Monthly Archives: September 2019

A Loving Reminder: Have You Kept Your Relationship Promises?

“Together again, It would feel so good to be in your arms, where all my journeys end.  If you can make a promise, if it’s one that you can keep, I vow to come for you if you wait for me.” –Tracy Chapman, The Promise 

“You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it’s got to be the right wrong person–someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, ‘This is the problem I want to have.’” –Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

Hello friend,

If you know me, you know I have just about zero desire to attend your wedding. Or your graduation or your funeral, for that matter. But definitely not your wedding. I don’t like ceremonies. The pomp and circumstance, the dressing up, all the make-up and hair products, the extravagant decorations, the cookie-cutter procedure, the religious decorum and forced reverence. None of that is for me. And that is just the ceremony. Don’t even get me started on the reception! Small-talk, over-served alcohol, and too much noise to have a good conversation. Even when I like the people there, I don’t want to be there. It is just not my scene.

So, you can imagine how thrilled I was when my wife informed me recently that we–just the two of us, no kids allowed–would be going to her friend’s wedding, set for this past weekend. I looked forward to it like a root canal.

But a funny thing happened in that glowing, well-appointed hall. Instead of the typical, stodgy affair full of artifice and repetition of the standards, it was highly personal and authentic to the bride and groom. The video looping on the big video screen as the guests made their way in was from one of those “one second a day” apps that showed highlights of their last year together, prompting lots of laughs, oohs, and ahhs, and just generally drawing everyone into the atmosphere of community and love. The officiant, a friend of theirs, was funny and sincere, and they were deeply grateful for everyone’s presence and full of tears at each other’s expressions of their true love.

I listened most closely to the vows that they had written together, the promises they were making to each other about the kind of people they wanted to be for each other and the kind of shared life they wanted to create in the years to come. At every turn, they seemed to hit the right notes in both the substance of what they were saying and the conviction of their delivery. I believed them.

Inevitably, as I sat there taking it all in–and yes, crying along with them–my thoughts swirled back to my own wedding and the heartfelt vows my wife and I made to each other. Through streaming tears, we promised each other our very best for all the days of our lives. It was deep. It was beautiful. And it was sincere. I meant every last, golden word.

That was sixteen years ago. Leave it to Father Time to add some dents and dull the shine of even the most heartfelt promises.

Don’t get me wrong: I haven’t failed entirely as a life partner. I sleep in my own bed every night. I cheer for my wife’s victories and lend an ear and a shoulder on her tougher days. I make her needs a priority. I co-parent with all my heart. Taken in broad strokes, I have kept my priorities in line.

But when I take a closer look–as I am prone to do in this journaling life–I cannot deny that I have also failed to live up to the idealistic vision I held of my vows on that magical lovefest of a day those sixteen years ago. I have too often failed to give my wife the benefit of the doubt and failed to assume positive intent when things haven’t gone as I had hoped. I have held onto slights–whether real or perceived–for too long after they happened. The same for arguments and other hurt feelings. I have often used my solitary nature to justify my silence and withdrawal when I needed to rise to a situation and communicate my Truth in order to clear the air and allow a storm to pass more quickly. I have been resentful when the parenting load has become excessive instead of recognizing that as part of the natural cycle and letting it go.

I haven’t been good at the little things that are really the big things, like being sure to say “I love you” every day, giving meaningful hellos and goodbyes, and just checking in to make sure everything is okay, with her and with us. I think I have simply too often made it about my wife and about me, individually, rather than about us. That feels like a pretty significant failure in the face of the vows I made and still believe in. I am not proud of that.

I was chatting with a woman at the wedding last weekend about the moving sincerity of the bride and groom’s love and the delivery of their vows. The woman, who has been married for several years and has a toddler, joked, “Yeah, I remember we made vows like that once. Ha!” Translation: “Good luck keeping them as Life pours it on year after year!” I laughed, of course, as I knew where she was coming from. I know the journey from heart-fluttering, tear-inducing professions of love and lofty promises to petty arguments and isolating silence. I have felt the slow, subtle erosion.

