Tough Love is Neutral Love

Meet in the middle

My husband Dominick and I have recently thrown around the idea of starting a podcast. We often marvel at how opposite we are. You all know I am a very paradoxical person. My marriage might be the biggest paradox of my life. Ask Dom. The other day, I raised my voice and fluttered my hands in a wide orbit around my head to make an announcement to a room full of just him. As always, he listened, completely unfazed.

“I’M FREE, AND NOBODY HAS CONTROL OVER ME, BECAUSE I HAVE CHOICE, AND I WOULDN’T BE WITH YOU IF I DIDN’T WANT TO BE!”

He rewarded my confidence with a soft smile and replied: Okay, Calypso.

Calypso is a sea goddess in the story of Pirates of the Caribbean. We joke that, like her, I am bound in human form, longing to be one with the wild sea again. Haha, that’s just a poetic way to say I’m crazy.

Podcast concept idea: The couple who could take or leave their marriage.

The thing that has brought us the closest is neutrality, always leaving the other the choice. Many of our conversations are simply talking with each other from the other side of the coin. I can’t tell if this is only interesting to me and not necessarily an audience, or if it would be hilarious and worthwhile to highlight some of these dialogues in a way people could listen in. I have moments when I feel like I’m in a sitcom.

Other than my relationship, it felt like a week of tough love from the universe. You might sense it in this week’s dose of daily contemplations. I could probably blame PMS and the full moon and get away with it. But I felt extra resistance with work and other things too this week. I had big feelings, like anger, with nowhere to place them. I felt restricted in my human body and bored with what sometimes feels like a snow globe I live in. I did my very best to allow the rage to flow through without damaging anything or anyone, including myself. Sometimes I do that via yoga, and other times by yelling at God at the top of my lungs in the car. What’s crazy is it really felt like someone was listening. It really felt like they heard me. I would have taken the same week all over again for those few moments in the peaceful presence. I did not earn those moments by good works or proving my worth. On the contrary, I was utterly honest, desperate, and at the end of myself once again. Love doesn’t take away my challenges. I suppose we meet in their center and transcend them from the inside out.

Love, Calypso

SUNDAY

WORK

In the darkness you were held, and in the light you hold yourself up. Feelings change, so do not depend on them. Move according to your success tomorrow. To stay consistent is not to move a mountain in one day, but rather one pebble at a time. Do what you need to do, and don’t forget to play and rest. These three things can happen in one day. Take responsibility for each. Make them your choice. How do you want to contribute to the world? What feels genuinely fun to you? What calms you down, soothes you, and ultimately helps you sleep? Either we choose to continue what we have or we choose to change it. Work merits play merits rest. Whatever life we choose, it will ask for all three. Might as well pick our favorite flavors. These are what will color our bloom. We’re taking in more now. We are sustaining who we’ve become. In the darkness you were held, and in the light you hold yourself up.

MONDAY

UNDERTOW

Ready yourself by staying embedded. Your roots reach to greater depths. Your new vision and lightness are not meant to pluck you out of the ground. A person who is down to earth lifts the spirits. Both forces work together. What goes up must go down. We do each other a favor when we burst each other’s bubbles. Let’s not float away in delusion. It is freedom to see life as it is and also see it through. It is the paradox of the firm foundation yielding a relaxed and liberal sway in the wind. The higher the crest, the deeper the trough. Everything you see may not be as it seems. Let time tell. When it does, you’ll know from your depths, so you will grow to new heights. Ready yourself by staying embedded.

TUESDAY

APPROACH

The more you seek, the more you find. There is a signal involved as you draw close to your target. The invitation comes from you. God leaves us choice and therefore does not help those who don’t want to be helped. The wither begins when we think we have it all on our own. The growth spurt takes off when we welcome assistance. Send the signal. It is not solely you trekking the entire distance. As much as you search, your true desire searches the way toward you. You meet each other halfway. As much as you desire the best interest of all, the search party grows. The more you seek, the more you find.

WEDNESDAY

RISK

Roll the dice. You’ve weighed all the options. You are well seated. You’ve taken in your new surroundings. You’ve observed everything else grow. You are the only one with your vantage point. Nobody knows your path like you do. Ask yourself what to keep, what to start, and what to stop. What makes you wither and what makes you light up? Answer that, not according to anyone else, but according to yourself. Find one small step you can take towards the light that is true to you. There is more to shed in order to expand. Make space for something new. In every gain there is a sacrifice. There is no pretending anymore. You are fully here and will see farther still. Trust what you sense and let it propel you quietly. This is the change you knew would keep coming. It is the next discovery in your scavenger hunt, and there are multiple avenues to get there. You can try only one route at a time. Choose the way. Name what you are willing to release and let it go. Roll the dice.

THURSDAY

SOLVE

Go deeper into the equation to discover the answer. Root down and in to expand up and out. What else do we call this in math class or life? Problems, questions, tests. In school, we didn’t have the luxury of asking the teacher for a different test when we didn’t like the problems it presented. We either passed it or needed to study some more. How are you being tested now? What feels like a problem you wish would go away? Have you tried studying it from a new angle? Look at it from a different vantage point. If your current perspective yields no answers, then search for a new one. A new perspective is not your final answer. It is one tool on the quest for the solution. This is the brilliance of the universe. We go to great lengths to find the liberation that was hidden within us all along. If we spend our lives avoiding challenges, then we pass no tests and, therefore, do not grow. Imagine if every inconvenience held a treasure inside. Imagine it until it becomes a reality. Even if it makes you blow a gasket. That’s a sign the way is opening. Stuck energy is released. It’s not always pretty at first. Go deeper into the equation to discover the answer.

FRIDAY

BIG

Snap out of it. When the life we have now was still just a seed, we existed in a small space. There came a little more breathing room in the soil, yet it was still dark and we were confined. Now we find ourselves here- aboveground. We still feel new, almost like we don’t belong. The action of belonging is ours alone. We either play small in order to belong in tighter spaces, or we rise and open in the new air. It is not a domination but a resonation. Remember when the trust helped you merge with your surroundings. That still stands true. The merge looks different in the air than it did with the soil. The connection happens as a result of your natural expression. When you were still underground, you took in nutrients from your surroundings. Now, you emit something. Life comes out of you. You add color, shape, and contrast to the landscape. Your own type of pollen will eventually be developed, which will multiply life farther than you can reach. Then you’ll know the circuit is complete. For now, take up the space given to you. Snap out of it.

SATURDAY

VISION

More of the new terrain is coming into focus. You gain more clarity as resentment falls away. You appreciate the life forms around you for what each one brings. Synthesize your old experience with the new. The binding agent is a purpose beyond good or bad. We chase our tails trying to prove what is right and wrong. We soon discover there is only life or death. Creation or destruction. The nature of something is revealed in what it manifests. A physically clean, well dressed person can smile, say all the right words, and follow every single rule while preaching a message of shame to hungry listeners. A diet of shame leads to a life of hiding. We hear from the pulpit of a savior who never preached at anyone. The story goes that he met people where they were. He was a human, side by side with others in the street, around the table, on the boat, in the middle of the storm. He modeled interactions that foster healing, discovery, and freedom. For so long, we thought we had to become better than those places to become like the tall one in the pulpit. Save yourself a step and go where you are. The key is under where you stand. More of the new terrain is coming into focus.