I disappeared for a few days from cyberspace because I was nurturing my relationship with my partner. Somewhere around Monday, I started to feel a strong pull to get myself back home and back on track and back to writing and back to being focused on my son. Dating as a single mama is it’s own can of worms. If you’ve done it, you know what I mean.

One of my best friends asked me this week what I thought my followers would say if they knew I was so focused on my relationship. I hope what you’d say is I’m human. I’m a work in progress. I mess up. I mess up royally at times.

But here’s the thing: I’m still moving forward. Each moment when I lose myself, I actually learn something about myself, which means I grow, which means in those moments I have the opportunity to see myself, to know myself, to find myself.

What I want to share in this post doesn’t have to pertain to a partner or a romantic relationship; it can apply to any relationship in your life that you nurture first before you nurture your relationship with yourself. I’ll be honest; this life lesson is still tricky for me to balance.

This week my partner and I faced a conflict. And there we were, ego to ego, like two dogs fighting over a rope toy. Neither of us wanted to let go.

I’ve always been an action person; letting go seems the opposite of action.  The concept was foreign to me when I first began my practice of it about five years ago (at the time I was going through divorce after eight years of marriage). If your ego is strong enough, sometimes you need something life altering to sweep in and force you to let go. It was divorce and infidelity that forced me to let go. What choice did I have? I could fight and make myself miserable, or I could let go and choose to create the life I’d always dreamed of. It was that first time that I let go in my life that I began choosing miracles, though in the midst of it I didn’t know that’s what I was doing. At the time I was merely trying to survive.

In my current relationship, there are many moments when I must let go, when the argument of who is right and who is wrong doesn’t apply. There isn’t a right or wrong, no matter how much your ego wants to convince you otherwise. We are all on different journeys.

This recent silly battle went on between my partner and I for about 4 days. My ego was so justified that it almost convinced me to walk away. And then somehow, I let go. And I got in my car and drove to his house, and we barely discussed it again. Because as soon as my ego stopped it’s fight, there was no conflict.

I don’t say this to make it sound simple. It’s not; at times it’s excruciating. But Love is the ongoing act of forgiveness. Love is the letting go. Love is choosing something Higher. Love is hitting the reset button.

This doesn’t mean you sacrifice yourself.

Yes, our partners need us, our kids need us, but when your energy is continuously going into your family, you start to unravel and lose your center. How does it work in your house? In my house, I become irritable. I get tired. It’s physically draining to give of your energy without refilling your tank.

So many of us think that our partners should refill our tanks. Certainly there should be an even exchange of energy, but the most important thing you can do is refill your own tank.

Shortly after the separation from my husband, I was blessed to meet a man who held up a mirror for me and reminded me of my beauty. His time in my life was brief, but he was sent to me to teach me something very profound. Aside from any romantic attraction, I felt pure Love. For the first time in my life, I realized that it was in my loving him that my tank was filled. We didn’t need to come together; he didn’t need to love me back. The hole I felt from my husband leaving wasn’t filled with this man’s attention or time. It was filled with my ability to love purely with NO expectation of return.

It reminds me of one of my favorite Hafiz quotes: “Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth: ‘You owe me’. Look what happens with a Love like that. It lights the whole Sky.”

I’m glad I got in my car and drove to see my partner the other night, but the real truth is, had I been nurturing myself with self-Love and had I been sending him Love with no expectation of return, I wouldn’t have had to make that trip in order to let go. I would’ve let go right from the comfort of my own home.

Always learning, always growing. When conflict comes, it’s a chance to find myself. I forgive myself when I fall down. Learning ME is the miracle, and I’m choosing miracles.