It is why the dreaded wedding was just what the doctor ordered. Seeing and feeling that young, mad love and listening to those sincere promises reminded me of so many things. It reminded me that commitments are beautiful and brave. It reminded me that a couple united and focused on the right things is all-powerful. It reminded me how amazing my wife is and how fabulous life with her can be. It reminded me of the unabashed joy of being in love. It reminded me that all that stuff is still in me.

Those reminders have lingered through the week. On our way home from the wedding, clearly caught up in these love lessons, my wife and I talked about how to create more quality time, both with each other and with our kids, in the midst of our busy lives, rather than only when we go on vacation. We have been better this week with greetings, hugs, and kisses. She even happened up the stairs last night as I was listening to a playlist and a song from our wedding came on. We embraced and had a tender slow dance. It felt like true love. It was beautiful.

It is a magnificent thing to learn a lesson from young people. Sometimes truths are just so much clearer to them than they are to us life veterans with all of our baggage and battle scars. They are better at identifying purity than we are. Ideals are livable to them. So we learn. I am learning.

But there was also a consolation lesson a few days after being humbled by the fresh love of the newly married couple. My wife had posted a photo on social media of the two of us out of the house for our rare date night at the wedding. The bride subsequently appeared in the Comments section down below: “….Your relationship is such an inspiration to us!” Whoa. Really? Hmmm. I was stopped in my tracks. I guess we all have something to teach, and we do that teaching whether we know it or not. I am deeply grateful to have so many sources of inspiration in my life, pleasant reminders of the kind of person I can be and the person I have promised to be.

How about you? Who is the person you have promised to be in your most important relationship? Open your journal and examine your commitments and how well you have stuck to them. Who is the person you have made your firmest commitment to? Was it a commitment made in public–like a wedding–or something just between the two of you? When you made your promises, what type of person did you imagine yourself being in the relationship? What ideals did you promise to hold to? Which actions did you see yourself taking? Have you had to be all that you promised that you would be? Have there been times and situations that don’t seem to have been covered by the promises you made? How did you navigate that? Which of your promises mean the most to you? What is it about that type of commitment that resonates with you? Are there commitments you have made that the other person doesn’t even know about, things that you silently hold yourself to? Which of your promises have you gotten most lazy about in the time since you made them? Has your slippage been slow and subtle–almost unnoticeable–or have you taken steeper falls? Have you completely broken any vows? How does that sit with you today? What are the biggest weaknesses in your relationship from your end? Has your relationship survived your worst? If so, what does it take to rise up from your lowest points? Are you inspired by other people’s relationships? Which people in your life have the strongest partnerships? What makes them so? Do you talk to them about it and seek guidance, or do you learn just by watching? What would you ask them if you could? Does young (or new) love inspire you? How about weddings? What can you learn from these people who are nearer the start of their journey together than the end? What do you have to teach them? Do you try? What one promise would you tell them is the most important one to keep? Leave me a reply and let me know: Are you keeping the promises of your relationship?

Love big,

William

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Hanging Out With God: Have You Found Your One Sacred Place?

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself over and over again.” –Joseph Campbell

Hello friend,

Last week, I returned to a spot that has held a mythic place in my mind for the nearly-two decades since my last visit. I was a little nervous in anticipation, I admit. I had waited so many years to be back and wondered if its luster would have somehow worn off in the meantime, or if, perhaps, I had changed so much with age that it would be like one of those movies you thought were so great when you were growing up but come to realize that they were actually awful when you watch them later. Would my magic bubble be burst when I finally reached the mountaintop?

I actually was going up a mountain, too. Not exactly to the top, but up a few miles, to a place accessible only by foot trail. I would follow the trail through the forest and along a narrow gorge where crystal-clear water races down the mountainside out of my mythic lake. Once there, I would see what I have been fantasizing about since my last visit: a tree-lined, crystalline, glassy-smooth lake surrounded by steep mountains reaching to the sky, with long, narrow waterfalls plummeting from the high ridges down the sheer faces and emptying into the lake.

This time, though, it didn’t feel like I was on a visit exactly. No, I was certainly on what would more accurately be referred to as a pilgrimage. I was going to a place that felt holy to me, and I was walking with reverence.

