To follow up on my blog yesterday, and perhaps to drive the point home in a new way, the universe found it poignant to provide me with circumstances that required that, I. indeed put my money where my mouth was...to have a hard, potentially messy conversation when to my core I just wanted to mire in the guessy.
Dammit.
I spent all of yesterday resisting and creating some space around the resistance so that I could come to know it well. I had to get beyond the idea that it was my armor and I was comfortable in it. I had to push past the comfort of the armor as a shield to the festering sores hidden beneath. I had to make a decision that right or wrong, good or bad, I did in fact want to grow. I did want to do it differently.
But first I had to spend the day doing it the same. The difference was that I could see that I was doing it the same. The entire time. With every breath. With every step. I was on the path that led me to the destination I have long avoided, me, changed.
I went to bed tired and defeated, how else can one end a day of battling with oneself while trying to maintain the facade that you are in fact battling someone else? It is exhausting work...truly.
But when I woke up this morning, I knew that it was going to get messy. I was going to be messy. I was going to draw other people into my messy. And thanks to a benevolent universe, the person that I had to have the messy conversation with, instinctively knew that I was over here stewing in my own messiness and threw me a life line and reached out to me which made it way easier to move through the unavoidable messiness. Thank you by the way.
So with a ground down coward of a starting place, I began to invite someone into my messiness, I think for the first time. There was no hidden agenda and for him there were no right answers that he could deduce and provide salvation. There was just this hard conversation about stuff that I would rather not discuss, with anyone, ever. But we did and it was good...eventually. Even though it is unresolved.
Don’t get me wrong, it was awkward and scary and my stomach lurched many times. But I kept going because I felt that this person could hear me and in fact really wanted to hear me. Not just to tacitly agree with me and tell me what I wanted to hear but because he really wanted to hear. He, much further along on the messy path, than I.
But we did the messy conversation which led to deeper understanding and hearing. It let me to a place that I have never been before in any relationship with anyone. A pure discussion of feelings based upon principles.
When the conversation paused and we got off the call, I cried. Not because the conversation went badly, much to the contrary the conversation went very well. But because I was so relieved to have walked through my fear and angst. Also because tears seem the normal response to someone really hearing you and you hearing them back.
So today I practiced intimacy in a new, very messy way. And I will be honest, none of me really liked it. Unlike the other person in the conversation I was not happy to be having it...I more reluctant and reserved in the whole deal. But his joy at the opportunity to be heard and seen and honest, was truly miraculous. I have never in my life ever even attempted a conversation such as this, let alone have any prayer that it would be well received, continued and cherished.
What is my take away?
Messy is better. Messy is always better than guessy. It may be hard, scary and if your mind is anything like mine, can come up with a million reasons why guessy is the better more solid path...but I know now, what I think I have always known but was just too afraid to allow entrance, intimacy requires risk and risk requires courage. And having the courage to take off your own armor and stand there without it is the ultimate act of ego denigration. And that is always going to fucking messy. There is no other way...the spiritual warrior makes the commitment to take off the armor even in the face of battle. Even when it seems counter-intuitive. What I got today though was that the solid ground upon which I stood was mine. Not something stolen or borrowed from another. My ground. My armor. My warriorship. And because I was willing to own my own, I was able to see another person's. And I felt connected in a manner that I never have before. And while messy and a fair bit of guessy, was worth all the discomfort, dis-ease and fear that I walked through.
So messy may be hard...but it remains better than guessy.
