Alone

I was at Trader Joe's looking for a particular gluten-free bread that I like.  My mind imagined a lover finding it for me and thinking to herself, Brenden loves this kind of bread, and handing it to me with absolute compassion.  Warmth burned in my chest for an instant at this vision and then followed by the thought that you don't have this.  The warmth was immediately replaced with a cold sinking loneliness.  I imagined her more fully and the sinking feeling rose and then fell again at the thought that it wasn't real.

I found the bread that I like and took it off the shelf.  I suddenly realized that I was giving it to myself and warmth again, accompanied with the thought, "Here you go Brenden, I love you." I stood there unable to move and overcome with emotion as I realized that she's right here.  She never left me.  She is me.  With that thought I looked at the people around me and again I was overcome with emotion as I realized how much I loved every person around me.  I could see them and look at them without fear and for that moment, I was not alone.

Imperfection

When I tell someone who trusts me that they are whole and perfect, that there is nothing they could ever do that would change that, I am often met with tears of sorrow springing quickly from their eyes.  In that moment I can feel the softness of their being.  Their hands often move quickly to catch these tears that betray this softness inside and  soon the story of their sadness rises up to protect them.  The same is true for me when something or someone helps to remind me of my wholeness.  But sometimes we don't construct a story.  Sometimes we allow ourselves to rest in the sorrow and find trust for it.  What would have been a moment of release, like a release valve for the pressure created within the pipes of self definition, becomes an opening and everything we held on to dissolves into that soft place.

Here we discover that all imperfection is actually perfection.  That the only tests that we encounter in this life right now are born from the moment we leave the softness of our own being for the hardness of structure and the illusion of certainty.  It is from here where we are able to and will in many different ways, tell someone that they are perfect and whole and be a witness to their own trust.