True Colours

True Colours

Dido’s raw and deeply evocative lyrics from “See you when you’re 40” surged through my earphones this morning, as I read an email from a dear friend, who lives in Ireland.  “He’s shown his true colours!” she wrote.

Betrayal, disillusionment, heart-break. Motifs I have woven into the warp and weft of my own life story.

People aren’t always what we think they are. And when they aren’t, we feel let down. Disappointed. Misunderstood.  

In love and loss, our lives so often resemble the plaintive lyrics of a Country and Western song.  Time after time, we barricade our fortress hearts, cauterise  haemorrhaging emotions.  Until, one new day, someone new comes along to kiss us awake… and with new hope, new bravado, we dare to love again, to shine brightly in our full aliveness in our True Colours.

Medical intuitive Carolyn Myss says that each one of us, in our life time will experience a betrayal. “One of the main reasons for the on-going trauma of relentless personal suffering is self-betrayal. Betrayal is one of life’s unavoidable experiences.”

I believe that betrayal is a soul contract we have with someone. A very special soul who comes to teach us forgiveness, to show us Who we really are.  A betrayal wound has a putrid odour, and seeps for years, until we are willing to notice the intricate design of the interlocked patterns that imprison us in the chains of our own unconsciousness. Only when we have really enter the quiet sanctury of self- love and forgiveness, can we shed  constricting chains, the straight-jacket of self denial,  to discover that as we joyfully cry “freedom! “ the Old Ways of behaving will not work for us anymore.  The Lovers that lured us into the fragrant arbour of juicy delights in our youth, just do not have the mettle and endurance to hold our attention in mid-life.

“Been there, got the mug and the T-shirt!” my heart-sore friend lamented. “I will not settle for a man encased in cement anymore!   He is not willing to do the self-growth work, or to hold me through mine.  I just don’t want to be with someone who stays is stuck on the hamster wheel!  I guess the gift for me in all of this is, that I have to look once again, at  how I love and value myself.”

And so, the screeching Valkyries swoop down upon us once more, and we realise that we are like wooden actors on the stage, going through Act 1 again. The lines are the same, though the actor might be someone new. We suddenly confront our own shadow in the mirror of the Bitch or Dick-head who let us down. We suddenly realise that the Unforgiven One is Innocent. They have come into our lives at the perfect moment – to show us our True Colours.  It is we who have betrayed ourselves – by distrusting our gut feel.  By settling for the crumbs. By agreeing to do those things that do not feel in our integrity. By ignoring the dream,  the sudden shock that wakes us in the dark of the  night with a strange sense of dis-ease.

Then we begin to observe that  we can run but we cannot hide. We can end relationships, angrily walk out our marriages, and still the odour of our terror and resistance follows us, like the stench of a putrid corpse. We will encounter more men and women encased in concrete – just like us – who will teach us the futility of going through the motions, acting out of our integrity.

Another friend, who has just ended a relationship, shared with me how sex without true intimacy and safety felt tawdry once the novelty of the new body had dissipated.

“It just felt so empty. A parody, ” she said.

Within our physical expression of Love, sex without a deep heart and limbic connection, feels  desperately lonely as we gaze into the granite eyes of our Lover.

In my own life, it was an awakening to find more truth and balance and integration in my own life triggered by the solar eclipse on July 1^st. I knew, I had to dig deeper to discover the hidden treasure and refine my spiritual container. To dedicate an hour each day for meditation.

Astrologically, this is a perfect time for  introspection. Mercury, planet of communication and thought, turns  retrograde from August 4^th until August 28^th.

Use this month of August, to show up for your own spiritual practice.  Journal, pray, meditate, walk in nature.  Consciously become more aware of your inner world.  What wakes you at 2am? Try to see the issues and challenges in your life from a higher perspective, as part of the whole. Look at the people around you. They reflect your own True Colours.

I dedicate Dido’s beautiful song to my beloved friend, and to men and women everywhere, who want Something More…

“See You When You’re 40”

I’ve driven round in circles for three hours
It was bound to happen that I’d end up at yours
I temporarily forgot there’s better days to come
I thought that I would give it just one more chance

Cos’ I want, tonight, what I’ve been waiting for
But I found, tonight, what I’d been warned about

“You think that you are complicated, deep mystery to all
Well it’s taken me a while to see, you’re not so special
All energy no meaning, with a lot of words
So paper thin that one real feeling, could knock you down

And I’ve seen, tonight, what I’d been warned about
I’m gonna leave, tonight, before I change my mind

So see you when your 40, lost and all alone
being comforted by strangers you’ll never need to know
not sad because you lost me
but sad because you thought it was cool to be sad

You think misery will make you stand apart from the crowd
well if you had walked past me today I wouldn’t have picked you out
I wouldn’t have picked you out

Now I’ve seen, tonight, how could I waste my time?
and I’ll be on my way, and I won’t be back
cos I’ve seen, tonight, what I’ve been warned about
your just a boy, not a man, and I’m not coming back. “

Dido.