The lie of love

What underlies all trauma?

At the root of all trauma lies a terrible sense of isolation, disconnection, loneliness.

Follow your trauma to its destructive core, friend. To the very heart of darkness, and you will inevitably meet an abandoned wound, the pain of all pains.

Abandoned by mother, father. Forgotten and misunderstood by the world. Cast out of heaven and separated from God. Separated from life.

Of course, these are illusions. You have never been separated from mountains, forests, diamond drops of morning dew. You have never been broken, never rotted at your core, never separated from the One. You have always been loved. The terrible heart of darkness has always been your exquisitely beautiful heart of light, so fragile, so strong, so sweet, so real.

Ultimately, others cannot save us. Each of us is called to confront our loneliness, dive into the very heart of our trauma and find solace and refuge there. Others may hold our trembling hands, but they cannot travel for us.

There is no external saviour and the lie of love is that another person - parent, partner, guru or god - can fill you up.

No. Your fullness is in your fragility. We cannot save each other, but we can cry together, walk together, share our horror, our shame, our hope and our fear.

Walking through the woods at dawn, our eyes meet.

I recognize your longing as my own.

Love is the recognition of oneself in another.

~ Jeff Foster