03/15/2020
06/13/2019
so here's a love story from a to z
If you didn’t just finish that sentence with, ‘You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully’, then y’all need to think long and hard about what you were doing in the 90’s!
The Spice Girls were pop goddesses, showcasing a range of fashion, style, race, and taste.
Girls playfully bantered and boastfully pro-claimed amongst their friend group which spice girl they were, and mumbled and laughed through parts of the song that no one really knew all the words to!
Either way, Wannabe is one of the best silly girly songs of the 90’s that can make any group of girls and women burst into the most exaggerated song and dance and genuinely enjoy every minute of it.
You could even argue that there’s merit behind some of the lyrics.
Like the importance of friendship, for example.
Insinuated as being between two partners, but also addressing the importance of partners getting along with their respective friend groups.
I too, glean the significance of the relationship between my friends and my partner, but it didn’t stop me in the past from ignoring red flags when this didn’t exist in my world the way I would have liked it to.
As a result of brushing off red flags, combined with my fierce sense of loyalty, hope, allegiance and my heart that just wanted to love and be loved, I ended up spending my twenties in very long, very wrong relationships.
Would I take it back?
I’ve thought about that so much.
If I could have changed things..could I have saved a lot of heartache, spent more of these years in a happier place?
Today, I wholeheartedly answer that question with a No, I would not take it back.
I experienced infatuation and love, elation in the soberest of states, excitement and friendship, but also dark places inside of myself and others, and heartbreak that drove me to make moves I likely otherwise wouldn’t have.
As cliche as this is to say, it’s true.
I would not be where I am now, knowing what I do now, being who I am now, on my way to being everything I still dream of.
But, I didn’t feel this way for a long time.
It’s been a long road.
It’s been a roller coaster of emotions and states of mind I can’t now fathom how I got into.
It’s been a lesson in resilience, value systems, selflessness and selfishness.
Of holding on, and letting go.
Of communicating.
Of the irreparable damage caused by not communicating.
Of growth and strength.
Of shutting off and opening up.
Of crossing lines that couldn’t be uncrossed.
Of stumbling backwards and getting up again.
Of what others perceive to be true over what I know to be true.
Of putting others first.
Of fear, trust and insecurities.
Of disappointment.
Of facing truth.
And finally, a big fat lesson in needing to take responsibility for my own happiness and fulfillment.
That it’s not someone else’s responsibility to give me the love I am worthy of.
And, that it’s not my responsibility to fix what’s broken in others.
Realizing that not only was my behaviour reflective of this, but also seeing that this false truth of needing love from the outside was so ingrained in my way of thinking and operating, was sobering.
Five years ago, being excited and happy about the future wasn’t something that really seemed to be on the horizon anymore.
Of course there were times when the light shone. Just enough to keep me moving toward it with that fierce determination to prove something to someone. Or everything to everyone.
When you’re living to prove yourself and your love to someone, you’re almost always in it to lose.
My belief in my truth began to play no part in anything.
What anyone else said or thought became all there was.
This is a dangerous place to be. Even though someone could raise you up and make you feel on top of the world, they had the same power and ability to bring you and the world around you crashing down.
When I felt totally lost and desperate for some guidance, I went to therapy because well, that’s what we do today.
While I whole heartedly believe in the process for various reasons, even, and maybe especially, when you’re not tangled in a downward spiral, it was short lived for me.
Maybe because I didn’t really connect with my experience at the time, or that it simply ran it’s course quickly because there wasn’t more to be said until I made a critical decision I just wasn’t ready to make.
The years that followed that decision (which actually didn’t so much feel like a decision but an exchange of one type of pain for another forced by an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion and hopelessness) were filled with various forms of coping and healing but it wasn’t until recently when an opportunity presented itself did I finally feel like I found the kind of therapy that fit for me.
It was an online women’s immersion course.
It would be nine weeks of looking at various female archetypes, goddesses, DNA wounding, and symbolism through fairytale and mythology that has felt like peeling back the blackest of tint off the window to my soul and suddenly being able to see the roots I have been tripping over.
Bearing witness with a new lens to chains of cause and effect that have left me in states of grief, asking why.
It’s been like watching the past in slow motion, the same ripple effect play out over and over in new situations and relationships ending in the same heartache and confusion.
Endings I just didn’t know how to deal with or prevent.
I needed to hear the specific stories, explanations, enlightenments and contemplations from this course in order to trigger the beginning of a form of healing and discovery I wasn’t sure I was capable of.
The material has brought more light and awareness to the fact that relationships of all kinds play such a vital role in my life, and it has validated that they can easily rock my world for better or worse. I believe this is because of how I expose my heart to the world.
Staying open to love but protecting your heart is a balancing act requiring full and pure attention to the present, learned through practice.
I have also learned through the culmination of various forms of self research and inquiry that in fact my strengths (and gifts) having to do with people and relationships, as well as a deep yearning for romantic partnering, are also my weaknesses.
These sentiments were also called out in a reading of my astrology chart; a blueprint attesting to the idea that from this strength a foundation can be created for which a surplus of joy, love and fulfillment can come to me in this life.
Learning how to harness the energy that can rock my world for better or worse and direct it positively back to into the universe is where I want to spend more time.
