I just have to share this that I read

“First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons — but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer. So there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world — a world intense and strange, complete in himself. Let it be added here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring — this lover can be man, woman, child, or indeed any human creature on this earth.

Now, the beloved can also be of any description. The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love. A man may be a doddering great-grandfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Cheehaw one afternoon two decades past. The preacher may love a fallen woman. The beloved may be treacherous, greasy-headed, and given to evil habits. Yes, and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else — but that does not affect the evolution of his love one whit. A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lilies of the swamp. A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased, or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll. Therefore, the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons. For the lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved. The lover craves any possible relation with the beloved, even if this experience can cause him only pain.” 
― Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café and Other Stories

Courageously Authentic: Answering the call

Courageously Authentic: Answering the call

Here is something I wrote on my collaborative blog with my best friend Julie.

Story of a flower.

The bud has to burst for the flower to bloom. When the petals can no longer stay curled up in fetal position. When the sun rays are just too tempting. When everything inside that bud is aching to feel sunshine. When the flower just can't hold on anymore and just can't be patient anymore. When it's just to big to fit inside that bud anymore. All that time growing and growing. From a little seed, to a hearty stem with some baby leaves, to a small bud, then a bigger bud, then a bud so full it's just beginning to part at the opening and reveal the colorful petals. It's a long time in the making. The long awaited blooming is incredible. And blooming happens so quickly. You could walk away from a tight lipped bud and come back to a flower in full bloom. If you're lucky you get to catch it happening. You get to see the beginning stages, the opening of the bud, the unfurling of the petals, a beautiful flower in the making getting its first taste of sunlight. The most beautiful thing you could ever be shown. And you just might miss it if you aren't looking. Don't look down. Don't look back. Just look. Look at today. Watch everything transform in front of you. Watch it all bloom.

Happiness: A How-to

I recently had a friend reach out to me and ask me how I got to be so happy. This same friend called me the one of the most self-actualized people they've seen. While I don't know about the self actualization part (I am living only a fraction of my full potential, but I guess it counts that I realize that) I know about the happy part. I am certainly no authority on happiness. I'm no authority on anything, but I can say that I spend the majority of my days feeling pretty darn good. It happens from time to time that people ask me things like this. That in the process of living my life, someone likes what they see in me and how I'm feeling or what I radiate. I feel humbled when this happens and sometimes I feel inadequate to answer such questions when I still have so much to find within myself , and so much to still straighten out in my life - but I know there's something to how good I feel most of the time, and I know not everybody feels that way. So when asked about happiness I do like to speak up, because maybe it can help. Maybe I can give someone insight into some way to just feel good. I gave my friend a short answer but I wanted to expand upon it. I think that considering ways to be happy and how to be happy or even what happy is, is a very important part of enjoying our life exactly as it is.

I think the most important thing about happiness, and one of the most empowering realizations of my life, is that happiness is a choice. It's not a fleeting ship in the night, something you wait for, it's nothing that requires any outside gift for situation. It only requires deciding that you want to be happy. Happiness means something different to different people, right? So in deciding to be happy we must first decide what happy looks like to us, right. To me, happiness is enjoying the present moment, over and over and over. Making the choice every day in all my moments to see if there's something to appreciate, and then actively appreciate it. Some days I feel like there are things to be grateful for all around me, and it's just glaringly obvious that my life is filled with blessings. Other days I have to really look at the small things. The way bubbles feel popping against my hands in the dish water. The way it feels to sink into my bed. How cool it is that my ankles can stand on a sloped surface and still hold my body straight because of those cool ball-socket joints. I have found that there is always something! We just have to make an active choice to find it, and to know ourselves well enough to know where to look for them based on what we appreciate.

That's not to say I enjoy every moment or that I don't get upset, mad, disappointed or have days where I just can't get out of a slump. I do. But for me, the key is understanding those moments are a part of life and embracing them too. Just letting myself honestly feel what I feel and being able to see the beauty in the balance. Embracing a moment to cry because it's a human thing to do and needs to happen sometimes. Embracing a moment to feel angry or insecure or disappointed because they're human feelings and happen sometimes. Not trying to escape them or wish they didn't happen. Knowing that in their way, they make the simple and pleasurable moments that much better because they provide contrast. And there is a reason to appreciate them. Whether it's because they're providing contrast or because they're signaling to me that it's time for something to change, I am so thankful for my adverse experiences and emotions. 

One of my favorite books has this line. "Even a stunted tree reaches for the light." I think that says it all. We want to be happy. Our nature is to feel good. Life can sometimes turn us away from what we know deep inside ourselves about what peace we can feel. We must never think that we can't be happy or that we are too broken to be. We must never believe that happiness is for others but isn't for us. We must not subscribe to ideas that happiness comes from anywhere but within. We must remember that it is a choice to make, that requires action. Just as we reach for the water to quench thirst, we can reach for the thoughts and experience that make us feel grateful and happy. We just have to decide we love ourselves enough to take that step.