I don’t go to church. It would be easiest to say that the only reasons I stay away are my disconnect with organized religion and all the rituals and rules that go along with that, as well as the hypocrisy of those I see claiming religious justification for their immoral actions. But that explanation doesn’t tell the whole story. Some of it is that I have always felt my deepest connection with God–call it the Universe, Divine Source, All That Is, whatever you like, but I will go with “God” today and trust that you can get what I’m saying–in places that were not a “house of God.” Concert halls. Dinner tables. Classrooms. Libraries. But most of all, out of doors. With Mother Nature.

I feel God’s presence when I walk in the tall trees or along the rushing creek. I feel God coursing through my veins when I dive under the surface of the ocean or the clear mountain lake. I hear God in the songs of the birds. I see God in the stars and in the shimmer of sunlight off the water. I feel God in the breeze upon my cheeks. In all of those instances, my soul is at Peace and yet more fully awake and alive than it is anywhere else in the world. It is deeply grateful. And it is reverent.

I remember those soul-stirrings being at their zenith on a day those decades ago when I climbed up alone to my lake. I fought through the brush on the trackless side of the lake, away from any possible human visitors, to get to the far end, nearest where the waterfall-fed streams joined and emptied themselves into the crystalline lake surrounded my those majestic rock faces. I set down my pack there on the shore, plopped myself down, and soaked in the magnificence of it all. I entered a blissful trance. I lost track of time, so enveloped was I in a state of reverie.

Each of the handful of times I have made that climb up to the lake, I have found myself similarly awed and entranced, even when other people were with me or strangers were there to potentially distract me. My soul just seems to tap into a field of energy it does not otherwise access as I make my way through the world. It is a sacred Bliss, a communion with the All. Quite simply, it feels like I am with God. Joined. Immersed in. Communing. I have noted it in my journal after each of my visits. There was even one time I had the book along, and, as we arrived at the lake, I drifted from my family members, climbed out onto a fallen log in the middle of the water where no one would approach, slipped into that Divine Peace, and opened my journal to expound:

Mecca. The pilgrimage has been made to this eternal holy shrine once again. And again, it is absolutely awe-inspiring. The great falls pour down the steep faces. The great pines rise like Heaven’s soldiers. The jagged peaks signal God’s final perfecting touches on the Earth. The basin itself is nothing but holy water. The term “God’s Country” is often thrown around haphazardly, but to use it in this place might be to finally do it justice. I truly feel like a divine being here, as though I have somehow entered rarified air. Like a special blessing has been made for me to slip into a dimension beyond. It is an energy here. I, from my perch on the dead trees in the middle of the water, look at all of the landlocked hikers and don’t see them picking up on the energy. For me, however, there has never been anything so palpable. It is as obvious as the dead tree I am sitting on or the water at my feet. It concentrates in this bowl created by these mountains, hovering constantly yet all the while in a state of graceful motion. Grace. Somehow the word sounds so right when I use it in the description. This place is pure Grace.

That was 21 years ago. It fascinates me to read that and see how thoroughly “God-y” it is. That is definitely unique amongst my many thousands of journal entries. But, truly, that is how that place was for me. It just touched a totally different place in me. A special place.

And it is why I was a bit nervous as I arrived at the trailhead last week. I still wanted to have a special place, a personal sanctuary in this world, with what certainly used to feel like a direct line to God. Would I still feel it, or was that feeling a function of the open-hearted, soulful approach to life I embodied in those obligation-free years of my twenties? So much of my favorite art–books, movies, etc.–comes from that time, so I wondered if I was just more in tune to divinity and inspiration in that period.

I am so pleased–and greatly relieved–to report that the sacred energy was still there for me. I felt it the moment I emerged from the shade of the forest trail and into the bowl of shimmering quietude that is my lake. And I kept feeling it as I explored the shore and studied the steep rock faces and the waterfalls plunging from them. I was transfixed. Simultaneously, I was transported to another realm, a field of higher energy. I was bathed in Love. My impulses alternated between wanting to howl my sheer delight to the heavens and weeping with humility. I was a raw nerve, swimming in a dizzying Bliss. It was profoundly moving.

