An Empty Cup!
A beautiful lady (MM), answered my last post (Is It Really A Crazy World), with her comment…
“I can only give from what I am. If I don’t heal me, then I only ever give of a damaged version of what I have become to that point.” The truth your words resonate deeply. We must take time to self-repair and set healthy and self-sustaining boundaries, before we can give of ourselves from a healthy and healing place. We are surrounded by humanity’s brokenness. It’s not easy to protect our energies in a draining world awash in fresh horrors every day. We need guilt-free time for self-care. We cannot pour out from an empty cup. Thank you for the validation and wisdom, my dear friend. ❤️🙏
But as I went to reply to her lovely words, Spirit ‘nudged’ me to explain a little further in a post…
Spirit showed me my ’empty cup’…all because my fear was of that rejection from others. Something unintentionally passed onto me from my father. I was forever trying to get him to accept me and constantly being rejected. What I didn’t understand was he knew no other way because ‘he too’ was raised the same way.
So I had to look much deeper because all this unintentional actions must have a meaning. And after I dared to look deeper into my childhood I found it. Seeing why ‘I’ reacted all boiled down to why we all have fears. There isn’t a soul on this planet who isn’t afraid of something…and that fear teaches us ‘conditional love’. Those many expectations we have because of those fears in all our relationships, be it parent, child or lovers so that we don’t get that same rejection that we were raised with.
We forever hunt for that love and happiness ‘beyond’ what ever holds us ‘on guard’ to those fears we have. Those walls so that we don’t get hurt. And all those experiences slowly give us understanding that we are afraid to be hurt so we keep those relationships at arms length when we feel ‘they’ will possibly do something to hurt us. ‘On guard’ is a distance, a holding pattern to run, physically or emotionally away from that pain. We even do its opposite and hold them so close afraid they will run away and desert us…more rejection.
The fears can be built from so many things…but they all leave us an ’empty cup’, never filling that love and happiness we ever search for. But in that daring to ‘do us’ and give ourselves permission to take time out, give ourselves permission to do those things we love, we begin to build that self love. But it isn’t until we reach a point of ‘I can’t do this anymore’, usually in the middle of a huge emotional upheaval, divorce, grief from a loss, or just life so upside down that we can’t do this anymore…that we do dare to ask ‘why’.
And it is in looking deeper back to that childhood that the answer will lay. You will see what was your ‘forever trigger’ to your fear, see it for what it is…and if it is time, you will pierce that barrier that you as a child sealed over in your hurt and pain and refused to ever look at it again. So much so is that wall built that you will forget its origin simply because it is so painful, you never want to touch that pain again…but life…life will constantly niggle that wall in so many ways until you reach this point of ‘no more’. And when it opens its eyes so you can see that truth in your hearts…your adult heart will now understand what it had all meant. It will see that every step you have ever taken has been teaching you all about ‘conditional love’ in that fear…so that in now understanding you will see that it all had a great meaning so that you could reach this point and finally understand what it was all about.
And if you look through your life, everything you understand…you let go. Everything. The first time you drive a car, you are nervous, unsure, ‘on guard’ to it all. But twelve months later you barely give it a thought. Why? Because you now understand it, and it doesn’t need that ‘on guard’. This happens in every single understanding you ever make. And in a lifetime of fear…that understanding and let go is such an incredibly profound moment from so much work, so much pain, so much effort…that to reach this moment you finally understand what it was all about….that in that let go you see what you have ever looked for…that unconditional love, that love and happiness, no longer wrapped in fear, no longer ‘on guard’, but finally let go a weight on your heart, and an opening I can barely describe in how you will now feel.
