How 39 strangers found love….

Marion Neubronner
Jul 24, 2017 · 4 min read

I didn’t know what unconditional love really is because growing up I felt I had to be or act a certain way or else there would be a disfavour and a withdrawal of love. Don’t get me wrong, my parents would give their lives for mine any time. They loved me so much. It was just the way I was loved was confusing and the meaning I made of their actions often left me feeling unwanted, hurt and alone.
I was a child and didn’t understand that mom had alot on her mind and that took her away from me. It wasn’t me or my actions — even though I thought it was.

Recently on the recommendation of a mentor I truly respect, I attended the Hoffman Institute. The American Hoffman Process starts on a Saturday morning and ends on a Friday afternoon. A large part of it is in silence and reflection and much of the rest is in activities designed for us to heighten our awareness to our childhood patterns and our current patterns that we adopted to cope with them, which may no longer be of use. Sometimes even harmful.

39 people sat in a circle. We were told not to mention what we did and not to talk politics or sports.

:)
39 strangers looking for more love, a different kind of love, looking to give better love… looking for love.

I have been to many sacred journeys. The longest was 10 days in silence — Vipassana and another was Camino de Santiago — where I walked and walked and sometimes alone and sometimes with others.

This time I was housed daily with 38 others.
Looking for answers to questions and pains in our lives. Some came on the recommendation of their therapists. Others — their father sent them, because they had gone themselves. Two ladies about to be married went before they were married as a way to really be ready for that commitment…. I went to be ready to love unconditionally the little child I would adopt and to see a way out of some of the patterns in myself that no matter how hard I had worked on I fell into again and again.

In fact more recently, I lashed out at a man in a manner that shocked but didn’t surprise me. The temper belonged to my father.. somehow it was repressed and came out now. I was watching myself morph into the person I never wanted to be all because this man whom I cared about deeply triggered in me these deep feelings of being unseen and unheard.

Those were the feeling my dad had towards mom. Mom shut down to survive dad and probably her own traumatic childhood growing up in the Japanese Occupation in a house where she was the eldest daughter of 12 siblings and an emotionally absent dad whose gambling put them at risk.

Oh the sins of the father/mother/families of origin that we absorb like water when we are under 12. Mostly under 6 but still trapped in them till we have a space away and to be aware that the ways of our household are not the truth or the ways of the world… or for me…NOT THE WAYS I CHOOSE TO BE.

As each of us revealed the layers of suffering imagined or real at the hands of family and lovers and people who mattered to us. We lightened and we saw each other more and more each day.

As each of us saw beyond our brokenness to our wholeness, we saw not just a fellow human being — we saw so much more. We looked into each other’s eyes into our souls.
I fell in love with each one of them. I felt seen and heard and I felt whole. Not because they did anything that different but because I was becoming whole.. I had shifted my view and I had deepened into my spiritual light and love.

I have the privilege of being in communities committed to love and light in the world. I feel so much compassion and care from people who are not blood relations. I feel so much kinship with people who are not tied to me by shared resources of nationhood or culture.

I had the love and care of 38 others on a journey to be their best selves. They came demonized and left light as angels. Eyes aglow and hearts afloat.

Men kissed men on cheeks like they were brothers. We played as little children innocent and trusting again.
I was beautiful.. a man told me so.. with no intent but to state a fact he thought i should know.
No shaming
No having to be something to be loved
Lots of crying daily
and through those tears I was washed clean

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yna4UTIkKP8

LOVE comes to you through you..

PM me if you want to know more about the process. I am not affiliated and make no money from promoting them.

Marion Neubronner

The Power of Your Spirit Writer, Coach and Facilitator

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