1. The far enemy of love is hatred. The near enemy is pity. The near enemy masquerades as virtue but blocks the gate to freedom. To amend this, remove the identification with self and voilà, you get compassionate love.
2. Self-compassion says, “I hurt.” Even, “I hurt a whole lot.” “Just like everyone else.” “We hurt.” Self-pity says, “My hurt is somehow unique and entitles me to special privileges—from being excused for bad behavior to deserving special attention.” Compassion immerses you into the sea of humanity. Self-pity isolates you and puts a crown on your pain.
3. Learn the art of being left. Flat out abandoned. Ghosted. Unceremoniously. Chase after it. But this time, don’t try to escape it. Give yourself to abandonment like you did your lover. See it, smell it, taste it. You might discover that all the people were just curtains that existed in front of a fundamental intimacy. I’d say intimacy with yourself, or with God, but what you may realize is no separation exists.
4. See that big ditch in your mind? The one that you avoid like the plague because if that happened, you’d die. If the one you’re obsessed with found you irrelevant. If you found out that people were saying that they just tolerated your presence behind your back. If you found out that friend was only using you—drive right into the center of it. Those fears are intimations of something that you know and deny. Who would you rather be tried-and-true friends with: your intuition that will never steer you wrong, or your denial that will always protect the ego that imprisons you at any cost?
5. Don’t build sandcastles. Don’t give yourself reasons to believe. Belief requires no reasons. It’s what happens when self-preservation is removed. Just believe. Say today is a good day to die and kill.
6. The Orphics realized that Eros is the central flame around which the invisible is organized. Unio mystica.
7. Alchemy warns us: “Beware of the physical in the material.” It is not heartache—the substance of suffering that infects our process of transformation—it is the “physical,” the everyday ordinary mind that is absent of creativity and limited in the vast imagination that would be the catalyst. The hurt mind wants to hunker down, hold on, grip to the side of the pool. Let go, be carried, and unimaginable solutions will arise.
8. The cure is the complement. When in doubt, find the complement and function like a slide rule. Libido and grief, the celestial and the mycelium, passion and compassion, illusion and disillusion. And as Jung pointed out, anima and animus and psyche and logos.
Goethe said, “the feminine seems to recede from us and draws us after it speaks to the seduction of the mystery. But brutish pride prevents us from following. We pride ourselves on “standing our ground,” “not being moved”. That is the ineloquent version of earth. Be the version that is carried around the sun and quakes as a reminder that it is alive.
9. Water. Learn from the river. A healthy river is healthy because it continues to flow. Nutrients are carried throughout the whole to keep the ecosystem thriving. Don’t stop. Stay in the flow no matter what. You want to freeze, you want to duck and cover, you want to crawl under the covers. There is a window, if you jump through, you will be carried and the heartache will break up and take on the nutritive value of wisdom. There is nothing as nutrient-rich as heartache transformed to wisdom.
See your reflection in the water. I keep a series of friends who are like clear water. When I’m hurting like a lion with a thorn in my paw, I look into their glassy pools to remember who I am.
Remember that boiling water will not reflect. Don’t try to see what to do when you are angry. Same can be said of frozen water. Don’t try to see what to do when you are frozen in fear.
10. Fire. Become an internal pyromaniac. Burn down your interior house. Live out in the elements. Discover the foundation that will not be burned down. *That* is your true home.
Live the fire puja with Agni the fire god. Allow him into your heart and let his flames lap up the hurt, the mistakes, the ruminations. We tend to try to cool down when we are hurt. This creates the infamous freeze. Instead, turn up the heat and the arousal, right there in the middle of the heartache.
11. Wind. Walk right into the middle of it. You know that mind that tries to curve around the internal storm, to self-soothe or get around it. Be a bison. Bison, also known as buffalo, are said to be the only animals that instinctively run into oncoming storms. This behavior allows them to get through the storm more quickly, and to minimize their exposure to the most dangerous parts, like the leading edge where the winds are strongest
A teacher once asked me to find out how I knew if it was intuition or hope/fear. I spent a good six months researching. This is what I discovered. When it’s intuition, my breath is free. When it is hope or fear, I am holding my breath. It hasn’t failed me yet.
12. Earth. Take off your virtual shoes and stick your feet in the soil in the grass. In other words, take off your protection, the mind that tells you “It’s okay” or pushes you to get through it quickly or becomes a drug dealer telling you to try this new intoxicant, be it shopping or the guy who is texting you. Shed it. And let your mind go down into the fertile terrain of your body. Let your body absorb the thoughts. Let the mind take in the microorganisms of joy that exist down around the groin. Don’t take my word for it. Try it.