To see its beauty and exactly how you have achieved this will bring big beautiful tears in that understanding…and a cup running over with a love beyond words. It is there, I’ve seen and touched this incredible moment and understood it. And I see it in others, in their journey. Dare it, it is waiting to be found and it will speak when ‘YOU’ unconditionally dare to hold it. Life is guiding you, life is wanting to fill your cup. Life is that heating up of love, ever wanting to pour it inside you but being held by your ‘on guard’ walls and barriers. Dare to look, dare to understand…dare to be filled with that love. Because when you do, all that this world is will then just flow on through, no longer catching on your fears…fears purpose has been met, to guide you to this incredible point. As I said, when you see it and understand it…you will be so astounded that something that has ever brought such terrible images and thoughts, is one of the guides to reach this incredible beauty…and an appreciation beyond words in unconditional love’s gift of understanding ❤️🙏
Thank you for a lovely comment MM, your cup is filling kind lady. Even in this crazy world we are daring to be filled in each step we take. Thank you for the ‘nudge’ 🤗❤️🙏
That one crucial moment at the beach by the Pacific ocean, when I realized that fear is nothing I am but only something I created was the most empowering and liberating moment in my life. I blew my prison into dust. I agree, I felt like an empty cup because fear kept me from filling it with anything I wanted to be or do. Once fear evaporated, the love that flew into that cup and the power that filled my whole system is still incomparable with anything I ever experienced before. Thank you for recalling this crucial moment that changed my life forever and made me see what life actually means 💖
From that you will indeed ‘know’ how difficult it is to explain such a profound moment Erika. Our whole life is that struggle to go beyond those fears. We don’t like them, they don’t fit us…but ever the struggle. But on that day you speak a light comes through, a crack in those barriers we hold…and suddenly we open in that understanding. There are no words, just big happy tears because we do suddenly understand and see that it all had a very great purpose. To give us such a beautiful understanding in both sides, understanding that one side cannot be understood without the other. I am glad to hear a heart opening, to share that light it gives and a love and happiness we ever searched for has opened, and that truly there are no words for. But we are ever changed by it. Thank you for sharing that beauty in a cup kind lady, may that glow within ever be now your days 🤗❤️🙏
This is what I experienced repeatedly. One small crack opens a small space for the light. The light then widens that crack step by step until we can only sit in awe full of gratitude for this gift of insight. As you said, just happy tears of understanding, no words can meet that deep understanding 💖
That it does kind lady, a gratitude like nothing else. Love speaks in such a beautiful way Erika. Its like a big loving hug from mom as a child when we finally, after many attempts, achieve something fantastic. And to show us it is all going to be ok 🤗❤️🙏
A big loving hug that all is (going to be) ok. Perfectly summed up, Mark! As if you had experienced it before once 😂
My mom, other relationships gave those comforting hugs beautifully. But the most profound of those times was where I was gifted in feeling ‘unconditional love’. Again no words to describe it but…a big hug, everything was going to be ok, touched a love personified, perfection, unlimited, timeless, compassion, empathy…it was everything all at once. There truly are no words for what I touched kind lady, and it is there awaiting us all 🤗🥰❤️🙏
Something we can look at relaxed and in the meantime enjoy this life and be the best possible person 💖
Exactly kind lady, may we all find it…in it’s time, in it’s place, in our hearts 🤗❤️🙏
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I get it Mark, I really do. That fear that has taken up so much space blocks what is free and beautiful! But if you are willing to look back…and see all the struggle for what it truly is/was…ah! Then the sweet spot has been touched and you can let go of the fear…and the pain…and see that every single aspect has been there for a reason! I know there are some things in my past that were harder than others to reconcile this way. There are some things that are so horrible they seem unmentionable and these “things” may have taken a little longer to accept and let go…but boy is the journey worth it!!!
Thanks for writing and sharing from your soul! You always reach places that are deep and necessary.
Sure hope all is well in your world, Mark ❤️ Sending lots of love and light!
Thank you Lorrie, our journey is indeed so perfect in all we touch. Those fears do have a very profound purpose, even if they were unintentionally passed onto us. Then we spend a lifetime trying to avoid that pain, but in its truth, life is trying to allow that love back in. Its trying to show us that it is, and always has been, us blocking it out.
Unconditional love is in everything, a part of every little atom on this planet…and then some. And it is only ever us in our fears that hold it at bay because of the pain we hold. And to make it worse, it is that very unwise child who hasn’t had very many experiences in life, that in that misunderstanding holds an action from that parent/s to heart, never letting those people that love them, ever inside their heart again. And yes, most of those actions from them is very hurtful…but…because they too are holding those walls and blocking us as children from ‘their’ pain.
It might seems like such a terrible, painful process…but isn’t the actual process of birth the same, the pain of coming out into the world into so much light, loud voices (well, it is much more muffled inside there 🤗), a smack on the backside with no warning. But in that enduring journey the wisdom begins, the love in so many ways in that connection with mom…and the path begins from one extreme to the next. So many opposites, a warm cuddle from mom and suddenly a smelly projection comes from inside us 🤣
This world is truly full of those opposites that will guide us ever closer to that love, beyond our fears, and set us free in finally understanding that we cannot truly understand until we experience it all.
