a letter to a dear friend

"It would baffle me to hear that you don't love yourself, because I love you so much, and it would pain me to hear that you hate yourself, but I know that experience all too well. So I simply, silently nod my head with sorrowful compassion.

I feel protective of you, and, therefor, angry at him. What a fool! Who does he think he is?! He clearly doesn't deserve you. But, again, I know that karmic dance all too well. Be careful of what you will put yourself through out of self-loathing.

When she broke my trust, and then again, and then again, I was too attached to let go. But ultimatley that's what it took. It didn't necessarily mean "breaking up" with her. I had to abandon trust, I had to abandon all my expectations of her. I had to take my heart back. At some point it had just been cut and bruised too many times and it happened involuntarily.

It helped that I'd had my heart broken before. I knew that I didn't really need her, that I would be fine without her. Still, it took longer then it should have. I wrestled over and over again with wanting her to somehow repay me for what she'd done, to make up for it, or at least to be solid with me now. But it wasn't where she was at, and it was never enough.

Eventually, I truely opened myself to the possibility a life without her. I didn't break up with her, but I began to take the space, physically and emotionally, when I needed it, to take care of myself, to reorient myself to being alone and not in a partnership. As I was getting there, one day I snapped and blew up at her: "I'm sick of giving so much to this relationship and getting nothing back!" I yelled. It was the final death-throws of my attachment to her being a certain way for me.

It was a wake up call for her. She knew that I had let go, that I couldn't take much more and was ready to break up with her. That's when she shifted. Having exhausted her whims and her self-sabotaging behavior, having gone through so much together, facing actually, finally losing me, she made up her mind.

She knew she couldn't ask for my heart back. I said to her, you can ask for my heart back when you are so sure that when you ask it will be obvious to both of us that I can trust you again, not before. No, she said, I'm not going to ask, I'm just going to show you. She said, I am going to hold the vision of who I want to be and what I want us to be and live into that, and I don't expect you to trust me or believe me. Yes, I said, I don't trust you, and I don't believe you - this sounds too much like what you've said before - but I will stay with you and allow for the possibility.

Gradually my trust is rebuilding, as time passes and she remains solid. But I firmly believe that the only way for this new foundation to be strong was for me to totally obliterated the ruins of the old. A foundation built on the debris of resentment, frustration, and mistrust will eventually crack, history will repeat itself, and the tower will crumble once again.

This was the steps of our dance, to the music of our karma (and realize that I have left out many details.) It seems we have managed to take the needle of the record skipping.

What is your dance, to what tune? What do you need to let go of, give up, sweep away, destroy, such that both of you are free to make a different choice? What shift must you make in yourself that will give him room to shift? Realize the risk: the shift you each make may be away from eachother, not towards. You cannot do it for that purpose - not for another, only for yourself, only for the purpose of following your path more truely. Then, if he shifts too, it will be for himself, and if you shift towards each other, then it will be like falling in love all over again."