The love that is there

Sometimes its so hard to find the love that is there, laying under a pile of wreckage and stones deep within us.  We feel bereft and as alone as we must have felt as a child so full of love, wonder, dreams and imaginings, facing a world which seemed to know nothing of these things and often seemed determined to knock them out of us completely or lead us to mistrust or doubt them or the deepest longings in our heart.

That is why I think our inner work often leads the sensitive and wounded amongst us to very dark places.  We just know in our souls that these dark places are not the real truth of our spirit or soul that got lost and we know we feel frustrated, sad and empty, not being able to find the way back home to us.    If our abuse, neglect, abandonment or invalidation was strong it can be so difficult to know and trust ourselves and what we felt we knew inside.

I was thinking a lot about this the other day when I received a comment from someone struggling with all the same wounds I have struggled with.  I was thinking of the relief I find particularly on Wordpress when I discover those who have been through the same experiences and are working to find their way home to that child or real self within after having turned against it or been taught to dismiss his or her real feelings over years.  I see evidence of it in so many bloggers online here, how they front up with courage to the darkness, how they struggle to find the light and how they often do find it.  For me it is the sweetest thing when we make that kind of connection and find the same recognition.  It makes the path we are on a little less lonely and frightening and confusing and it validates where we find ourselves when we struggle a lot with inner validation due to our past.

I had a bit of dark moment this morning.  I am aware when the darkness wants to pull on me with its stories of doom but I am also reminded of how barren the modern man made world of rules, regulations and duties so often is for me, I neve quiet trust that world led by souls who seem to me disconnected in some way.  That is why on any day I try to connect as much as I can with nature and get out in the fresh air opening to who might cross my path on that particular day and why I find that kind of comfort a lot in animals.  It’s a rare joy when I find soul to soul connections but they do happen.  When they do my heart does a little leap of joy.  For a moment a feeling of separation leaves me and its not with me all the time, only when I am disconnected from my soul.

There is so much soul in life.  I see it in my home even in so called inanimate things.  I am aware of the love that went into making them and of the tree that gave its life so I could have a table, of the food that someone grew or picked  so that I could eat.  When I remind myself of these many gifts for a moment my focus on pain or loneliness ends and my joy and gratitude grows.  When I listen to my heart and sit a while with the pain or loneliness or reach out to ease it with someone I can trust good feelings return too.

In writing this I realise that the darkness is never as permanent now, as it was before when I carried my wounds so unconsciously inside.  I know there is good in life and that the foundation of life is love, I just have to remind myself to nurture the love and the good while not discounting the pain that makes the search for those things and the finding of them inside and with others even more important.  I also need to keep reaching out for connection, not so much from a place of emptiness but from a place of fullness or giving.  For when I feel the fullness within and wish to share it that is something that also grows and brings abundance into my own life, if it isn’t wanted or received then I can move away and nurture my own life.

On the dark days I need to remember to find the gifts that are around me and that are present for the taking.  If I am gentle on the dark days and look for the light in someplace rather than just sit alone in my darkness I feel better.  I am learning how to take care of me.  So much of my addiction was about being in emotional pain but not really knowing how to self soothe, when I self soothe positive ways I feel so much better.  When I nurture the good my cup fills up.