Great share Lorrie, and yes there are truly some horrors in among this journey…but, it is up to us to go beyond them and see that we are indeed being loved every step of the way so that we can see its truth. Much love and light to you also kind lady, your steps are opening to that beauty, even on those days it seems it is at its worst, is in fact taking you ever closer to its heart…yours 😀❤️🙏
Beautiful, Mark!
Thank you Michele, and very appreciated your sharing your cup on here and your blog. It is flowing nicely 🤗❤️🙏
Dearest Mark… as I return here to blogland reading your words, which so resonate within my own story..
That Empty Cup you speak of, also served you a good deed, for in realisation of that empty cup, needing to be filled, you were then able to help fill other cups with your wisdom and empathy my friend..
I for one, among many others I know, here on the blogsphere landscape, have been very grateful for the love you have poured out filling our hearts with your empathy and wisdom…
May you cup runneth over with love…💖🙏💖
Thank you Sue, I can but share something so beautifully given to me…unconditionally. When it is touched it leaves you so profoundly changed, in seeing such an incredible understanding you just want to shout it from the rooftops.
And to finally have that cup filled to overflowing is just beyond words, and in truly understanding it that I can now help guide others to that very wisdom. It is such an incredible thing that each and every one of us can do this…but…in that acceptance of it. I cannot force it in any way, unconditional is just that…unconditional.
It is something that we must release all that we hold against our hearts, those fears, doubts and negativities…so that it will become unconditional. And the only way to remove those things within us is…to understand them…and let them go. It is that simple, and that powerful, that when it touches us in that moment of understanding…we will be changed so beautifully…forever.
Thank you for your blessings also kind lady, you too have changed me many times so that I too can see those parts within me that still require understanding. That wisdom is a blessing for me also. Much love to you my friend, I hope all is well and your cup of love flowing in that peace. Love and light, always 😀❤️🙏
We meet and greet those in life dear Mark who we are meant to connect with, and I am for one very grateful for your friendship and guidance over the years… You have picked me up many a time, and set my compass straight…
Much love and gratitude xx <3
Thank you Sue, wise words kind lady. And many blessings also for a soulful meet on this incredible path we have been given. For that I thank you in return. Much love and light to you also dear lady 😀❤️🙏
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Hi Val, a pleasure to be gifted with your understanding kind lady. And the blessings of your flowers and a love so profound. Thank you 🤗❤️🙏
I don’t think I can add anything not shared, dear Mark. Our fears, learned in childhood just as learning to speak, halt everything. Fears, “conditions”, expectations—they all cause us to miss the mark, in a manner of speaking. When they’re based on lies from the enemy (anything that isn’t love), we consider ourselves defeated. I appreciate the parallel to driving a car! I remember flying for the first time, at age 17, and thinking, “It’s going to crash!” After the first time, I enjoyed flying all the time. In each relationship I sometimes created expectations that were never there to begin with—so I had to do the hard work to find out why I did this! Hmm, self-sabotage? It was easier for me to self-sabotage rather than be—-rejected. My overreaching, underlying, and undeniable fear was rejection. Meeting others who experienced broken relationships, childhood circumstances similar to mine, and health situations that leave you alone helped me to see that we also have support in others. Yet, alone, I experienced the love of God that is unexplainable. A source of power, light, and love that I had never known until I reached a point of wanting to escape this human world. I could feel it in nature, always, and then I learned that my mind had as much power as my heart. Finding others with this mind-heart connection has helped my strength even more! Knowing that we were created to love and be loved brought me back to the foundation of my existence! Accepting that love, no matter what, allows me to keep filling my cup and having it overflow to others. Not everyday is sunshine, roses, dark chocolate, and butterflies—but I’m stronger now because those days are temporary—circumstances can shift—but my joy remains. Finn and I love you dear friend! Thank you for sharing you wisdom, love, and light with us!! ❤️🤍💚💐
It is a big journey Karla, so many things we encounter that we feel sometimes we can’t endure. But our hearts ever find that extra beat, we take another step and so slowly go beyond those things that test us. We can even look back and say ‘we’ve done it’. It changes us day to day,then really changes gear for where we are both at now.
