Wow, thinking about values yesterday and I woke up this morning from some very strange dreams with people from my past; back when my values were very different. The dream was one thing, then there arose the memories of past relationships that came up unbidden; in particular my ex-husband and his son. We were married in the mid 90’s after I’d been doing a lot of personal work but in retrospect it was pretty early in the process for me. I thought I had it all figured out though and there was something about him that totally drew me in.
Well, as you can guess, all was not a bed of roses. There were dynamics that were very difficult for me, but I thought I could handle it, after all, I was so in love and I had learned so much. I won’t get into the whole sordid story, suffice it to say I found out in short order that I had the emotional maturity of a teenager or perhaps even younger, and I was not always kind to put it mildly. I was deeply unhappy, but I wanted desperately to make it work as I had already been divorced twice. I was eventually able to leave the relationship on good terms but to be honest, I don’t know why he put up with me. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but I was the difficult one in the relationship, and I have felt a lot of shame over it. I have done lots of completion work on that relationship, so I was a little surprised when I started feeling the shame around it this morning, I rarely even think about it.
But that’s the nature of shame. It tends to catch me off guard now and again because it’s something that runs deep and is not easily dissolved. It seems to come off in layers, but the good news is that it’s never as intense as it once was, and I have the tools I need to feel it and let it go now which I didn’t have then.
The timing was interesting for me on this as well. As I’ve been thinking about what I value the most being love, peace and joy and self-honesty up comes a contrasting experience from my past to do a little clean up work and remind me how much better life is as I evolve in consciousness. Makes me very grateful.
Namaste
