To my surprise and chagrin, I just realized today there were comments left by readers - all of which had gone unanswered due to my forgetting to set up an auto-email type thing to send them my way any time one was left!
To those of you who have written... I am so sorry! Normally I try to be very good about responding quickly and thoughtfully to whatever is shared; it is, in fact, one of the great joys of writing a blog - seeing what clicks for certain people, being able to gain greater insight and understanding from the thoughts of others. Such a gift.
And it relates to something I have been thinking about a lot in the last few days: connection. Or perhaps interconnectedness. There are so many words, all of them just-quite-almost-there in describing that sense of one-ness we can sometimes achieve. The sense that we are actually all linked together in some way along a web of intricate and often shocking interlacing... so that we end up closer than anticipated. See the overlapping in striking, beautiful bold brushstrokes that have the power to encircle us in a way that reminds us we are protected, loved, and known.
One of the darkest feelings states I have known (continue to know and struggle against) is alone-ness. Not just solitude, or singlehood, or even being solo. No... I mean alone-ness. Cold and bleak and seemingly infinite - like snaky icicle fingers wrapped around your chest, squeezing and wringing until all your breath is replaced by an insidious yet undefined panic.
This is a place of lost-ness. Of inertia. Self-doubt and self-loathing and self-defeat. This is a place of paranoid questions and insecure inner monologues... of misplaced exhaustion and displaced fear. This is the place you can be in a roomful of people, in the middle of family dinner, in the arms of your lover... because it has nothing to do with anyone but you. A lone you.
Maybe you know this place. Maybe yours has a slightly different color scheme or internal temperature. But chances are, you have been here too. Second-guessing yourself and pushing everyone away in an effort to circumvent the inevitable rejection you are convinced awaits your next utterance.
For me, this place is dark and ugly. It brings out a side of myself (an aspect of my dual nature) I sometimes have difficulty embracing and accepting. It brings out my deepest fear, I think, which is being unloved, unaccepted, and un-valued.
Which is ego, yes? At least connected to ego and to my little "i" self, because the ego-less aspect of me... the self who thinks of others first... that side knows we are already connected. You and I. We are always connected. My movements move your web, yours move mine. And although that interconnectedness can be quite scary sometimes (mostly when we don't want our stuff to "move" in any way, shape, or form), it can also be immensely comforting.
One of the greatest lessons I am learning is to love myself. Not in a Hallmark-y cheesy kind of way or a Lifetime movie-of-the-week way. I mean in the way that stops the unending litany of internal insults. The way that removes the blocks I impose upon myself (paralyzing and creating doubt and confusion to such a degree I cannot make a decision as to what to do). The way that quiets the voice who uses words like ugly, fat, untalented, and fake.
Remembering I am connected to you helps me in establishing a sense of love for myself. When I notice there is no other, find a place of compassion, listen with my whole being, find a state of peace because I believe it is as much for you as it is for me... literally, figuratively, together, alone, yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Connection is a source of strength. Interconnectedness is an aspect of our wholeness. Somewhere you and I are not distinct or separate from one another... and when I remember that, I remember that to love you I have to love me - and vice versa.
May you love and celebrate you today. May you feel at one with everything around you - if only for a shining, happy moment!
