Rude awakenings and human bonding

When we meet a new person and begin to become emotionally invested in them, we begin a complex process of bonding.  I have bonded with many people in many ways over the years.  You may have noticed how easy it is to bond with an infant or little child; they are so accepting and willing to form attachments with other human beings...or other living things, in general.  They have not put up any defenses yet, no filters, no judgments...they are, truly, innocents.

However, as we mature, we do form these defenses; building up, layer by layer, walls that help us to feel 'safe' in a world that...as we are continually reminded...is not a safe place.  So, each time we begin this bonding process with another person, we have to...necessarily...remove some of these barriers.  Otherwise, we would remain isolated from each other permanently...as I have seen some people try to do with varying degrees of success.  Perhaps there was a time, in the past, when people could become a hermit, living and surviving without any other human around.  I believe that few would survive long these days.  Not only do they lack the ability to sustain life (foraging for food, keeping warm, etc.), but we humans also require others to be in-contact with...literally and figuratively.

Over the past couple of weeks, I met a man who I got close to...and, with my defenses down, found that...indeed...I am not immune from being hurt.  How do we know when it's 'safe' to come out...to bond to another?  Perhaps the difficult answer is, never...we will never be completely safe when taking that kind of risk.  In my case, it is possible that this person will choose to retreat back into the relative safety of disassociation.  Perhaps his lack of feeling safe has hurt me because I consider myself to be safe, and, in bonding with him as I did, his unsafe-feeling has left me unsure. 

I choose to think everything that I call into my life is the universe becoming more expansive through me; I choose to return to my personal knowledge that I AM safe.  The very act of writing these words is helping me to process these feelings, to purge myself of the association I had made with HIS feelings, since they are no more...no less...a part of me before this schism than they are now.  I am the gatekeeper of my own personhood; regardless of my bonding with him...or anyone...I am who I am, now and forever.  Every great work of spirituality tell me this is true...we can benefit by occasionally being self-challenged with 'real-life' experiences that we call to ourselves.

I am blessed by having many wonderful friends and family who support my personhood and allow me to be myself...always.  By having this support system, I can wander deep into varied experiences with the full realization that I am safe and supported in my adventures.  People marvel at how I can pick up and move so easily.  I can do this because I know that there is really nothing unsafe about this world we live in...nothing that can truly hurt me. 

We are immortal beings who have existed before this lifetime and will pass into another existence after this one.  With that knowledge, how can we be fearful of anything...anybody?  Sure 'bad' things happen, people can get ill or die or lose a loved-one, causing great pain and distress.  But, the part of us that is part of the great I AM, can never be diminished by these occurrences.  I choose...I have called into my current experience of myself this 'rude awakening'...and realization...in perfect order, for the only real reason that we do anything; to continue to live, learn, grow, and remember...there is no 'outside' of me.  If I feel injured, I need not look to another person...no matter how bonded I feel to him...to see the cause, nor do I have to look elsewhere to find the remedy.  It is...and always was...inside me.

In this moment, I comfort myself through the re-membrance of who I am, who I have been, who I will always be...and give thanks for this most recent awakening.  It shows me that where there is life, there is hope; and, where there is hope, there is growth.  Most of all, there is...always...love.  It is the one constant in the universe...no matter what happens and appears to make that seem to be something other than the case.  As the axiom goes, if you think that you have not love, think again....I have and the sun has come out of my self-imposed darkness to reveal another day!

Blessings, Debi