To Welcome Someone into Our Heart, First We May Need to Learn to Push Others Away
There is a great emphasis put on letting love in. “Open your heart” says the self-help teacher. “Give yourself to love” sings the romantic poet. They make it sound so easy! Yet, for the one who learnt that love is unsafe, the heart is quite guarded. Coiled around it, usually for decades, is protective barbed wire. The closer one gets to the heart, the closer one gets to the wound and the protective mechanisms keeping people away. For this wounded one (who makes up many, if not most, Euro-westerners), asserting boundaries may be the necessary first step. Before letting love in, the old truncated impulse to protect must be exercised. Completing survival responses A precursor to the vulnerability of receiving is so often the vulnerability […]
Hidden Treasure
I turned my back on him, the younger part of me. There was no choice. Alone, unable to hold and afraid to feel the magnitude of what occurred, knowing, at some deep, subterranean level, if I could just keep it, him, at bay, locked in his room, I could stay strong and rise above, escape the overwhelm, weakness, the unbearable aloneness. I could move away, far away, fast forward into life, chasing success after success. What seemed so important. Yet, after many climbs to high mountain tops, the view, that oh-so-dear rush, lost its charm. Truthfully, it never felt quite enough. Nothing felt enough. Something was always missing. Little, if anything, touched that old, desolate part of me still hiding from, reaching for me. My […]
Beneath Trying
By Vince Gowmon Beneath your trying you may discover a well of tremendous untouched grief. Trying to be strong Trying to be tough Trying to be needless Trying to be dependable Trying to look good Trying to do good Trying to be brave Trying to be funny Trying to be smart Trying to be beautiful Trying to make it, get there Trying to keep it, hold it, all together for yourself, for everyone around you So much trying keeps us from the depths of much needed crying It keeps us busy, distracted, caring for others, lost in what we think is important, looking everywhere everywhere, but within For if we were to stop long enough to feel beneath the pulse of busyness, the lure of […]