Delight is the Means - Connectedness is the End

We're reaching the end of January and I still haven't written a post about my New Years Resolution. Last year I made the attempt to formulate my resolutions in relation to how I wanted to feel. The following is a bit of the same, though the resolution is only for the next 4 months, at which time I will evaluate and rephrase my resolution based on where I am then.

On December 19 I began mentoring with a psychic. She very accurately identified an overriding theme that has been a difficulty throughout my life. She then spoke to me about how my past life history that has contributed to this theme, and how weaknesses in my energy field (aura, chakra system) are perpetuating this issue.

The issue is this. Throughout my life I have been a bit of a loner. When I was a child I often felt that I didn't really belong. This was certainly the case in both first and second grade, which I attended at different schools, and again in the school I attended in 4^th through 12^th grade. I did have friends whom I'd visit after school and at whose house I would stay over and yet I wasn't popular. I was a dreamer. More interested in the stories I made up and the books I read (I was an incurable book worm) than in playing with other children. I used to hide my book under my jacket and find a place to sit and read outside during recess. As I got older, I fit in less and less. I wasn't really interested in boys, clothes, movie stars, rock stars and makeup. In high school I was bullied. The girls excluded me from their confidences and I wasn't invited when all the rest of the girls went hiking. The boys were downright mean: teasing, kicking, tripping me in the halls etc. By about 11^th grade I had given up trying to fit in and started looking for friends among the adults in the community where we lived.

I remember the summer when I was 14, having helped my mother harvest the garden and a great sadness washing over me. A premonition that the closeness I felt that I shared with her was ending. Six months later it seemed as though all the joy left my life. I spent the 4 years of high school trying to get a handle on this inexplicable feeling of not belonging, of deep, penetrating loneliness that filled me all the time, in spite of family outings, participation in the community youth group, the church youth group, and writing to about a dozen pen pals from all over the world. I sought help from our family doctor, from trusted teachers, from priests. Nothing helped at all. I didn't feel taken care of at home either. My parents had financial difficulties and needed a lot of help with the farm, and with my little brother who was born when I was nearly 14 and the foster kids. They didn't really seem to understand that I was struggling to find my way in the world as a teenager while at the same time trying to live up to the conflicting expectations of home and school.

The loneliness and craving for connection led me to compromise my values in a number of ways and so after leaving home at 18 self-loathing was added to the mix. I got engaged at 22 for two reasons. 1) I wanted children and 2) I had finally found a guy who was willing to commit to a long-term relationship and I didn't think I'd get another chance. The fact that he treated me badly, practically from day one didn't give me pause. I believed that love and commitment would and could change my partner and that any relationship was better than no relationship at all.

At 40, about 5 years following my divorce after 12 years of marriage, I finally reached the stage where I was starting to enjoy my own company and though I still wanted a relationship, I didn't necessarily want to live with the person. One thing led to another however and suddenly I found myself engaged and then married again. I'm not sure what happened. I wanted to be loved and he seemed to love me. But he also needed me. In fact I felt that he probably couldn't survive without me and so I figured, what the h---, we may as well get married. So it wasn't really a relationship based on freedom. After nursing college I got my first job since I was a teenager and again found the theme of non-connectedness arising. My children went to the Waldorf School, which is traditionally a close knit community based on shared values regarding the education of children, and yet I did not make any friends or close connections among the teachers or parents there. I knew hardly any of my neighbors where we lived, though I was friendly with the couple across the street. Yet when they moved into town they never got in touch and so what I had thought of as a friendship dissipated. At work I never really connected with my colleagues. I would watch them making friends, but like when I was at school, I felt mostly like an observer. When I sold my house after 17 years I could count my friends on 2 fingers.

It felt more fitting in a way to move to an area where I knew nobody. And I have to say that I actually do feel more connected at my present workplace. Connecting on the professional level gives me a certain amount of satisfaction, and makes it easier to feel connected on the human level, and even experience the first tender shoots of potential friendship. I am separated from my second husband and living alone now. It feels right. Not that I am living a life of bliss. I still haven't a clue what that feels like. But it feels more congruent to live alone when I feel alone. I am no longer filled with self-loathing or even loneliness really, but I wonder sometimes what it would feel like to have a healthy love relationship, true friends, or a spiritual mentor. When I do experience connection it is generally with my children, my siblings and parents and yet too often this too seems to be a struggle.

So not feeling connected and being alone is a major life conflict for me, as well as a feeling of flatness and emptiness. A feeling that my life lacks meaning, that I can't find my life purpose. The advice I was given to resolve this is to focus on the essence of Delight in my life. Delight in my individual creative expression. Delight in the pleasure and beauty of sensory impressions. Delight in the knowledge that life gives to me abundantly and that all I desire is given to me. Delight in finding out who I am and what I desire, and being who I am unapologetically. Delight in believing that “in every job that must be done there is an element of fun” (Mary Poppins) and finding that fun and turning every job into a game. Delight in being a woman, and feeling good in my body, feeling comfortable in my skin. Delight in intimate relationships. And finally, delight in knowing that the world is magical, an exciting adventure I can't wait to begin.

Apparently if I focus on the essence of delight for 3 or 4 months, I will become more connected, more prosperous and more able to experience my life as meaningful. And so this is my New Years resolution. To spend the next months indulging in delight. And also to blog about it.

Sunset in Oceanside, California by Roland