Does Surrendering Really Work?

Surrender. It’s a word thrown around so often and so casually that I feel, in some ways, we’ve lost sight of just how profound the very act of surrendering can be.

I’ve been in one too many yoga classes where the instructor touts some paraphrased version of this idea picked up in a book or from another teacher that I can’t help but wonder how many of them truly practice the suggestion they are regurgitating back to us? How many of them actually understand the true meaning of surrender? How many of them are mindfully letting go each and every day?

But then again, I found myself wondering if I even understand the meaning of the word myself?

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What's Love Got To Do With It?

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"If you are searching for that one person that will change your life, take a look in the mirror." - Unknown

The other day I was Skyping with a friend who's current situation eerily resembles mine almost three and a half years ago. As she shared her fears and worries, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of empathy and compassion for where she was. As she nervously confided in me about her decision to leave her marriage of two years, I wanted to wrap my arms around her and say, "It's gonna be okay. I promise. One day it will be even better then okay." 

I wanted to tell her everything I had learned over the last three and a half years about love and how sometimes loss leads you to discovering some of the most magical things about yourself and about life.

I wanted to share how a lot of the time, we think the love from someone else is enough but it isn't. What is enough however is having the courage to do what is in your heart which isn't always the easy thing.

 But I couldn't, it wasn't my place. I knew all these lessons were ones she had to come to on her own. All I could do was listen and hope that she felt my love and support from thousands of miles away. 

It got me wondering though, how many people are married or coupled up who have done so under the same false pretenses I did? The one that says the right person will come along and save you. They will love you enough so that you won't have to learn the very thing that WILL save you; loving yourself.

 I also wondered how many people were staying in relationships that resembled the very one I was in because it felt safe or because they felt it was something the should do. Those damn should's. 

I grew up believing in the fairy tale. The one that had my prince charming riding in on his Technicolor My Little Pony and rescuing me in some way, shape or form. Hey, these were my fantasies and regular horses bored the hell out of me. My Little Ponies were what my romantic dreams were made of. 

He’d trot in with his perfectly parted Ken Doll hair because what young girl doesn't adore Ken. With his sparkling blue eyes and his big, bronze muscles, which were just a little stiff if you asked me, and he'd scoop me up with his arms that barely hinged at the elbows and we’d ride off into the blazing sunset to live happily ever after in our Barbie Dream House. The one with the white picket fence, the perfect career making the perfect amount of money, the 2.5 kids, and a friggin' partridge in a pear tree.  And that wouldbe our "The End".

Fast-forward to real life and one painfully failed marriage and a handful of brutal dating scenarios with openly emotionally unavailable men and this single thirty-seven year old has finally realized that love looks a little different then what my youthful (and delusional) dreams were once so naively made of.

It's taken me a long time to admit to myself that real love isn't the stuff that Blockbusters and fairytales are made of.

It definitely isn’t a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan movie.

It isn’t black and white.

And absolutely, under no circumstance, can real love sweep in on a brightly colored pony and save you. 

Entering any partnership under these pretenses is bound to fail you at some point.  

But let me start from the beginning. Let me tell how I came to realize that I had it all wrong. That my idea of real love was nothing more then a deceptive idea passed down over time and adopted by a girl who just wanted a happily ever after. 

Let me tell you what love isn't

I remember waking in the early hours of a cold February morning in 2014 from another restless night sleep. A fresh layer of white snow covered the bare vines and steep rolling hills of the fifty acre farm and vineyard I had called home for the past four years. I pulled the covers up close to my chin and in the stillness of the early morning light left over from the moon, I looked to my left at the silhouette silently sleeping next to me and my chest tightened. The heaviness returned from its eight hour break and once again, I wondered how I had allowed myself to get here. 

That had become the norm. I was thirty-three and found myself in a manipulative marriage of less then two years that had become more about constantly trying to change each other then acceptance, support, encouragement and love. I found myself constantly wondering if this was really it. Was this really what love and marriage were? Deception, lies, dread and control? 

Was I really that desperate to be coupled up that I had sacrificed my own personal happiness to do so? 

What about the fairytale? What about my prince charming and my technicolor pony ride off into my rainbow color sunset? What about my happily ever after? 

I slipped out from beneath the covers, quiet as to not wake my then husband, desperate for a few more hours to myself before I had to face my very own Jackal and Hyde. I tip toed down the stairs into the bathroom on the main floor and flipped on the light. Instead of avoiding the mirror as I normally did, I stood, staring down the reflection.

I looked tired and defeated from the daily disappointment and heartache of what I had allowed my life to become. I had no idea who the women in the mirror was. I had broken a promise I made to myself a long time ago after growing up with parents who's marriage resemble the one I now found myself frantically treading water in.

"How did you let this happen? This can't be it." I whispered to the girl in the mirror. For the first time I allowed the words to bubble up and before I knew it, slip out my lips and into the hands of the very thing that could save me, my own.  

It was as if I had broken some kind of spell and I snapped out of the delusional fog I was in. I made a promise to  myself that I would do whatever I had to do to live this one precious life the way I knew, in my heart, I needed to live it. Not chasing down the love of someone else but rather figuring out what that meant on my own.

The events that transpired over the next two months were heavy and heartbreaking but perfectly laid out for me so that I had no other choice but to leave.

In mid-May, just days before what was to be my second wedding anniversary, I found my car packed with all my belongings as I drove north back home to Seattle wondering how I was ever going to put my life back together. However, in my heart I knew a life stumbling solo was far better then being coupled up in something that was abusive and neglectful and lacking any sense of what I believe to be true love

So what does love have to do with it anyway?

