“Our lives will never be the same…”
“Man considering the Universe, of which he is a unit, sees nothing but change in matter, forces, and mental states. He sees that nothing…
“Man considering the Universe, of which he is a unit, sees nothing but change in matter, forces, and mental states. He sees that nothing really IS, but that everything is BECOMING and CHANGING. Nothing stands still — everything is being born, growing, dying…there is no reality, enduring quality, fixity, or substantiality in anything — nothing is permanent but Change.” -The Kybalion
Recently my husband said these seven words to me with obvious sadness. He was expressing his angst over our new normal. So much meaning in so few words. For him, it meant a loss of dreams in this moment in time, an insecurity that the things he hoped to recover with us in our move to Puerto Rico were slipping from his grasp. We moved here to get a fresh start, slow down time, and rekindle our love and deep friendship after a long season of stress, change, and feeling somewhat (understandably) disconnected in our marriage.
I thought about all of the painful or stressful new normals that we’ve endured together: (temporarily) losing my girls in a high-conflict custody battle when they were young, unexpectedly selling a house we invested extreme amounts of sweat equity into in order to fund several endeavors for orphan work, losing my mom to a six-year battle with cancer, giving up six years of much of our quality of life while I pursued a double bachelors nursing program, his family moving in with us from overseas for four years, including the 24/7 care of his father with advanced dementia. Many of these, at the time, carried significant feelings of loss of dreams together in what we thought our lives would look like. However, they all brought significant positive experiences and even gifts into our lives as well.
There were also many wonderful new normals. My writing trajectory that brought about great opportunities for both of us with overseas travel and meaningful work on behalf of orphans in India and Haiti; all of the wonderful opportunities for travel that my career path with nursing brought into our lives; my amazing inner process toward belief in myself that naturally came with my education and complex career path into emergency nursing in my second half of life; our awe-inspiring transformation that took place in both our lives when we deconstructed our evangelical Christian beliefs about ten years ago; moving to Puerto Rico in 2019 for a grand new adventure, and especially the development of gratifying, heartfelt, restored connections with out beautiful adult daughters. So many good changes, so much growth, so much joy and expansion!
But I know what he means. This is a different new normal. Our lives and stories have been interrupted in a way that will never be the same again. This is what happens when change involves the heart and not just the circumstances. We have ventured down a new path that is largely uncharted, and completely out of our old love relationship paradigm. It’s messy. It’s painful and beautiful at the same time as it stretches us both beyond what we thought we were capable of.
With the other changes before there was always a sense that it was temporary and we would soon get things back on track at least in a way that felt controllable, normalized, or safe. But you can’t dictate the ways of the heart. It feels what it feels. And then you have to make your life choices and responses based on that deeper feeling and knowing (intuition) in uncharted waters. And hopefully, we will all make those decisions based in higher love, wisdom, and grace.
It has been said that the first half of life is about learning, and the second half of life is about unlearning. During the first half of life — especially for those brought up in conservative religion — we are being socialized, domesticated, civilized, and indoctrinated by our predominant cultural influences. We are being taught how to think and how to feel…until we forget who we are. Through this process, we were constrained by fear to live small, safe lives and to shut down so much of our wild, divinely-seeded hearts. We were ingrained to live in a dualistic mindset of either/or. “Live in black and white, take sides, always oppose something, never come to the middle or the gray or you are lukewarm and dangerous,” we were told. “You cannot trust your heart, it lies to you.” We were also brainwashed into believing that you can only love one at a time or you are morally deranged and slutty.
We are trying to undo that psychological damage. But with it comes being more open to life, being receptive to massive changes within ourselves and our marriage, a lot of uncertainty, and sometimes even fear. But in this new stage of life and openness to wonder, I believe my heart is good and pure, and that it tells me the truth. In fact, I now know that my heart is the truest, most beautiful thing about me. If I listen closely, it tells me when I’m safe or unsafe. Its vibration can be tuned into the Source of life to lead and guide me onto the best path. This path may not always feel good but is eventually and always for my good.
When I look back at the times I did trust my (true) heart — not my ego, not my dysfunction or addictions, but that real essence of my love center that is wonderfully and beautifully created by God — it never lied to me. And thus begins my journey here to talk about where my heart has led me over the past several years. It has been quite a ride. Very unexpected and out of the ordinary but very pure and beautiful, intriguing and curious.