An excerpt from this weekend’s walking contemplations inspired by friend’s sharing and memes.
Loss of Respect or Connection
A friend shared a reel on the strangeness of losing respect for someone and the shifts we experience once that happens. There were parts in me that resonated and there was a knowing that this was but a surface layer observation, calling me to follow the trail to its roots and know the experience more intimately. My mind had struggled, in ways similar to the authors, to make sense of the sudden shift a loss of respect or connection caused, I could never quite perceive the other in the ways I did before, my feelings of fondness and appreciation had suddenly less weight or faded. And the parts of me that tried to keep the connection and person in my life inevitably failed in finding ways of making it palatable to other parts.
On exploration of my recollections of recent experiences I became aware that these observations of the mind were not at the beginning of the experience but secondary to a causal moment or period. The beginning lay in a shift in energy, a disruption happened or a dissonance subtly began to assert itself. Disruptions are usually perceived instantly, even if at times processed and evaluated with a delay, on the other hand the onset of dissonance can go unnoticed especially when parts of us choose to hold on to the connection at any cost. Yet eventually their attempts at suppression or denial no longer prevail and we become painfully aware of it. When awareness sets in, the mind scrambles to rationalize and narrate the cypher of energetic shifts. When I engaged with the experience on the level of our minds story about what happened, or its inability to make sense of it, I observed my perceptions and feelings for another change in an instant.
As the recent experiences were caused by bifurcations of soul paths, none of my psychological, relational or spiritual tools were successful in alchemizing the experience and closing the gap. None of my latest experiences were based on ideological or belief structures, there was no way of ’agreeing to disagree’ or finding ways of laughing about our different takes on life. These arose from dissonances in our soul trajectories. We had exited the window of resonance, no longer vibing and would cause dissonance, friction and dis-ease if we fought the call to allow the parting of ways.
There was nothing left to say, all had been said that needed saying, and no words could serve as a salve to the shock and grief of parting. Any words I could grasp for would have belied the sensed and felt ‚rightness’ the ending came with, and they would have been in misalignment with the rewards and goodness flooding my life in walking away. All that was left is to wish the other an abundance of goodness and love and refocus my awareness.
I have been on the receiving end of disruptions and seemingly abrupt changes in connections, feeling the pain and confusion it causes on the other end of such an experience. I have raged and ranted in my hurt, tried to negotiate and hold on, felt superior, dejected, shattered and resigned. And it all had its validity and relative truth to it.
Today I look back at such experiences with more compassion and graciousness towards the other and self compassion for me. Understand more of the mysterious unfolding of life and relationships, which different from what we learn to expect has unexpected ways of unfolding. The energies and powers that influence us and existence as a whole move beyond the limitations of social contracts, culture, morals and more. Born from non-dual reality they do not adhere, or care for, dualities and our attributions to them. They simply are. Just like the sun, moon, or storm simply are, regardless if we define them as good, pleasant or bad and unpleasant.
There is so much of our experience that belongs to unknown realities and dimensions of consciousness, defined by movements in the cosmic symphony or changes to the melody we are meant to contribute, they leave our limited human mind reeling and grasping for meaning. When all it takes is acceptance and movement with what is…
Not Wanting the Temporary
Our fast, virtually sped up, times have given us an expanded experience of impermanence. In the frenzy of attention economy and ongoing assaults on our dopaminergic systems we are more painfully starved of connection and intimacy than our predecessors were. There is an added sting to needing connection and intimacy while being surrounded by countless options or possibilities for connection which fall heartbreakingly short of our needs.
Having intentionally walked the desert of a mystic’s my experience differs from the majority. I have stepped away from most kinds of socializing and relationships to focus on integration and cultivating right relationship with self and rebuilding my internal landscape. For years I have painstakingly taught parts to turn inwards for love, nurturance and soothing and be very mindful and discerning with what is taken in from without. Discerning as to the agenda, needs, expectations, desires, boundaries and limitations of the giver in order to see if the relationship on offer is healthy and serving my soul path.