Dandelion (a visualization)

I close my eyes and hope as I blow on a dandelion. I hope, because I do not believe in wishing. My hope is not pointed. It has no specifics.  I meditate on the small feathered parachutes of the dandelion. They are designed to be carried in the wind. They go where the elements take them. My hope is just like this. It is only me opening my heart and asking for goodness, happiness, purpose, lessons, greater understanding, a new way of seeing, whatever comes my way. As I blow and the parachutes scatter, I watch the many directions they travel. I consider that I will never know where they land. And this is the way, they are the perfect representation of my hopes. I don't wish to know, to predict, or to have direction. I hope for what is meant to find me. I am grateful for what will find me without having any idea what it will look like. I think about the things that happen exactly as they are meant to. The dandelion does not ask for the wind. It grows and changes and exists. The wind does not set out specifically to spread the dandelion seed. It blows and in doing so fulfills a great many purpose without doing so deliberately. I take joy in thinking about the things that happen harmoniously in nature. I find solace in the reprieve from actions in life that must be preformed with an end result in mind. I lay back and close my eyes and feel one of the dandelion parachutes land on my face. One parachute that didn't drift away. I think this means that some of my hopes are already right here within me.

Growing Up

I once thought I'd weathered the heaviest storms
that I would ever encounter in life
That I'd already learned great lessons about
survival and struggle and strife.
I figured the worst was behind me
and I'd come out unscathed and I'd won
I didn't see what I can see now
which is that the challenge has only begun
I'm beginning to do some real growing up now
there's this new clarity in my world
realizing that there is much difference between
the struggles of a woman and that of a girl.
A girl is scared and defenseless
searching and running to find a safe place
but a woman must face things head on
with a mixture of courage, wisdom and grace.
I thought that I'd become a woman
when I started paying rent and had a kid
but my thoughts are showing me more maturity
than any of those actions ever did
Every day I wake up and question myself
the answers aren't always the same
but being grown is more about knowing yourself
than about this 'playing house' game.
So that is my moment of clarity
on this not so special, insignificant night
I've found my grace, my courage and my wisdom
and I'm ready to live my life right.

Promises for 2012

We've now arrived at my favorite time: when one year draws to a close and a new one begins to bloom. I've often heard people say that resolutions are pointless and that we as people should be able to make changes we wish for at any time throughout the year. This is totally true. In this way, all time markers and holidays are pointless. For me, New Years Day has always been a perfect measurable distance from one year to the next where I can look and see concrete changes in me. January 1st always comes. And I always lived thorough one the year before. I can always see what happened within me in the three-hundred and some odd days between. I'm not crazy about resolutions, but love reflecting. I am finding that in 2011 I disappointed myself profoundly though, and for that I am definitely making some promises to myself for the upcoming year.

The first promise I am making for 2012 is to listen to myself. I have always believed that housed deep inside of us, are all of our truths. This year I commit to listening to the truths I already know and not denying them. I have found the greatest pain in my life has come from turning away from my own wisdom when it was calling for me with an important message. This coming year, I promise to have faith in myself and in the lessons I've learned from my past. I will trust my own wisdom and I follow my heart.

The second promise I am making is to strive more for oneness and not otherness. Mostly in my life I've been good at always recognizing that I am part of a much larger whole and being cognizant of how my actions affect other parts of that whole. I believe I've been caught up in my own emotional struggles this year and recoiled into the illusion of otherness. Of being separate and alone, different and an exception. Looking at others not as an extension of my own existence. I promise this year to be more connected to the whole and actively compassionate towards all of the parts of that whole. To give what I have, smile at those I pass, give warmth and love to those who will have it. Offer to carry the burden of those who may be just as tired of their weight as I have been of mine at times.

The third promise I am making is to love my sober self. To find other ways to address the social anxiety that bothers me more than I ever let on. To have faith in my intelligence and beauty enough to know I don't need to numb myself to be around someone new. To love a glass of wine for the taste and the little buzz and not try to run away from my own feelings of inferiority or embarrassment. To stop feeling terribly naked and on trial around other people. To remember that I'm witty and cute and a joy to be around. Therein lies the answer to laying down the need to escape.

The fourth promise I am making is to reach out to my friends and family more. To tell them I love them, to explain what's going on in my world, and to ask them to listen and ask for help. To be honest and vulnerable, supportive, to laugh and cry. Not to take for granted that they're reading facebook and texts. To pick up the phone and hear a voice. To sit down for dinner or coffee. I promise this year to invest fully in those I love and who love me back. To lean on and let them lean on me.

Lastly, I promise to keep my heart open. To embrace all newcomers in my life in the coming year. To not let past baggage or fears dissuade me from the affections of those who want to be near me. To believe that I deserve new love, not the kind I idealize because I want to be loved, but the kind that rushes in unexpectedly because it was meant for me.

The end! Happy 2012 to all!