Tag: Relationships

  • 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.

  • You, the Chosen

    You, the Chosen

    My daughter, Rebecca, was around three or four years old – I’m hazy on the timing, but I’m crystal clear on the story I’m about to relate to you. It’s indelibly inked into my psyche.

    Rebecca reached out her hands to Simoné and I and said, “Mommy, daddy, I want to tell you something.”

    She led us to a couch and indicated that we should sit. She stood facing us. As I looked up into her eyes I drowned into the depths of my soul. Rebecca was gone. Someone or something else had replaced her. I can only describe it as the deepest wisdom I’ve ever experienced. I had the feeling I was meeting a blue-painted Pict that had been forged in the crucible of countless Caledonian winters. I didn’t get the feeling that she was a warrior, though. Her eyes were too gentle for that. They were like pools of love. If I were to describe her with the limited lexicon available to me, I’d have to say she was some kind of shaman.

    You were chosen

    Rebecca (the Pict) spoke, “You were chosen.”

    I looked at her nonplussed. She looked at Simoné and I with patience and with the total love only a parent can have for a child.

    She continued, “The old crone and I were sitting together waiting for you. And, when you came past she smiled, kissed me on my forehead and gently pushed me towards the two of you. And, you know what mommy and daddy? I’m so glad that we chose you.”

    Instantly, after she uttered those words, the eons of wisdom faded from her eyes. She became a child again and I had the illusion of becoming the parent again. She came to us and we all hugged and held onto this wonderful moment. If the great architect of the universe called me home right then, I would willingly have gone because for me, in that moment, all was right in the world.

    I’ve been given more than is due to me

    Ever since then, I’ve felt so blessed that this soul presented herself as flesh, named herself Rebecca and chose me as her father and Simoné as her mother. I know that by being graced by Rebecca, I have already been given more than is my due on this short journey.

    Take a moment to pause and have a look at your child, your lover, your spouse, your parents, your friends and your work colleagues. Look into their eyes. Feel the call … the call of one soul choosing another. Remember, no matter whom you are or your station in life, someone has seen you. Someone has reached out to you. That alone should be reason enough for you to carry on with what’s left of journey in awe and gratitude … because you, you’re the chosen.