Moving Mountains, Healing Hearts

In this year of separation, I have uncovered a tendency to throw myself at situations with heart and soul commitments which have turned out to be not always so healthy for my own individual life. Especially around the value of Family, having been raised to be unselfish, I drop anchor determined to withstand any storm.

Fresh out of college, exhilarated with talent and energized to break down any doors, from a mountaintop in Oregon, I surveyed the world before me: vast, broad, open and (for me) uncharted. That mountain, however, and my disposition, seduced me to stay with a woman recently widowed and her two children desperately in need of comfort and firewood.

These were problems I could fix, care I could give, an answer to Life’s questions I believed I was man enough to handle. We became an instant family and produced another wonderful child.

Once this had grown too difficult and greener pastures had torn us apart, I drifted across the country with plans and aspirations for great creative works. I carried with me also an undefined promise that I would find someone else to make me whole again.

Looking to the external to repair a pain deep within is no true solution, merely a band aide, a distraction.

Learning this now, eases the surprise that a second marriage would fail despite twenty years of effort to make it work no matter what. Not being true to my own self, I could not adequately support others.

A year ago, disoriented and uncertain, I separated to hear my own voice. It seems to resonate with words and song; something I knew intuitively as a child, experimented with in high school, refined in college, and abandoned as an adult overwhelmed by the practical needs of Family.

Sadly, one should be able to manage both, but I have not. Having made the commitment to live together, my priorities have been correct: food on the table should trump words on a page. The compromises necessary over so many years, however, have stunted the very flow of prosperity and abundance I sought to grow. While one piece of the internal damage was patched by marriage, another rupture flooded my organs with bile.

Now I have begun to heal. Embracing the man I want to be illuminates the suffocating darkness that has surrounded me, eases the chaos and turmoil. Not yet translated into prosperity, patience and determination of a more selfish nature still emboldens my steps. My blood thickens and flows more freely. Brave enough to face tough questions and push easy answers aside for deeper truths and meanings, a calm grows from within, noticed and welcomed by friends and family, supported by those who love me.

The Universe challenges me, however, ups the ante each time, testing my commitment with more and harder struggles to divert my attention. My truck becomes useless. The bad economy renders a job-search nearly futile. A daughter grows distant.

Now, my not-yet Ex has needs that draw me back compassionately, attracting attention impossible to ignore. Easily, I can be drawn in, to care for and nurture as I always have done before, to set aside the hard-won lessons of this past year for the higher purpose of comforting what ultimately has little comfort, trying to fix what is possibly unfixable.

When one has truly loved, the heart never fully relinquishes the flutter of that connection. Time passing may ease the extremes of adoration and bitterness the relationship has known, but the tender spot remains that was held for that one alone, preserved for eternity close to the heart.

My challenge is to find and immerse myself in the serenity of knowing what I can change and what is truly beyond me. I must learn to offer the care my family needs and deserves without sacrificing the authentic core of who I am and what makes me strong.

Abundance begins with the heart and flows outward, like a tidal wave, overwhelming all it encounters. We have the opportunity to change our world today, abandon the selfish greed of hording scarce commodities, and open our hearts to share the unique gifts of our joyous souls. One by one, together, we create with love a family that can move mountains and grow greener slopes right at our own doorsteps.

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