Tag: love

17 years and counting

Published on by Vanessa2 Comments

Today, is our wedding anniversary. Seventeen years.

What is extraordinary about our relationship? Nothing, I would argue. Like in any marriage, we have had our good times and our bad times. There had been times where we have really considered going each our way.

Why haven’t we done so? Are we better than other couples that decide to split? Of course the answer is no. Ask anyone what marriage is about, and you will get thousands of different answers. I think that explains why some of us stay together no matter what and others make the choice to part.

At one of the most challenging moments in our relationship though, I came to realise that I didn’t have a clue of who I was and what I wanted in life, and this made me doubt if leaving my husband would make me feel better. Splitting our family in two, sending kids back and forward every other week as it is the common solution here seemed too drastic when I didn’t really know what I wanted. My husband has always given me enough space to be, so I knew that if I stayed with him, I could still be able to start working on myself.

My husband is a very open-minded man that sees the human in me (not just ‘the wife’, ‘the possession’) and was able to show compassion and understanding regardless of my hurting behaviour. Maybe he recognised his own confusion in my confusion? We were able to see the good in our relationship beyond the difficult and painful, and we decided to continue walking together.

So here we are, seventeen years and counting, trying to make some sense of who we are as individuals and at the same time living a common life with quite big responsibilities like any other couple with children. We both work hard on ourselves, we both do our best with what we have. There are no guarantees though. We never know what the future may bring, and I keep reminding myself that this is part of living in this world. Experience what life brings in order to learn and grow but be ready to let go when required.

I am thankful for these seventeen years together. I am thankful for the gift of being able to parent our children together. I am thankful for his generous heart, patience and sense of humour (even though I keep pretending I don’t like his jokes). I am thankful for the space he gives me to be, to explore, to try and fail and try again in many different areas. But maybe above all, I am thankful for the opportunity marriage has given me to observe myself and discover my limiting attitudes and beliefs about myself and those around me in order to at least try to become a better version of myself.

My daily practice

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The mind spreads like a big blanket throughout the day
Covering all the areas of our life that require our attention
Once a day, morning or evening, I unroll my mat
My mat is my space where I can slowly fold the blanket
My mat is the place where I can get a taste of my inner strength
My mat is the place where I create the space to see
That everything I need is inside me
My mat is the place where I pray to God to give me the courage
To meet the world with the right attitude
Allow me to be brave
Allow me to be kind
Allow me to be curious
Remind me to be and let be

We all live in the practical world where quite a lot is expected from us, both by those around us and mostly by ourselves. We often feel we need to be better, stronger, improve is the mantra we all go around repeating in our heads.

The yoga practice – asana and/or meditation- can be a vacation from this. The yoga practice can be the time of the day where we are more curious than expecting. We observe our body, we observe our breath, and with care and patience, we move for our general well-being. We can strengthen, we can stretch, we can refine, but for the health of the body and mind.

We can learn to be kind to ourselves on the yoga mat, we can learn to see our weaknesses and our strengths. We can practice acceptance of the weaknesses, and patience to refine our strengths.

We can learn to calm our minds, and to connect with our inner love. We can touch the inner peace. With practice, with awareness, and with patience we will little by little take with us small pieces of these states of mind to our practical life. From the yoga mat can all good things grow inside ourselves, and like a tree spreading its branches to give shadow, shelter and its fruits, we will also be able to share in the practical world.

Reflection on death, love and life right now

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A very dear friend died this week. He opened the doors of his home when I was a young adult (or an old child), he shared his culture with me, helped me learn the language, and opened my horizons to other ways of seeing the world.

I hadn’t seen him in the last five years since we no longer live in the same country, but we stayed in contact through social media. He would write a message from time to time with a picture from where he was, or what he was doing, and I would do the same.

He was what we could call a dry person, not effusive, but through the years I knew him, I learned to see his way of showing love and care.

From what I observed from the distance, I think that he struggled to see the love in those he loved the most. He had his temper and his very specific way of perceiving the world which at times came in the way between him and those close to him. I think that the last few years had been very difficult for him in this sense, and therefore, today, when I learned about his passing, I started refelcting on one phrase I heard on a podcast earlier this week “we see what we are looking for”.

I can recognize myself in this too. Sometimes, the void inside is so strong, that we can’t manage to see the love around us. I think is sometimes difficult to say where the void comes from, maybe past experiences, ways of percieving life, genetics? The orignie is maybe even irrelevant, what I think is important is to notice the void inside us. To have the courage to see it. Only then, we will be able to heal it, and feel the love. Maybe, if we recognize our inner void, we can acknowledge other people’s void, and then be able to show more empathy, more understanding regardless of their behavior.

I hope from the bottom of my heart that my friend died knowing how much we loved him.

I hope from the bottom of my heart, that we all find the force to clear our vision and see the love in everyone and evertything around us.