SHS – Human First Blog

Dharma in the Details: How Love Carried Me Through

I Did not read chat gpt, so check my notes first, if reading through

If I’m honest with myself, I wouldn’t have made it through this season if it weren’t for the dharma I created in my life—the path of service, reciprocity, and love that I’ve walked, even when it didn’t always make sense in the moment.

I’ve supported my oppositions and my opposites—people who lived life in ways so different from mine, people in places where I stayed longer than expected. I stayed because the love was real, until the differences in lifestyle became too heavy to bear. Even then, I never walked away empty-handed. Every ounce of love given has fueled this stage I’m standing in now.

I remember last year, around this very time, walking through Lewisham Centre. I saw a woman with luggages—disoriented, carrying her whole world in her hands. I brought her in for the night. By morning, my partner at the time helped too, even charged her travel card so she could get where she needed to go.

That memory keeps resurfacing for me now, because it symbolizes something essential: the goodness has always been present. There were many good parts. I never stayed where life was unlivable, but I stayed where there was love, until it became too painful. That balance—knowing when to hold on and when to let go—has been the richness of my life. Richness in giving, richness in receiving.

We see each other in fragments, in mirrored pieces, and we still choose to love the versions of ourselves that resonate—even while learning from the parts that don’t.

Every relationship I’ve had has been a blessing. Not even one of them was wasted, no matter how much my ego got hurt. Each one shaped me, refined me, and pushed me into the person I am now. They are the real heroes in my story, because through them I learned how to be the hero of mine.

Back to the woman with the luggages—Lola. She lives in my memory because she mirrors a timeline I could have easily walked into this year. She had schizophrenia, but I understood her. She was talking about technology, beings inside her body, unseen realities pressing against her daily life. Now I realize she might have been channeling what I myself channel today—only without the grounding, the support, the language to sustain it.

I hope she felt better later. I really do. Because what I saw in her is something I carry as part of my own dharma: I take people’s losses, hurts, pains, demons—and I alchemize them. I turn them around.

Wish you the best of luck, Lola. You were understood here. You inspired so much more than you’ll ever know: our home-seeking centers, our metaphysical reframing of mental illness, our reminder that no one’s story is without value.

If I ever find you again, I’ll show you all that your past couldn’t give you.