Towards Selflessness.

I've been experiencing a subtle, yet inscrutable feeling lately. A sensation which keeps my eyes open-wide at night when I should be sleeping. I keep trying to gulp it down, but it overflows outside of me, riveting my heart into a sparking wildfire which I cannot tame.

I'm not overwhelmed for I've experienced it before. I smile at the memory, back when I couldn't sleep for several nights picturing my love manifesting into the world with the most beautiful intentions. I smile at the familiarity of this feeling, knowing that it's hereto transform me at last. How I've missed feeling this way; this limitlessness, this freedom, this inexplicable need to create, give and dream.

I know what it is. This is selfishness transmuting into selflessness. This is suffering liberating itself to love and equanimous joy. This is all the difficult, afflictive days turning into ones defined by hope and acceptance for all that is about to happen, even the more challenging days. This is an awareness that even if suffering did occur, it won't be that sabotaging anymore. It won't make me want to cry, lament and feel bad over myself. It will be just one obstacle, one kink in the road, leading to an everlasting, empowering pathway.

I want to admit that I opt to resolve to self-centeredness whenever I'm going through some difficulties in my life. I opt to feel bad about myself, question my self-worth and essentially feel like a victim. I want all of my questions answered. I want to know why this is happening to me, why I can't do anything about it, why I'm so powerless and helpless, why I'm being hurt and punished for things I can't control. In those kind of moments, everything seems to be happening to me and I deem myself as powerless. In those kinds of moments, I never think that I have a choice.

It's natural to feel that way, I think. That's only our sense of identity trying to protect itself, trying to analyse, interpret and explain to us what could be happening. The easiest way is to blame ourselves or the environment, because that's how we get to explain things most of the time, or that's how we learned to. When my sense of self was threatened last summer, I fell into the rabbit hole of demeaning my worthiness. I felt not good enough. I dreaded not having a job to get done during the day and there was nothing in my external environment that justified my worthiness. Now I realise, that was selfish and self-centred. My centerfold was something to achieve, something to do, something to care about and with all that in absence, all I had was emptiness.

But I don't feel that way anymore. I am actually on vacation and I have finished almost everything on my to-do list. My external environment is pretty much the same; there is nothing to care about, nothing to achieve and nothing to do... where is this unconditional love coming from?

I think I know the answer. I let myself be loved.

I let myself be loved. I faced this existential gap with an overwhelming energy that liberated those debilitating fears and feelings of lack within me. With love, it wasn't about me anymore. It was transcending the lack, transcending the explanations and questions into acceptance, compassion and unconditionality. It was me facing my loved one with all my imperfections, all of the things I didn't figure out and saying that I'm hurt, confused and in pain. It's watching love not asking anything of you, accepting you just the same.

And with this practice, my perception of always lacking and missing out on something just fades into comparison, being presented with wholeness. My fear of being imperfect just disappeared because here I was, loved, completely unabridged. With this love comes the feeling of utmost selflessness, not having everything centered around me anymore. In fact, it was me surrendering into a more powerful energy, an unconditional version of reality in which I could give boundlessly and not consider what is lacking.

I'm here to rewind the tape and tell myself what I could have done differently. Instead of shutting myself out, I could have actually talked to the people I loved about how I felt. I could have actually cried and opened my heart and feel their embrace in return. I could have transmuted my state of lack and imperfection into one of wholeness. I could have allowed myself to receive love instead of pushing it away, making that gap even bigger, widening the distance between my darkness and light.

I think there is nothing more powerful than love when it comes to moving toward the light.

And now that I have opened my heart to love, now that I feel empowered to make a choice and change my perception toward this 'lack', I'm not a victim anymore. I'm loved. I'm whole. I feel this energy in my soul that makes me see the world in terms of wholeness and abundance, too. Suddenly, there are many opportunities, many possibilities, even when the world is in a state of a pandemic. Even where there is a risk to get sick around every corner, even if I'm not able to see my family again- I'm whole and empowered, I can make a choice on how to feel. I can make a choice to see the blessings, because before love, I was a curse; now, I'm a vessel which carries the blessings of being human.

I know it's hard. I know it's not simple to just confide in someone you trust and truly talk to them about your pain. I know that it's even harder to talk to God about feeling in pain. Why would you shatter your sense of identity even further? But I'm telling you, nothing will change when you see the world through the same broken pieces of yourself. Love will make you whole again. And when you're whole, when you're seeing through a crystal-clear lens, what would you want but shine all of your light and let it overflow? Would there be anything you would want for yourself? Would there be any other way but to be selfless?

Believe me, we were created whole, but we can always walk the path of redemption whenever we get broken. It was meant to be our journey. 

Please do not cease believing in love.