One of my favorite all-time thoughts to look at, and to question, is “he left me”….”she left me.” The sadness, heart-ache, and desperation people feel when thinking this thought can be enormous.
Without questioning it, many of us think wildly about WHY someone left. Was it me? Was it her? What did I do? Where did it go wrong?
It’s not a happy situation. Someone was here, and now, they are not here. Someone was a close friend, a lover, a companion, a work mate, a neighbor…and now they are far away, we speak less often, we never see them….perhaps they have died.
The whole premise behind the thought, following the thought, is that in this “leaving” there is fear, loneliness, grief, anger, despair. It means something bad. It means there is Something Wrong.
The mind loves to find out what’s wrong. Oooh boy! A PROBLEM! (Hands wringing with glee).
My father died many years ago. One of my first realizations with investigating by using The Work was to question “he left”. It seemed like he wasn’t here anymore. No body anywhere. I had been sad for so long about this.
Isn’t it amazing to turn this entire experience around, upside down, to the complete opposite. A person has “left”. Off they went to another place, another relationship, away from this life. I turn the feeling around inside myself and see if there is Joy present in this situation. What if this is a good thing? How could that possibly be true? Can I look, just to see?
Byron Katie has a wonderful comment she offers to people who are upset about someone or something moving away from them: “You’ve been spared”.
Sinking in to this, it is not about finding all the faults you could ever list about that other person, who is no longer present. Although it can be a place to begin. Did you really love and adore absolutely everything about that person 100% of the time? Noticing that you didn’t can be a little step towards willingness to see this all differently.
But don’t get trapped there. Attacking the person who left takes energy, attachment, focus….and continued suffering. We get stuck doing this.
My father was an incredible man. Kind and loving, thoughtful. I had no thoughts about difficult qualities I was now spared from. But still, how could it be that there were advantages to his passing, just at the moment he did?
Truly considering being spared from that path means I come back to the center of myself, being here with me….all me. Person gone, even a beloved being who has died. No imaginary stories about how it would be better if they were here in person.
You moan, “she left me.” “He left me.”
Twenty more will come.
Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought!
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.
~Rumi, from “A Community of The Spirit”
It would be a little weird if my father just kept living, since apparently what happens around here is that we’re born, we’re tiny babies, we grown into adults, and then we die.
I mean, when would be the “best” time for him to move on? I’m glad I didn’t have to make that decision.
And how about all the other people who have supposedly “left” during my lifetime? What has been important about those partings?
I get to live back in the center, the mysterious unknown, here with myself. Trusting all that is. It’s a Friendly Universe. Adventure, Possibility….seeing what is next. My conversation is with God, with Source, with Reality, the way it is.
My father leaving? It was time for me to make peace with a career, to know that I was enough, all by myself. I went to graduate school. I decided to have a baby. Major life decisions became very clear and simple.
Other people leaving? No more drama. Freedom to come and go as I please, silence in my home, doing all the things I love to do without anyone else’s influence. I go to a movie, I’m the one who picked it. I eat some food, I’m the one who cooked it.
Empty space, open to all kinds of possibilities. Total JOY with my own company. Noticing that I am such a fun person to hang out with, no one else is necessary. At all.
“If you open yourself to the Tao, you are at one with the Tao and you can embody it completely. If you open yourself to insight, you are at one with insight and you can use it completely. If you open yourself to loss, you are at one with loss and you can accept it completely.”~Tao Te Ching #23
Love, Grace
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