Furthermore these years of spiritual immersion shifted my understanding of time and the temporality of all that is phenomenal. I have learned to acknowledge and embrace impermanence in her beauty and service to our learning and expansion. My parts learning to walk the beauty path in gratitude and embodied knowing of impermanence.
I no longer expect or feel hung up on the duration of a connection but look in gratitude to its gifts of insight and learning. That is how I evaluate and integrate them into the canon of this life’s experiences.
Nonetheless, I felt a resonance with the words of the meme that inspired these reflections, because for me ‚temporary people‘ live unconsciously may it be in a pleasure-seeking, fear/pain-driven, purposeless drifting, brittle fragility or shadow boxing way. I do not care to experience such energies, apart from in passing, nor do I want them to gain enough proximity to touch me, if it can be helped.
There is a cost to be paid when engaging with people lacking in presence and connection with self, there are transgressive patterns that have to be contended, an absence of the possibility of talking about issues or engaging with them in a playful and wise manner, as there is no awareness available to work with, just conditioning and wounding playing out complex individual storylines.
I prefer short moments of true presence and connection to extended engagements in unconscious play of personas and unhelpful vibrational set points (victimhood, lack of self love, self harm, etc.). I do accept them as inevitable in a work context, yet won’t allow (much of) it in my private life. I prefer the silence of aloneness and quiet resonance with nature to such sadly vacuous, and at times dramatic, encounters.
Desire Economy
A treasured friend shared their experience in regard to the desire economy in human relating. While my journey is decidedly different their open and vulnerable words had my body resonate with empathy and recognition. And have invited a contemplation of my journey and experience of this field.
My relationship with my body had been fraught by the complicated relationship my caretakers had with their own body and concepts of femininity and sexuality. Add to it the complex and often contradictory feelings caused by experiencing unwanted and confusingly transgressive desires of men in childhood. And to round it all up I had to navigate limiting and harmful conditioning of my body-shaming, sex-negative native culture and pathologizing conditioning by a fundamentalist cult as well.
Being desired has thus been a two-edged experience, on the one hand it could feel exhilarating and delightful and on the other it felt tainting and disgusting to me, depending on the context and desirer. And being desired almost never felt fulfilling to my heart, even when my body could sustain her pleasure-seeking with what was on offer and my mind found its own, at times twisted, ways of deriving pleasure from it, my heart was rarely touched let alone fulfilled. Being desired therefore became something that exacerbated a feeling of lack and isolation.
On the shadow side, having several privileges in desire economy (being legible as feminine, thin, fairly attractive, exotic, etc.) allowed my ego to feel good and/or powerful. Even if said good and power were of the fragile kind that could easily be shaken or turned into their opposite. Owed to the complex layers of perceptions, beliefs, feelings and narratives born out of early sexual abuse, there were feelings of vengeful superiority when an unwanted male desire was visible or expressed. A twisted delight in knowing that it was mine to grant or withhold, a sense of archaic justice in saying No to it, the same way many men withhold connection and emotional intimacy. A sick balancing of the scales that appeals to wounded and egoic aspects which run deep into the roots of my ancestral mothers.
My self work has taken me on a journey, spanning several decades, of healing my relationship with my body, integrating trauma, and healing my relational system. The latter part of my journey, which took me down a spiritual and mystical path had induced a turning within and therefore away from seeking relationships and connections without. In these years of retreat into hermiting I have stepped out from the market, the desire economy, and focused on my healing. And the more I healed, the less external perceptions and validation mattered to my thinking.
But it is easy to turn my back on external validation as I feel good about myself and consider my body desirable regardless of what others may think. Every body is desirable to me, especially when perceived with eyes of love. Even if I do not desire a body I can appreciate its unique beauty and know that there are enough others to love and desire it. I firmly believe that every body can be adored, desired, loved, and experienced in the most enchanting ways. And the less it is ‚perfect‘ the more longevity desire and adoration can have. There is something to the imperfect, the unique, to scars, and unusual forms that can become infinitely beautiful and attractive. For me the two fundamental premises to desire are feeling connected and appreciative of the being housed in the body and my body feeling attracted to their form.
