Day 21
30 day/ 30 minute practice
Theo Wisdom“Let she be she self,” Theo says as I share some of the inevitable eruptions with mom over the past two weeks. This is the same wisdom he’s shared in regards to our own relationship over the years, ‘You free. You free.’ in my ears since the day we met. A blessing I continue to unravel for its core teaching.
It took me 25 years to fully grasp that I too needed to free up my own expectations of what a relationship should look like, should be and let Theo be Theo. “We are all doing the best we can,” I remind myself often when it comes to Mom and other confusing and complex times as we navigate relationships with family, friends, colleagues, strangers. Difficult when we have such high expectations of ourselves and others. How do we let each other be with all our messiness and complexity, conscious and/or unconscious? Can we ask for more while leaving expectation at the door? Can we let each other be while cultivating consciousness around our own needs and boundaries? i share over and over Prentice Hemphil’s exquisite languaging, “boundaries are the distance between loving others and loving myself simultaneously.”
It took me 25 years to finally get it and apply it. And of course do we really ever get anything with such certainty. For now and for the past year and a half I’ve practiced letting Theo be Theo, and letting me be me. Within a 25 year + relationship i have finally embraced/embodied ‘you are free’ reciprocally. I remember writing in my journal in the beginnings of Theo and i’s relationship, “expectations lie heavy like rocks waiting to be turned over.” Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. I guess its more like waiting waiting waiting for the wisdom of ‘you are free’ to sink in and shroud me in its succulent meaning so I can embody rather than intellectualize and return the blessings of letting myself and others be free.
Here are a few examples of what ‘you free’ looks/feels/sounds like in Theo and I’s relationship
Days of silence that are no longer thick grey clouds but a clear purply sky;
Spacious mind understanding our journey is just as much together as it is separate;
The whisper of a ‘not mine’ to self when wanting to fix and/or the whisper of ‘not his’ when expectations of ‘fix it please’ surfaces;
Living long distance with no confirmed dates of return;
Missing one another that feels like sun not hail on cheeks;
Cooking with and for each other or NOT;
Me in a book, Theo shelling cocoa;
Maya and I at the beach, Theo and Joe fixing the van;
Me scribbling in journal Theo rolling herb;
A load of laundry sitting in a basket waiting to be hung by either or
There are so many more to share but my 30 minutes (minimum) are up and the cold Atlantic sea awaits my free up body.