I AM THANKFUL I AM THANKFUL I AM THANKFUL

If i could write...make sense of the whirlwind of life that has happened to me in the last 2 months...if i could explain the extent of growth and happiness that has happened in my life...i would do it...but to contextualize it into words has been incredibly challenging. There are nights i stay up half the night thinking and scribbling and thinking and scribbling with so much energy stirring in my mind and soul that i can't relax...and no matter how many times i have opened my journal to write...the same thing always bleeds through on the paper and then i am overwhelmed with the completion of my writing...that being...

"I AM THANKFUL...I AM THANKFUL...I AM THANKFUL"

but...there's soooo much more...there's so much more to say and write and express and sing out and dance to big and loudly...but i can't seem to get it on paper...so, i must trust that it's not ready... or i'm not ready to get it out...but I soo am...i am bursting with light...in the midst of the last few months of the shittiest and grueling happenings of my life in the last decade...I am revived and strengthened...I have no idea with whom or what to give this credit too...maybe God...maybe the universe... maybe myself...i can not say...but what i can say is....I AM THANKFUL....I AM THANKFUL..I AM THANKFUL...

healing and peace

below, the most powerful passages in which i have connected with so emotionally that i have literally sat alone in utter silence, for minutes/maybe hours...time seemed nonexistent... feeling the hole in my chest begin to repair and fill up again.

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I don't want anyone to talk to me. I can't tolerate anyone's face right now. I even manage to dodge Richard for a while but he finds me at dinner and sits down---brave man---in my black smoke of self-loathing.

"What's got you all wadded up?"

"Don't ask" I say, but then I start talking and telling him every bit of it concluding with, "And worst of all, I can't stop obsessing over him. I thought I was over it, but it's all coming up again."

He says, "Give it another six months, you'll feel better"

"I've already given it 12"

"Then give it another six more, Just keep throwing six months at it till it goes away. Stuff like this takes time...Listen, someday your gonna look back on this moment in your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it. In a beautiful place of worship, surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it. Let things work themselves out."

"But I really loved him"

"Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don't you see what happened. This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching. I mean you got zapped. But that love you felt, it's just the beginning. You just got a taste of love..."

"Please don't laugh at me now, but the reason I think it's so hard for me is that I seriously believed he was my soul mate."

"He probably was. Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that you are holding back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with your soul mate forever? Nah, too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave. And thank God for it. Your problem is, you just can't let this one go. It's over. His purpose was to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job. Problem is, you can't except the relationship had a short shelf life.

"But I love him"

"So love him"

"But I miss him"

"So miss him. Send him so love and light every time you think about him, then drop it. You're just afraid to let go of the lasts bits of him because then you'll really be alone. And YOU are scared to death of what will happen if you are really alone. But here's what you gotta understand. If you clear all that space in your mind that you're using right now to obsess about this guy, you'll have a vacuum there, and open spot---a door in ---God will rush in---and fill you with more love than you ever dreamed. So stop using him to block that door. Let it go"

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Most of humanity, the Buddha said, have eyes that are so caked shut with deception they will never see the truth, no matter who tries to tell them. A few others are so naturally clear-eyed and calm already that they need no instruction of assistance whatsoever. But then there are those whose eyes are just slightly caked with dust, and who might, with the help of the right master, be taught to see more clearly someday. The Buddha decided he would become a teacher for the benefit of that minority---"for those of little dust."

I clearly hope that I am one of these mid-level dust-caked people, but I don't know. I only know that I have been driven to find inner peace with methods that might seem a bit drastic for the general populace...

I don't know if I have much of a choice though. I have searched frantically for so many years and so many ways, and all these acquisitions and accomplishments--they run you down in the end. Life, if you keep chasing it so hard, will drive you to death. Time, when pursued like a bandit---will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you're banging through with your newest search warrant, leaving only an ashtray to taunt you.

At some point, you have to stop because it wont. You have to admit that you can't catch it. That you're not supposed to catch it. At some point, you gotta let go, sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.

Letting go, of course, is a scary enterprise for those of us who believe that the world revolves only because it has a handle on the top of it which we personally turn, and that if we were to drop that handle for even a moment, well--that would be the end of the universe.

But try dropping it. This is the message I'm getting. Sit quietly for now and cease your relentless participation. Watch what happens. The birds do not crash dead out of the sky in mid-flight after all. The trees do not wither and die, the rivers do not run red with blood. Life continues to go on...why are you so sure that your micromanagement of every moment in this whole world is essential? Why don't you just let it be?

I hear this argument and it appeals to me. I believe in it, intellectually. I really do. But then I wonder--with all my restless yearning, with all my hyped-up fervor and with this stupidly hungry nature of mine--what should I do with my energy, instead?

That answer arrives, too:
Look for God. Look for God like a man with his head on fire looks for water.
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~Both passages: Eat, Pray, Love-Elizabeth Gilbert~