a lost connection
“Luke, you are my son, I am your mother.
I accept, appreciate and respect you as my son.
I will forever love you like a mother loves her son.
I wish you to be happy, fulfilled and self-realized, wherever you are.
And the rest may it be your own decision.”
This sixteen year old’s eyes staring at me with doubt, distrust, and deep sadness. And his look is piercing through my heart. There is pain. I recognize familiar feelings. Guilt. Shame. Responsibility as to how my decision regarding his life was made. How it was communicated to his father. I was in my early twenties. Naive. Lost. Afraid and confused. Sad and alone. I gave him no opportunity to say anything. No opportunity to take any part in it. He was merely informed.
“There is guilt in me for not including your father in my decisions, Luke. For keeping him in dark. For excluding him and for being distant. For not respecting what we had.”
“I wish things were different. I wish I was a healthy, stable young woman so I could’ve done things in a more meaningful and sacred manner. I wish I would have shared my fears with your father. I wish I would have shared doubts and all the emotions, and I wish would have given him an opportunity to be part of all your existence. Oh, how I wish all that…”
I accept to abstain from harming any life.
I assume to indulge in more virtuous deeds.
I accept to abstain from taking what is not given.
I assume to indulge in actions benefiting all beings.
I accept to abstain from sexual misbehavior.
I assume to indulge in the unconditional universal love for all.
I accept to abstain from unskilful speech.
I assume to indulge in honesty, truthfulness and authenticity.
I accept to abstain from taking mind-altering substances.
I assume to indulge in staying awake and living a wholesome life.
There you are, standing in front of me, my dearest boy. With you there, I feel needed, valued, unconditionally loved and accepted. The guilt and the shame still present, however. They’re stubborn and heavy, like a thick, sticky, black tar-like mass in the depth of my navel center, pulling me down.
Is this black mass just mine, or am I sharing it with someone else, I wonder … Oh, yes, I share it with my mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother… with my father, and his mother, and his mother’s mother… with all my ancestors. I share it with your father, as well. It’s something that connects all of us.
And, all the while this mass is with me, it physically slows me down, pulls me towards the bottom, paralyzes me, disables me in my attempts to touch the lightness of my being, the sacredness of my spirit, the self-acceptance, and the pure joy of life. It blocks me from feeling free, joyful and content. It allows guilt and shame to thrive.
My black, heavy, sticky friend keeps me in the dark. Makes me believe that I don’t deserve better things, that I am not good enough, that I will never feel better, be better, that I will stay alone because no one really wants me, because I am flawed, and broken, and ugly… because no one can take what I have to offer. Makes me believe that I will never experience contentment and true happiness, that I will always be confused and lost, just drifting, feeling alone and lonely, numb and empty. And, there is hopelessness. What is all this for, anyways? Who gives a shit?
With this false friend near my side, I am pressured into staying small. Staying forever closed in that little dark box. It doesn’t let me change my identity. It holds me down. But, it also gives me comfort. Familiarity. It brings meaning to my dark side. It is fascinating how much I love my dark side, my shadows. I am actually scared of being happy, living in ease and joy. The idea of being “one of those people” terrifies me. I need my dark, sticky, heavy friend in order to preserve my identity. Cause, what else am I going to be? What could I possibly be without it? What could I become? And who would love me then?
I am born to be dark and deep. Unpredictable and temperamental. Often sour, at times bitter. To be overwhelmed by sadness and heavy feelings, and depth, a depth of the ocean. It explains the addiction and struggle. It justifies what I choose to do in life. It describes how people and what kind of people are attracted to me. It is my substance. It is what keeps me from being ordinary. And being ordinary is my biggest fear. It scares the shit out of me! Cause if I am ordinary, my mother might not love me anymore. And I need her to love me. I desperately need her to love me.
My losses due to this friendship … There goes my authenticity. There goes my opportunity and trust that I can change. There goes my ability to feel contentment, joy and happiness. To feel love. To receive love. To be deserving of lobe and to be chosen. My relationships are gone. As long as my sticky stinky friend is with me, there is no space for a healthy meaningful relationship, not with my parents, not with partners, often not with friends, and certainly not with you, my beloved Luke.