Knowing all of this the way I do now allows me to settle into myself accepting what I have and don’t have with a sense of ease without feeling the need to fill something.
There are two pivotal moments that are now like the two sides of a line being drawn in the sand; there is before these moments, and after them.
The first came abruptly one evening a few years ago while doing dishes as I looked out the window to the courtyard behind my house. I turned to my friend who was with me at the time and said to her with a smile and dewy eyes, “I’m happy, I feel happy.”
It sounds small and like something easy to say, but at the time it felt like an accomplishment or achievement I wasn’t quite familiar with anymore.
It felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest.
The second was very recently as I was stretched out on my yoga mat overlooking the lake and what came to me was this feeling and these words – I feel free.
Not only was this the first time in a long time that I had felt so incredibly excited, hopeful, and thirsty for knowledge and the new chapter ahead, but I also realized that my mind and energy was not being consumed by a man.
A man I loved, or a love I had lost; a man I was dating, or had dated; a man I was talking to, or was planning to talk to, was getting attention from, was giving attention to, the list goes on.
This was the first time I had been content with actually focusing on building me and my future without filling my time with what I’ve come to realize was me distracting myself from facing MYSELF.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still been a TON of emotion, questions, and doubt throughout.
But the emotion for once feels transformative.
It no longer feels like it’s burying me.
I look back at a period in my life when the hours I slept were part of the few hours in a day when I wasn’t sick to my stomach with stress and worry and with an ache in my heart.
I didn’t know how to fix or change my situation for so long despite being told the obvious and deep down knowing the inevitable.
It actually felt impossible. The truth is, sometimes these things just take time. You can’t be ready until you’re ready.
I recently read the following about values:
“The fear of loss and pain keeps people in broken down relationships, compelling them to sacrifice their values.”
“Sometimes we allow others’ expectation to eclipse our values, especially those of us motivated to make others happy through self-sacrifice. It’s a great example of the double bind our values can create.”
These two statements hit home for me today and I’m able to see and think about them objectively and with purpose in terms of how I engage in relationships going forward.
But when you’re knee deep, hanging on, and all you can think of is what your heart feels, you’re far from where you need to be to allow your values to be your compass.
Romantic relationships are tough even when values are in alignment.
But values were just another thing that felt stacked against me once upon a time.
As I look back at where I was to where I am now, I feel grateful. Grateful for the support and strength I’ve been given.
I’ve learned that I need to thank and be grateful for the people and experiences of my past, and to truly allow myself to hold space for the love that I had and still have for the past.
Many times over I thought I had healed and moved on, but would suddenly be triggered and swept back up into the familiar ocean of pain, doubt and uncertainty – a place where my feet couldn’t touch the ground.
It was upsetting and confusing; I didn’t understand why it kept happening, but the more I learn and the more I let myself surrender to the ebb and flow, the more I can allow the emotion to wash over me.
I slowly realize I don’t need to struggle to stay up, or fight to reach the ground.
I can ‘be the flow’, as Rumi says in one of my new favourite novels, ‘The Forty Rules of Love’.
Even though it’s difficult, I try to welcome what the emotion has to offer me, and I try to understand how to integrate with it.
I also now know I can still love and be loved while continuing to heal and learn.
A man I loved dearly once told me that I live in a fantasy world when it comes to love.
I’m happy to say I haven’t lost that throughout everything, and I know beautiful things are to come and I’m just at the beginning of the work that I didn’t before know how to do.
The work of understanding who I am which comes from looking within not looking to where I am or what I have to define that.
The work of knowing that I am lovable even when someone is not telling me so.
The work of believing that things needed to happen the way they did for a reason.
So that’s the story from A to Z.
The extremes that have polarized love for me.
Yes, it’s my story, but it’s not my only story.
Life is filled with many many stories.
Releasing this one turned out to be non-negotiable.
Letting go of guilt and hurt and leaning into forgiveness is no easy task.
We’ve all made decisions out of love that may have been dishonouring in hindsight, but it doesn’t mean we deserve to live under guilt and shame forever because of it.
You are love, you are light, and you can always start a new story; never forget that.
Sign-up to our Community
Enjoy following my travel adventures and want to be notified when new blogs are posted? Complete the form below & subscribe to our mailing list where you can receive regular blog notifications, insights & information about featured products, events and other things Loved by Lina!
English
Lovely Lina- I just read this post while listening to Trevor Hall which was a beautiful way to start my morning. Thank you for being so vulnerable, honest and powerful by sharing your journey. I love that you feel free and are looking forward to your bright shiny future. See you soon, soul sister. xoxoxo
Your words fill my heart sweet Jules, thank you for reading and being you! xoxo see you very soon!!
Beautifully written my dear. I don’t have time now to write any more. But will think of your words as I get ready for this next trip. Like you , I have been on a journey to “ find myself” , these last 20 years. I have not been so happy and content, in my life, with my life, as I have been since I have left Edm. Being able to more readily accept who I am, …. sometimes the need for reinforcement still happens. BUT, easier. . Your supporting , loving mama.
Thank you for supporting me always mom XOX
My friend, my sister. I know how tough you are on yourself, THIS is amazing and you should be proud of your work AND your journey. Much love and respect!
Thank you Ker! Means the world xox