The Zim Zum of Love, Step 1: Making Room

The Zim Zum of Love, Step 1: Making Room

Last week I finished “The Zim Zum of Love” by Rob and Kristen Bell.  It’s a book about marriage written by a pastor turned Oprah-endorsed life coach/guru and his life partner. 

I first encountered Rob Bell last October when I participated in Oprah’s LifeYouWantWeekend Tour classroom.  Initially, I was disappointed to see his name listed among the life coach line up because he was replacing Deepak Chopra who I was looking forward to seeing as much as Oprah and Iyanla Vanzant!

Turns out, he was pretty amazingly inspiring, as were ALL of the teachers on the tour!

So when I saw Rob and his wife, Kristen on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday a few months ago talking about marriage, I was open to hearing them offer a “new” way to view the institution and relationship for which I am preparing my mind, body and spirit. 

They were able to plant seed in fertile ground.  I had recently attended a vision board party and while explaining the “power couple” corner of my board (which includes a picture of a groom crying as his bride walks toward him & the words “a love worth waiting for”), my loving sista/us/we-friend cut into me about my faux family.  She asked what was going on between me and my so-called (and actual, lol) “friend.”  I became defensive, proclaiming to have totally accepted that we were just friends and that I was definitely NOT playing house, holding on to the thought that he might be able to see that I was worth pursuing a romantic relationship with because we meshed so well during the times I interacted with him and his children.   

I was lying of course, lol.  I was asked a very important question I hadn’t considered.  How was the man (& relationship) I’ve been waiting and preparing for supposed to come if I was so busy playing house with someone else’s family?  AND Let me be VERY CLEAR, my friend is divorced! There is no adultery going on up in this joint! No ma’am/sir!!!!

Then things got really deep.  One of the ladies participating in the vision board party had stepped away to drop her husband off at a rehearsal.  She came back to the party at the (seemingly) tail end of my intervention when I was crying, trying to surrender all in this situation.   I was struggling with getting out of my own way.  I want(ed) what I envision(ed) on the board but I also wanted my friend.   I was asked what I was afraid of.  I somehow managed to muster up the courage to admit that I was afraid that I was not going to be able to find a love/life partner that was as much of a friend as the one I was playing house with.  Quite honestly, he is my best male friend.  I can talk to him about anything, even my body image issues.  He gets me and I get him.  That means a lot to me.   This is when this angel of a woman came back into the conversation to give me confirmation that if I was willing to let go of that fear, I would be blessed beyond measure with what I wanted.  She had a very similar experience.  She had a male BFF whom she loved dearly.  She never thought she’d be able to make a connection as deeply as the one she’d made with him.  However, once she was able to let go of the idea that they’d ever be together romantically, she met her husband who she has an even DEEPER connection with.  WOW!   There’s that damn little teddy bear again!

Teddy bear? Let me REWIND…About three weeks before the vision board party, I had a dream.  I dreamt I went to pick up my car from a mechanic.  He offered me $10,000 for it.  Now anyone who knows the history of my car will get this immediately.  The short version is I bought a very pretty, very expensive lemon because I wanted a particular body style and color of a car that was 10 years old.  I’ve paid for the car twice in repairs (including a new engine which had to be shipped from GERMANY!!!).  Everyone has told me to sell this damn thing, but at this point I essentially have a new vehicle, lol.  Back to the dream…Upon considering the offer, I started to cry as a picture of the meme of Jesus with a big teddy bear behind his back came to my mind/heart.  In the meme a little girl is holding a small teddy bear and says, “But Lord, I love it.”  In the dream, I took the money.  After that dream, I wrote in my journal,

“I think/hope that dream represents my readiness to give up what I am attached to in order to release the bigger/better blessing God is asking/ready to give to me.”

FAST-FORWARD three weeks to the vision board party and impromptu intervention.  I left the party with clarity but also with a tremendous amount of sadness. We determined that I would need time and space AWAY from my friend AND his (my) children to get some things straight in my head and heart about the nature (and health) of the relationship I had with my then defined “faux family.” 

Two weeks later, a few days before Valentine’s Day, I get the most beautiful arrangement of roses from my friend and his children thanking me for all that I do.  Although elated and grateful, I was confused and saddened by the gesture.  I was sad because those roses didn’t mean what I wanted them to mean and I knew they never would. 

I then remembered what I learned at the vision board party…I’d never have what I wanted until I made room for it. 

And then a few days later, I get confirmation when I hear Rob and Kristen talk about the zim zum of marriage. 

“Zimzum (originally tzimtzum) is a Hebrew word used in the rabbinic tradition to talk about the creation of the world—not in a scientific way but more like something somewhere between poetry and metaphysical speculation.  Followers of this tradition begin with the assumption that before there was anything, there was only God.  The divine, they believed, was all that was.  For something to exist other than God, then, God had to create space that wasn’t God.  A bit esoteric, but stay with me.  Their contention was that for something to exist that wasn’t God, God had to contract or withdraw from a certain space so that something else, something other than God, could exist and thrive in that space.  And the word they used for this divine contraction is zimzum.  God zimzums, so that everything we know to be everything can exist and thrive.” (Bell & Bell, 2014, p.18).

