Image courtesy of shutterstock.
It's funny, when we are all born the first thing we see is blinding light, nothing is clear, we're confused, cold, and have no understanding of what is going on, within us, around us, all of a sudden our security is taken away. Panic takes over, we scream, cry, nothing will ever be the same. The light causes pain, but we adjust, the cold causes us to focus more, and then we finally see what we're meant to become in the eyes of our own mother. She calms us, teaches us love with the first look she gives us, and makes us feel warm again. She snuggles us into her breast and continues to give us life through the power of her own life force. We don't yet realize that we are individual from her, but still believe we are a part of her, a part of everything else, that we aren't separate, but one. A more accurate outlook than the one we will soon develop as we grow within our new surroundings.
Ideally, this happens to each and every one of us when we are born, but in reality that is not the case, children are given away, abandoned, thrown in trash cans, not given any kind of clue as to what our most important lesson to learn is, and that's to love. Seems like an easy task, right? Yes, and no, Love is easy when you know what it is, and many of us have no clue, our memories can't reach back far enough to remember the first lesson our mother taught us when she first looked at us, and if we didn't get that, if we were one of the ones explained above, then what are we supposed to do to even grasp that we had a lesson to learn in the first place? We're lost, disconnected, confused, blind, trying to focus in the cold, but there are no eyes to guide us. Only emptiness.
That emptiness, that so many of us have felt, that so many of us have tried to fill, not knowing what it is, and what to dump into it, everything we try doesn't work, we follow the crowd as teenagers, drugs, alcohol, sex, entertainment, these work for awhile. They take us away for a moment in time and we forget. But something happens in that time that changes for us. The void is suddenly filled again. We meet the first person that reminds us of that forgotten lesson, that glimpse back into our mother's eyes. For a moment in time we realize what we have forgotten, and they give us our first clue and then they're gone. What was the point in that? Why give me something so amazing only to take it away? For one, we needed to learn how to appreciate what we had, to feel engulfed, then to feel empty again to understand that we can't live without love.
With that loss we can't see love anywhere, not even within ourselves, we feel like it will never happen again, and wonder if we ever truly loved ourselves in the first place. What the hell is love anyway? That's when we start our search outside of ourselves to find that feeling again. Partners come and go, temporarily filling the hole, but never living up to expectations. We make brutal mistakes and hurt many searching for the answer. Get lost again in the external only to find ourselves lost and confused in the light once again. Only to discover ourselves in the mirror looking into our own eyes, eyes so similar to our mother's. Maybe we've never seen her eyes but there is a familiarity there that gives us a clue...
To start looking within.
We hold our hands to our chest searching, feeding ourselves with our own life force, remembering who we are, where we came from and why we are here. We start experimenting with joy, happiness, courage, peace, laughter, and slowly start to realize that when these aspects of ourselves shine with others, that we become closer, that we are no longer separate, that it becomes hard to draw a clear line between who is who. We become one. The memory of these notions at your birth start to swirl. We discover that anger, hatred, and fear, pull us apart from one another and away from why we are here. Once again we connect with another only to have it taken away again, because the lesson of gratitude and appreciation needed to be fully engrained with another lesson of humbleness. The pain of this experience is unbearable but builds us and strengthens us. Teaches us that love is not meant to be feared but to be cherished when it appears in the purest form.
Then one day without even realizing it. And most likely when we are the furthest away from being ready for it. We connect with another again. All the old fears come up, all the old pain is remembered, but this time with all of the lessons learned we strive to be better, we appreciate what is in front of us, and do whatever it takes to keep the feeling of love strong and healthy, within ourselves and with the other and they do the same. And when it lasts our gratitude kicks in. We find love everywhere. It surrounds us, fills us, sustains us. We remember our infant notions and blend with everything appreciating that what connects us is the very lesson we've come here to learn. And we smile.
And at the end of our journey, when the light comes calling, and it confuses us...
Remember to look for those eyes.
Picture courtesy of Karen Walhout.