Engulfed By Irene's Unconditional Love

I've been trying to write this post since yesterday morning. Maybe this time I'll be able to do it justice.

First off, I've never been a "love and light" or an "it's all about love" kind of guy. Love is great, don't get me wrong. I've been madly in love with Irene pretty much from the day we met. I've felt my love for her, but never felt her love for me until she crossed over. I mean, I knew she loved me madly - she told me often and demonstrated it and I would often feel lit up inside because of it, but it felt like my emotion, not hers.

I think that in this world, this inability to actually feel the love other people have for us is the root of most of our insecurities, doubts and fears when it comes to these kinds of romantic, partnering relationships. You never know what the other person is actually thinking or feeling. Sure, you trust them, but there's still this gap simply because we don't really see or feel what's going on inside them.

It wasn't until Irene crossed over that I could actually feel her love for me. When I feel that surge of love from her wash over me, it always brings me to tears. I even felt it while I was in grief, but that surge would always trigger the grief. It was only when I was well past grief that I could fully enjoy the love she showers on me.

Fully enjoy? So I thought, until yesterday.

Last week that I changed my daily schedule to one of setting aside several 10-20 minute periods per day where I focus on Irene, and additional natural astral projection time slots.

Part of my habit daily life and habit focus rearrangement, which also served the goal of increased mental discipline, was to only smoke five cigarettes a day - not because I was trying to cut down on my smoking, but because I wanted to turn the act of smoking a cigarette into something very special and meaningful, a way of focusing my attention and time. The five "Irene" periods are what I call "Sacred Cigarette" times. 

Originally, for about the first ten years of our being together, I only smoked when Irene and I were having very meaningful conversations when we were alone. She'd either share hers with me, or light mine, hand it to me and then light her own. I absolutely adored these times - I'd never met anyone I so loved to talk to, and she being the person I was madly in love with only made it all the sweeter. 

So this was my way of focusing, several times every day, on that very special, deep bond we were uncovering and exploring back when we first met in this life. 

Immediately, these Sacred Cigarette Times felt exquisite. Each time I got an immediate rush of loving emotion just thinking about it when it was time. I keep my mind as focused as possible on us - imagining her sitting next to me, enjoying the cigarette and her, enjoying our talk - whatever we happen to be talking about. 

Sunday I had what I call an indulgence day. Smoked all day, just had fun with her, watched football, went to the Zoom group last night. I have to allow myself such days every now and then or else I rebel against my own schedule :)  Yesterday I was back on schedule, and each time we sat on the porch for our cigarettes, I had the same experience. Each time afterwards, I sat at the computer to write about it, but couldn't find the words.

I've never liked the phrase "unconditional love." Honestly, whenever anyone would say it, I'd roll my eyes and choke back a little vomit.  IMO, it's virtually always a platitude people throw around a lot to signal how "spiritual" or "enlightened" they are even as they judge everyone around them an unenlightened brute. It's like tossing the term "Namaste" out to dismiss someone after a particularly scathing remark.

I'm familiar with feeling joy, feeling whole and complete, satisfied yet still excited about what was to come. I've felt love for Irene and from her that puts me in tears many times, so sweet, and so deep. I had and have zero desire to become more "spiritual" and frankly, I thought the love we were experiencing with each other was so divine nothing could top it.  When Jurgen Ziewe talks about experiencing a divine, transcendent love in the "highest" planes of existence (which he agrees can be experienced between two loving partners), I'm thinking, "Yeah, I've got that, and it's awesome."

Or so I thought.

Somehow, I don't know how she did it, but Irene just opened me up to be able to fully feel her love for me. Physically, I could barely take it. It burned away all mental resistance, resistance I wasn't even aware I had. It just kept pouring into me like it was limitless, crashing down internal fences I didn't know were there: "How much love do I deserve?" "Does she really love me as much as I love her? "Does she really want to spend all eternity with me? How much love, attention and togetherness does she want to give me?  How much am I willing to give her?" Issues I'd thought long resolved were exposed and then disintegrated against this tidal wave of, yes, unconditional love.

By "unconditional", I mean that that she didn't care about any of my faults, any of the stupid, petty things I've said or done over the years, and so on. This was far beyond all that. None of that mattered and couldn't for an instant stand against it. It was like being touched by the sun and by that touch turning me into the sun. Our mutual love was like a glorious, emotional supernova, transforming everything. I didn't just feel transformed, or in some nirvana-like peace with everything and deeply in love with my wife, or just transcendent (all of which I've experienced with her); we were blazing our love for each other magnificently, without reservation or inhibition or doubt or barrier. People toss the word "glorious" around; but this was glorious. It was divine. It was magnificent. And it is humbling, to be left no option other than to admit: unconditional, limitless love exists, and it can be experienced, and it is truly beyond description.

I wish I could express it better than that. When I've imagined us together in the afterlife, it's a wonderful thought. I imagine us much like we were/are here - happy, joyful, having fun, feeling love for each other, going on adventures, feeling whole and complete and excited and satisfied all at the same time. I couldn't imagine anything better.

She showed me that yes, we will have and do all that, but that this is what it's going to feel like being together. THIS is what we paid the price for by coming here. I understood that what I was feeling was the absolute inverse of that bottomless, endless, despairing, soul-crushing black hole of grief that broke me into a thousand pieces when she died. Without experiencing that, Irene and I couldn't have had this, because we wouldn't have had the necessary emotional depth to experience it. We wouldn't have had the necessary contrast, as Abraham-Hicks would say.

Just as that grief was bottomless, the love that fills it is limitless. Just as that grief was the blackest abyss of despair, this love burns away every whisper of a shadow and turns every dark corner into blazing, overwhelming joy. 

So, if it resonates with you, here's something you might want to try the next time you spend some alone time with your crossed-over partner: allow yourself to feel their complete and total love for you. Let it in. Let it wash way all doubt, insecurity, resistance, fear and any concerns that linger about your relationship. Just accept it, whether you feel deserving or not. Let them love you unconditionally.