As long as I care for my dark friend, I am giving up on the aspect of myself that I desperately wanted to connect with my whole life. The greatest and the most divine aspect of me. The one that is connected with the source. The omnipresent one. The one that I have been searching for and crying for since I can remember. The aspect of myself that can experience universal love. The aspect of me that I wanted and needed so much that I was willing to drink and use excessively over, as well as engage in numerous empty and meaningless sexual encounters over the years, just so I can feel fulfilled and validated and seen for one brief moment. Fuck you my “friend”! It’s time for you to get the fuck out of here, our of my life!
“Hey, you, my long lost divine friend. My spirit.”
“Please appear to me.”
“Come back to me and stand in front of me.”
You appear to me, reflecting warmth, love, joy, cheerfulness, serenity, divinity. You pull me in closer. And we integrate. We reunite. We recover, become one again. Our bodies vibrate together. They tremble and jump up from the floor. You are reviving my inner child. You bring up carefreeness, playfulness, openness, curiosity and innocence in me. The lightness of my being, of my existence. Can you see the world though my eyes? Can you touch through my palms? Hear through my ears, feel through my skin? What does it feel like?
Openness.
Lightness.
Clarity.
Expansion.
Freedom.
Extasy.
Ease.
Deep knowing.
Excitement.
With you all is possible. With you all is well. There is trust - in life and in me. Whatever happens is good. Whatever comes is welcome. There is no grasping. There is no aversion. There is freedom from attachment to worldly and material needs and desires. All is well. All is enough. All is. You are me. I am you. We are one.
And you, my beloved Luke, you look very different from this perspective. You are walking along my side, like a friend, a comrade. We hold hands together.
“What do you wish for me Luke, what blessings do you want to offer me?”
New learnings and capacity for change.
Understanding of me and where I was when I made a decision that involved you.
Compassion for me and my actions at the time.
“I am willing to receive them. I am open for your blessings. I am taking them in.”
“Is there anything you wish for yourself Luke, anything you need?”
Ahh… you want to know the conditions you were conceived in. You were a product of pure love, my beloved. You chose us, your parents. You chose the two people who loved each other deeply. The two people who experienced, in a very short time, what others just end up dreaming of and searching for life. I want you to know - your existence was never a misfortune to me. It was never a bad news.
You were meant to teach me to love my life. To give myself completely. To experience unconditional love. To learn to love my parents and my country. To accept life as it is. Equanimity. That is what you were meant to teach me. You were meant to bring the biggest teaching of all - how to be accepting and open to all that life has for me.
Your unique nature is pure bliss. Just like your dad, you are an adventurist, you push the boundaries with others, you are your own person, you are unapologetically your authentic self, you are fearless, my son. You know how to be yourself and therefore how to be my son. You are my teacher. I can learn from you how to better be me. How to be comfortable in my own skin.
“Luke, you are my son, I am your mother”.
“I accept, appreciate and respect you as my son.”
“I will forever love you like a mother loves her son.”
“I wish you to be happy and realized, wherever you are.”
“And the rest may it be your own decision.”
This time, you hold my hand, and you give me a squeeze. With just one look at you, I know we are connected. We are good. I feel you. You teach me. You lead the way, my son. And, I let you.
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.
(written in Bali, in 2020)
“Divine Beloved, allow me to give with complete ease and abundance, knowing that You are the unlimited Source of all.
Let me be an easy, open conduit for Your prosperity.
Let me trust that all my own needs are always met in amazing ways and that it is safe to give freely as my heart guides.
And equally, let me feel wildly open to receiving.
May I know my own value, beauty, and worthiness without question.
Let me allow others, the supreme pleasure of giving to me.
May I feel worthy to receive in every possible way.
Change me into one who can fully love, forgive, and accept myself, so I may carry Your Light without restriction.
Let everything that needs to go, go.
Let everything that needs to come, come. I am utterly Your Own.
You are me, I am You, We are one.
All is well.” ~ The Full Abundance Change Me Prayer by Tosha Silver
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Marina