Today I did something symbolic.  I put a small, silver band on my left ring finger.

I don’t wear jewelry.  I used to wear a wedding band on my left ring finger for years.  So much so that after my divorce it took a few more years for the imprint to fade completely away.  But I had become jaded.  Uncertain about life, or my place in life, or marriage and what marriage looks like.  At a very young age I had committed to building a life with another person and then I was necessarily thrust into this quest to be alone instead, and find myself, and create things from this place of solitude.  So I dubiously have been doing that for years now, almost thinking I’m some sort of fraud for having been uncovered by myself in a world I fully intended to be united in with my marriage.  I had to figure out what was up from down, and do it at a stage in life so far later than what my peers were off doing and this broke my heart frankly and made me feel extra weird* (*beyond my usual weirdness).  If I had not made the mistake of being duped into my marriage I would have cleanly done this at an appropriate age.  I wouldn’t have sacrificed my ‘best’ years living in a toxic marriage fighting for something that I believed in that didn’t really exist.  I had always felt alienated from the planet since birth, and now my failed risk that was held closest to my heart weighed heavily on my heart, especially combined with an entire series of failed things in the wake of my divorce such as being raped, and shunned romantically in the worst ways where I was used for being so nice, and being fired from 2 different jobs, and going broke because the risks I was taking were not paying off.  In one case I had been majorly ripped off for thousands of dollars in a fraudulent business investment that lasted 2 years.  And I had been making these choices all on my own and they were all crashing and burning thanks to my naivety and willingness to believe in people and things—a sweet trusting nature that got me burned in return.  In some cases they were dumb, risky decisions and in that risk I was failing horribly because I didn’t know better at the time.  I was very alone in all of this choice, with no mentor or family guidance on decisions.  I was learning so much but it was all really painful with serious ramifications. 

To try and declare that I can merrily waltz through life snapping up connections with fellow humans on a close level would be laughable.  Mainly because I didn’t know how since my barometer was broken from these past traumas and flat inexperiences.  And ironically this was a catch-22 because the conditions that created this behavior in myself caused my life to therefore not work in intimate harmony either as my body language and personal belief in myself were not in alignment.  I had been set adrift in a sea of failures and hold back.  At best I could connect with people socially and in a crowd of faces but never, ever look them properly in the eye or give off a body language that says people could come in any closer.

So you can imagine that trying to believe in something greater, in a life that can be greater and bigger with real connections (not fake or toxic ones) should be super easy to look up to from when you starting at the ground level right?  No.  In fact, as I put a big smile on my face and forged ahead with new ideas I realized that I was moving in a sea of uncertainty in my heart even though outwardly I thought I was happy and believing in greater things.  There was an invisible disconnect in my heart, a tiny little shroud that didn’t believe in myself or what this life on Earth was supposed to be about.

I have since come to see that the answer to facing life and all of this is to do so with an open, loving heart.  Which sounds absolutely ridiculous when you are faced with nothing but pain and failure.  But here’s the trick:  in order to walk forward with life believing in the best you have to be married to life.  You have to, at the depths of your soul, believe in your purpose on Earth and in yourself and you have to 1st trust yourself and then be married to life in return that it wants what you want, because when you grow and operate from your best place life gets a chance to shine through you at its best:  a true marriage in all the sense of the world.  Since our planet is a planet of illusions this sounds crazy.  How can we trust when there is so much deceit and outward appearances?  Even further how can we trust in ourselves when we have made such terrible decisions in the past?  How do we know we won’t fall flat on our faces in pain again?  It is human nature to want to avoid pain, which makes older adults so much more hesitant than their younger peer counterparts who “don’t know any better”.

The truth is that our bodies, and the nature surrounding us, and our planet and our universe is one big, correcting force for the greater balance.  Before you can declare something good or bad you have to first see how it’s used.  In the case of our lives that correcting force even when seen as most terrible and ridiculous is actually working in our favor to help us.  But the problem is that we become paralyzed by these events, and deeply uncertain.  As a result of this without realizing it we are allowing these events to own us, like how a lion might throw a gazelle down on the ground and snarl in its face.  We are that gazelle, and we are letting these events secretly pin us down and cause us to become separated with life itself.  A divorce from ourselves and our life.  If you are a more logical, analyzing type that operates less from your heart these events are even harder for you to overcome as you are logically deducing the consequences of the series of events without the added benefit of using your heart to tap into the unknown possibility of things beyond your logical, deducing mind. 

But the truth is that there is no lion holding us down.  And that is because the truth is that nothing is ever greater than us.  Our planet of illusions may make us think that there are many things greater than us from titles and status, to what other people have, to the things that we commit to believing in with all our hearts that don’t work out, to the things that are uninvited that fall smack in our laps even when we are well meaning people.  These things create rips and tears in us.  They allow other lions to come along and hold us down.

The ultimate truth is that we, as creators of our lives, are the ones believing in these ‘fake lions’ that don’t really exist, and ironically that is what is creating the pain and the hold back and uncertainty.  I know that this is a tall order, to move past all of these forces everyday trying to tell us how to be, or how much to weigh, or what to have, especially combined with things that are painful and tragic that have followed in their wake.  It’s even tougher if you’ve never identified with your place in this world to begin with.  But the answer is to trust yourself and be married to life anyway.  You have to dim down the ‘all knowing brain’ and operate from your heart. Marriages happen in the heart and from the heart.  This closes that gap of uncertainty and creates a space to seek out the good in every situation knowing that they are working in your favor no matter how they appear because in every experience we are learning good or bad.  This helps us to become whole again.  It helps us to not be powerless in a life where we at all times hold all the power because of choice.  The greatest choice as we move forward each day is to say ‘yes’ to life and what it gives us rather than fighting it.  The way you say ‘yes’ to what is is by knowing that you have a place in this sun and you love and trust from that certainty.  The choice of embracing the newness of life in the gift called time that we get every day.

I feel like women especially are conditioned to seek out the external marriage fulfillment just as I did when I eloped at 19 years old.  This is especially toxic when things don’t work out or haven’t worked out yet as we become jaded in our hearts.  We are especially externalized to be and do and please with our smiles and our extended love that we think can heal and do anything.  And it can.  But ironically we are trying to start with the outward world first and seek out the marriage out there first (and the perfect body.  and the perfect life, ect).  So the order of how women are using their grace and feminine healing powers and ‘can do nature’ is all incorrect.  The power and forces are correct, the wielding of them and the order is incorrect.  What happens in this set up for women is that women’s hearts and souls become prostituted to life as they have to put on a performance.  From here, they become bitter and angry and there is competition with other women. 

It is most crucial for women to understand that they by their nature have everything they need without any of the externals to prop them up, or make them better, or make them whole.  It is most crucial for women especially to seek out the marriage within themselves to life first.  A women cannot unite with men whom they have become bitter and hostile to in their quest for external fulfillment that wasn’t working no more than can they unite with women whom they mistakenly see as competition.

When we as people use this superpower of trust and marriage to life as a group the whole inside becomes whole outside and there is a solid platform for things to come in that otherwise would never have been given the chance. 

Am I going to wear my silver ring I put on my left ring finger everyday from this point forward?  Uh, no.  Am I going to live some perfect little cookie cutter life now that I’m making a commitment to be married to life first?  No, this is Earth it doesn’t work that way here.  Duh.  But am I going to make an internal commitment to trust in my purpose and be married to life from this point forward?  Yes.  For better or for worse.  As this commitment definitely beats the alternative.