Not to sound incredibly cliche, but one of the greatest lessons I learned from walking away from my marriage was that love between two people just isn't enough. You have got to love yourself first. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that looked like and had a long road of hard and repetitive lessons ahead.

How we learn to love ourselves looks different for all of us but I wholeheartedly believe that until we learn to do just that, our lives are going to be full of a lot of pain and suffering because we are going to be constantly looking for that love from others.

The greatest step I ever took was finally listening to my heart and walking away from something that was safe, comfortable and familiar for the complete and utter unknown. It was in that moment I cracked a little piece of the puzzle and realized that this was the way to the truth. This was the way I was going to learn how to love myself and step into a life that felt like me. 

The moment I drove away from comfort I knew I had started a wild and crazy journey into the depths of my own heart. Something I had only ever dipped my toes in. 

I said yes to something big and scary and I have kept saying yes to things that terrify me because I know they will keep leading me to deeper parts of myself. 

So what does love have to do with it? 

Absolutely everything. 

Love with someone else may not be enough but you better believe the love you feel for yourself is. That is the answer. Until you know what that looks like it is going to be really hard to invite in the kind of love you deserve and want with someone else. 

The path isn't always paved perfectly and those bumps and challenges are usually leading you to discovering another part of yourself that needs some love. That's what all those hard, often repetitive lessons are meant to do. They are supposed to shine light on the areas that need more of your own love. 

That is where I'm at now, facing many of the same lessons over and over, slowly realizing I have the choice to love myself enough to say not again.

I'm learning to love myself by leaning into those parts of me that are unfamiliar and choosing to do things differently. I'm creating the life I want that feels like the truth even if it doesn't make sense at the time. And I'm just going to keep doing this. Day in and day out. I'm going to wake up every day and continue to make choices, easy or hard, that are based around doing what is best for my heart, my path, my journey, my life.

I'm going to continue to say goodbye to people, places and things that do not serve my heart and allow time and truth to cultivate the space for those things that do. 

So that hopefully, one day, when the right man walks into my life, I can let him love me just that way too. 

 

 

Single Female Seeks the Butterflies

"Fuck butterflies. I feel the whole zoo when I'm with you." - Unknown. 

The other day I was swiping through Bumble in an effort to totally and completely distract myself for a few minutes when I started cracking up at the irony of what I was doing. I wonder if I should change my profile to say, "Single women with cancer of unknown primary source seeks tall, dark and handsome man. I laughed out loud. "Fuck that!" I thought to myself.  What she actually seeks is a kind, compassionate, empathetic and incredibly patient man who will hold her hand through the scary and shitty parts of life."  I laughed again as the smile on my face started to fade and the unavoidable reality settled back in. 

Single woman with cancer seeks kind, compassionate, empathetic and patient man who will hold her hand through the scary and hard parts of life. 

I know this should be the very last thing on my mind right now but for the last few days it has been all consuming. I think it's because I'm craving the endorphins that comes with happy newness and right now everything is so unknown and scary. But what I want more then anything, is to get tangled up in matters of the heart. I can't help but wonder if all this would be easier if I had someone walking by my side every step of the way. Someone who says sweet things like, "Babe, we'll get through this together." Someone I can rest my head on his should and cry. Someone who despite everything, sends me into uncontrollable fits of laughter. 

But I don't. And that's my reality right now. I don't even have a crush on anyone at this moment in time. Zilch. Nada. No one. Not one single person. There isn't one single guy out there that gives me butterflies. And for this overly romantic heart of mine, makes life a little boring. From the time I can remember, I've ALWAYS had a crush on someone. 

I'm sure there is a reason behind all of it. Surely, there is a reason I'm going through this without a person to call my own. Surely I need to be reminded (once again) just how strong and capable I am. (yes, that's sarcasm you hear)

But then again, who's gonna want to date a gal freshly diagnosed with the big "C?"

Can you imagine a first date right now? 

"So Amanda, tell me about yourself?" says potential suitor. Yes, the question sounds like one you'd get at a job interview but aren't first dates kind of equivalent to that? 

"Well, where do I start?" I say. " I'm super active, I love being in the mountains and outdoors in general. I’m creative and passionate. Oh, yeah....I totally forgot. I was also just diagnosed with cancer and they can't seem to find where it started in my little old body." I pause, taking giant sip of my organic green juice. "This was fun. Wanna go on a second date?" 

I can see the remnants of dust as said suitor peels away quickly in his car, frantic to get as far away from the girl with the big "C as he can."

I imagine a lot of these feelings have to do with the fact that my family is 1200 miles away and the initial dust has settled and I'm alone here in my little home in Encinitas. With cancer. And everything feels like it's going at a snails pace and all I want are the friggin' butterflies and to not think about cancer and instead, think about the man behind the butterflies. Is that too much to friggin' ask?

Yes, I do believe a lot of the feelings of loneliness are circling about right now because I am so far away from my people. We talk daily but I'd give anything to be in the same room as all of them right now. I'd give anything to be back amongst the green trees of the Pacific Northwest enveloped in snuggles and hugs. 

So my reality is just feeling a little dark right now as I move from one stage of grief to the next. Out of shock and denial into pain and anger. It's as natural as taking a breath and I'm fully committed to honoring this process but I can just as easily honor this process with those ridiculous butterflies in my belly. So throw me a friggin' bone whoever is up there, will you? Give me the damn butterflies!

I haven't once asked why me but the last few days I've been feeling that questions peak up from deep down. I know the 'why' doesn't matter. The 'what I will do with all of this' does. I know what is important is how I let this experience move and transform me. How I allow this process to give me what I need. 

But hey, can I please have a side of butterflies too?