Adventures of Fabulous Suz: love

Showing posts with label love. Show all posts

Love Thy Neighbour

I am not religious anymore, but there are so many wonderful life lessons in all the scriptures.

The best part of my religious upbringing was that my parents gave us a choice in the matter. We were invited to go to Sunday school, but never forced. We were invited to go to Summer Bible Camp, but never forced. This was a wonderful gift from them, especially given their own upbringing.

Recently, I watched the movie "Prom" on Netflix. It is a teenage love story that faces obstacles with singing and sequins. There is bigotry and acceptance and narcissism and selflessness. It was a great movie to watch with my blossoming 10 year old. These are all things that she is facing in small doses in her school, our community, and in herself.

The movie directly addresses the exclusion of LGTBQ+ lifestyles with this conversation.

Trent: Why do you hate gay people?
Teenager 1: Hey! I'm a good person. Right, Shelby?
Teenager 2: Yeah! Yeah, we all are.
Teenager 3: We go to church.
Teenager 4: Yeah, we're Christians.

Determining the goodness of a person cannot be done with a label. And the musical number that followed made me so fucking happy. After a direct confrontation about cherry picking the rules from the bible that matter, Trent sings out that there is one rule that trumps them all.

LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

This has become my favourite rule from the bible. It is the heart of acceptance and tolerance and love. Can you imagine if we interacted in the world from this idea? John Lennon said it his way in "Imagine." And hundreds, if not thousands, of artists and inspirational people throughout history have echoed this sentiment.

I could make some authoritative statement about how we all need to change our perspective and blah, blah, blah. But that's not what I want. I want to love myself as I love my most precious person. I want to love so that it touches every person in my life, every person who ever encounters me.

posted under acceptance, change, family, friends, life, love, love thy neighbour, music, singing, transformation | 0 Comments

Power of Permission

A friend of mine is considering separating from her partner. They have had the same frustrating conversation for years and nothing has changed. I feel for her and only she has the power to choose her next actions.

I am reminded of the time I left my husband. In essence, I had given him six years of space to figure himself out, to get unstuck in an area. He kept changing focus on what he was going to try next. I finally had enough and left with a list of action items he had to do for me to come back. I was eight months pregnant with our second child. Ultimatum? Yes, as all this or that situations are. My intent was to make our lives better - together or apart.

He said that the scariest part was that I wasn't angry, I was doing what was best and he could have his tantrums and freak outs and none of it touched me. He had to work through all his subconscious tactics and exhaust them before change was the only thing left. From my perspective, it was an amazing process to watch him get more and more desperate.

He had many options in front of him, but there was only one path that would bring me and our daughter home. He had his tantrums and we talked and I emailed him everything so that he could know my requests exactly and not argue about what I had said. He had to want to change and not just talk about wanting to change.

It was a precious time for me to look deeper within myself to see how my behaviours were feeding our dysfunction as a family. It was good for us to be separate.

We made it through. I do not feel bad about forcing the situation. I was scared he wouldn't choose his family, but I also could see from the distance of being away that if he wouldn't change, I would never be happy.

This was five years ago now. I am still proud of myself with how I showed myself that I was worth it in that scenario. My happiness was worth it. Kara experiencing me like that was worth it. My husband becoming more aware of himself and his motivations was worth it.

Our marriage is still a work in progress, but there is so much more peace within.

Allowing yourself to choose to leave your relationship also allows you to choose to stay.

There is power in permission.

posted under acceptance, bodytalk, choice, choice bodytalk, family, learning, love, marriage | 0 Comments

Loving My Baby

For the majority of the population, it goes without saying that you love your children dearly. They are an amazing creation that leaves you shocked and amazed at your own capacity to love. When Starbuck was born, I kept waiting for that feeling. I loved her and cared a lot about her, but I didn't feel overwhelmed by these feelings. For a while, I even questioned myself on how much I loved her and thought that I needed to love her more because something didn't feel right. I was congratulated on becoming another member of the "having your heart walking around outside yourself" club, but I didn't feel it. Where was the love?

If you know me, this may seem incredibly odd. I'm quite sentimental, sappy, gushy, lovey, and especially, emotional. I thought I should be hearing alarm bells, but I didn't feel alarmed at not feeling the love either. I just thought it was strange, and though I questioned myself, I did not ever think that I didn't love my baby. I kept waiting for it.

One night, I decided to let loose and get crazy. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and I was happy, tipsy, loopy, whatever you want to call it. To my shock and dismay, however, I couldn't stop crying. It took me a while as my brain was fuzzy, but I figured out why - it was the love. I had finally let my guard down and all this love was overwhelming and scary and, quite frankly, too much for little ol' me to deal with. It was HUGE*. The biggest feeling I have ever felt in my life and I couldn't even comprehend it all at once.

So now, I just have to know the love is there and keep my guard up. I'd be a wreck if I felt that love every moment of every day. I don't know that I could actually function. I'm practicing being able to feel little bits of that love at my leisure when I have time and the fortitude to withstand its power.

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* That's what she said.

posted under family, love | 1 Comments