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Hi.
Not sure how long or far this one will go, but I’m willing.
Let’s start with the end. Which is kind of a beginning, but you’ll hopefully see what I mean soon enough.
I sent this email just now to Veronica Monet.
“Veronica!
My Higher Power nudged me to offer you help tonight. The topic of how female prostitutes are treated has repeated today in ways that can only be explained spiritually. Got any ideas, off the top of your head?
And I hope all is going very well for you!
Much love
Beth”
I’d like to tell you I wasn’t expecting this, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. I know my OneTaste experience didn’t happen pointlessly, or in a vacuum. I know I haven’t gone through shedding the layers of conditioning and shame and silence and pain, just to then do nothing with it. I know I don’t “have” to listen to this call, and I also know from experience the quicker I surrender to it, the better.
I’m breaking my 9:45 computer curfew to write this out because it’s the type of subject I should explore while the iron is hot. The type of thing that might seem “less important” in the morning. That type of less important when I’ve just given the denial the time to cool over the truth and harden it a bit. But then it hardens inside of me and I just have to have it cracked open another time in another way, anyway, so why not just keep it open now.
I had a wickedly dark sex dream last night. Murder and wife swapping and words carved into skin and police corruption and that’s enough for public consumption.
Already the other details of how prostitution and womens’ health challenges showed up today are swimming, like when I have a detailed dream and don’t write it down and it’s washed away by mid-morning.
The most impactful conversation was with NM. I’m not even ready to tell “everyone” what was said there, but it awakened a little spark in me that I wasn’t even sure was alive. See, I’ve been on this precipice of perceiving that I’m just giving up on sex. That I will never be skilled enough to build bridges with men (or even 1 man) enough to have sex involve emotional intimacy and truthful congruency, in addition to a hot sexual connection which seems to be most easily stoked when I don’t tell my truth. That’s a run-on but I’m leaving it because I don’t want to separate the words from one another. It’s a hollow place to be devoid of hope. Hollowness can create space for peace…..or peril. I wish I could take a survey of all the women who have felt hopeless and considered doing sexwork as a way to fix many problems at once, while giving up on what I can now only know through experience as a dream.
I definitely feel the part of me who loves comfort holding its hat in red agitated hands….why am I saying this, just when things are getting back to normal? Why can’t I just take the easy way? How do I even know if this is real? Am I just trying to get attention in a different way, because I can’t stand the partnerlessness? Am I deliberately trying to sabotage my business?
One of my roommates brought home a movie flyer. We’ve been talking about a house movie night, so that’s not surprising. But, seriously, how did it get to me having several conversations about prostitution today, and then she says, “there’s a sex worker film festival coming up”. I’m telling you, so much primed my attention, enough for me to finally say, okay, I surrender my defenses to this topic.
Do you know how easy it is to sell sex to men? Even a brief fingernail’s hint of maybe possible sex? My lord, VERY easy, and the currency definitely doesn’t have to be money. I do not understand you creatures. Yes, sex gets my attention and takes up bandwidth. Yes, I know it’s not ALL men that react that way. Yes, I know there’s pain and anger and hurt involved on mens’ side, too. But you can’t take my experience away with your own theories, so that’s what I’m putting out here.
I realized today what I like about working with numbers. It helps me have tracks for the train. I see the numbers as little helpers. I also see them as advocates….that when I get on the side of the numbers, then they become like a little healthy army and together we move in the right direction.
What does that have to do with this. I don’t know yet. I’m working through a spiritual call in somewhat real time. I do know I felt hesitant to bring this up because I don’t want to bring any further negative exposure to women. Especially the ones in the most vulnerable and unprotected and perilous situations. And what actual things, such as numbers, do I have to be on my side? Well, I was just told it’s not an I it’s a We.
Again, don’t know where this is going. Faith is not having to know and just putting one foot in front of the other.
Also got a nudge to share with you a list of spiritual solutions that I was given to use in my stepwork. Perhaps not directly related to the above, or else I’d share the clever transition, but sharing both of these things was asked, so I’m willing.
Service
Meta
Affirmations
Gratitude list
Pray for_______
Look for signs of God
Ask for help
Pay my own way
Grieve
Exercise
List strengths of _________
Read acceptance passage of Big Book, p 417
Set boundaries
Meditate
Tell the truth
Reconnect or stay in contact with _________
Talk about my feelings
Listen
Step work
Vote
This helps everything One of James Taylor’s best songs IMHO, done by Marc Broussard, who I’m hoping to see in SF in June. Dear Marc, please bring that little guitar player of yours so he can shred live into my ears. Thank you.
2 newspapers were on the BART seat next to me on the way home today. I scanned them to see whazzup.
Front page of one. A woman in Antioch was dragged 50 feet by a truck, to her death, by someone with whom she had just been in an altercation. Witnesses saw her get out of the truck, the driver backed up, and then mowed her down pointblank and didn’t stop. At all.
A few pages in. A murder case. This time, the murdered woman’s picture was shown.
Next newspaper. An article about how fascinated South African society is by the murder case of the Swedish woman who had just gotten married and her new husband is believed to have taken out a hit on her.
