Tag Archives: Facing Fears

You have to lose all…

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A gift texted to me this morning: “Listen to your heart, move according to your heart, whatsoever the stake: A condition of complete simplicity costing not less then everything… To be simple is arduous, because to be simple costs everything that you have. You have to lose all to be simple. That’s why people have chosen to be complex and they have forgotten how to be simple. But only a simple heart throbs with God, hand in hand. Only a simple heart sings with God in deep harmony. To reach to that point you will have to find your heart, your own throb, your own beat.” – Osho

With every loss, I find my heart.

:)Melissa

Love is a continual practice of letting go…and letting go…and letting go

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As I receive unconditional love and acceptance from my partner on a whole, new level for me, I am being confronted with inner demons that I didn’t fully know were there.

Because relationship is simply a mirror for our own relationship with ourselves, I find that as I experience love flowing in, that love is being matched by an equally powerful self-doubt and in all honesty, a self-loathing that is both painful and surprising. The mirror is being held up and I’m seeing all of the qualities that I didn’t even realize I find unlovable within myself, all of the ways that I reject myself. My ego is squirming this week and looking for cover…big-time. The mask is falling away and I’m coming face-to-face with my imperfection.

There’s a very young voice that comes forth inside of me wondering, “Have I gone too far this time? Have you seen too much? Is this the point when I make the love go away?” It is raw, vulnerable, down-right terrified.

I’ve found myself experiencing deep shame at various points this week, judging myself, feeling tremendously insecure, wondering when the stronger, empowered…get this…more lovable me…will return. You know, the me who “has it all together.” This week I’m being challenged to surrender a deeply ingrained belief about myself, about love–that I have to control your experience of me, that I have to act and operate in a certain way in order to be worthy of your love.

And as I’ve been the snotty, needy, victim-minded, emotional mess…ummm…not the me I wanted my partner to see, I’m having to face this fear head on: What will happen when I’m not playing the part? When I let the wounded little girl come out of the closet? What will happen when I’m not in control?

And well, I’m finding out even as I write.

I see now that the deeper the love, the deeper the surrender that’s required. Love is a continual practice of letting go, and letting go, and letting go.

And the most challenging and beautiful part of this whole process: It’s not my partner’s job to love me. It’s MY job. It’s MY job to heal this old wound and to hold myself gently. Right now, loving myself as I’m facing my “ugly” parts is in writing this post, it’s in creating spaciousness for myself, focusing on what matters to me, and it’s in allowing myself to be seen and believe in the love I’m receiving from my partner. Slowly, and steadily unfurling my petals despite how “unsafe” that feels. And breathing. And breathing.

Real love is no fairytale. It doesn’t just show up and good feelings abound happily ever after. It challenges us, stretches us, grows us…heals us. It’s so much more dimensional than a fairytale. It’s not perfect. It’s real life. It’s an opportunity to see who we REALLY are, and love what we find there…even when we don’t. 😉

All my love,

:)Melissa

There are no “right” rules to learn. There’s just love.

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My heart breaks when I witness people jumping through hoops to “get” the love of another. I’m in some forums here on Facebook where I witness women trying so hard to learn the right strategy in relationships and it’s so clear to me that the only thing to “do” is to let all of those games go. And it hurts me because each of those people is holding up a mirror for the games I, myself, got tangled up in for years–my own unconscious version of self-torture. With each day that passes, I’m letting go of all of the strategy and getting that when it comes to relationship, there are no rules. There’s just love.

For years, I thought “If I can just stop doing this, or learn that, or love myself enough, or be feminine enough, or be more patient, blah blah blah” THEN I’ll get to experience someone REALLY loving me.

As it turns out, there’s nothing to get right. You don’t have to perform a circus act. You don’t have to worry about whether or not you’re “leaning back” or “leaning forward.” There’s no “too masculine” or “too feminine,” no “too much or too little.”

When it’s love, you just work it out…together.

As it turns out, through the eyes of Love, each one of us truly is enough with every edge and angle of imperfection.

The little girl me who was so convinced that she had to get it right and would inevitably mess up and make the love go away is healing, bit by bit, with every opportunity to feel and share and release. This week, I’ve had freak outs and made up stories, I’ve had moments of elation followed by deep fears taking over, and I’ve thrown some not-so-grown-up tantrums in reaction to all of the made-up stories. Not my proudest moments, dear hearts…AND I learn more and more each day that Love doesn’t leave when it knows the truth.

