Past – Origin of Love and Acceptance
In 1984 I entered my local hangout where you could usually find me back then. For those familiar with Winnipeg Bar history, this was in the basement of the restaurant Lock, Stock, and Barrel on McDermot Avenue. The bar was called Cheaters, not a likely name for a place that began a story of fidelity and monogamy for the next three decades, but that is the beginning of this story.
That night I met this fantastic 25-year-old who was celebrating her birthday, we danced to what was our real first song, Tina Turners, What’s Love Got to Do with It. I know surely that’s not a proper first song. When we were getting married, we had to adopt a “proper” first song, so we made Air Supplies Power of Love our proper song, not the Jennifer Warren version, it must be the Air Supply version.
Fast forward three decades, and in the most significant identity crisis of my life, I learnt the hard lesson of acceptance without understanding.
Learning that there is no such thing as unconditional love, would leave you to think that I was hurt and bitter even to this day. That day I was gifted with insight to start learning that True Love, the love I seek as a hopeless romantic to this day, is not unconditional, but love and acceptance is that actual state.
I know that the young 25-year-old woman did not ask for the tragedy that became the end of our marriage; I didn’t ask for it either. That’s the gift of acceptance as all I have is empathy and forgiveness to offer now.
Present – Shut up and Listen
Fast Forward another four years, and I set out on a journey of a lifetime, literally a quest to learn who I am. I didn’t know how to love myself honestly as I struggled to discover who I am.
For this journey, I had to wrestle an oversized ego that was driven by constant career progression, consecutive leadership successes, and overall an engaging personality that was draped by the accoutrements of what others considered a success. I had to strip all that away and get raw with myself and others.
I still didn’t know myself, and quite frankly, when you keep yourself so busy following others’ definition of success, you fall into living a life of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
When you get so full of feeding that ego, all you can hear is you, and you never listen to others so you can learn and grow.
To learn to love me truly, I had to quiet that ego, put it in its place. If all I was doing was to feed the ego then I had to change, I had to shut up and listen!
Listen to others, listen to the source, listen to the universe, listen to me.
I have shut and listened! I have learnt to love myself in ways I never knew possible while I was the only one talking.
Future – Putting out the intention for a Partner
During my travels, I am blessed to learn so much, to wrestle with some hard stuff, to push myself in ways I never thought possible, and to open myself to others at a spiritual level, not just radiate that energy that I was gifted with. That meant I had to shut up and listen to learn their story, and through that, we connected.
As I move away from my life near the equator, from the city in the jungle, and the warm people of Latin America, I do so a better person for the time they allowed me to be part of their world, I will be back as you are in my heart now.
I am heading back to my land of birth in the UK. I feel called to be there, and I am listening.
This book in me has to be finished, the land of many great writers is calling me, perhaps it is so they can help guide me through this final push to create something that I am channelling not creating.
I also know my work is never complete when dealing with my past, I am not perfect, the work on myself it is a continuous journey, so I will never be done.
A dear soul sister I travelled with and will meet again, she taught me to put out to the universe my intentions. My person who will love and accept me is out there, it’s time I take this revitalized me, sending out the intention that I am ready to meet that person if they are prepared to meet me.
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Con Amor Y. Abrazos de Colombia
Besos Cynthia