A girl named Maria

In late August I was at a seminar in upstate New York with relationship teachers, John and Jennifer Welwood.  During the course of the weekend workshop, I met a woman named *Maria for whom I felt an immediate attraction.  She was married with two kids; however, this attraction wasn’t necessarily an intimate one.  She was so blindingly radiant and full of life and she had, what I call, attraction with staying power.  She had a wonderful aliveness, a sense of humor and there was a natural rapport.  In another lifetime we might have become involved, but for this weekend we were delighted to see each other at meals and there was a great ease between us, something that is very rare.

At our last meal together, Maria mentioned that her “first love” had recently found her on Facebook after many years being out of touch and he wanted to get together with her. He had gone through a divorce and decided to look for her.  Maria went on and on about how this guy was an important person in her life experience but said she had told him she was not going to disturb her marriage by meeting up with him.  She instead offered him the consolation that she would meet him in their next lifetime to “complete their karma.”

As I was leaving the seminar center, I looked over at Maria still blissfully chatting with her friends.  Suddenly I knew I had to say something to her and I called her over.  As there was already a safe space for this, I said, and quite emphatically so: “You are going to find your liberation this lifetime and you are going to do it with your husband and children.  Forget next lifetime.  Every thought has energy and what you put out about another person can create a distraction or disruption in your relationship even if it’s about another lifetime.  Your children will feel your distraction and the psychic imprint they will get from their mom is a woman who has energy with another man. And then they go out in the world and replicate what is familiar to them, a distracted partner, and a partner torn and unsettled.”

Maria simply said thank you and started to cry.  We held each other for a few moments.  When I called her over, I didn’t know what I was going to say, I just knew something had to be said.  Sometimes I find myself sharing a thought with someone and it seems so spontaneous, almost as though it comes from somewhere else and then through me.

It’s time to wake up to the mind games we play in relationships and in life, and get on with a more conscious way of being.

It’s time to live a great life because good is the enemy of great!

*Name in the story has been changed.