We, my loves, are here for connection. And the only way to connect is to get really messy, to get really vulnerable, to risk making “all of the mistakes.” And I will tell you that there is nothing more healing than letting it all hang out and discovering through the mirror of another just how lovable that you really are.

I am so damn lovable, it’s amazing.

When love is present, it trumps any rules, any moves that you do or do not make. After years of trying to figure out who and how to be to experience real love in my life, I’m now seeing that it was really more about my soul path and surrendering to divine timing. Because most of what I “learned” I’m now throwing out the window–it turns out all of those rules of how to be just get in the way of receiving what is real.

So, I dare you to throw away the strategy and stop trying to learn the “right way” to “get the relationship of your dreams.” It’s just bullshit, dear hearts.

So, will you join me in ending the games? In stopping the strategy sessions? In forgiving yourself for all that you are and are not?

Be you. Trust in God. All is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to.

All my love,

:)Melissa

Pluto/Uranus Square: Feeling the Intensity (Part II)

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With yesterday’s Pluto/Uranus Square, many of us are feeling quite vulnerable and raw as we have been forced to confront ways of being and beliefs that have been holding us back. It’s transformation through fire, and whatever is not serving us, that has us out of alignment with our purpose, must go.

The issues that we’ve not wanted to confront in our relationships, our careers, our health, our living situations, our money, etc. are all being brought to the surface. The things that we’ve been so certain of are now shaking from the ground up. That which seemed solid is either growing more solid through the truths being revealed through this transformation or crumbling to the ground in order to make way for that which will truly endure, that which will truly serve us on our soul journey.

I personally have been forced to have some deeply vulnerable conversations, bare my fears, grow in my capacity to ask for what I need…and ultimately, I’ve shed the flashlight on some of the myriad parts of myself that I have yet to love. I’ve been so afraid of losing love that I wasn’t letting it all the way in, then…it poured in, and I freaked out…hahaha…tis the nature of this kind of transformation.

In any case, whatever you are experiencing in your own life the gift of this time is simple: Where have you put up barriers to the pure experience of love?

Whatever is falling away from your life now, as painful as it might be, know this: That thing, that relationship in the form that it was in, that belief you were clinging to must fall away in order to open your capacity to love and be loved, to be IN LOVE with what is.

This is the opportunity now: To open your heart so wide that all you can do is fall in love with what is, with who you are, and to allow others to reflect that love back to you. Oh, and remember to breathe, My Loves.

Always in your corner,

:)Melissa

 

Pluto/Uranus Square: Feeling the Intensity

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We find ourselves amidst some very intense energy, right now.

Tomorrow, the planets, Pluto and Uranus, will be exactly 90 degrees apart from one another for the 6th time in the past 3 years. And I can feel it build-up inside of me like a volcano that can no longer be contained in my being. I’d nearly forgotten about this alignment until unfoldings in my own life have made it unavoidable to ignore.

Pluto’s energy compels us to transform, to die to old ways of being that have dis-empowered us, so that our true selves can shine through. It brings up the underbelly of all that has been hidden just beneath the surface—the things that we fear to look at and to feel—and it compels us to face it all head on.

Uranus’ energy liberates us by throwing us the unexpected–breakdowns that challenge us to leap into our zone of genius, so that true breakthroughs can occur.

With these two planets squaring off, we have flooding and tornadoes touching down in Southern CA, issues of race that have long been over-looked forcibly rising to the surface, people demanding change. The energy is eruptive and transformation IS happening.

It’s moments like this where I almost call “uncle” as I feel my heart exploding with its own growth and the illusive fears of utter insecurity haunting my thoughts without remorse.

And as I fear losing that to which I am attached, I am reminded: Whatever is left in the end is what’s meant to be mine. All else is false.

There is this desire to cling for dear life as the house is rattling and the tornado threatens to carry it all away. My ego screams “hold on,” while my soul whispers, “let go.”

“Thy will be done.”

I do not know what is on the horizon personally and collectively. I do not know what will be left in tact and what is being birthed in place of all that is falling away. And when I listen to my soul’s whisper, I’m reminded that there is nothing wrong here; that in this moment where I can’t help but cry for the intensity of all that I feel, I am being loved by this, too. All there is to do is breathe and feel until the storm passes through.

©2014 Melissa Simonson