A Quest of love ……...

I think all of my life there has been an imbalanced focus or lack of understanding about the parts that make up a person, and of course since my only experience, hands on in this is mine, that is what I need to talk about. It has created a dilemma that has left me swirling at times. The parts of me that I gave a voice and importance are crowding out the voice of those I refused to hear. So, as people who are we, what makes us alive and unique and what gives our life meaning? Speaking for myself, relationships have and are important to me. My life as a wife, as a mother, daughter, sister particularly of importance is family relationships. Those have held an upmost priority in my life. But for as long as I can remember there has been place that I felt was crying, when I was busy in those other roles, especially in times of great demand or need the tears were not heard or seen, but when the need slows down, the demand quiets there is place inside that is always crying. For a long time I didn't know what it was, just thought I needed to work harder in the other roles, but at night when no one was there to need anything, the knot felt so tight, sometimes it was grief, sometimes fear, sometimes hopelessness, always just under the surface. When I had epiphanies that left me feeling like there was more to me than these roles, I felt powerful and excited about life, but it could never last as the belief pounded me that made those roles define everything, but not from my perspective, but from an external source of "knowledge", faulty knowledge. Another person had looked at roles, based on relationships and gender and decided what my life needed to be driven by. How does that happen, well the culture, family, society, church,education the all contribute and we take and create our own sense of what they are saying, maybe not always a healthy perception of what they are saying. And so that was the place that I lived, day in and day out, until slowly, and little by little I felt something inside of me dying. The emptiness of being nothing more than defined by my roles, by what I perceived someone else wanted me to be, began to overtake my heart that was crying out for a purpose that was influenced, but not defined by my roles. I ached to learn and move and talk and listen to people. I yearned to speak and be heard and needed only as a person with passion and life to share and participate with others in their sharing. I longed to have my story heard, not the story of being a mother of my children, not the story of another relationship, but the story of my heart,with a wholeness that falls in love with people and plants and love and places and more people I want a relationship with life and love, in and out of this world, meeting others on their own journey of heart. So my heart, I have been having trouble defining it without relationships. You see so long have those dictated how I saw myself and through those beliefs I chose to put all things relationship ahead of all things that I might need, or things that would bring life to my soul through my own personal journey. Now, I sit here and wonder about how to hear my heart again. How to choose without automatically discounting myself, for that is what I have done and I don't know if I know how to do something different than that anymore. I feel the tear in my heart as I yearn to be able to let go of the ideas that I, my needs, my desires and my heart, can not factor into my choices, Those are an afterthought because it is my role to take care of everyone else's fears and needs, as though there is nothing I would or could need other than to lose myself in this process. Now, I am fortunate in that my husband, though at times in our life he has been a part of the demand that exceeded the ability I had, has come to a place of seeing that without being seen as a whole person, without my needs being factored in to the equations along with everyone else that I am in relationship with, that I will die. But the interesting thing about his is that although he is encouraging me and hoping for a future with a greater wholeness for me, I am still struggling with making the choice, so despite being given permission from outside of myself, from this relationship, I realize that the person that really needs to give me permission to live and have a space in the world is me. Without that I will continue to re-create the same story over and over again. Never letting go in my mind means re-creation in my outer world. There are times that I have thought I would like to walk away from all of the relationships and go to where no one knows me and I could be alone to take care of my needs. There have been times that was an appealing thought, it felt like maybe then I could finally rest, but I realized that although that seemed appealing, without the change in my own value system regarding myself, I would choose myself right back into the same situation where I again have lost myself and my hope for the growth of my own soul, in favor of the pattern of self deprivation, that I glorify and that initially gives me a sense of purpose, although this is not sustainable. In looking at my needs, and my strengths, what I know is that I need to be solving problems, I need people, but I need alone time, I need to create, I need to talk and I need to listen, I need to learn and I need to teach. I need to be strong and I need to be vulnerable. I need flexibility, but I also need structure. What I realize is that I am complicated, no one else could look at this and tell me what I should do and how I should meet those needs. The real story here is the story of me, opening my heart to myself, having and forging a relationship with my own soul. I think about how in working with children with attachment challenges, how delicate and understanding a person must be, knowing that they will open up and run away, knowing they will be afraid, and also brave. That there is a pile of opposites that because of their fears of not being seen or heard for so long that they will struggle up against and then run from. Here I sit with the same kind of struggle as I have watched in some of the children I have worked with and I recognize that I have been the instrument of my own pain and that I must also become the instrument of my own healing. I must search out the beliefs that have caused me to treat myself this way and see the effect that I am having on myself as I walk through each day. Nobody else can do this for me. I have to uncover the pieces of my heart that I buried long ago and bring them out and cherish them again. There is no quick fix to a problem that has been created through so many years, so like I could with a child, I must start, start small and continue to know what to hold onto to keep stepping into the fear that grips me,and I must be gentle. The definition of failure has to redefined in my mind. The story is mine and only I hold the key, the relationships I have can be a support, but the real quest and vision of this journey I must hold. I know that I must come up square against the belief that I cannot know without an external source telling me how this should look. There is a value system inside of me. I am driven by love and the desire for congruency between the things of importance in my life and the things of action. Perhaps the reason why I recognize the sadness and despair as incongruence between my needs and my actions, but I must create the congruence. There is no other source that has the power or ability to delve right into the heart of the matter with God and I. God and I cannot source this one out, for we are the only ones that truly knows my story, and you, you are the only one that knows your story and so you and I must be the authors, finishers and developers of the truth in our own lives. So, ask the questions, hold the fear and sadness up to the light and begin the quest of love with God for your soul.