Investigating Blues

I wasn’t feeling well for the first two weeks of April. It seems like there is a lot of that going around in my group of friends and acquaintances. Not sure why. As it was, my heart felt closed, I was battling a bout of heavy insecurity and the world weighed heavy on my shoulders. It scared me to think I could be that down when nothing really was that wrong. In hindsight, I see that the physical ailments most probably had a heavy impact on my emotional state. For all I know, it was the moon as well. But whatever the case, I think my emotional state needed tending to. I needed the crisis of faith to do some soul searching and to come up anew. I don’t feel 100 percent yet, but I do feel the tides have changed.

Last night I went out with a friend to a mixer. She and I bumped into a friend of mine and his male friend. My friend and his friend started talking and I instantly felt this pain in my heart.  I didn’t know what it was, but it was mired in insecurity. 

Later on, after much self chastising and judgment, I cultivated curiosity and neutrality and unpacked it. What lay there came out to be something like this: What if they start dating, get into a relationship and she’ll be one less single friend I have and I’ll feel even more lonely than I do now? What If I’m left behind? 

I know this sounds presumptuous, selfish and childlike. But it’s from my child self that this arose. The one who had experience with abandonment and being excluded. Shedding light on it is somewhat embarrassing, but also a little freeing. I was able to see it for what it was. This time I didn’t try to talk myself out of thinking this way as I had hours earlier. I just stayed with the emotion with acceptance. I just kept feeling. Eventually, I asked what was true.

What is true is that I’m capable of all types of love and I love deeply. This feeling was so mired in childhood fear that it couldn’t see love. But as an adult, I can choose to allow love to flow through me, lighting up the depths where my fear hid. Love for my friends, love for myself, love for the possibilities life had to offer. My friend finding love wasn’t a threat to me. My fear of her finding love was a threat to me. It kept us apart. It kept me from being authentic and vulnerable. I could cultivate love and draw more love into my life or I could covet fear and beget even more fear in my life. How did I want to live?

I think I’ll be playing matchmaker soon enough.