Zayra Yves

Buddha is quoted to have said that change was inevitable. I am paraphrasing because I can.  I thought about what a paradox it is that we can count on change.  It is ironic that we cling to stability, yet how fluid our relationships are (for some of us that is a heart wrenching experience).

In recent weeks I have this empty full feeling as if I am living inside a paradox, where just the slightest emotional rub and my heart wants to spill over.  I find I wish to take back all the moments I did not fully live (a beautiful moment only half  lived), all the unkind words spoken out of desperate reaction to some pain or drama, all of the ignorance of a moment not fully appreciated in the presence of someone that I loved.

At the same time, I can rationally explain why I shouldn’t bother with these thoughts or feelings but there comes a time when that type of logic doesn’t matter any more.   Not too long ago an old friend sent a reply letter to me about their new found realities, how the past doesn’t have any value to them and how they just keept moving in the world toward their joy.  I had mixed emotions. I tried to explore what it was like to have no past and nothing to reflect on.  For a moment I tried to remember when I had treated someone else with the same measure (it wasn’t hard to find – my past was right there to remind me) and I attempted be in that “no past” state of mind, which is a nice function for meditation, until one is reminded that the past has so much beauty within it, so many powerful lessons and rich textures of experiences, that it is pointless to give up the past.  There is joy in the past too.

Personally, I strive to make peace with my past, forgive where I am able to, make amends when I can, and appreciate the Love I missed since I see it now.  It is true, I like my failure as much as my success for it reminds me that I am human.  I am fragments of history, pieces of Love and broken sometimes too.  Reflecting on our experiences and learning from our lives isn’t the same as getting stuck or wallowing.  I am not a fan of staying in the muck but avoiding the spiral of fear when confronted with our own flaws, therefore dumping our pasts like some unwanted furniture in an abandoned lot, can’t justify throwing away our history.

Of course, it is popular to have no past, to dump people easily from our lives and keep on moving.  Shrug.  So be it. We should not feel forced to hold onto, let go of or do anything with a relationship, a state of mind, an emotional field, dramas and melancholy due to the pop culture push for perfection, feel good-isms and sugar coated ideas.  Some will strongly disagree but I think a tainted past with a little regret or contemplation is good for us, since this keeps us humble in a world going mad with its ego.  If we have to feel good all the time about everything and avoid anything that is negative or unflattering then there is no growth; we miss the opportunity in the moment to be fully present with what is happening now and how we are co-creators by reacting to it or not.

Honestly, I thought about this and I can’t say there are things I should have had more of, or places I should have spent more time in, so much as to  say I truly wish I would have Loved more deeply than I did; that I wish I could have really shown all the Love that was there under the surface or hiding in the drama.  It is because of these feelings that seem to deepen as time passes rather than lessen, that I am reminded of how great the gift is with those who are still in my life, as well as those who are new.

If change is all we can count on, then I would like to add Love. Love in every moment.  It is not too late to add Love to to the moments where it seems like Love was absent due to poor communication, a lack of understanding or the dullness of ignorance. There is a wonderful poem somewhere in my house (but it is too late in the night for me to go find it) about wanting to give someone the emotion that had been missing twenty years earlier.  This is an act that can still occur even in simple ways through art, letters or meditation, as we go into those past moments to give them the gift of Love from where we are now.

Suddenly I feel this way about not only Love but about living more freely in the moment, appreciating the beautiful one of a kind moments, and Loving myself too. There is another paradox in the feeling of Loving someone and letting them go, as in go any way they want to go from our lives, if that is what they are doing, or as in removing ourselves from their lives, since this coming and going is apparently necessary for our enrichment and understanding of one another…the parade of our mini deaths both within ourselves and our relationships that we are sometimes completely unaware of are full of deep beauty.  Many of us are mindless as to how we die every day to one another and to ourselves but often miss those opportunities entirely.  We become complete strangers to one another all the time and don’t even notice it.

It is true that we should Love ourselves more so we can Love others more, even though that sounds like a cliche,  it turns out the cliche has a purpose to remind us of our simple place in the world. We are meant to be in Love. We can’t give to another what we don’t have, so I am reminded that I not only want to go back and Love others more deeply but I wish to go back and Love myself too.  If someone I Love or have Loved to the core of being wants to be free of the connection, then they are free to go since Loving them doesn’t require their permission or their physical presence.  If I need to be free, then I will go but to give up Love is a mistake and is the reason for great misery in the world.  To give up a relationship might be painful in the moment but it lives on in our hearts and it is futile to even try to remove the Love, so we might as well embrace the Love even in absence, all the more, and Love ourselves too.

Again, the paradox is to Love with all of our hearts while dying to one another and letting go in every moment too.  The greatest Love is within the greatest freedoms.  It is only now that I am starting to see and appreciate that truth. Since all I have is now, today, this moment of another layer of awareness, then I will start here with these heart fragments, these imperfections and go bravely into the world.

I hope you will be inspired to do the same.