Dating my way into wholeness.
“There is something within you beyond all doubt and fear, something which has never been limited by your acts or destroyed by your feeling. This is the only something that can make you whole.”
— Ernest Holmes, This Thing Called You
I picked this quote because This Thing Called You was the very first Holmes book I studied when I came to Science of Mind in 1998. While I had read many spiritual books by that time, I had never read something that seemed to “know me” in a profound way.
At the time, I was troubled by constant thoughts of not good, not enough, not whole. I had spent my twenties leaving a trail of desperate relationships, then had finally found “a good man” to settle down with and begin a family. And he was good. The trouble was I didn’t believe I was, and so the same pattern emerged, and that relationship failed yet again.
On the other side of that experience, I decided to forge ahead with dating with a renewed outlook. Rather than fight my tendency towards short-term experiences and failed commitments, I went rogue and embraced it. No living together, no weddings, no engagements, no kids for me. I determined that if I couldn’t “have it all”, well then, I didn’t have to.
This provided some much-needed distance for me to view myself as an individual, without getting enmeshed with all the messiness of love and commitment, as if relationships were a goal-oriented activity. It got me into thinking about how I felt, rather than people-pleasing for some kind of society goal.
But I wasn’t really comfortable with this either. There was no soul, no spiritual intimacy – and this is what I craved more than anything. How was I going to get there?
So I decided it was up to me – that I needed to let the essence of me come out of hiding. Intriguingly, once I did this, I noticed some good started to appear. The funny thing was though, I still didn’t buy it. When my date said “good things” about me, I felt uncomfortable. The “bad” stuff was easy – I either argued my way out it, or ditched the date.
I kept this dance up for a while, until one day when I was with someone I was truly becoming fond of, I asked myself this question: what if he really means it? What then? What if he really does like me? And then: what if what he thinks is none of my business, and yet – what if I choose to believe that for myself? What would happen then? In other words, what if I borrowed his belief? What if I began to consider myself worthy? How would that feel?
This became my first step in owning who I was. It felt like a revelation of sorts. That I was actually “allowed” to think highly of myself in a loving and compassionate way, with all my bumps and bruises and frailties.
I can no longer put into words what this “thing” is that helps me to feel whole, only that I know that when I turn the mirror on myself and see with loving eyes, the world becomes softer, and I live through life as I would have it.
There is no sweeter freedom than that.
Oh, and I’m still with “that guy”.
Peace and blessings,
Rev. Karin
If you missed yesterday’s Sunday Celebration titled No Approval Needed, you can watch the replay and other past services on the CSLK YouTube channel.
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