My friend’s words led me to inquire deeper and revealed that the external doesn’t matter as long as my internal narrative and self image are positive. I have learned to heal the disconnect from my body and love her when she was overweight and non-compliant due to depression. She has taught me well and I have won back her trust and love in practicing being true, kind, compassionate, affectionate and loving of her for the past two decades. I know that the way I connect and relate to her is with ever more sustained care, affection and kindness than I could haver imagined in my early teens or adult years as she communicates very clearly when I stray and miss the mark. And she has been magnificent in meeting me with cooperation, kindness and reliability. If that changed I would gladly learn to expand my capacity for loving her in the ways she needs me to. Even if I would struggle and whine along the way.
I have grown protective of my body, energy and being. No longer willing to sacrifice her needs, desires and boundaries for fleeting ideals or connections with others. I realize that the way I grew up has made me value and price emotional connection higher than touch, as touch has often been a pathway to abuse. I do not give access to my body as freely as younger versions of me would have done. I vet others, and keep observing them as we connect and engage, ready to protect my safety and wellbeing. My default response is to revoke access to my body, assert strong boundaries barring touch when transgressions or breeches of trust have happened.
As my body is not calmed by touch after a fight, unless the issue has been cleared up fully, as touch will aggravate dysregulation and make connecting or relating harder. I am not one of the people who crave touch to calm their being or to feel safe and secure, for me safety and security have to established first to allow for touch. This is why I utterly dislike being touched by strangers, it feels transgressive and might cause reactivity when I am not resourced and low on energy.
My being longs for the safer plains of emotional intimacy and connection as I am more easily nurtured and nourished by emotional and spiritual connection. And though I am open to make new, and hopefully different/corrective, experiences in terms of touch and physicality I am discerning and careful about it.
But there is a loss I have felt, held and mourned for years: The knowing, and longing for deep connection and intimacy across all dimensions in partnerships. I have come to accept and hold tenderly the possibility that I may never experience it to a degree that satisfies my being, even for a few moments, in this lifetime. I know what investment, skills and commitment it takes to cultivate the vision of my heart and the absence or rareness of skills, capacity, willingness and innate desire in the men I attract or am attracted to. Releasing feelings of victimhood, resentment, frustration, sadness, despair this insight brings up, while holding grief and hope with utmost tenderness has been the difficult path to acceptance and inner peace. Accepting while remaining open to the possibility of a connection that blossoms into what comes closest to my knowing has been a challenging but rewarding practice.
The Paradox of Liberation
And though my journey has taken a different meandering path, I can sit with my friend in my corner of the paradox of liberation.
All the things I have done to heal and integrate my being, to overcome the limitations and pains of woundings, trauma, and conditioning have ended up distancing me from the majority of humanity. It has rendered my circle small and widespread (across the globe) and has me living in a sort of exile. Rendered me alien and eerily or subtly incompatible. Even if my alienness is less overtly antagonizing, or excused with the otherness of my heritage for the most part. It is ever present and separates me from others like a pane of glass, transparent and yet impervious of touch or connection.
I wonder why I feel fairly unbothered by it though. Is it because I have been living in countries and cultures other than my ancestor’s and have almost always been ‚other‘? Is it because I no longer feel as attached to being human, even if I appreciate and value it more than ever? Or is it because my narcissistic parts feel so comfortable in being apart? Is ist because groups have been asking me to abandon myself and I no longer care to comply as I value my integrity higher than my need for belonging? Have I become better at feeling content and nourished by partial belonging and small moments of connection? Am I turning into a metaphorical whale living on plankton sized bits of love and connection? Who knows?
What I know is this:
Knowing a few beings who live and navigate in ways similar to mine, whose light and being inspires me to keep growing into more authentic versions of myself is what gives me life in moments of overwhelm or sadness. Feeling an abiding belonging to existence and Source itself allows me to bear being apart or only partial belonging with other humans. Connecting with nature and the magnificence of our planet, and every moment of true presence and connection, makes being embodied in these times worthwhile. It also helps to be granted unexpected insights into the mystery and dark wonders of life fuels my being in ways little else can.
And so I keep choosing the path of liberation, day by day, moment for moment, breath for breath.