You have very big courage kind lady, to face something way beyond where I am at. To suddenly touch these places truly ask what we are inside, all else no longer has any importance but what we are becoming, come to terms with and begin again from what we find. Your light has truly become much brighter, more profound because of that. You speak from the heart now with all those expectations, masks we wear…all gone. And because of that your love is there for all to see.
It is a hard path, but it is that very thing that creates much empathy, compassion and that love you have opened to in finding them. All before you can see that ‘self sabotage’ that our fears hold us in. And people cringe at their fears, but in truth they play a powerful role in us daring to go beyond them and see that beauty we had hidden inside. Like any emotion, like happiness…it cannot be fully appreciated unless we experience sadness too.
He has given us a very beautiful world to appreciate on those trails you take, in between those harder paths you endure. In nature we do relax and fall into its Grace, a resting place for us to heal, heart and mind. And of course much love and light from over here, and those many, many friends, family and a fluffy Finn in your life. Oh, and chocolate kind lady. A sneaky blessing, be it dark, white, caramel, raisin or just plain old chocolate 🤗🤣
And you will never be truly rejected kind lady, because those things we hold are as you said, a construct in dealing with ‘old bits’ we hold. But, in understanding them, a very profound guide to find your love. It is in just un-building fears walls so that we can see that child within us again. Jesus even said ‘become as that child, and you will find that kingdom of God within you’. It took so many years to finally understand that. The profound relief in finally seeing through my fears was a let go like no other, a happiness within that I never thought I could find in this world, was there, ever waiting for me to dare to look. As that smile you ever hold in your heart and words Karla, an opening to that kingdom ❤️🙏
Thank you for sharing kind lady, as ever with a smile in your eyes, hope in your heart and most certainly a cup running over. Thank you 😀❤️🙏
Mark, your words are a beautiful book that I could “publish” every time you share them! THANK YOU. Your heart, insight, wisdom, …every bit of you shines for us all to see!
Many things stand out…this, particularly spoke to me…”people cringe at their fears, but in truth they play a powerful role in us daring to go beyond them and see that beauty we had hidden inside. Like any emotion, like happiness…it cannot be fully appreciated unless we experience sadness too.” My fear has been an emotion that has propelled my persistence more than any other emotion, besides love, of course!
And chocolate–it always stands out (although I prefer dark chocolate–even with raspberry flavor or almonds–but I won’t be TOO picky about chocolate!)
Thank you for being here for all of us. You’ve created a place where we can fully BE and share. We all love you for that!!!
Happy Friday and weekend, dear friend. Much love from fluffy Finn (she needs a haircut pronto) and me. ❤️🤍💙🙏😂😁
Thank you Karla. If I hear a heart sigh from an opening of love it finds, it gladdens me as well. Ever these meetings between souls who share such incredibly beautiful things so that we can reach that unconditional gift within us. Hard as your path is, I feel that inner smile in your eyes kind lady. A trooper of God’s love from what you have been through and found because of it ❤️🙏
And fear is one of the most strongest of the emotions, to make sure we have an opposite of love so we can dare to see beyond what holds us. And love…wait till unconditional love wraps itself around you, it goes right off the scale…probably like that moment with your ‘cross of light’ on that path, a moment that touch you deeply inside, beyond anything else you can even compare it to 🤣❤️
As for that other gift in life…chocolate…how would we handle this world without such a wondrous variety to distract, heal a sad heart or just give us a moments delight in time. Another opposite to those foods that our delightful mom’s and dad’s said were good for us…but we ever dreaded 🤗🤣
I love you kind lady, and that wondrous furry bundle that is Finn too, another trooper by your side. It is an amazing thing to see those companions that we can look back and see…without them we may have been a teapot in going through what we have. Big, big hugs to you both, and oodles of loving energy so another path in the woods may be taken to ease your soul this weekend kind lady. Enjoy the haircuts to you both! 🤗❤️🙏
Aw, thank you dear friend. Your words always provide comfort and love! We love you! Finn is 1/2 the girl she was, minus the fluff, …Mom is more worn for the work, but we are both better off, and feeling the love, despite less fluff! lol! Have a glorious weekend, Mark~and may chocolate be in abundance (well, not TOO much!). 🤭💕💕❤️🙏🏻🙏🏻🐾🌈💚🎶🎉🤍
Haha, thank you Karla. May you and Finn have a great weekend too. At least she will be a little cooler. Much love to you both, always 🤗❤️🙏
You’re welcome ☺️ yes!! ❤️💕💕🐾🐾🤭🤭🥰🥰
A comment from my lovely friend Ginger…
Mark, this is an incredibly powerful post today. It’s particularly appropriate here in the USA today as we celebrate our independence. We also need a ‘nudge’ to gain independence from our fears, big and small. I live under the umbrella “this is how I was brought up”. It took a long time to have the courage to throw that umbrella out and only keep the one intended for rain.
