A few months ago I was having coffee with a friend that I hadn’t seen nor talked to in almost a year. Our chats are always so heart centered and deep (which I love), and I was sharing with him the life changes and challenges that I had faced with regards to my marriage ending this past year. While listening with empathy and compassion, he would nod his head in acknowledgment as he absorbed my story.
Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 1.18.58 PMDuring our conversation he asked what I had done to start my healing process, to grow and move through the grief of my marriage ending. I told him that I started to look within, to work on myself and only myself, and during the process something was awakened inside of me- I was meeting my Self for the first time.
He said it reminded him of a poem he had once read by Derek Walcott called Love after Love. Once we were done our beautiful time of sharing I went home and googled the poem. As I read it, I found my eyes filling with tears and my heart pounding. It was depicting my experience as though Walcott had looked inside of me and took notes of how I felt.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
So many thoughts and feelings coursed through me as I read this poem. I read each word as though I was pulling it into my heart and letting it softly swirl through the rest of my body. I loved the way this poem made me feel- so much that I just wanted to eat it!
After my husband left, I never thought I’d find love again. My heart and my world had been shattered in ways that I still cannot to this day comprehend. I felt a sadness so deep it hollowed out my heart and lived in my core, and I feared the pain would never leave.
What I have realized is that losing someone- be it to death, divorce, separation- you are never the same person again. You can’t be. What I came to understand was I didn’t want to be the same person. I set an intention to ‘do the work’, to make myself love again. But I had no idea that the person I would fall in love with…. was myself!
Whew! I had to take a moment after typing that last sentence because I am so proud of the person that I have met within myself. I cannot believe that I am screaming from my website, blog posts, social media, people’s inboxes, that I am in love with myself! That is a moment to be celebrated for sure! I knew I grabbed a box of Kleenex for a reason.
Okay, back to the poem.
There are many parts of Walcott’s poem where I would place my hands on my heart, close my eyes and just breathe because it spoke to me so wildly.
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome-
I thought I knew myself – but what I knew was filled with tons of limiting beliefs and insecurities. Being able to observe them and overcome them I was able to open the door to greet my Self. Have you ever smiled at yourself? #BEST.THING.EVER!
You will love again the stranger who was your self
The thought of loving myself was so foreign. I thought I had to love everyone else, all the time loathing myself. I was a stranger to myself….one that looking back, I didn’t want to know intimately (mostly for fear that I would hate her…so sad).
Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
This part of the poem-sometimes I can’t even stand it because I love it so much. It brings in the sense of calmness to me. Being a stranger to myself, ignoring myself, taking my heart away from myself- that’s a tragedy. I have loved (others) with a fierceness that is undeniable (but not always healthy!), and yet I have ignored the love I had for myself, that was sitting inside. It was there for me, just waiting to be breathed into again.
I know myself better than anyone else knows me (sorry BFF Beckie- I’ve passed you on this one now ), but the masks of my pain from childhood wounds and the limiting beliefs that I carried kept me separate from the love that I could offer myself. I am proud to say I am no longer a stranger to myself, and I will do my best never to ignore that love again for the sake of another.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Love letters, photographs, notes are wonderful, but they don’t complete me. I looked towards someone else to complete me, and guess what? NO matter what showed up in my life I never felt whole and complete, because I was looking outside of myself for that. I never, ever felt complete and whole. I always felt broken. Until now. Amongst the shattered pieces of my heart, I found my ‘wholeness’.
Feast on your life-
I am still mending pieces of my heart together. I can still see the cracks- the sadness is still there at times. But I am feasting on my life for the very first time and it is friggin’ delicious!
Calgary Canada Life Coach Arianne Moore, the founder of Path of Tranquility Coaching for Women, helps clients worldwide