News from Jules | 10.10.2022 | Anything and Everything
By the time we returned from dinner and drinks in Rhinebeck, NY, the other night, the temperature had dropped to the 40s and a hush fell over campus while only the foxes and skunks sniffed around in the dark. It’s my favorite time of day—as if you are the only one on all 250+ acres of land. Or only ones.
As I stepped into my cabin to gather some yoga blankets and throw pillows for us to bring out to the lawn for stargazing, he popped his head in behind me and looked around.
“Hey, I have that same picture in my room at home!,” he said pointing to the postcard on my writing desk.
The postcard from one of my best friends had just arrived a few days before. Van Gogh’s signature bright yellow stars bursting out of the dark, cobalt sky and reflecting onto a pond similar to the one here at Omega where he and I went canoeing that afternoon and had started our conversation five hours earlier.
A man and a woman, arm-in-arm, are tucked in the foreground of the painting, timelessly caught in a beautiful moment. Perhaps they too had just met the day before?
I smiled at yet another spark of synchronicity that had lead from one yes to another swiftly turning this day into night.
Out on the lawn, we laid back to marvel at the night sky and continue our conversation.
“What’s the biggest insight and change of heart you’ve had during your time here?” he asked—his 100th amazingly insightful, probing question.
“Hmmmmm, I’m no longer looking for ‘The One’ or a forever relationship with one person,” I replied as I slowly turned my head to see his reaction. There was none, just attentive eyes that said, tell me more.
This longing for a partner was present for as long as I can remember and yet, time after time, when I got this close to someone who I thought might be “the One,” there was a flood of confusing anxiety. Was it adrenaline, intuition, fear—or some of all three? Was that really what true love felt like?
My hunch was no.
I agreed with the Earth School card in Rebecca Campbell’s gorgeous “Work Your Light” Oracle cards deck:
“If you’re having difficulties in a relationship, you’re being reminded that these are opportunities for soul growth—after all, relationships are known as the number one way that we grow as souls while we’re here on Earth.”
Since last summer, my spiritual director and I talked a lot about this and we kept coming to the conclusion that while the source of the anxiety was my inner work to do, I couldn’t learn and practice being in a loving relationship with another all by myself.
Soon after arriving at Omega and not meeting anyone on staff that met my preconceived notions for a life partner, I realized that I was sad and disappointed. How was I going to grow, to learn, to practice?
But, then a new co-worker showed up later in June who immediately felt like a nerdy kindred spirit. He reminded me of so many former male best friends. I had avoided being best friends with men for several years because I worried it was getting in the way of finding romance.
But, perhaps this friendship was exactly what could empower me to practice letting down my guard to fully understand the adrenaline, the intuition, the fear. And the love.
After I finished reading The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz a couple of months ago and shared my learnings, this new best friend wisely pointed out that perhaps it isn’t actually the love that causes suffering, like my anxiety about being loved back, but the desire and the attachment—to others and to outcomes.
The painful gap of unmet needs created between perception and reality.
All summer I surrendered and healed my root—I read and played and journaled and climbed and meditated and breathed—with the full support of my friendships here in this season of life. I peeled back the layers of my preconceived notions for myself and for partnership and I realized they were conflicting. That there might not be just ‘One’ person for the way living life to the fullest comes most naturally to me—fun, casual, creativity, pleasure, art, wonder, spontaneity, temporary, and short-term relationships.
This was the biggest insight and change of heart that I’ve had during my time here.
To let go of this lifelong longing for a partner.
And yet, after I shared these revelations with this man that I had just met, he astutely pointed out that I still had expectations. That truly letting go meant being completely open to anything.
No expectations. No never.
But anything and everything.
We laid there in awe watching the giant halo of light surrounding the nearly full moon and then he kissed me.
He would be gone the next day.
But that night, at that moment, we were bright yellow stars bursting out of the dark, cobalt sky.
May you stay present and open to anything and everything this week.
Love,
Jules
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