transforming the ego's most cherished gift

I have planned this blog in my head for many months yet now hesitate to write, knowing the impossibility of even beginning to put into words what has happened to me and what I have learned in the last two years. Yet I literally feel called to write this, in the hopes that it may support perhaps just one person in reaching Love with greater understanding and ease. I feel driven to share my experience in the hope that someone will read my words and feel less frightened, less alone, more loved. I hesitate to share this as it involves others yet I feel compelled.

I meet my husband twenty-four years ago today. Two years ago, less one day, our marriage blew up. A half a year ago, plus one day, our marriage ended on Easter. I chose that day to release myself finally from my vows with the hopes that the day would give me the strength to believe in resurrection. To cut the ties that have bond us all these years was one of the hardest things I have ever done. My husband had already gotten clear and released himself yet this was the day we both were in agreement our marriage was over.

The reason I feel compelled to share the skeleton of this story is because of what it taught me and how my life has changed. Both my husband (now "wasband") and I  find love to be the only thing that makes life truly meaningful. Our quest for love has fueled both our lives. Our lives together forged a bond of friendship and family that felt almost impossible to break (and, as it turns out, we have chosen NOT to break). Yet some years ago I came to the realization that I was not in love with my husband. This created years of agony and soul searching yet I received inner direction again and again to stay. Two years ago my husband broke through to his feeling center and realized that he was no longer in love with me. In that break down, he opened up to so much and I found myself falling back in love. The year and a half that followed are unspeakable in their pain and torment. My husband was absolutely single minded in his pursuit of discovering a true love to make his life worthwhile and joyful. In that pursuit, everything from his past fell away. And that is why I am choosing to share this. Because this was the atomic blast that it took for me to release my commitment to what the Course in Miracles calls special relationships, the ego's most revered gift. In special relationship we seek someone or something outside ourself to make our lives fulfilled, meaningful. I too was dedicated to this belief until this occurred. For when my husband had his breakdown and lost his belief in everything that had previously made his life meaningful, he let go of everything and everyone from the past, including of course me, but also our daughter. He could only involve himself in this search for what might lead him to love. This was the wake up call I neeed. This catapulted me to the realization of what I have done in the name of love, of how, for love of one, I have been cruel even hateful to another or even to the one. I can not say with words how the foundation of my life was shaken, the anguish and tears as my very identify crumbled. I recognized how cruel I had been to my husband when I believed I was not in love with him, how I blamed and shamed him. I woke up to all the ways I had pursued love in one person to the exclusion of others. I felt the pain of that exclusion and understood in a radical way how much that disconnection had harmed me and others. I understood at the core of my being that this was the wound that would not heal until I found my way to unity consciousness, to inclusion. I became aware in my body how much it felt like poison when I exclude anyone or anything from my Love. I still have a lot of uncertainty how to live that Truth as I certainly do not chose to spend time with those I feel no rapport or alignment with, yet I am on the path of knowing inclusion and unity. This is what I have discovered so far.

I learned never to judge another, that if I do judge myself or another poison floods my body. I know now that the best way to remember who I truly am is to extend love to all that I encounter. I have woken up to the awareness that we can not possess another. I am recognizing more and more often that I have a choice to choose fear or love, panic or my I AM presence. I am learning a profound compassion. Clearing the blocks to love within has taken me to such dark places at times I feared for my own sanity. Love seemed a distant shore impossibly far away, leaving the sense that I would never truly be mySelf, that I would be bereft forever. Now when I see others lost in those swamps of self doubt, my heart goes out to them with such understanding and care. I know now, that for me, Love must be an inside job. I have spent my whole life seeking love outside and found that no matter how much I found or how passionate it was, it left a gap, a hole that could never be filled. To have something I was so sure of, that my husband would always be there for us, taken away overnight was such a shock that I had to reexamine all my beliefs. What I found for myself is that when I seek love outside myself, I lose my freedom by needing that love to always be there for me to be complete. I learned that in subtle and not so subtle ways I manipulate or shape shift to keep that love, since I perceived that love to be the oxogen that fueled my very survival. My wasband was very kind to me as we questioned our relationship and discussed over and over if there was any way to resurrect our marriage. At times I thought I would die or go crazy if he really left. Yet I find now that he is gone, I am absolutely clear it was and is the right thing, that our energies at this point do not merge in a harmonious way. Our friendship and sense of family has survived intact. I am looking at beautiful roses he left to welcome us back home after a trip, even though he moved out months ago. He too is finding his way and now is able to reconnect to us while staying true to his own path.

For the longest time, I thought my Truth should be his Truth. Yet the other thing I learned is that I have no clue what anyone else should do, or what their path is. Just because this is my destiny, no one else can share my road to freedom and joy. I can hardly believe the certainty I feel that all is unfolding in Divine order. I see so clearly that my wasband and I are so much better as friends and family than as husband and wife. I see that healing my core issue and belief that if someone leaves me they can take love with them, that without someone else's love, I am bereft of love has been the key that is unlocking the prison my heart has been hiding in for protection. This was one of the single most toxic beliefs that actually kept me separate from Love and from a knowing of my own wholeness, that  kept me a puppet. My road is still rocky yet strewn with miracles. I know that now, for me, I am looking in the right direction. I know where to find Love and how to keep it flowing. I have tasted again and again the delicious nectar of unconditional love. I have made so many loving connections with strangers and friends.  I sit here alone yet feeling more whole than I ever have. Ah dear friends, do these words touch you? Can you feel the wholeness I have found after a long, arduous and terrifying journey?


As I continue to uncover this internal source of love, I discover more love in my external world. While for now, my journey is still primarily internal, I foresee many loving relationships, holy relationships where we come together in wholeness to share the enormity of Love's power and joy. I trust my future to continue to grow in loving, holy relationships. I trust my wasband to find his heart's desire and that I can not say what that is for him. My task is to continue to uncover all the blocks to love inside of me and boy oh boy, are there plenty. Yet I believe that I have surmounted one of the most difficult obstacles of all- looking for love in all the wrong places. Happy anniversary Beloved. May our lives continue to flourish in love and friendship.