‘BREAKING THE CYCLE OF ABANDONMENT
You can feel abandoned, yes.
You can feel lonely, far from love and life and warmth.
Others can trigger powerful feelings in you, yes.
But strip away the word, the concept, the story,
and return to the actuality of the living body.
What does it feel like, this abandonment?
How do you know you’ve been abandoned?
Attend to the sensations surging now in your belly, chest, throat.
Feel the fluttering, pulsating, stinging sensations.
Let them grow in intensity, or dissipate, and move.
Drench them with curious, loving attention.
Give them space; soften around them.
You’ve got to breathe into yourself now, friend,
for nobody is here to breathe into you,
and they cannot do that anyway.
The dream of love has died;
you are waking up to the reality of love.
Love does not come from without. It never did.
It was always within you. It was your power.
It was always your job, you see, to love yourself,
to not beg for love, or seek it externally,
or wait for it, or try to hold onto it,
but to drench yourself with it, moment by precious moment.
Do not abandon yourself when you feel abandoned,
for there is a pain worse than abandonment:
the abandonment of self, the flight from presence.
Blame doesn’t work here.
Focus on ‘the one who abandoned you’, and you are powerless.
Break the cycle of abandonment, then.
Focus on ‘the abandoned one’, this precious child within.
Invite loving attention deep within the belly, heart, head.
Breathe into the ground. Feel your own aliveness.
You have not been abandoned. Life is here.
Love is here. You are here.
And from here, a new life grows.
And as you learn to not abandon yourself,
you will, in time, attract others
who are not abandoning themselves either;
others who will not abandon you.
For now you cannot be abandoned:
You refuse to abandon yourself.
Abandonment is an old word for you now.
Too dramatic for your body.
Nobody can abandon you:
they can only move
to another place,
with their pain.
Abandonment is the story of lost love,
an old story, for love cannot be lost,
only rediscovered deep within.
You are courageous enough to be present now.
You have broken the addiction of a lifetime:
You have discovered the deep joy
of being alone.’
– Jeff Foster
Image: Shanti Penelope
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