Philanthro-me: Part 8 (Age 40-Present)

“Giving as a Way of Living”

The first three years after moving into my new space was a time of healing. I had discovered that fear, depression, loneliness, insecurity, and the like, were merely conditioned energetic patterns in need of some compassionate “rewiring”. I held steady to the light of consciousness as these troubled demons from my past came to visit me. I’d “invite them in for tea and conversation”, and they would reveal to me their fears. I’d comfort them, and share my light, and the splinter would be healed.

I am grateful for the experiences of my life, for they have served me well and kept me safe long enough to find the answers I’d never known I was looking for. All those colloquial sayings have taken on new, deeper meanings: such as “You cannot love someone who hasn’t first learned to love themselves.”

I discovered that the end of the world as we know it is merely the beginning of a world unknown: A world ripe for exploration and brimming with possibilities never before imagined. When one takes stock in all they have lived through, even death is realized to simply be a new adventure. This realization brings with it a sense of fearlessness, allowing one to step boldly in an inspired direction: To trust their inner voice even if they don’t know why.

As my wiser, compassionate self looks back now at the child I once was, I see how all my giving was done in an effort to receive. The intention of giving was there, but it needed some maturing before I could blossom into the philanthropist I was born to be.

Now I give, but not in hopes of gaining anything. It is unmotivated in the conventional sense. I’m simply aligning with the fullest possible expression of myself.

I give every day: I give my smiles. I give my opinion. I give my support. I give hugs. I give my unconditional attention. I create a safe, compassionate, nonjudgmental space to give to people so they may explore the unanswered questions they have. I bow to the world in each moment, while simultaneously standing tall. Standing clear in my own life bestows a happy byproduct of empowering others to do the same. I give safe harbor to loneliness and fear, releasing them at last from the undeserved bad rap they have been given. I give light to misconceptions so that others can find their own way through the darkness they face.

I give without reason, without expectation, without motivation, and without need. I give out of the abundant wealth that flows through me each day. I give without needing to know why.

By giving, we complete the circle of our lives. We connect with ourselves in a new way, and see ourselves more clearly. In that way, I suppose giving is an act of selfishness, but in a healthy kind of way.

I encourage you to give lavishly to yourself: give yourself credit for having made it this far, give yourself space to heal, give yourself acceptance for the missteps along the way, give yourself a moment to be grateful, give yourself permission to be vulnerable, give yourself trust to know what step to take next, give yourself courage to face uncertainty, give yourself strength to handle whatever comes next, and give yourself reminders to be humble.

In giving to ourselves, we have more to give to the world. We are abundant giving machines when we can set reason aside for a moment and experience life unfiltered.

(epilogue to follow . . . )
 

Philanthro-me: Part 6 (Age 38)

“Gaining Insight”

In the days that followed, an excited curiosity took up residence in the space that had once been filled with frustration and self-hatred. I went about addressing the needs of the family without engaging in any mental or emotional drama of what it was that needed done. “Everyday life”, especially the most mundane activities, became a source of fascination interlaced with joy. I found myself one day washing the dishes and not hating that I was the one who had to always wash them. I felt the warmth of the water, the soft playfulness of the bubbles, and drank in the sweet fragrance of the soap, all as if for the first time. What else had I been missing?

I felt as if I’d gone insane, and laughed at myself for how much I was enjoying these basic and necessary activities which I had been grumbling about all this time. Folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, making dinner: These were all doorways leading to deep experiences of joy and resounding peace which had been unsuspectedly at my fingertips for years.

Three months later, at four in the afternoon, I experienced a radical spontaneous awakening. All at once I saw the perfection and necessity of all things good, bad, and imperceptible. Every experience that had seemed so harsh and wrong was seen and understood for what they were. All the dots connected seamlessly.

There was no longer any need to argue with “what is” because everything was exactly how it needed to be to support the evolution of perception. I had to stop the internal argument first, though, before I was capable of learning that truth. Disengaging from the drama of my personal life opened up the possibility of seeing life from this new vantage point of “all time”.

I saw how in trying to be what someone else needed me to be for them effectively nullified any possibility of sensing any intrinsic worth or value of my own. The thing of it was, in trying to be a source of peace and refuge for someone else, I was unable to be that for myself. This left me with no foundation on which to stand, and the most I could hope for in life was to find someone to allow me to occupy a little space in theirs. “Someone”, however, is an extremely low bar to set.

