Tag: love

  • Particle

    Particle

    Jacques de Villiers – writing quest: Article 39/365

    God: Hello Particle, I’m about to send you out into the world. What is it you’d like to accomplish on the journey you’re about to undertake?

    Me: I’d like to teach about resilience, love and forgiveness.

    God: Particle, these are truly noble pursuits. Are you sure this is what you wish to dedicate your lifetime to?

    Me: Yes, this is what I want to do.

    God: Well then I’ll turn you into a romantic. You’ll write untold words about love yet never experience it yourself. I’ll send you people who’ll strip-mine your heart until there’s nothing left but an ugly gash on the ground. I’ll send you a mother who blames you for her lot in life. I’ll bring you romantic entanglements that’ll eventually all leave you (broken and unlovable). You’ll learn to get up every time, you’ll learn resilience. 

    Me: Wow, that sounds awfully harsh. For both them and me.

    God: Not at all, Particle. They signed up to teach you how to get up from disappointment and how to hone your resilience. You will face tougher challenges than romantic failure and the longing for a mother’s love in your life, and you will need to be strong. They signed up to crack your heart open so that you can release the true love in you; for yourself first.

    Me: That makes sense. You’ve covered both love and resilience, but left out forgiveness. 

    God: I am God, I leave out nothing. Particle, I’m going to send you two fathers. One that will reject you and one that will abuse you. One will leave you when you’re a year old, and the other will stay with you for 13 years, teaching you resilience that can only be forged in the crucible of violence. They both signed up to teach you forgiveness. That was their journey with you. You’ll learn to forgive them in time. You’ll absolve yourself of the guilt you feel for being born and putting your mother through the horror that was her life. You’ll finally learn to forgive yourself. 

    Go now, Particle, and fulfil your part in my play. 

  • Don’t Help. Love

    Don’t Help. Love

    Article 9/365 of Jacques’s Writing Quest

    The one sure-fire way to turn friends into strangers is by trying to rescue them.

    A friend and I were having a chat the other day, and we realised that we both suffered from the same affliction. We’re rescuers. We like to ride in on our horse like a knight and save the day. We agreed that it was a sad attempt to seek validation from others to feel useful. 

    I’ll tell you this much: the rescuing affliction has brought me and the person I’m trying to rescue more frustration and hurt than it’s worth. It has lost me more friends than any other mischief I’ve ever gotten up to. 

    “No good deed goes unpunished.” Oscar Wilde

    One of the primary ways I rescue is by giving of my one small talent: free marketing and sales advice.

    It occurred to me that even though some people say they want help at some level they really don’t want to be helped. And, it goes deeper than that; they can’t be helped. Not because they’re not worthy of help but because they’re not in a place where they can accept help. Sometimes they’re located in loathing, shame, apathy, hatred, guilt and anger. These lower frequencies allow no space for help.

    I had three interesting experiences with friends within a week while trying to help them with marketing advice. The detail is not important here; suffice it to say that all three thought that my advice was going to add too much friction and complexity to their lives. 

    The rascal called ego thought, “Let’s see how much friction and complexity you have in your life if your business tanks.”

    “Help me help you.” Jerry Macguire 

    I didn’t take an affront to their attitudes because I know they’re doing the best they can with what they have, and where they’re at. I can’t help them until they’re ready. It’s not lost on me that this is the biggest arrogance – that I think that they need help, and that I’m the one to help them. 

    I may not be able to help them, and I probably shouldn’t because they’re where they need to be, but I can love them. And, here’s a thought I can love me by not rescuing others. Rescuing myself is already a challenging task. All the time I spend helping and rescuing others, I could spend on myself. Maybe that’s how I can move the dial on consciousness for the brief time I get to play here?

    Of course, you’re smart enough to know that I’m not talking about marketing help. I’m talking about all the people in our lives that we’re trying to help, including family, friends, and strangers. They can’t be helped until they have the courage to be helped. But they can be loved. Let’s do that, you and I, let’s love them. And, better yet, let’s love ourselves.

  • Try the lexicon of love

    Try the lexicon of love

    A number of people have asked me why I stopped sending out my newsletter. To be honest, I’ve had a ‘dark night of the soul’ experience and retreated into my cave to lick my wounds and make sense of my world again. Those panic attacks I wrote about had turned into depression (I can say that because I have 20 degrees in psychology 😉 – it’s probably just something called Jannie Jammergat) and it was quite debilitating.

    Long story short, my partner Estelle left to pursue her dream in Australia (and because I only have a diploma, am over 45 and don’t have a quajillion dollars to invest in starting a business there, I cannot go with). So, we consciously uncoupled on 7 June. We decided to honour our brief relationship with love, compassion and gratitude and not acrimony and regret. We both love each other dearly, but it is not our path to be together.

