Kiss and Make Up Day is supposed to be about ending arguments and long standing feuds with friends and family.  It’s about remembering what’s important in life: having people to love who love us back.  It’s always harsh to have bad feelings towards someone you love and have long-time connections with, especially if those feelings go on for years.  It’s harder still if that person dies before you get a chance to reconcile; that’s the sort of thing that can stick with you for the rest of your life.

I’m in the process of learning a valuable lesson today.  There’s a lot more to kissing and making up than at first meets the eye.  It has to do with connection, me to Peaches, Peaches to friends and family, etc.  Sometimes I struggle with the substance of that connection.  That is to say that sometimes I forget about the real life value of feeling and experiencing that connection with those I love to love.  I sometimes allow my sense of connection to be overshadowed by the weight of BEING RIGHT.

In those rare times when I pick a fight with Peaches, I never cross her because I think it will be fun or exciting to be at odds for a few days.  No, the only reason I ever have for crossing anyone I love is because I think I’m right and I think they’re wrong.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life so far, I’ve learned that I can’t always believe my own thoughts.  Because the truth is, it’s never worth it to trash a close relationship (not even temporarily) for the sake of proving that I’m right.  The fact that my faulty thinking sometimes leads me to believe that it does make sense to argue with anyone I love really only proves one thing; it proves that the connection that I most need to reconcile is the connection with me.  The one that I most need to kiss and make up with is mySelf.

I’ve often heard it said (and I whole heartedly believe it) that one cannot love another until she learns to love herself.  Wow.  How does one go about measuring that kind of self-love?  Who’s to separate out egotism from narcissism from hermitism from genuine self love?  Ultimately it all comes down to feeling good.  No, not hedonism, that’s being devoted to sensory pleasures.  I’m talking about happy, joyful, everything’s-going-my-way kind of happy-to-be-alive experiences. 

Look at it this way, where does consciousness come from?  What makes us think?  How do we come to be here, self aware, living, thinking, breathing?  There’s an energy moving through the Universe, call it God, call it Source, call it Cosmic Life Force, whatever.  This energy is in and of itself a form of harmony; it manifests suns and planets and bodies and consciousness and everything it manifests functions according to perfect order.  I have trillions and trillions of living cells within my body, and they’re all alive and moving and functioning in perfect harmony, and all without any conscious effort on my part.  That’s the Universal Life Force moving through me, acting on me.  Harmony is the prevailing status of this Universe.  It seems clear to me.  Planets endlessly circle suns in perfect order.  Suns circles galactic centers.   Gas clouds create suns; suns create planets; planets do what planets do each according to the perfect order of this Universal dance.

With me so far?  So, if I accept that I’m an extension of the life force that animates me (a life force which clearly favors harmony), well, in order to live out the full measure of harmony that Universal Forces have called into being all around me (and within me), all I need to do is to align my energies (my thoughts and efforts) with that very life force moving through me.  All I need to do is to connect with mySelf!

The only thing that could possibly interrupt my own internal experience of harmony (joy, love and peace) is losing that sense of connection with mySelf.  Because when I lose that connection to Self, I’m moving against the current of harmony and well being that is the very nature of my environment, and when I’m going against the current of this Universe of name and form, well, it just feels crappy to go against the flow, to go against my nature, to push against the nature of all that is.  Pushing against Universal harmony feels like effort, it feels like work, it feels like conflict.  Because going against the flow IS conflict, and living in conflict with all that is will always bring about more and more the experience of BEING IN CONFLICT WITH ALL I INTERACT WITH!

So how do I know that I’ve lost connection with mySelf?  How do I know that I’ve moved away from Self love into self loathing?  I find myself in conflict with everyone and everything around me.  I pick fights with Peaches.  I have a bad day at work.  I stub my toe.  I feel miserable and I look miserable.  And when that happens, when I allow myself to get into such a frame of experience, all I need to do is to send myself some flowers, buy myself a nice piece of chocolate, and KISS AND MAKE UP WITH MYSELF.  Because reconnecting with mySelf is the only possible path to regaining my sense of peace at home, with those I love, and with myself.

Happy Kiss and Make Up Day to everyone everywhere!

XO,
K