Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes...

Writing in my journal this morning, I touched on a topic that I felt worthy of sharing here.  For at the base of all our spiritual endeavors and personal growth, despite whatever path you take or manner you subscribe to, comes one common and key element: change.

I have often said, "There is only one constant in life, and that is change.  The more I am able to bend and flow with the waves of change coming in with each tide, the more smoothly I can charter the waters of my life."  While I have said this many times over the years, I have spent a great portion of my life resisting change.  Even when I knew that by making changes to any unsuccessful, unhealthy or undesired circumstance I was facing, that it would inevitably bring about a new experience (likely for the better), I would dig in my heels and flat out refuse to "give in."  That's how I saw it: a giving in.  A buckling.  A kowtowing to some greater force that thought it knew better than I what was best for me and my life?!  "I think not!"  I wanted to believe that my thinking was clear, my intentions were solid, and that I was worthy of my goals.... and maybe I was.  Maybe I truly was all of those things.  But what I wasn't accepting was that the very things I was sinking my teeth and nails into to, to hold on to for dear life, may not have been worthy of me.  For, at any given time, there are a multitude of unseen and unheard details which are hidden from us, which only God/dess knows.  I wasn't just refusing to change.  I was refusing to have faith that God was looking out for me.

Journaling this morning, I was commenting that for the past few days, I have been thinking of a man I feel in love with a year ago.  He lives in Costa Rica, and we met through mutual friends on facebook, intrigued by one another's work (I'm a singer, he's a photographer), each other's personality and personal expression, and (let's face it) a very profound mutual attraction.  It was at this time one year ago that he came to visit me for the first time.  In those two weeks of his visit, I found myself enveloped in a most incredible sensation of love for him - and possibly with him (though, in retrospect, I think we loved very differently).  I remarked that it's possible what I am sensing now, and the reason he's been in mind, is akin to an echo of this time and our experience together last year.  The weather is the same, the flowering plants and trees are reminiscent, the energy of late Spring, coming on Solstice time, is palpable.  What can I say?  It reminds me of him.

Although things didn't work out between us, I can honestly say that I shared a few days with him that I would rank among the best of my life.  For that alone, I feel tremendous gratitude.  Because of that, as well, the heartbreak I suffered was particularly deep and long lasting. We shared this very open, mutual, profound connection for all of six months, but it took about nine for me to truly detach from it, and from him.  The love I felt for him was unlike any I had experienced before, for I was more whole as a person when I met him than I had been in any of my past relationships.  So, there wasn't a need for love, or expectations of it.  It was truly pure and grounded and present... and if you have never experienced that kind of love, let me tell you, it is the most all-encompassing intoxicant one can share with another.

When things didn't work out, when the plans we had made were no longer going to come to fruition, I was forced to change.  There was no way around it.  I had suffered heartbreak before in all its depth and potential self-destructiveness, and knew that I didn't want to walk that dark road yet again in my life.  I focused on acceptance, and moving forward, and releasing the attachment.  I discussed it ad nauseum with my friends and therapist.  I read my tarot cards.  I confronted it through rebirthing breathwork.  I wrote about it, and wrote many songs about it.  I did all the things that I consciously knew I could.... but my emotions, my heart, refused to let go.

Refusing to change is a monologue in the mind.  It's a cd that's set to repeat over and over and over again.  It sounds like this: "But why did this happen?  Why, why, why?  Why did God bring this to me, only to take it away?  Why did this happen to me?  Why did he (or she or they) do this to me?  Why do I always fail?  Why am I not loved?  Why am I not appreciated?  Why can't it ever work out? Why, why, WHYYYYYYY??????!!!!!!"

Sound familiar?

In the nine months that followed the "break-up," I asked these questions even when I promised myself not to ask these questions.  I asked my self, my friends, my Mom, my colleagues, and even HIM! The answers were always the same: "It just is what it is.  These things happen.  It wasn't meant to be."  But these answers, while understanding them clearly on an intellectual level, had very little success in convincing my heart.

It was only a few months ago that I received the answer I was looking for.  Finally, at long last, information about him that had eluded me, or been hidden from me before, now came to the surface.  Now, I clearly saw that he wasn't the man he originally presented himself to be.  His words were not authentic, and so his actions were not in integrity with his words.  In the same way he betrayed my trust months before, now I saw that he was committing the same betrayal on the new woman in his life.  My perception of him changed instantly, now that I had the information I was previously unaware of.  I had been coming from an authentic place, expressing my self clearly, and behaving in alignment with my true spirit, but he wasn't.  He wasn't able to.  Not yet.  He may have talked a good game, and may even be striving towards becoming a person of honor and integrity and with a capacity for true and honorable love, as I was, and am... but that's the journey he's on.  My journey is different, and requires a partner who can meet me equally where I am at.  I thought he was that man.  But he simply wasn't.

God knew this, which is why it didn't work out.  Instead of having faith in that knowledge, I questioned all aspects of my self, my self-worthiness, my dignity and self-respect.  Yes, I felt genuine grief at the ending of a relationship, which is natural, and which always evokes emotions which need to be felt and honored.  But I allowed myself to stay mired unhealthily in those emotions, attached to an outcome that couldn't be - not because this man denied us both the potential of what seemed to be a true love, but because he was incapable of rising up to meet it.  On some level, consciously or unconsciously, he must have known that he wasn't there yet.  So, in essence, in his knowing of himself, he did the right thing by us both.  There is something better for me, better suited to me, already on its way.  I just needed to trust, to have faith, and to be patient.

One year ago today, I was with this beautiful man creating these memories which I will treasure for a lifetime.  I could never have imagined that in only one year, my life's story would look so completely different!  That's another lesson about change: from one day to the next, we can find ourselves heading in completely different directions from what we had ever expected.  Iyanla Vanzant wrote, "The things you anticipate never seem to happen, and the things that happen unexpectedly you probably wouldn't have ever anticipated."  In accepting change, we also release our attachments to outcomes and goals, and begin to live more peacefully in the present moment.  We accept that, ultimately, we have no control over what happens in our lives... we can only control how we respond to it.

One year ago today, my heart rose up and overflowed with love for this man.  Just now, as the rain comes down a little harder and the thunder rumbles nearer across the sky, my heart rises up with love and overflows for it.  For the rain.  For this beautiful, peaceful day in my warm, safe home.  For the inner feeling that I am whole and complete, not doubting myself, or second-guessing my life.  I am clear, I am in alignment with my highest good.  I trust that I am being divinely cared for, provided for, and loved.

In the end, the man brought months and months of tears, heavy with grief, betrayal, and loss.  In the now, this rain brings sweet tears of humbled gratitude and joy.  Things change.  Thank God.