I think a lot...

I write a lot, I journal a lot and I think a lot. I have always had this fear around sharing with others, my thoughts, my views and my ways of thinking. I think that's why I write songs... Often if I feel like someone may find me annoying, they may not like me, they may not want to listen or hang out with me. It internally feels like a piece of my heart rips off, like a knife to my chest. I may stutter, stumble upon words, forget words to say when I feel this fear rise within me, so I remain silent. As I sat with the sunrise this morning I felt big emotions rise within me, sadness and anger, feeling alone, feeling worthless. So, I sat with it and I asked, “Why? What is my problem? Why do I feel this way?” What came to me was “love without attachment”. I then answered with, “Well, how the f@#k do I do that? What is love without attachment? Why do I feel like I am being ignored by friends? Why do I feel like I am annoying my friends? When really these people are probably just busy with their own lives. Why am I living in their life and not mine? What’s so good about their life? Why do I want to be loved by them so much? What’s wrong with me? Why am I not cool? Am I clingy? Why do I get this intense feeling like… gosh I really want them to want to hang out with me. Why? Why can’t I just ask them if they want to hang out with me?” It’s this constant battle within my mind, and the emotions that follow are; sadness, anger, anxiety… And they are all a result of the fear. So, what is my fear? Fear that I am not good enough, fear that I will lose them as a friend, fear that they hate me, fear that I am alone… wait... but I also enjoy being alone… fear of loneliness? Gosh! I am so confused... So I decided to search for my answer… determined I sat down... and... I googled it. How do I love without attachment? Then I asked myself, why am I googling this? Does google really have all the answers? Articles that came up included, “The purest love is detached love and this is how it works…”, and “Loving without anxiety”. Yes, I did read them hoping that they would give me the answers to solve my feelings of hopelessness, not good enough, worthlessness. Well, did they answer my question? Yes and no. The articles certainly gave me useful information, well, google quality information… However, I still had this ache in my chest, this knife stabbing me. Each time I would want to reach out to my friend and they weren’t there, or they were there but were too busy in their own world to be present with me, hear me out, hug me, ask me if I was ok or sit with me, I would feel lonely. So I gave up and took a break and I started reading a book my friend lent to me called, “The Secret Teachings of Plants - The intelligence of the heart in the direct perception of nature” by Stephen Harrod Buhner. And it suddenly clicked for me. The book is written in halves, the first half is linear, the second half is not. The first half is called systole and the second half is called diastole. These terms describe the two phases of the cardiac cycle. When the heart contracts to pump blood outwardly this is known as systole, and when the heart relaxes after contraction this is known as diastole. So what clicked? Systole is my mind, my logical thinking, it is the force of blood away from my heart and into my brain, metaphorically speaking it is my logical way of being. Diastole is my heart, my emotions, my feelings, my poetic dreamlike state, well that’s how I interpreted it. This pattern of “...the movement away from the heart and the relaxation and movement inward as the heart fills again,” is a recurring cyclic flow of output and input. The experience and the learning. The feminine and masculine. The yin and the yang. Output is our physical waking state and input is our sleep, relaxation, dreamlike state… Well that’s my interpretation. So why is this relevant to “love without attachment”, well, for some reason it is. My heart led me here. My brain and logical thinking has told me I went on a tangent. During my incredibly long day of work, I came across this quote, ‘Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all’ - Aristotle. I stopped and swore at myself. "Well, f$%k." Yes I do swear a lot inside my head. Logically my mind was like, “Girl, you are fine! Just love without attachment, this is how you do it, step 1, step 2, step 3 etc.” Physically my heart was like, “Aw, hell no, this f#$king hurts, I have been here before, this isn't going away, f$@k those steps, just give up.” So, I realized I needed to sit with my heart and feel it, to sit with my younger self that was rejected in the past, to bring her back to this moment and to ask her what she needs right now. I knew logically what I was to do, but physically I needed to feel into my heart, relax into the emotion. It was deep and scary, but I realized that I need to trust in myself, have faith that I am loved by others, have faith in myself, love myself for who I am and reach out without fear when I want to be in the company of my dear friends knowing that I may be rejected, but also knowing that whatever happens I will always love as I am, as they will love as they are. I am loved. Without dark there is no light. Yes I have been rejected in the past, yes it hurts, but it happened for a reason and I wouldn't change any of my experiences, because right now I am surrounded by the energy I am putting out and it is returning to me in my favour. I put out love and receive love, I have loving and caring friends and family, I am loved. These people may come and go, but I will always be here for myself if I continue to sit, feel and listen to my heart. I read that detached love means to love someone for who they are, exactly as they are, knowing that at any moment the person, relationship and state of being will and could change. A loved one does not belong to the other, as beings they choose each other in every moment, without promises, guarantees or certainty of the future. To love in a detached way is to embrace uncertainty. To embrace uncertainty is to love without attachment. Everything and anything will change, and to love without attachment is to be open and vulnerable to this. Well that feels like hard work, and it is for me right now, but, this will probably change with practice over time. I am still 27 years young, although sometimes I feel like I am 37. I am aware I need to continue practicing this and I am feeling that loving without attachment is a courageous and powerful act as a human being, especially with our society now heavily dependent on systolic output; information, logic reasoning, thinking, thinking, and more thinking. To balance this thinking, we need emotion, the coming back to ourselves, to feel, physically, emotionally, to relax into emotion, to trust in our heart, the diastolic input. So, what did I end up doing? Well I decided to come back to my heart, what does it need? What do I need? With that, I gave myself a hug before going to bed... let's see what tomorrow brings.

With love, Renée

xx