My beloved and I had one of those conversations last night… you know, the difficult kind where all you really want to do is dump your unease, your fear, your shallow breathing on the one you love, if only so you can feel relieved of the burdens weighing down your heart.
Yeah. That kind. Where grace takes a back seat to your drive to take your unease out on the one you love.
It is one of the challenges of sequestered solitude. Being together 24/7 is an unusual circumstance.
The mind does not like unusual circumstances.
It prefers the predictable. The known. The road most travelled. Especially where human relations are concerned.
The challenge… Sequestered solitude/quarantine/stay-at-home/sheltered-in-place is such a new circumstance, it can be easy to mistake the comfort and ease of travelling together on the road most travelled for a rut.
For me, if there’s one thing I want to avoid, it’s being stuck in a rut. And, because my ruts are often constructed of unspoken words and thoughts not shared and dreams and fears unexpressed, I end up convincing myself that the only way out is to lob a few word-grenades at my beloved to blow up my silence.
Yeah. Not pretty. Nor all that smart. Because, if you’re like my beloved and me, when I lob a couple of word-grenades at him, he doesn’t like to back down. And then… You guessed it. Game on.
We all hold in our minds, stories of how these battles are won and lost. How fraught they are with minefields and how the best defence is a strong offence.
In moments of discord, however, flinging your words like a heat-seeking missile at the heart of the one you love is not an act of self-defence. It’s an act of aggression.
Yeah. It was that kind of discussion.
Not pretty in the midst of the fray. Grace-filled and loving in its denouement.
Compassion is key.
Compassion for your beloved, and yourself.
Compassion that awakens the grace within to stop, mid-sentence and acknowledge how your behaviour is contributing to the discord. How your fears and uncertainty are the shaky foundation unleashing your angst with all that is going on, and not a statement of anything shaky in your Love for them.
Compassion that allows you to look at yourself and your behaviour with loving-kindness and to look at your beloved through eyes that see ‘the why’ of your love for them, not the why not’s.
These are scary, challenging times. Not just on pocketbooks and bank accounts, jobs and businesses, health and well-being. But on our hearts, minds and bodies. All around us, there is uncertainty. Lacking clarity, uncertainty gives rise to fear. Fear can become a powerful force of destruction when it is not surrounded by Love.
My beloved and I had an uncomfortable conversation last night. It had begun with a relatively benign event that grew into a mountain of discord by days end. Our conversation didn’t start out pretty, but then, when word-grenades are used to ‘open up dialogue’, the ensuing conversation seldom is.
Trapped in the rubble of our discord, we had a choice to make. Dig deeper into our individual foxholes firing shots at one another until one of us eventually falls into an uneasy sleep. Or, join together and dig into the rubble to unearth the exquisite beauty of the truth that sits mounted like a beautiful jewel at the centre of our relationship. Love. It binds us together. It makes our lives and hearts sparkle.
Sometimes, because of our habitual responses to stress, change, uncertainty, we will default to our positions of weakness, rather than strength. And while in our heart of hearts we know neither of us wants to hurt the other or cause the other pain, when weakened by fear, it’s easy to forget that truth.
It is in those moments we must both choose to let go of our need to be right so that we can give in to our desire to grow together in deep, intimate, sacred Love.
My beloved and I fell into the muck of deep, difficult conversation last night. I am grateful. It opened our hearts to deeper, more intimate connection, not just in this time of Covid but in all the times of our lives together.
Namaste.
Dare Boldly 
Your posts are always inspirational. Seems WP won’t let me “like” — not sure what I do to fix that. Take care!
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Some days WP has a will of its own! 🙂
Thank you Lisa — it is lovely to hear you feel that way. I want to give the world my best — inspiring others to share their best feeds my soul.
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To LG and all fellow rut-dwellers,
Pushing the buttons of those we hold dear is easy to do, tough to fix, and not-unexpected … unless we are alone/isolated/single, because the buttons we just are our own. Not pretty, but not on display either – not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
We all have two lives, much like our fellow-earthlings a century ago; BC – before COVID-19, and AC – Aprez-COVID-19.
We are on hold – our blue skies are less polluted, our oceans are cleaner and our daily appreciation of what we miss seems as important as recognizing what we are not missing.
I’m not missing some stresses, and learning to appreciate new ones.
I’m learning to Zoom …
Which is not a substitute for face-to-face, but a new tool in my toolbox.
We are in that strange space, between BC and AC.
It’s a bit like The Dash [ https://thedashpoem.com/ ]… but maybe we need a lighter approach, In Spite of Ourselves – [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8tTwXv4glY ]
Cheers + remembering John Prine,
m
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Thank you Mark — especially for that wonderful song from John Prine. How perfect.
And yes. Remembering John and the other 86,978 people in the world who have lost their lives to Covid.
Let’s hope the Angels in Montgomery fly around the world and bring healing to all. ❤
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Nice blog
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Thank you. Nice to ‘meet’ you.
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My pleasure
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I am glad that Tim is still working being together all the time would be stressful
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it is definitely different Joanne. Not stressful — though there are moments when I feel myself stressing over little things and must remind myself to breathe and fall into Love. ❤
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“…to look at your beloved through eyes that see ‘the why’ of your love for them, not the why not’s.” I liked this quote Louise. We always have a choice what we choose to focus on in others.
Glad to hear that you are growing toward each other instead of away from each other during this challenge.
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It is our choice Ali. 🙂 To grow ever closer in Love — this sequestered solitude is giving us a beautiful opportunity to practice what that means! ❤
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:let go of our need to be right” That 8 words would stop world wars and calm hearts if we just all practiced it more often. Sad to say, my love and I have had a couple of those me talking a lot and him getting more silents as I let my words rush out of my mouth talks. We are moving at the end of the months unless this virus puts a stop to it, out of state. Moving is hard for me because there is so much I cannot control in it and trying to do it in an uncontrollable situation is grounds for divorce. Glad we settled that word a long time ago. I don’t mind a good fight but my love is a lover and a gentle soul and not a confronter so I am the one who usually gets more blows in. Then I am wishing I could pick the words up and shove them right down my throat. But out of our disagreements has come some understanding and insight we did not have before. After 55 years you would think we had this all figured out. You summed the answer to ending any disagreement…great post.
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Dearest Betty, I know exactly what you mean! If only I could pull back some of those ill-thought-out words with their dangerous barbs! Forgiveness and self-compassion are so vital in all of this.
Years ago, I asked my mother to tell me her life story. One of the things she said about marriage is that ‘the beginning years were wonderful and then there was the difficult middle part. The final years were much better.’
I admire your willingness to keep figuring it out and to love one another through it all.
And wow — a move in all of this. Now that is stress-inducing.
Take good care. Stay healthy. Stay safe. Stay connected. Hugs
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Thanks for sharing these beautiful thoughts to help us all go deeper, my friend.
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Thank you for your beautiful presence Ann. ❤
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Even in your pain you write with such vulnerability and honesty.
Perhaps it’s time to, hop in the car and take a drive out 22X. Sit out there isolated and look at the mountains and open the windows to breath in some different air. I know our walks in the country are so important to our mental health. You’d still be isolated but a different view can help with your own view. Take care. Virtual hugs
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