straight. This will strengthen my confidence and inner strength.

I would have spent the 2 weeks reciting positive aphorisms, instead of having the real experience if I believed it would have resulted in any real, long lasting change. But I know, because I learned it the hard way, that there is a real difference in thinking about a potential experience and having that experience.

My drive towards The Pas occurred with the brakes on…virtual brakes…internal brakes…ones that screamed “I don’t want to go there. Bad things happened there. Dogs died, kids cried, goblins lived under the beds.”

And then I was there, my daughter behind the wheel, driving into The Pas. We passed the town Cemetery where I celebrated Birthday parties. The grounds were lovely with massive oak trees, rolling hills and beautiful grave markers. Nearby hills of sand provided a setting fit for a party! No longer did I question my Mother’s choice for the location of my party. This was the first shift in my perception of my childhood.

Then we drove down Constant Avenue, my family home mid way down the block. In my ‘Story’ about my childhood I have always used the street name ‘constant’ to reflect the constant despair I felt as a child, the constant practising I had to do, and the constant work as child labourer I endured.

But now the street looked so pretty with flowers in neatly kept yards,and shade tress welcoming a traveller to come and sit awhile to enjoy the peace. Unexpectedly, I began recalling happy childhood events; riding up and down the streets playing Chicken on my bike…you know where you drive as fast as you can towards another biker to see who turns away first!

Then I remembered the countless games of marbles I played and the skipping and hoola hoop games I created with my friends Marilyn and Jocelyn.

I could almost picture the walls of snow in winter where I built huge snow forts, with a kitchen and living room, the hills for sledding and our rink in the back yard, that Dad built for us each winter.

Where were all these positive memories before? Why now? What has allowed me to feel the joy and happiness of my childhood now? Why had I clung only to the pain of my childhood? Where was the balanced view? The mix of the yin and yang, the good with the bad, the dark with the light?I am not entirely sure why I can see both sides now, but I hope I come to understand this during my exploration of The Other Woman. No doubt my past adherence to my ‘Story’ contributed to my ‘stance’ on life, the one that has had me repeating patterns of behaviour that were destructive to me and those I love.

My most unexpected experience in The Pas though, was the attitude others had towards my Mother…they loved her, unequivocally. I heard this from my childhood friends and from kids who had lived on our street and from her friends, and from people she sang with in the choir. Why had I held such a jaundiced view of her? Had I not experienced her love as they obviously had, or did I just get stuck, like a burr on a bear, to the negative?

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 6 of 52

CHANGING THE POWER OF MY ESCAPE ARTIST!

We cannot change anything until we accept it.

Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

– Carl Jung

via Every form of addiction is bad, by Carl Jung.

The first step of any 12 Step Program centres around admitting one’s powerlessness over something. But this step presented a conundrum for me. Being the First Step it was apparent to me that the next 11 could not be attempted without acquiescence to the first.

But feeling powerless made me feel weak and weakness is obviously not an admirable trait, so I skipped over the step and have asserted my will over most everything and everyone in my life…for years.

I pictured myself as The Little Engine that Could…do anything if I tried hard enough. And as I am a Romaniuk, I have a very strong will. I willed my way through life, bulldozing what needed to bulldozed, building what needed to be built…with me as architect/creator! Well I did this until my body cried “Uncle” and quit cooperating with willful Contrary Mary.

Surrender to your fear so you may triumph over it.Choose me,open your soul to me, and embrace the Devouring.”

― Simon Holt, The Devouring

So now I have come to believe that admitting powerlessness is more akin to surrendering my wilfulness than being weak willed, I can admit when I am powerless in a situation.This brings me to MY ESCAPE ARTIST.There is a transition point between believing I am in control of a particular aspect of my life or a person in my life and the acceptance of the fact that I am not…that I, in fact, was NOT put in charge, and that no amount of cajoling, browbeating or flattery is going to make things go my way.This transition point can last a nano-second or days or years if I am honest. I call it a TRANSITION because eventually my will is broken, and I succumb to the truth, that there is a power greater than myself in charge.The purpose of my ESCAPE ARTIST is to submerse me into unconsciousness. When I don’t want to accept life as it presents itself, I choose to escape this reality by:

Watching British Mystery Series. American series don’t work.
Playing FreeCell on my phone
Eating
Drinking
Under Dire Circumstances…Do All 4 Simultaneously

For example, when I arrived back home from my emotional roller coaster ride to The Pas, I felt some disquiet, some dissonance. My Childhood ‘Story’ has been safely tucked in my hip pocket for ready access whenever I needed some sympathy, some ‘ahhh, poor you’ directed my way . But now a new picture was emerging and I wasn’t comfortable with its prettiness.So first I hit the couch and watched the waves, hoping Nature would calm me down…when that didn’t work I found a British Mystery Series to watch…and when that didn’t distract me enough my Escape Artist reminded me that I have FreeCell on my phone …and when that didn’t work I added a loaf of bread…and when that didn’t work I mixed a very large Vodka/Tonic and promptly passed out. I’m a little shocked at the lengths I would go to avoid feeling only to wake up and have the feelings there…still waiting to be acknowledged.So, for Week 6 of 52 and for the rest of the year, I will live in the moment as it is given to me, in an attempt to side-step and outwit the Escape Artist.

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? Surrender to what is. “― Eckhart Tolle

Week 13 of 52 Changing from Needy to Self-Sufficient

WEEK 6 OF 52 Changing The Power of My Escape Artist!

52 Weeks of Transformation

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