I began zimzumming for my marriage by asking my friend for time and space away from him and his children.  In my heart and mind, I had broken up with my faux family.  It was/has been SO difficult! I LOVE those children! I LOVE(d) being a mother to them! I LOVE my friend! I wanted so much to be his life partner.  But alas, God has a bigger teddy bear for me and I have to make room for him, for us.   

So, the next few blogs will be about my zimzumming, how I’m intentionally making room for the relationship/partnership/marriage I desire, deserve and need.  I plan to use Rob and Kristen’s book as a theoretical framework (I’m feeling my academic side come back to life, lol, did you peep the APA citation above, LMAO!) 

So, to begin, which is at the end of my reading of Rob and Kristen’s book, I wrote a zimzum poem for him/us.  This should probably be the beginning of the next blog so you’ll probably see it again, lol.

ZimZumming

Doing less

To give u more,

What's in store

For us

As we create the space

As we start to replace

Platonic inclinations

With romantic expectations.

I zimzum for u

U zimzum for me

We zimzum for us/we

So they can be...

These children who are our destiny

These game changing babies

These world saving revolutionaries.

The energy between us

Is electric

And can get hectic

If we don't protect it

From our egos' scars

From the scorecards

on which most count transgressions

Instead of forgiveness & concessions

And requisite sacrifice.

You've got to pay the price

And do the work

Of love

You gotta give to get

You gotta get to give

U need a reason to live

U need a hand to hold

U need me, truth be told

And I need u

To zimzum for me

As I zimzum for u

We zimzum for us/we

So they can be

These children who are our destiny

These game changing babies

These world saving revolutionaries.

The bond between us

Shall be unbreakable

Shall be unshakeable

Like the faith our kind of love requires

A love to quench all desires

A storied encounter that inspires

A well-spring of joy to quench all thirst

Forsaking all other, we put each other first.

U zimzum for me

I zimzum for u

We zimzum for us/we

So they can be

These children who are our destiny

These game changing babies

These world saving revolutionaries.

And save us all they will

Peace, gratitude & humility we'll instill

And seal within their hearts & minds.

To all that they serve, they'll be gentle and kind

Like precious stones sanded in time they will shine

Brightly as the sun

All because of our zimzum

U zimzum for me

I zimzum for u

We zimzum for us/we

So they can be

These children who are our destiny

Our divine contribution to eternity

I love u to infinity…

   

Spiraling Up

I’ve been away from this blog for a while, but I promise, I haven’t been away from the process.  (see blog below, lol!)

One day, as I was filling up my water bottle in the changing room of my local bikram’s torture chamber, a fellow yogini asked me how I was doing.  I said I was doing well but that I felt like I was going through a strange season of things, people and situations coming back.  I shared that I was trying not to lament this feeing, but that I was starting to feel like maybe God/the universe was telling me that I hadn’t learned what I was supposed to the first time.  My yogini friend suggested that maybe it wasn’t a matter of not having learned the lesson but that I had learned the lesson and these are opportunities to prove that I had learned the lessons.  She affirmed that yes, things, people and situations do “come back,” life is cyclical, much like the rotation of planets, stars, etc.  However, (and here’s the spiritual zinger) she suggested I consider that I might be spiraling up.  I should consider that I am facing these people, places and things from a different, higher, more learned perspective than before/initially. 

Hmmmm. Spiraling up…Hmmmm.  So, these situations might be similar to those I have encountered in the past but since I AM different, they are different?  So, I DID learn the lessons?  I DID do what I was supposed to do?  Talk about EMPOWERING!!!

So, what’s this got to with my G.R.A.C.E. journey?  I’m still figuring that out, but on my walk with Murray today, I felt the urge to write “him” a poem.   And I was instructed NOT to do what I had done in similar situations, using or reworking a piece of writing I had done before like the times I sent two different guys (like a year apart) the same “I like you, do you like me” 4 page email, LOL!  Now that is an example of me NOT learning the lesson, doing the same thing expecting a different result.  And as fate would have it, they both responded similarly, (i.e. Thanks but no thanks). LMAO!

I was instructed to write “him” his own poem, giving him his own place in my mind and heart.   This connects to giving him his own chance, not holding the mistakes of others against him.  I surely don’t want him holding the mistakes of those (IDIOTS, lol) before me against me, so it’s only fair I extend the same courtesy.

So, this poem is reflective of my spiraling up.  The desire to write poetry is something (else) that has returned and while the method of expression might be one with which I am extremely familiar, this poem is different because I AM DIFFERENT. 

new poem

new view

new me

different you

are from them, the ones who I wrote (& gave my heart) to before

never admitting truth, always unsure

of their ability to handle me

to protect me, resurrect me

from the depths of my childhood despair.

Daddy died when I was not yet three

so abandonment issues are the roots of my insecurity,

my reluctance to believe,

my hesitation to receive

the grace and beauty that could be us.

But not any more, I ‘m ready to trust,

ready to let go,

ready to let God

lead me home to you, to me, to us/we

to two or three

little ones

little revolutions

powerful solutions

to big problems & situations,

our babies (re)building nations.

the possibilities are plentiful and endless

so I’m no longer willing to let my past mess

up this chance to engage in the cosmic dance

that we are, that we could be…

this new you

with a different me.