I could see how my inability to love myself was also the key to my spouses inability to feel my unconditional love for him. If I considered myself to be worthless, even unconsciously, than any love I offered would, by default, be just as worthless. It would have taken a saint to see through the lies I held as truth, and to love me in any meaningful way in spite of my inability to love myself. Perhaps a saint could have shown me how to unfold my love through a more open and safe experience.

But that was not to be part of my journey. Instead, it happened amidst bunkers, bombshells, and the bilge of treasonous warships. It happened, though, and that’s all that really matters.

In a pivotal moment out of time, I would give up ideals and gain a wealth of insight. Compassion became the lens through which I viewed the world, and perfection stood revealed where once I had only seen empty hardship.

(to be continued . . . )
 

Philanthro-me: Part 4 (Ages 20-38)

“Giving as a Last Resort”

It was in my first college class that I met the man I would spend the next two decades with.  His principles and ambition were matched only by his charm. I held my prince in such high regard, and didn’t completely understand what he saw of value in me. Despite some “stress fractures” during our two year courtship, we decided to move in together. After a couple more rocky years, we decided to split up.

Six months later on the eve of my 24^th birthday, I felt deeply lonely. The only options I saw from that familiar darkness were to either crawl back to my prince (if he would still have me) or kill myself.  I bought a bottle of sleeping pills, and as I sat there in bed staring at them, I imagined the toll it would take on my mother.  She had already suffered the loss of two of her five children: could I really be so heartless as to add to her pain?  I set down the pills and picked up the phone to see if my prince was interested in giving our relationship another shot.

I asked him to marry me, to which he said yes.  I never imagined our marriage would even last five years before he would leave me for someone else.  This seemed reasonable in return for a reprieve from my darkest alternative.  The marriage was turbulent from the beginning, with hurt feelings on both sides regarding our troubled courtship.  Two years into the marriage we found out we were pregnant.

Looking back now, I can see that my energy had shifted at that point.  I withdrew from the arguments with my spouse and went about my life on some sort of “auto pilot”.  I was terrified of having a helpless being utterly dependent on me to provide safeness, inspiration, and love.  I felt unworthy of such a role, but there was no way around the fact that I was going to be a mother.  After our first daughter was born, I set about giving her what I felt I could, while simultaneously trying to keep some emotional distance so the infant wouldn’t mistakenly believe I was someone worth loving or depending on.

Suffice it to say that the following ten years of marriage and motherhood were a blur of codependent dysfunction at its finest. My spouse’s unhappiness, coupled with my self-loathing and the birth of our second child, resulted in the tragically toxic societal cliché of outward achievement masking empty despair.

During my second two decades of life, I would give my hand, in hopes of gaining a reprieve.  I would give all I had, in hopes of beating the odds.  I would give a backwards form of love, in hopes of protecting those I loved most from the illusion that I was worth loving.

(to be continued . . . )
 

Philanthro-me: Part 2 (Ages 10-20)

“Giving as a Social Strategy”

Just before I turned 10, my next closest-aged sibling ran away from home.  She was 16, and she had somehow managed to make her way from Kansas City to Key West where she fell victim to a bullet which had not been intended for her. I didn’t cry at her funeral, but I also didn’t believe she was dead. Yet somehow that event left me with a very real sense that I would not live to see the age of 20.

My low self-esteem was counterproductive to my misguided attempts to find love. In tenth grade I found kindred spirits amidst the “partying” crowd, and boys began to take more notice of me. I was a master chameleon, adapting myself to what I believed and hoped a love interest would find most desirable.  In other words, their interests and hobbies became my interests and hobbies. Ultimately, I was more like an extra appendage than I was a partner: A poser-extraordinaire.

More than anything, I believed that my body was my most significant “offering”, so I pretty much gave it away in my desperate quest to feel like I mattered for a little while.  I believed that if I ever got genuinely tired of trying to please other people, I could always just kill myself: a recurring sentiment that paradoxically kept me going in the emptiest of times as far back as I can remember.

Throughout my teen years, I would give up my claim on the future, and try in vain to matter each day.  I would give silence, in hopes of being heard. I would give my body, in hopes of finding love. I would give understanding, in hopes of being valued. I would give up hope, in hopes of easing my despair. 

(to be continued . . . )