The Spiritual Quest for Love: Part Two - The Turning Point

What we learn along the journey towards love is all the things we must have in our next relationship and all the things we must let go of to be happy.

[This post continues the quest from Part One: Setting Intention] This second relationship showed me what was missing from the first relationship, and showed me my own blind side of being the over-achieving optimist. I was willing to overlook the dysfunction in the name of relationship. But that’s not how it’s supposed to go. And I knew it wasn’t working out, but I continued a few more cycles of passion-breakup-passion-breakup before I opted out.

That’s the moment that we began reframing out future ideas while including some other person in the picture.

And at this point I made a fundamental shift. I was going to take my dating profiles down. I was going to work exclusively on my own program of becoming a better tennis player, a better more confident musician, and a more confident me. I made a fundamental shift away from pursuit and back towards self-work.

My idea was, I wanted to become the person who she would fall in love with. I even wrote a poem to her, before I had any concept of her, almost as a prayer. (SHE IS HERE.)

The interesting part of the equation, the part that must have something to do with a higher power (Or maybe it’s just “timing.”), was how my new girlfriend (fiancée) had been traveling down a very similar post-divorce progression in her life. And we both hit on the “no more playing around at relationship” idea at about the same time.

It turns out we’d been “friends” on Facebook for 5 years. And it turns out, she had noticed me at a party 5 – 6 years earlier and made a note of my disinterest. (This is exactly when I was entering my divorce, so yes, I was unavailable and unapproachable.) And then a few amazing things happened.

I got a Saturday night gig for my band and was working using all of my energy to put on my musician coat of many colors.
This interesting woman “LIKED” my gig announcement on Facebook and began to put out notes about her support of the gig.
She went on a spiritual retreat a few months before the gig and confirmed that her current relationship was not working. She’d been doing the 110% routine as well and was done with the dysfunction.
She took a pre-gig nap and slept right through the gig. (So the eventual meeting was delayed.)
She put up a picture of a fancy bottle of Scotch and celebrated the silliness of her ex-boyfriend and the benefit of giving a gift you wanted for yourself.
I contacted her via Facebook about the post, pointed her to this blog, saying I’d been writing about breakups and dating for a while.
She responded via Facebook with an invitation

Um… TENNIS?

Turns out I had hipped her to the blog a few weeks earlier. And she was planting the real seed. The road map to my heart had been well documented, at least in theory.

The Spiritual Message:
The first thing to let go of is trying to get love, and instead to give it.

And that’s the moment that we began reframing out future ideas while including some other person in the picture. I had been writing constantly about not dating and going offline, and real-time. I had also been writing almost daily love poems. The poems of desire, I called them. But they were also like a call for someone to answer. Like this fragment from, “burning up in prayer”

I had also enlightened her to the other blog and somewhere along the way she decided that these poems were painting the outline of her. So she architected the “tennis” message at just the right time.

◊♦◊

Timing Is Everything

So, is it timing or god that brings us together at the perfect moment?

I wanted a woman to show up in my life fully-formed, fully-empowered, and fully-ready to take off with me.

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know this: someone can walk into your life and change everything you’ve ever wanted or imagined you wanted. When that happens you are either prepared for departure and flight or you are not. The first time my sweetheart crossed my path I was in no mood or frame of mind for anything beyond my own sad story. When we crossed paths the second time, she was well prepared with my trigger words and actions. And I was broadcasting on all channels my desire for a partner to step up and be enveloped in my madness.

The wash and rush of our relationship surprised us both, but we accelerated into the good feelings and absence of red flags. There was/is nothing holding us back. There is growth and adventure ahead, but there is mostly our joint willingness to join with and appreciate the other person’s circus. Our prayerful thanksgiving throughout our daily lives together, merely affirms what we feel and hope.

My path was winding and long, but here are the basics.

Learn what you really need in your relationship
Learn what you must jettison from any future relationship
Keep focused on your own life, your own growth, your ripeness
When the moment arrives, be fearless in your commitment to love fully
Stay in the present moment
Listen for and discuss issues as they arise
Celebrate the spiritual and physical connections in your life together
Press ever onward and upward together – limitless

Any divergence from this path is a distraction. If you want the relationship you’ve hungered for, settling for anything less my teach you some valuable lessons, but you eventually have to move on.

I wanted a relationship. I didn’t want to spend time “dating” or trying to impress someone. I wanted a woman to show up in my life fully-formed, fully-empowered, and fully-ready to take off with me. When I was prepared to give myself in the same way, and when I had decided to quit pursuing the dating thing, that’s when I was ready. That’s how we knew were were both ready, we had both been expressing the same desire for the *next* relationship.

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Arrived.

Always Love,

John McElhenney
@wholeparent

See: Love is a Spiritual Quest: Part One – Setting Intention

back to Dating After Divorce

additional posts:

image: heart with love seeds, epSos.de creative commons usage