You bring up many good points about childhood and the baggage we carry into adulthood. That’s a heavy load. It’s a relief to shed some of that weight/fear/grief/loneliness.
Keep up the good work of nudging all of us to “dare”.
Ginger 🦋
It was a strong post Ginger, Spirit grabbed me as I was answering MM and asked that I gave it more detail.
We do grow under that umbrella of those that love and look after us. And unintentionally they pass on their ‘bits’ unhealed. But in that very act is something quite profound.
In its fear is a guidance system to that incredible love, and amazingly in fighting it, it gives so many things from so many directions so that when it all comes together the most beautiful love arises. When I saw it all I was stunned to silence…and that takes some doing 🤣
It is a something I will never forget kind lady, it has been a light to share in all I do…as it all leads to it. And yes, a gentle nudge to the most beautiful thing I have ever felt, touched and become a part of. Thank you for sharing 😀❤️🙏
You are beautiful and brave.
Why thank you Cindy, it has been a powerful gift to understand. And dare, as we all will, to find that love through it all. Our ‘lenses’ in life will indeed bring into focus an amazing thing, like when you are in the right spot at the right time. It leaves you with goosebumps to have captured something so beautifully. Thank you for sharing kind lady, may there be many more of those amazing captures 🤗❤️🙏
I love your response to my comment, Mark. “And it is in looking deeper back to that childhood that the answer will lay.” It took me some time to understand I was raised on an empty cup, by parents that never filled mine or theirs. Once I realized there was nothing there, I had to seek it elsewhere. I was suffering from a bad case of emotional dehydration and surrounded by emotional vampires, making my condition ever worse. Those cycles and patterns you spoke of are difficult to break. Years ago, I saw someone on tv talking about “pint people and gallon people.” He said gallon people can never get their needs met by pint people — they simply don’t have the capacity to give gallon love. He said pint people need to be with pint people and gallon people need to be with gallon people, or else they will both be miserable. We need to make sure we’re not trying to fill our cup from a dry well or a well that only has a few drops. “Even in this crazy world we are daring to be filled in each step we take.” It’s not an easy task, but once we find each other, we are able to encourage one another to keep seeking out the well and the oasis in the desert that can recharge us and fill us up. Thanks for the encouragement and the share, my friend. 🥤☕️ 🍺
It is such a difficult thing to find those fears. We feel them, we react to them, we even run, overcompensate (or under), in so many circumstances. But we don’t understand them. We have brought that fear forward in life but because we avoid them, we don’t understand why. Yes, it hurts…but why? That is your mission should you accept it…and we have. So life will indeed nudge and nudge until we feel like we will explode so that we will dare to look at them…because life has become just as bad.
And yes to all you have said, we do ‘try’ those different types of people but the incredible thing is, love will attract those very people that ‘nudge’ us so that we will take that path to understand. Those relationships are ever those that truly rub us the wrong way, and as you said ‘we want to find water in that well’, but it is ever too big, too small, not clear enough and on it goes…to touch that pain so that we will dare to ask why. Expectations from our fears measure them all, because we don’t want that pain. But through there is a beauty beyond words.
And most certainly we do help one another, life wants us to understand so we share, we prod and we endure. Even those that hurt us are in fact doing a very loving thing. And that is the hardest part to see. If they are hurting us how can they be helping. But it is there that we are being nudged toward a great goal, and a very profound one.
I thank you for the share in your comment and its nudge kind lady. Spirit went ‘yes’ and in five seconds I had written pages. Something needed to be said for someone to see…your gift to me was to dare me to see within it. Big hugs to a light on my path. Thank you 🤗❤️🙏
All it takes is that one nudge too far to push us over the edge. Big {{{hugs}}} and expansive love to you, dear Mark. May our cups runneth over. 😍😊🙏
Sometimes we feel we can’t take another step…but…He is there. May your cup be ever full kind lady. Big hugs to you too 😀❤️🙏