What has Been Your Greatest Challenge?

For me marriage and raising kids, especially during their teen years was one of the greatest challenges in my life, but even beyond this, it was learning to accept and love myself with ALL the stuff that I saw as so Wrong and beyond fixing. It was, seemingly, THE most impossible of anything I have had to deal with.
Being able to transform a lifetime of self-loathing, feelings of inadequacy, and worthlessness into an unconditional love and compassion for ME and who I am, has made all those painful years a non-issue.
But, I also see this and all that has been, as OK and as it should be, perfect WITH all the flaws and wrongness’s. I would change nothing, I love it all as it is and was, because it has all brought me to this moment. In this moment, at this place and time, I am ecstatically happy; I am comfortably comfortable, completely, with me, with everything surrounding me, with everyone in my life, those who are not and with all the stuff that would otherwise be labeled as wrong. The stuff of life that is unpleasant is still there, still raises its ugly head, but has nothing to do with my happiness.
Happiness IS, Joy IS and its warm glow caresses my heart, my soul and those of each and every one of us, and all we have to do is just let go of our hold on our reasoning and let ourselves fall freely deep into our heart without restraint or conditions.

Loneliness

Loneliness is most poignant when we find ourselves lying in bed next to someone who seemingly deeply loves us and yet cannot understand in any way, how or why “anyone” could ever love who we are; because you see loneliness is not about being alone, but is about being exiled from our own love and compassion for ourselves.
It has taken a very long time, nearly a lifetime, to finally get this and to be able to forgive myself for all my failings, the ugliness I saw and for being so unlovable; it took so long to learn to love who I am, as I am, without conditions or expectations. And in all this to see just how perfect I am (even as flawed as I am) and that in whatever situation I find myself in, to know deep down to my core, that the whole universe and the divine mystery of it all is there with me, supporting me, loving me, guiding each and every move I make, in spite of what I think I am doing or have ever done; all without any conditions or demands.
The day finally came when I could look deeply at myself, with an eye into my soul or even gazing at my image in the mirror and really like the one I saw there. It was/is almost like falling in-love, falling in love with myself for very first time, each moment, and truly feeling at home and comfortable in my skin, with me and my relationship to who I am.
It is from this place, I have finally been able to accept being loved, even by my own children and really feel it; it is from this place, I can finally love others, be loved by them and really experience being loved, without stronger feelings of undeservedness drowning them out.
I can, for the first time, be without those intense feelings of loneliness, either when I am alone or when I am with another, which had in the past always plagued most of my waking moments.
I have hesitated for some time to write anything here on this blog, trying to come to grips with these new feelings and this relationship to who I am, for fear it was only residual leftovers from my vision quest nearly a month ago. But contrary to my expectations, those feelings, that sense of peace and rightness have grow a little each day. Something has shifted; something has touched me in a way I could never understand; perhaps this is what the Divine Mystery that permeates all of creation is all about. Perhaps everything that happens and is felt are just steps of some cosmic and divine dance in which each of us is partner in; a dance without goal, purpose or objective, but a dance just for the joy of the dance. A joy we often lose sight of when looking for purpose.