It was very late on a Sunday night. My house was extremely quiet. Only the sound of the baseboard heater turning on and off occasionally filled the living room with a low hum.
I was making my second cup of tea. I was nervous, and my mind packed to the brim with thoughts of an anxious nature.
Wondering….what if? How about…?
I was deep into the process of separation and divorce, but it all seemed fairly new. Like a sharp right turn was taken in the road when I expected the landscape to be flat and smooth.
My house was sometimes completely empty, like that Sunday, when beforethis change, on any given Sunday night there were my two children, my (former) husband, maybe even more children, nieces and nephews all sleeping in various rooms and formations throughout the house.
For the entire weekend, at that time many years ago, I had been alone in the house. And, for that entire weekend, I had been out of touch with a man I was newly dating.
I had texted, called, emailed. No response.
Unusual, I thought….and yet, I also hadn’t even been involved with this person for very long. So what was “usual”?
But I had a feeling of great unrest.
- he’s with someone else
- he doesn’t care about me
- I am getting abandoned (again)
- I can’t handle this
- I am completely, fundamentally, alone
I slept horribly that night.
The next day, this man did indeed let me know that he had been with someone else and spent the night with her.
We had no agreement, rules, plans, expectations or conditions for this “relationship”. I couldn’t even say it WAS a relationship.
And yet….I felt nauseated, grief-stricken, exhausted and disappointed to a depth I could hardly fathom.
I also knew how to do The Work and question my thinking, and enlist support to do so.
I called in sick to my job, called up one of my dearest friends who facilitated The Work, and asked for her to facilitate me. I also arranged for 3 other people to facilitate me every two hours for that entire day.
I got to work. I wanted to know the truth for myself. I didn’t understand why my pain was so deep, despairing and intense.
Is it true, that he shouldn’t have been with someone else?
Yes, yes, yes. I felt like sobbing, I was so disappointed.
But could I absolutely know that it was true, that he shouldn’t have been with someone else? That he should have called me sooner? That he should have told me he was interested in other people?
No. I can see how I wanted the world to line up so that I wouldn’t be sad, upset, or rejected. Ever.
And I could not absolutely know what was right for me, what was best for my future. I could not know what was best for him, or for his life. I couldn’t even know that him spending a weekend doing whatever he wanted to do MEANT that he was rejecting me, that he didn’t care about me, or that I couldn’t handle it.
I mean…jeez. I had so much wrapped up in his behavior and how BAD it was for me…but I had no idea that it WAS bad for me, really.
So I didn’t know if it was true that he shouldn’t have done that.
How did I react?
Like it was the worst thing ever. Like I got punched in the stomach. I took it very, very personally.
Until I considered who I would be without the thought that he shouldn’t have spent his weekend the way he did?
Without the thought?
Holy Moly! I was sooooo free. Open, curious about whatever was next. Ready to see what happened. Clear. Noticing what works for me, and what doesn’t. Noticing my preferences with joy. Happy for him.
Excited.
I turned the thought around “he should have been with someone else this weekend”.
I got to become aware of my mind that was so damn sure I was being abandoned, not cared about, unable to handle this, and deeply, fundamentally alone.
I am set free, I am cared for and loved, I can handle this, I am not alone.
Could all these things be as true, or truer?
Yes.
In those moments of doing The Work, I was sharing intimately with the most fabulous people, I was handling my situation very well indeed, (I was surviving it for sure), I loved myself with all my heart, I had the beauty of silence and a sense of magical energy all around me, full of possibility.
If you’ve ever felt the fear and pain in heartbreak, I hope you can find this also to be true: everything is waiting for you.
The books, the dresser, the silence, the faucet with water pouring out, the telephone with friends asking powerful questions through it, The Work, the bathtub, the tea cup, the wooden floor, the roof, the air all around….
….the future is waiting for you.
That should have happened.
Because look what is here all around me, in this present moment.
Heaven.
Everything is Waiting for You
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
— David Whyte
Much love, Grace