Anam cara, Celtic for soul friend. Anam cara's are people with whom you have a deep soul connection, people you love and accept unconditionally and utterly.

I have begun to see that this was where I was headed several years back in my relating with others. I wanted to be able to relate to people on a deep core level, without walls, without judgment, utterly accepting their being for who they are and loving that person from a place of unconditional love. I have been so lost in this last couple of years (at least since January of 06 anyway), that I had lost sight of this path I was headed down exploring. It doesn't matter how or why I was diverted from that path of exploration, what matters now is that I am remembering where I was going and what I was exploring.

I had a glimmer of a lesson learned just a bit ago.  Just how far off of a path my dysfunction can take me. How far can allowing judgment of others and myself can take me away from the ultimate goal? Apparently enough that I lost sight of it.

Seventeen years and 8 months ago I was meditating and an insight came to me about relationships. All relationships. All relating, to everyone. Several days after this insight, I heard a person speaking at a meeting. His message was about how everything is about relationships and right relating to people from a place of unconditional love. What he was speaking about was exactly what I had been shown in my meditation. Three days after I heard him speak, I had the most cathartic experience of my life to date. I didn't go seeking this experience out, it just came to me while I was writing in my journal. It changed me forever in an instant. I was shown/felt/experienced/enveloped to the core of my being in unconditional universal love. I lost all fear. In an instant I fell deeply in love with myself and was able to love everyone I encountered with that exact same unconditional "in love". When I say everyone, I mean everyone. Even the guy at the grocery store checking out in front of me. I could just look at someone, see their real true core self, their very heart and love them beyond words, the way you think God must love everyone.

I was 35 years old when this life changing event was given to me. I have tried to sustain the ability to love that unconditionally for these last 17 years and 8 months. Between my own working on my own things within myself that make me behave dysfunctionally and then being in relationship (any kind of relationship) with other humans, I have slowly grown further and further away from that initial experience. When I grow close with someone, I am still able to love unconditionally, but strangers? For get it, I tend to ignore people I do not know unless forced to meet them. I don't have the energy anymore to love people I barely know with that kind of love.

I haven't grown more judgmental with people I don't know, I just don't have the energy to give from that place of core unconditional love. I haven't figured out what it takes to sustain that, like make it a permanent part of me, like breathing, or my skin. I have let base human emotions take over in my life, so much so that anger became my all consuming emotion for far too many months. It took me even further away from being able to love always from a place of unconditionality.

To love that deeply, to be able to give love like that to anyone takes an enormous love of self. You must love yourself so utterly and unconditionally that you are able to give from the depths of your being without fear. I have done this a multitude of times with more people than I can ever number. But could I do it now? No. I know I can't right now. I am still too wounded, whether I remember how I was wounded or not. The wound is still tender, too tender to touch yet, no longer festering, but tender. My ability to love myself utterly has not returned completely. Soon though, soon.

I have asked for healing for myself in so many ways, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. And I see the physical results very clearly. I asked for this weight to be taken from me after so many years of harboring it. I have asked for my physical health to be restored and I see it clearly as each day passes. I physically feel a thousand times better than I have in over 10 years. I know my prayers/intentions are answered, I am healing, in more ways than one. Soon, very soon.

Univeral oneness/unconditional love, right relationships, anam cara, that soul connection, loving utterly from your core unconditionally. Back on this path of exploration. Moving forward again, making progress, shedding the bullshit (true Taurean bullshit I might add) and moving onward and upward.