And it was still mine! The long years in between visits and the jadedness that those years attached to me had done nothing to break the spell. It was still my sanctuary.

But it is just mine, I assume. Notice how I mentioned the other hikers in my journal entry and how I “don’t see them picking up on the energy;” I felt that way this time, too. That is presumptuous, of course, and I know that it has become an increasingly popular hike over the ensuing years, but I still like to think that that enchanting, Divine energy I tap into at my mountain lake is specific to me. Something aligns with my spirit in a profound way that I don’t quite feel anywhere else in the world–though many places touch and inspire me–and I can’t imagine other people as overtaken by it as I am. It is my sanctuary, not someone else’s.

My guess is that most of the other visitors to my lake feel a sense of awe and wonder at its stunning beauty and its dynamic stillness–probably the way I feel sitting by the ocean or walking in the forest–but I don’t believe they feel that same direct communion with God that I feel. Maybe that is just my ego’s desire to be unique and special; I admit that I want the place for myself. And I am territorial by nature; I like my own space wherever I am. Perhaps that also sways my view. So, when I tend to take the view of, “The world is full of natural beauty; the other visitors can have their own places,” I could just be being selfish. But in my heart of hearts, I don’t believe so. I believe that somehow my soul has found its direct line to its source in God. Perhaps its only line.

I am wildly grateful that I found this sacred place those many years ago and tapped into it. It has been a source of unending Peace and inspiration. I am all the more grateful that I was able to return to it after all this time and find its magical effect on me still in full force. I will remain open to the possibility of finding this unique, Divine connection in other places in the world, but I also will go knowing how rare a gift this special is. I am guessing that not everyone gets one of these. I will not take it for granted. And I will return, hopefully sooner than later. I told my children while we were up there that if they are inclined to make the effort when I die, I would like some of my ashes to go there, to my sacred place, to feel at home. I suppose it doesn’t matter, though, for I think my soul has always been there. There with God, just hanging out.

How about you? Have you discovered your sacred place on Earth? Open up your journal and take a journey in your mind. Think of all the places you have ever been. Have you found a spot where you feel in complete union with the Divine? If the answer is yes, how would you describe your feelings when in that place? When there, are you still able to keep your wits about you, or do you become overwhelmed with emotions and impulses? Describe the place itself. Is it a place in Nature, or is it manmade? Is it indoors or out? Does it have religious significance, i.e. is it a designated holy place, such as a church or shrine? Does it have extraordinary beauty, or is it unimpressive to most people? How public of a place is it? Is it visited by many people? Do they come for the same reasons that you do? Do you have a sense of how many people get that same Divine communion that you do while there? Do you share your extraordinary experience with others while you are there? If so, does that amplify the feeling or detract from it? Do moments this intense belong in the public forum, or are they more special when you feel somehow specially selected to feel them? Should you keep them to yourself? How many times have you been to your sacred place? Was it a special, one-time visit, or is it part of your usual routine? If it is more usual, has the effect worn off over time, or does it remain as profound and moving as the first time? Is there some value to keeping the visits infrequent to maintain the depth and intensity of feeling, or is it a “the more, the better” deal? Do you feel bad for the people who have never found a place that feels truly holy and personal? Okay, for those on the other side of the coin, who have never found that one magical place, how do you feel about that? Is it something you think about? Does it frustrate you? Are you actively searching for that place? How do you envision your special place? Do you trust that you will just know it by the feeling you have when you arrive? How confident are you that you will find it one day? How confident are you that it even exists? Is it enough to have many places that bring you Peace and lightness in your heart, even if there isn’t one that is dizzyingly Divine? Is this concept of one sacred place a short-sighted or unenlightened one altogether? Might every place feel that way to us if only our hearts and minds were in the right frequency? I imagine the most highly evolved among us feel that way wherever they go. Should that be the goal for each of us? What is your goal? Leave me a reply and let me know: Have you discovered your sacred place?

Wander blissfully,

William

P.S. If this resonated with you today, please share it with your community. Let us help each other to know who we are.

P.P.S. If this type of introspection appeals to you, consider purchasing my book Journal of YOU: Uncovering The Beauty That Is Your Truth at your favorite online retailers.