Roots

Some people grow up very conscious of their roots. I have had people tell me that they travel far and wide but are always aware that, when they came home to the place they were born and raised, it really feels like homecoming, a sense of belonging to the land.

Others, and I myself belong to this group, grew up without real roots. As a child, I lived in six different locations in the world during the first five years of my life. And even after that, I didn’t live more than five years in one place until I was well into my 20’s. Circumstances can push children into a similar rootless existence. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a difficult life. Expatriate author and publisher Jo Parfitt often describes happy moments in her books and blogs about moving to different parts of the world.

However, it can leave a subtle mark. For a long time I was puzzled by my own restlessness. Am I an American at heart? After spending any amount of time in the wild places Stateside, I’m often overtaken by a yearning to base my life there again. Do I belong to my adopted Netherlands? This cultivated, under sea-level country I’ve lived in for the past 44 years? And why does visiting New Zealand suddenly fill me with the urge to go live there?

Leaving a place that has made me feel welcomed and at home can be very difficult. I’m not good at lingering goodbyes. A little voice inside me taught me to shut down and leave quickly, so I wouldn’t be overcome by grief and loss as a little girl. That voice still takes control whenever I need to leave people or places behind.

And so I have recently begun to consciously teach myself to put down roots, no matter where I am or how long I will stay. To take my cue from the trees. During my recent stay in the Sonoran Desert, I found Mesquite trees, stubbornly putting down their gnarled roots in stony barren land, even in rock crevices, pulling up nourishment and growing against all odds.

If they can do it, I can. And I allow myself to take my time saying goodbye these days. I allow myself to feel any grief or pain that it might bring. Because, allowing myself to feel grief and pain also means allowing myself to feel love and joy. And so I can carry all the places I’ve been and the people who have meant something to me in my heart.

I’m curious as to what putting down roots has meant for you, please share!

A new approach

I have been searching for a way to deepen the content of this blog without losing its accessibility. A few weeks in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona has given me the impetus to work the changes.

As a central theme, I would like to use the image of the Talking Stick Circle, also known as Council. The sharing that is done in this traditional way of sitting in council with others is based on four clear intentions:
1. Listen with our hearts
2. Speak from our hearts
3. Get to the heart of things
4. Speak spontaneously

(I have borrowed the description of these four intentions from the book Soulcraft, by Bill Plotkin.)

For me, this embodies the way I would like to be in the world and would like to communicate with others. In a blog, it can be a bit tricky. In spite of my encouragement to react to posts, most of the articles I’ve written have not been commented on (though some kicked up a lively discussion on Facebook). I hope that this can change and that we can start a dialogue going on any and all themes that you feel drawn to.

Another change is that I am going to try to just write in English for a while. Most of my active Dutch readers react to the English texts. And English, my mother-tongue, is the language of my heart. Feel free to react in Dutch, however!

If either of these changes seems a bit too much for you, dear reader, please react and I will try and fit your wishes into the changes.

I hope that we will enjoy a deeper connection to life's lessons through this blog together!

Unconditional

An acquaintance joked the other day that she tries very hard to be unconditional. But she does expect something in return! A prickly joke, this, and a great illustration of how easy it is to talk about being unconditional and how difficult it is to put it into practice.

If I offer a friend a ride somewhere and I don’t expect anything in return, my offer is unconditional. Of course this means I won’t mind if I don’t even get a thank-you back. Right? Expecting someone to say thank you seems to go without saying. But this is about the expecting. Thanking someone is a gracious (and polite) gesture. Expecting a thank-you is everything but unconditional.

Things get more complicated when we start talking about unconditional love. Loving someone without the love being returned? Without expectations? Writing about it is much easier than experiencing it. It so often leads to pain and sorrow!

Love is so simple. It is living from a sense of abundance, it’s there in unlimited amounts. Like sunshine, like the myth of the purse that was always full of gold. And still we are afraid to love in this manner.

Why is this so difficult? Why do we grow unhappy when we give our love to someone but receive nothing in return? This partly has to do with fear, often old fears that are awakened in us. Especially if we experienced betrayal or loss as a child. Love makes us vulnerable.

But surrendering to love enables us to learn a tremendous amount about ourselves. Our own beauty – and our own darkness – is reflected back to us by the beauty and darkness we see in the other. We learn to face our greatest fears and touch our greatest joys. We learn to trust and we learn that the most important thing is to be able to trust in ourselves. This is why it’s always worthwhile to take on the adventure of love. Even when it does not end as we had hoped.

But allowing yourself to be dependent on love is a different matter entirely. No one else is responsible for your happiness than you yourself. It is so tempting and oh so treacherous to make your happiness depend on what someone means to you, what you mean to someone else, how someone takes care of you, how you take care of someone else.

Learn, first and foremost, to love yourself. Then it is much easier to love someone else unconditionally, from a sense of abundance.

There is, however, always a boundary. I wrote about this earlier in my blog Walking away. If a bond is no longer good for you, if it costs you more than you can or wish to pay, then it is high time you started taking care of yourself. That too is part of loving yourself.

Unconditional love means loving someone and taking responsibility for your own happiness at the same time.

Is this something you recognize?


p.s. I'm taking a short (2-3 weeks) break after this and will return full of inspiration!