No Longer

At one point in my life

I thought I There is an unseen essential that is intrinsic, universal and guiding everyone who listens. There is an invisible hand at work in the making of beautiful lives. Uncommon success is found on the spiritual plane; you can't get there through common convention or following others. Hard work is not enough; many work slavishly-hard for little reward. Intelligence is insufficient; how many educated and brilliant people there are who fail utterly and completely. Goodness is not enough; how many meek and good souls are tilled into the earth like manure by demigods to fertilize their golden crops. There is something more — it is the unseen essential, and everyone has access to it. The unseen essential is understood as many things by many people. Scientists, philosophers and theologians are ever reaching to understand, describe and commune with the unseen essential. Why do some people prosper and joyfully thrive while others languish in abject misery? How do some escape the poverty and such poor environments? Why do some from amazingly supportive backgrounds fail? It is the unseen essential that makes the difference.Integrity. Alignment. Authenticity. Elevation of consciousness. Faith. Spirituality. These are words we have all heard, but what do they mean in "real" life? These words seem nonsensical to some people. Beyond current understanding is a grand fullness which is the unseen essential. The unseen essential is everything yet described, which science feverishly works daily to uncover. If you don't believe in God, then the God concept is a great placeholder for everything we don't know, which is exponentially more than we do know. The unseen essential can be felt in your bones, in your teeth and the hair on your neck. It whispers in the hollows of your chest and gut. The unseen essential is the enormity of mystery in every element of you; from your physiology to your psychology, it is all which is perplexingly, indescribably and awe-inspiringly — you. Each person is a vast territory of undiscovered mystery as nebulous and uncharted as the deepest oceans and expanses of space. Life itself is a universe of mystery.In the inconceivably vast and humbling unknown called "everything", is a supreme inter-communication called, spirituality. The laws of life are written into every atom, molecule and heartbeat. We are immersed in the sweet law of unfolding mystery called life. There is a way to flow and cooperate with universal laws which can be beautiful and kind. When we are in sync with this flow, its power moves us like a mighty yet gentle guiding hand. The flow of spiritual connectedness and oneness with life will dwell in you if your heart and mind is open and innocent. If you are pure in intention and in alignment with beauty and love, in body and mind, the highest levels of your spiritual self will subsume your weaknesses. Spirituality will take you like love; it seduces you from contemplation to completeness.As you open your heart to wisdom you will begin to see the unseen essential. There is something divine, mystical, magical and unexplainable in the universe that is listening and responding to each of us. Something is reflecting our thoughts back to us in obvious and not so obvious ways. Spirituality is like a thin-thin thread, that if delicately followed guides us from darkness to light; from poverty to abundance and from destruction to safety. The unseen essential can be described in many ways and comes in many forms, but is always preceded by virtue. Godliness. Opulence. Cleanliness. Love. Integrity. Who you are; that is, who you choose to be — your identity, works in your life like an invisible hand. It works for who you really are, not for who you seem to be. This invisible hand guides, protects and gives passage to the beautiful hearts and humble servants of good. But, the invisible hand will not allow the impure to pass. If your life is a miserable disaster, you might want to consider, that it's because you are doing something wrong. If you lack understanding then call upon your Higher Power and ask, "please, reveal to me my own deceptions." For the vile human pigs in life; the sloppy, disheveled, uncaring dregs, the ungrateful, and especially for the vicious, negative emotional peasants — there will only continue to be the hard and painful lessons you so desperately need. The invisible hand will hold you in your wretched place until your last breath — unless you evolve. If you are cruel and ignorant the invisible fist will pound you into oblivion until you submit, humble yourself and soften your hard heart.Your life is always a perfect reflection of your state of heart and mind, and of your truest identity. There is a different world on the other side of your present attitude. You can only access the beautiful world through faith by truthfully embracing beauty and caring. The unseen essential awaits your enlightened heart's ascension to love.would suffer, that my heart would be anguished with the loss of you. Or worse, maybe it would stop beating altogether.

Maybe without you, I would simply cease to exist.

I thought I would become adrift, for you had been the anchor I had formed my identity upon, the compass I had relied on for my direction. I thought without you I would become lost, disoriented.

I had expected to taste salty tears as they fell upon lips that once spoke so fondly of you; that my head would lay on my pillow damp with tears for as many nights as the moon continued to kiss the stars.

But one day, I just knew.

I hadn’t expected such a feeling of relief as I cut the ropes that once shackled me to you. One instant of tremendous clarity. One instant, where I finally knew.

I no longer needed you.

I no longer needed your opinion of me, your affirmation, your approval.

I no longer needed your judgments, your criticisms, your condemnations.

I no longer needed your expectations I could never meet; your hoops too high to jump through, your goal posts that shifted with every changing breeze.

I no longer needed your blame, your excuses, your justification

As.

I no longer needed your pseudo love, fraught with conditions and attached with strings.

I thought I needed you. I didn’t.

I thought it would be hard to let you go. It wasn’t.

I thought I would miss you. I don’t.

For in one instant my heart was awakened to the truth of who I am.

I am more than the lies you made believe about myself. I am more than the look of failure in your eyes when I fell short of your demands. I am more than how worthless you made me feel. I am more than the ways you tried to break me.

I am a warrior, sculpted by the hands of creation, fashioned into being by the very hands that created the oceans and the stars and the mountains and air.

I am strong, I am brave, I am wise. I am gentle of spirit with the heart of a lioness.

I am creative, passionate, sensitive, and kind. I am of open heart and open mind. I am powerful, generous, thoughtful, daring, empathetic, raw, complex, courageous, understanding, forgiving.

I am everything you are not.

I will no longer carry the shame you made me suffer under the weight of.

That shame belongs to you.

And I will no longer carry my hate for you.

For that will only ever bind me to your darkness and give you permission to destroy my light. It will allow you to stay within me, to destroy my peace, to blacken my heart with the malice that lives within you.

It will tie me to your soul-destroying bitterness, your ugliness.

It will anchor me once more to you, who tried to drown me.

Instead, I will choose to go into the world and love more fiercely, show more compassion, be more generous, offer more kindness.

I will choose to forgive. For me, not for you.

I will choose to sow what I wish to see reaped for my children’s future.

I will choose to dis-empower hate.

I will choose freedom.

I will choose love.

I will stand firm upon the unshakeable truth of who I am.

And I will soar to heights you will only ever dream of.

For I have let you go.

No longer am I held down by all I allowed you to be in my life.

I no longer need you.

I am free.