The only way to end up alone is to abandon myself. (It’s also the sure-fire way.)
In my past confusion about belonging, I have abandoned myself in order to belong (by faking, pleasing, appeasing, obligating myself to the whims and desires of others) but it has never brought me a sense of belonging.
Because it can’t.
Because without myself, there is nobody there to belong. I can fake it, but I will never accept my own lie. And so I’ll never belong that way. I’ll keep looking for acceptance but I’ll never find it, because it’s not coming from the only place it can ever really come from: me.
Without myself, I have nobody.
My experience of the world is just an echo of my experience of myself.
And what is “myself” but what I am before ego tells its false story of separation, before it falsely separates a “me” out of the whole?
The true me is never separate from anything.
It always belongs. I just fail to see it sometimes.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to appease the strong, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from the “strong” with the lie that I am weaker than they are.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to help the weak, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from the “weak” with the lie that I am stronger than they are.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to appear better than I am, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from “better” people with the lie that I am worse than they are.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to appear worse than I am, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from “worse” people with the lie that I am better.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to seem smarter or more enlightened to smart, enlightened people, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from “smart, enlightened people” with the lie that I am more stupid or less enlightened than they are.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to seem more down-to-earth to simple people, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from “simple people” with the lie that I am smarter or more enlightened than they are.
When I have the impulse to abandon myself in order to belong to the “in” crowd, it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from the “in” crowd with the lie that I am “out.”
When I have the impulse to abandon myself to separate myself from the “herd,” it’s because I have been mentally separating myself from my and everyone else’s inherent uniqueness regardless of what anyone else is doing or who else is around.
All of these experiences of myself leave me feeling alone, because they all start with me abandoning the true me, the me who is neither strong nor weak, good nor bad, smart nor stupid, in nor out, the same or different...but whole.
The trick is to love all of me. The whole me. Then I come to see that everyone is just me. And I will never be alone again.
“Oh, the fear I’ve known
that I might reap the praise of strangers
and end up on my own.”
Indigo Girls