Life teaches us her most brutal lessons in subtleties first; and then in earthquakes, if we continually avoid the pain.
I grew up observing what self-sacrifice does to people, over generations, and it broke my heart. So on a rainy Beirut afternoon sometime in 1999, I lay in my little bed and wrote in my journal. I vowed somewhere deep down in my childhood brain that I never want anybody to sacrifice FOR me. I want people to be free around me to be exactly who they want to be. A naive and honest desire to my own detriment and joy.
Little did I know that on that day I was placing such a MASSIVE ask from the universe; and from my adult SELF. I was asking for such a pure degree of truth and authenticity that was going to rip the roots from beneath my feet every time I were to plant them in any type of illusion.
Here’s the truth of the matter, and where my spiritual journey guides me.
When we demand truth from others, we must be able to have enough space in our worlds to receive it without having it shatter our entire universe. I learned that lesson. I have no more doubt. I know this with such deep conviction.
People sacrifice themselves not only in fear of the truth but in fear of the destruction that their truth is capable of. And naturally, we avoid and fear destruction; especially the kind caused by us.
In 1999, on that rainy Beirut day, with the purest and most loving intention of an 8-year-old I unknowingly made a pact with my future self. I was going to allow people to be exactly who they wanted to be; even if it meant the destruction of the beautiful illusions we shared.
I now see it clearly. Another great paradox. The only antidote to that degree of destruction caused by truth is the pure love of truth itself.
And I am a lover of my own truth and that of other people. Everything that is created and destroyed in its wake is but a shadow cast from pure light.
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Uplifting Letters 