You are my hero. You really are.
Because you are taking the time to read this. You are giving your precious energy towards improving your relationship. And this is true world-healing work.
Why do I say this? Why do I genuinely believe this?
I will tell you why.
It has been a heart wrenching week or two for me. As a sensitive spirit, I know you know what that feels like. Grief. Hurt. Anger. Sadness. Honestly, it’s hard to look out into the world and not feel that sometimes (or often) these days.
But I have been unable to look away from it lately. Because it is not every day you lose a friend in a national tragedy.
This beautiful woman in the photo, she is Christine. She was my heart-friend.
She was taken hostage last weekend (in Yountville CA), and then killed by American Veteran, one of the men she spent her life helping to heal.
Christine was a light ( I know you can see that ). She was a tender bright soul who dedicated her life to the healing of veterans with emotional trauma. She was all that was good about this world. She lit everyone’s life she touched with joy.
Except this man, who was perhaps immune to it. He was so riddled with suffering that he took her from us.
Of course, in my grieving process, I have asked “why”? Why did he do this? What motivates someone to take a human life on purpose?
In my search for answers I looked into his life.
As far as I could tell, he was a broken man. Broken by trauma in Afghanistan, yes. But first broken by his upbringing. . .
As a child he had no real family. He bounced from foster home to foster home. One quote said "He had nobody to turn to. He was ashamed to ask for help. He didn't know his family.”
A true essential need for all of us is to be loved from birth on. We need a healthy loving home and people we can turn to for support in order to grow into healthy loving adults.
This is how we learn love from the inside out. This is how we bring it out to the world, and be loving neighbors and friends and parents ourselves.
But if we aren’t given the love and safe home from the get go, from which a natural sense of self-love springs, we humans tend to suffer. Without it (or help developing it later), sometimes children grow up to be killers —because they hurt so much inside.
And so. . .The health of our world hinges on healthy relationships, 100%. It starts with the one you have with yourself and then the one you have with your partner. The sense of well-being we get by being acknowledged and loved for who we are is immense.
When you are no longer drained by all the energy going into the pain, confusion, and conflict in yourself and your relationship, when you have this foundation of peace and loving support in your life, you can bring such love and goodness to the world.
Whether it is through the raising of children who know love deep in their bones, because you have shown it to them. Or it is through some other way of sharing that love with the world, as it was for Christine, it doesn’t matter. . .
The point is, love just emanates from you when you have a healthy relationship with yourself and your partner, so that simply existing is healing to those around you. Just like it was with Christine.
That is why women like you are my hero: you have such incredible influence over the health of our world. And because you care enough to keep trying. Even when it feels hard.
Every time you don’t give in to the urge to give your partner the cold shoulder, every time you choose appreciation over criticism, every time you choose to give love to yourself and to them, instead of resentment or any negativity you are tempted to give out of fear or frustration, you are bettering our world.
Please don’t forget this. Just like my beautiful friend did naturally, we can heal others and our world simply by healing ourselves and our approach to relating to our partner. Nothing matters more than healthy relationships.
Like one client said the other day, “Since the constant drain of energy is no longer there from all the anxiety and negativity that I used to feel about our relationship, and because it now feels like solid ground to me, I so feel so abundant and blissful. I have so much more to give.”
This is true foe me, too, I feel a huge sense of peace and power in my life since my love life became such a supportive, loving, safe place to be. And it is one reason I can give you my support on the path to the same.
It’s also one reason it feels easy and natural for me to commit to carrying on the legacy of love that Christine left us.
If you struggle with a sense of disconnection from love and you'd like some guidance on how to improve that inner life so it is a more loving one (basically , if you want to up your heroism) start by reading this older post. It is quite related to today's post, taking it a bit further with some tips.
What's it like to think of yourself as a hero or hero in-the-making?? Leave your comments or questions below. I’d love to hear from you.