|Spirituality|Relationships|Letting Go|Enlightenment|Change Your Mind|
Change Your Mind and Let It Go
If I can do it, you can too…for lasting change.
I am married to the most wonderful man alive, at least from my perspective. I don’t even really know how I ended up married to him. It just happened. Then, after we got married, there were disagreements, misunderstandings, differences of cultures and perspectives, more misunderstandings. Somewhere along our marriage timeline, I got into “spirituality”. I ate it up…one book after another, then the online teleseminars, then the teachers, then the retreats, then the new teacher, the new book, the new retreat, ad nauseum.
Fantasies…
I don’t know how it came about, but one of my main fantasies was that I would experience “Divine Union” with another human being. If it was not with my partner, it would be with someone else. I was so certain of it. I believed in the “Twin Flame” bullshit and all that went along with it…the kundalini, the merging, the “oneness”. Maybe it is a real experience, maybe it isn’t. I wouldn’t know. If it is, it is just that, an experience that comes and goes, like everything in our thought/mind created world and it does not make one “enlightened” or “awake”.
Other “spiritually” induced falsities were beliefs that when someone was “enlightened” they were perfect, would not get sick, would be “youthing” instead of aging, would gain all kinds of “powers” the lay folk did not have. Hogwash. This just led to judging people who were teachers to see where they “messed” up. Then I would move-on looking for the truly enlightened teachers. How would I know anyway? I am not “awake”.
Beliefs…
Back to “my” personal life…I had a bunch of memories stored in my body related to my partner and things that happened early in our marriage that I did not like, did not feel good about, nor thought I could ever get over. One was a horrible wedding night, another was how I felt “betrayed” because we met dancing and then the one time we went dancing after we got married, we had a terrible misunderstanding (i.e. fight). The misunderstanding led to us not dancing again and me feeling that I was not “allowed” to dance now that I was married. I felt “fleeced”, so to speak, because I met him dancing and thought we would blissfully dance our lives away together.
I felt “objectified” as a wife and mother and felt that I was not seen as a real person, but just an object to fill a role. I dutifully filled the role, seething and angry and resentful.
Because I was getting “spiritual”, I worked on myself and dug into my childhood, my past, my past lives, my ancestral line, my human design, astrology and on and on in order to find the root cause of the anger, resentment and self-loathing, which I was just starting to see was even there. It was hidden deep, deep down. I was not looking very deeply at my current actions and marriage, but there was plenty of material with those other things, believe me.
Stages…
I released some and it helped somewhat…in stages. I would feel better and then feel horrible again. This digging and working on myself was over 15 years. I tried to convince myself to forgive my partner, but it never went totally to the root, even though incrementally, things did get a little better between us. I think I just did not want to. It was more comfortable (being miserable) to hold on to the drama.
Tired and Done…
Then, one day, I decided I was tired of seeking, tired of healing, tired of feeling like I felt, tired of all the bullshit. I stopped it all for a while. I unsubscribed from the newsletters, the teleseminars, and all the time and attention suckers on YouTube and Facebook.
I decided to look at myself, really look deep and find out what my part in all the misunderstandings in my relationship were, since this was one area that still wasn’t “fixed” after all my excavating work. Until then, what I mostly was doing to “resolve” things was spewing blame and criticism at my partner. He does this, he doesn’t do that, I want a “spiritual” partner, we don’t have the same interests, the way he chews annoys me, his pile of clothes on the floor bugs me, why is he not like “me”…organized, efficient, and most importantly “right”? Why can’t he be “right” like “me”? OK, you can probably see where this line of thinking goes and it is not even rational or logical, but oh, so common.
Whaaat…?
Then, one day, I don’t know how, it just happened…I saw that it was “me” that was the problem! “My” beliefs, “my” ideas, “my” projections on him. I saw this and I changed my mind. Literally, I let the “Divine Union” fantasy go. Somehow I saw that it was a fantasy in my mind only. I saw many of the false ideas and assumptions my mind had made and believed about myself, others, and spirituality. It simply was not true, or at least, how would it know if it was true? It was all a big pile of beliefs, assumptions, attachments, and projections. I then changed my mind and let it go. I forgave myself (not him) for holding all of the “past” disagreement and misunderstanding so tightly and not letting it go.
Changing…
Once I changed my mind, I decided to really see what a gem of a partner I actually had, and to let him know that. I stopped criticizing. I stopped complaining. I stopped being a victim, or feeling “objectified”. I just stopped, just like that, and changed my mind.
Because he had his defenses up from years of feeling “rejected” (and that is his stuff) and criticized, it took a bit of time for him to soften, but he eventually did when he saw the change was abiding. I have gotten to discover what an amazing person he is. Not perfect, but he is as he is, as himself.
Because I could actually be quiet and listen (finally) without interrupting and getting defensive, I could hear him. He also listened to me and I was able to explain (again, but this time he got it) that I love to dance just to dance…and I started dancing again.
The one thing that never waivered was his commitment to us. My commitment did waver. Back in 2017 I even threatened the “D” word, which launched him into his own “Dark Night of the Soul”. He did not think things were as bad as I did back then, but because of his steadfastness, we are here together now and I had the opportunity to change my mind and remain in our partnership.
You Can Too…
In any case, I am sharing this whole story simply to say first, forgive yourself and let it go. Second, you can change your mind. About anything. Just change it. Drop the story and the drama. You don’t really need it, even though you think you do to be safe and comfortable (which is why you are holding on to it).
You may need to process it or you may not need to process it. It took me 15+ years to change my mind and it does not need to take you so long. Know that you are the one holding on. You are the one not forgiving (yourself or someone else).
Shit happens…
In some cases others have done horrendous things that no human should do to another human being and there is no excuse for hurting another person. Please know I am not victim blaming. Shit does happen. It sucks. It is unfair and unjust, but it happened. It does not change the fact that you are still the one holding on to the memory, the emotion and the pain, which is only hurting you, not them. If they were able to hurt you so severely, then they don’t give a rat’s ass if you forgive them or not. Forgiveness and letting go is for you, not them.
That was sort of a tangent, but I wanted to be clear that letting go is acceptance that it happened (not of the act itself) and forgiving. Letting go is changing your mind about what happened. It probably is a lot more than that and there is a lot more going on than this finite mind can comprehend, but try starting with just letting it go.
Empower Yourself…
Take responsibility for your thoughts, beliefs and perspective and simply change your mind about what has been goading you forever, especially if it is something you can see no way to shift and you don’t even believe that it can shift. Empower yourself in this way.
Seriously, I did not believe it was going to be possible to shift the energy in my marriage because I could not see how it could. I had tried everything…except changing my mind and letting go.
Save yourself some time. Your external world will change when you change your mind. Your problem is always about you. If you look at the common denominator in all the things you are unhappy about, what is it? You! And please don’t send me comments about how I don’t understand your situation, blah, blah, blah. Take responsibility for your own peace and change your mind. You can do it!
Krisanne Heinze writes about life, life’s mysteries, and life’s discoveries. She enjoys tango dancing, writing, astrology, cooking, parenting, and traveling. See other stories at www.cosmicsoulhealing.com.
