Romance? What is truly Romance or love? To me, and these are all my feelings and thoughts.

To have a soul connection, to have many things in common, to kiss and feel the earth shift, to keep kissing until you are breathless. It’s important to see and hear the person you’re with. To always have a hand or a shoulder that touches. A knowing smile only you two share. It is important to feed off one another’s thoughts and feelings. To be seen and see one another, to be heard and to hear one another. It is important to encourage one another to look into themselves. To be the best and see the best in themselves.

I cut myself off from such open contact when I was medically injured. Or course, the medical injury was the last straw as I say. I have only had a few people I have allowed into my life. And I can say I have yet to really find that deep connection with someone, NOW do not get me wrong, I have had deep loves and have felt the earth move. But it didn’t last, the magic that was there at the time, but seemed to fade and slip away. The relationship was more of a convenience, a place to hide from the suffering. It was a distraction from the insight or the time one should have taken to look deeply into their suffering. A true soul connection should have been one where you had that support and the strength from another to help you learn. To become strong and mindful in the present day. To face your fears and suffering.

My question to myself is did I let love or what I thought was love, to leave, or was it just not the right person for me? There are different stages in a relationship, there is the excitement of the meeting, the getting to know you (yet there are those relationships where you really don’t get allowed into that person’s life and there is a deep disconnect in the relationship). Of course, if you are a mess and broken as Fudge, then you really have some tall trust issues to begin with. You can not come from a broken place and hope to have a connection that will not get messed up.

Where I came from in life was a place of pain and great suffering. I had parents that were truly not parent material. They should have stayed kid-less and just enjoyed life. Definitely should have gotten help with their issues and triggers in life. Because they never healed the suffering they were experiencing, they reflected that off on me and my siblings.

There should be a course in high school, called how to heal the deep suffering and learn how to love yourself. Another course would be mindful breathing and walking. The very fundamentals are not being taught in our schools.

As I look back at my relationships, I see a pattern of trying to be seen and heard. To find someone who could fill the hole that was missing in me. My abuse was being unseen, unheard and ignored, and when I wasn’t being ignored I was being ridiculed and punished for BS things. To be beaten for anything is a crime and should be punishable! There will never be a right time to hit anyone, especially a child. And if you think that your parents beating you until you had no pride, no love for yourself, taught you how to respect your elders, well you need to go get help ASAP! They abused you.

My mom and dad were all about the belt, the switch, anything in hand, to belittle, control with fear and cause suffering, and I must confess I thought it was right, but since finding help have changed my mind and fought with my parents about ever hitting my children. It broke my spirit to have ever paddled my kids and make them feel bad about themselves. I hated my parents for what they did, and I can see where my kids would feel the same about me. There is no reason in this world to cause suffering! NONE!

As I have been working extremely hard on helping myself to heal the triggers and deep hurts and sufferings, I have been trying to share my experiences so I can help my own children and the world. To become mindful and present, to see what is really going on deeply in myself, that is how we heal the world. We have to forgive ourselves if we want to heal our suffering.

….On the long, rough road, both sun and moon will shine, lighting my way. Thich Nhat Hanh

As I have been traveling through my pain and suffering, I have had to shut down my life to others and find my truth. I had to let go of relationships that were not helping me with my healing, and find that little girl that was unseen and unheard. To be ignored is probably the greatest pain anyone can go through. To be unseen and unheard to be the cruelest thing you could ever do to yourself or to anyone else.

If you do not love yourself, how can you love anyone else?

I closed myself off to emotions of love, romance, or sharing my life with anyone. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to! The emotions and the very touch of someone else were just too much for me to bear. But then I realized as I was forgetting the emotions, the touches, moving as one with someone else. I was losing happiness and causing that second arrow or suffering to hit us. How sad to stop experiencing pleasure, the freedom to live mindfully, to sigh from the happiness that life can bring us. To enjoy my own thoughts, no guilt, to dream of soft endearing whispers, to laugh deeply, look deeply, to be deeply in another life. Sharing secrets and ambitions is what it’s about. To have someone who knows you and you know them. To help one another on their journeys.

A true connection is not the marriage license, the ring, to own a person, to make them feel as though they are owned or owe you. You must be in this person’s life even when all you do is ghost around one another, is crazy and harmful. Pretending there is something there that is not. Sacrificing your dreams and feelings and thoughts. NO, You should be heard and seen, to be one with one another, yet have your own thoughts and desires fulfilled. To have that deep connection and compassion.

Since I have been practicing insight, I have been recognizing the tension in my body or the triggers that are caused by the lack I feel in my life. Everyone of us has insight, though we do not always listen to it. Our feelings of lack, jealousy, anger, depression can lead us to clarity. I was taught to use medicines, alcohol, to look for things to keep me busy, or like most, to use social media to ignore the signs that something deep down needs my attention. How do we change that thought that we need to hide from our emotions and suffering?

To meditate is to be aware of what is going on – in our bodies, or feelings, our mind, and in the world. When we settle in the present moment, we can see the beauty and wonder right before our eyes. Thich Nhat Hanh.

I also found that I had withdrawn from intimacy from physical contact. The reason… because of the pain and the use of contact to control others. I have not found yet a person not suffering, or that doesn’t use guilt or your love to control. There are so many hurt and suffering people out there and they do not know how to love. Most do not know what romance is. They only come from a place of lack and limitation. They come from a place of suffering. This world is all about using fear controlling the masses. To use distraction to keep you from seeing and hearing what is deep inside you trying to communicate with you.

We must love and show romance to yourself first.

Thich Nhat Hanh says it so well in his book No Mud No lotus. “The essence of our practice can be described as transforming suffering into happiness. It’s not a complicated practice, but it requires us to cultivate mindfulness, concentration, and insight. It requires, first of all, that we come home to ourselves, that we make peace with our suffering, treating it tenderly, and looking deeply at the roots of our pain. It requires that we let go of useless, unnecessary sufferings, release the second arrow, and take a closer look at our idea of happiness. Finally, it requires that we nourish happiness daily, with acknowledgement, understanding, and compassion for ourselves and for those around us. With each breath, we ease suffering and generate joy. With each step, the flower of insight blooms.

The insight I have had has helped me to heal the brokenness that I once was. To heal the acts I have had to live with and through, and help me have a deeper understanding of those around me. To have compassion towards myself has helped me to understand the hurt caused by those around me. Do we stay in that hurt and suffering? NO, we must move away, but with tenderness and compassion.

Your body needs you, your perception needs you, your feelings need you. Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it. Thich Nhat Hanh

There was so much brokenness I have had to look deeply at with insight, tenderness and compassion. I have had to see and hear those places I hid and turned my back on. It’s not fun, but when you uncover them and tenderly exhume and care for them, it is amazing how much you change that suffering to compassion and lessen your pain, anxiety, anger and depression.

Will there ever be anyone in my life that will have the same wants and desires to help the world change by showing them how to look deeply and have insight or share compassion for others who are suffering by healing their own suffering? Spirit knows I have hope!

WWYHS