Everything feels like it's changing so rapidly. Yesterday I felt the burden of the shot-gun wound weighing heavily on me. Today I felt tired too, but now after having written and poured out some of my emotions and thoughts here I feel better, lighter. Could it be that I am healing? I think it's presumptive to make that assumption. My emotions are as sand dunes, every changing with the wind.
One thing I wanted to mention about this male friend of mine, and this has been very helpful to me for feeling secure in exploring my emotions in that relationship, is this: I picture my husband with me when I am talking to my friend, or in terms of how I feel toward him, I picture myself still living with my husband, in a committed marriage and I check it out to see if there is any thoughts or feelings which might cause concern to my husband or to the idea of faithfulness. It helps me to keep the friendship pure.
I feel very blessed with his friendship. He is very thoughtful and supportive. It's the first time I've felt this supported by a guy. I don't ask him for much support emotionally, I rely on my gal pals for that. But when we do talk, which is infrequently, and I do share with him some burdens, I feel lighter after talking to him. He has such a giving soul, he's like gold. I cherish him.
It's interesting how I can love him as I do, and still be totally committed to my marriage and my husband. There are certainly issues to resolve in my marriage, but there is nothing that can't be resolved if we don't work together. I feel really good about this emotional victory. In the beginning I had to create a lot of distance in that friendship as my emotions were so strong and I was afraid of what they meant. It took a lot of work to channel them into the appropriate paths.
I had these musings the other day about spiritual growth. The body and the emotions are like a horse. And the mind and soul are the rider. My horse is very spirited and passionate, he's fiery and tosses his head, snorts and stamps his hooves. He has a strong nature and requires skill to ride, he is a challenging ride, but also a rewarding and fun one. The idea of spiritual growth is that we need to control our horses and make them obey our commands to ride along the Right path. People have different horses. Some horses will require more lively engagement, as they want to plod or graze, these people have highly developed acceptance, peacefulness and are perhaps working on generosity, or service. Other horses are passionate and fiery and want to run and cavort, not collect themselves under bridle and saddle. These people have high capacity for service, but can be tested frequently by their steeds, or by their emotions. We don't choose how our bodies feel or how we respond emotionally, we do, however, choose our actions and our thoughts. Actions are easier to choose, thoughts are more subtle. Both however, are the responsibility of the rider. Reflect on where your horse it at, maintain awareness of your emotional and physical state, observe your thoughts and see if they are simply being carried by your horse, or if you are mastering yourself and directing your thoughts in spite of how you are feeling. That's growth.
For example, one way that my mind ran away from reality and got carried away by my horse's nature, was to, at times, have idle fancies about this male friend. My emotions, (love to him) created thoughts (relationship to him). I realized it was happening, and would attempt to stop it, I said prayers, reflected and maintained awareness of the thought patterns and emotions. Finally I realized that the emotions were not going to go away, nor should they, however, it was the thoughts which were being created from them that needed to be changed. As soon as I realized that the emotions weren't bad and accepted that I just really liked this guy and that was ok, I was able to begin to train my mind to stop thinking about him in inappropriate ways and be able to foster bonds of spiritual friendship with him.
It is an ongoing challenge for me, not to run from the pain of this break-up into another relationship, even in my own mind. But I am making progress and it's becoming easier.
No comments:
Post a Comment