    Of course like any good author, I’ll write a book about it because the nine months we were together (yeah, a birth) were the most heart-opening, loving, triggering (Carlos Castaneda’s Petty Tyrant incarnate) and healing experience for both of us. We were soulmates, or according to the clever people, twin flames (who come into each others life for a short period).

    Because I have 20 degrees in psychology I’ve diagnosed myself not as depressed, but as grieving. So, I sit with the process, the pain, the heartache and try and heal from it (Just like Estelle is doing in Australia).

    But this story isn’t about Estelle and I. It’s actually about the lexicon we use to frame our reality … the register and the vocabulary we use.

    There were two ways we could look at our experience: heartbreaking, shattering, pain, hurt, rejection, abandonment … I can go on.

    Or we could look at it as a: healing, loving, growing, insightful, grateful, powerful and heart-opening experience.

    Of course we’re both sad and grieving the loss of our human attachment. The reality, however, is that our relationship is something to celebrate. I was gifted with an opportunity to really love someone at the deepest levels possible; as was Estelle. Since my journey at the Sufi retreat in 2016 I’ve been trying to get out of my head and into my heart and connect with the divine (in me).

    It was easy sprouting wisdom from the safe domain of a retreat or as an intellectual exercise … not having to be in the blood and guts of life. You don’t get your hands dirty or your heart tested.

    So, spirit said, “Oh, you really want to open your heart, do you?” Well here you go: meet Estelle. Through Estelle and a shit ton of work from my side, spirit got me to integrate my learnings and insights in a very real way.

    In short, Estelle loved my heart open … there was no vocabulary of breaking, tearing, shattering. And, in the process, I loved my own heart open and am changed as a consequence.

    I suppose I could have chosen, “Watch Your Language” as a title for this article, but Lexicon of Love seemed more apt. But yeah, watch your language, be vigilant of your vocabulary and be mindful of how you speak to yourself and frame things. What I’m starting to understand is that every experience is for our higher good, even though it may not feel so at the time. As my friend Etsko Schuitema loves to say, “The world is your ally.” I think he’s right.

    My heart has been loved open. That’s the lexicon I choose.

  • Do You Think The World Doesn’t Love You?

    Do You Think The World Doesn’t Love You?

    The other day a friend of mine made a statement that gave me a moment to pause.

    “Do you know what your problem is, Jacques?” “You think that the world doesn’t love you?”

    I was shocked. In those eight words he’d summed up my view of the world.

    But so what? My view is no different to millions of other souls trying to navigate this human endeavour. The world isn’t a friendly place. Isn’t it my lot to suffer through this thing and hopefully, I’ll hit heaven when it’s all over? Isn’t that what it’s about?

    Come on. It gave me two fathers, one absent and one abusive. It messed up my plans to spend a gap year after I left the army. It gave me an average brain that couldn’t muster up the marks to get into university. It sent me countless women to break my heart and mess with my head. It halved my hearing. It has given me one financial burden after another. It has left me looking back over what’s left of this journey with regret and remorse.

    It’s obvious that the world hates me.

    But is this true?

    “How can the universe be hostile to me when everything I am made of comes from it.” – Intent – Exploring the Source of Being Human

    Am I not part of the universe? Isn’t the very fact that there is a universe and that I have chosen to live in it something of a miracle? When I look at my daughter, haven’t I already got more than I’ll ever need and deserve?

    When I look at it this way, then it is obvious that I should change my view that the world is a fearful place that despises me. Perhaps I should pay attention and realise that the world is an awesome place that loves me.

    As I am part of it, why would it want to harm me and in so doing, harm itself? The better it treats me, the better it treats itself.

    But to see the world as a benevolent and not malevolent place, will take some work on my part. I’ve actually got to step up and take responsibility for how I interact in it.

    1. First, I need to realise that whatever my situation, it’s 100% because of me. The universe has given me exactly what I have created in my head and my heart.
    2. Second, I need to realise that all the material things that I’m striving for … to make me feel secure and significant, wont. “No bank account is big enough to fill the hole in the chest called insecurity.” – Intent – Exploring the Source of Being Human. My real job is to get my head, heart and soul in order. The rest is all a bit of a sideshow really. Every second of every day, every setback, every triumph and every interaction is there to instruct. It gives me an opportunity to exercise the gift that even the angels weren’t given: Choice. I can choose my response. I can choose to be fearful or awesome. I can choose to be selfish or selfless. I can choose to be bitter or better. I can choose to make every moment that I have left, marvellous.
    3. Third, I need to have an attitude of gratitude. If I interrogate gratitude … it’s probably the most important feeling to have – everything else is subordinate to it. When I realise that I’m exactly where I should be, that I have already been given more than I will ever need and that the world is a friendly and awesome place, then I can be truly grateful.

    Photo Credit: http://betterthansurviving.me/2011/12/