Other front page. A step down in gruesome (depending on your point of view, I suppose) was the Wikileak guy’s rape case story. That one seems fishy and probably fabricated in some ways to me, but who knows, maybe he takes risks in lots of areas of his life. Regardless, a rape story.
I didn’t see any stories of men who were murdered or sexually assaulted. Not that I want to see that about anyone, but that’s where my curiosity went.
I did a quick Google search to see if I could find the number of male murders versus female murders for 2009. I didn’t easily find that.
I did find this, which is kind of its own fascinating topic for another day. http://www.friscovista.com/news/maps/san-francisco-murders/
(Morbidly funny aside: I’m listening to The Pretenders, and Thin Line Between Love and Hate just came on. I’ll dedicate that one to the truck-driving monkey butt.)
Who knows how much reality the “journalism” I read today actually represents. Regardless, it made an impact on me, I’m sharing that impact with you and I’d like to take a somewhat corrective, or at least balancing, action.
My action is to say that in my daily life I get to support and study with 2 female entrepreneurs of color. Women who have created amazing communities around themselves, and generously share what they’ve learned. Each of them has had a few articles written about them, but for the most part they appear in specialty publications.
I get to say that I work with women on a daily basis who are painstakingly learning how to love their bodies and treat them well. How to be truly kind to themselves and others. How to clean up their side of the street. And they offer that support to other women when it’s time. It’s not easy work at all. In my opinion it is definitely radically world-changing action they are taking. No articles about those women at all to my knowledge.
I get to say that when I absolutely melted down on Sunday night from fear, self-judgment, and self-inflicted rage, my 2 female roommates were SOLIDLY THERE, no questions asked. They sat with me, talked with me, felt some of what I was going through. I guess if we pulled some strings at the Noe Valley Voice, we might get a little mention (kidding….nothing in writing other than this to date!).
I noticed today how I harshly judged a thin pretty blonde woman who has been hired by one of my clients. I assumed automatically he hired her because she’s hot. Gotta clean that stuff up in my mind. It does no one any good. Girlfriend, congratulations to you on being thin, pretty, blonde, and hired! Here’s to me giving you the benefit of the doubt that you’re smart, too, and for me to learn to keep my judging mind shut to thinking otherwise until you prove me wrong.
Sending hugs to all the ladies around the world. Live, please. The world is better with you in it.
My Darling,
It’s hailing, thundering, and lightning right now in San Francisco. It’s the first time in 11 years you’ve seen them all at once and just the third time of seeing any of them individually in that whole time. When people ask you if you miss the East Coast, you tell them a thing you miss a lot is watching thunderstorms from the porch. You saw a bright beautiful rainbow from your back porch this morning while you were eating a quiet breakfast.
Your relational life shifted a whole, whole lot today. Well, it had been going that direction but the deep punctuation came today. It’s kind of like that part of you that was suffering was an animal with a compound fracture and it got a mercy killing today. You send him with love and you’re doing the thing you didn’t know if you’d be able to do. And importantly, you reached out for positive healthy appropriate support when the news you didn’t want to hear came through. That’s how lasting healthy changes start….just one little action. You’re also on the receiving end of a version of the disappearing act you pulled on so many men before. Karma, my love…sometimes you put it out there and it boomerangs back to you. Oh, and don’t forget you did that to your family, too, for a while; oh yeah. Sometimes it’s the human way. Sometimes it’s the best we can do to head for the hills. You even pushed him away a lot in the beginning and you’re doing a great job of remembering that now. Bless you, Karma, for keeping nature in balance.
How perfect is it that you are on a juicy Step 2 revisitation right now? You’ve been getting so much insight from working this step lately. Some of the AA literature is now planted in your mind and you’ve been able to call on it now, specifically this passage:
“The girl we wanted to marry had other notions; we prayed God that she’d change her mind, but she didn’t. We prayed for healthy children, and were presented with sick ones, or none at all. We prayed for promotions at business, and none came. Loved ones, upon whom we heartily depended, were taken from us by so-called acts of God. Then we became drunkards, and asked God to stop that. But nothing happened. This was the unkindest cut of all. ‘Damn this faith business!’ we said.”
But you haven’t damned it this time around. You know it’s for the best. You know that you’re held and safe and protected in the Flow. You caught it that sometimes when you’re out of acceptance with something, that you’re thinking God perhaps made a mistake and you’re waiting for it to be corrected, and promptly. With restitution. Not this time around, my love. Good catch, though!
You’ve grown tremendously recently by writing on the following exercise, and then sharing it with others.
“Write what he actually said. Then write what it feels like he said.”
You have felt the listeners cringe and be kind of mortified at how your mind talks to you. You are not the weak creampuff your mind tells you that you are. You’ve coped with an abuser that happens to live between your ears and you are doing the work to turn even that over. And you know that everything inside of you wants SOMETHING to live, and that part of your work is to choose what things should be fed and get to survive and grow.
You reached a turning point of a crapton of personal work this week, actually just 2 days ago. You noticed in his absence still wanting something from him, which you rationally and evidentially knew he was not able to or willing to provide. You wrote it out to yourself, what you wanted to hear. You finally got it what other people have said about your projecting your own superego into the seeming voice of other people. WOW, what a breakthrough! (No, I’m not being sarcastic. That’s a huge deal.)
4 people you hold dearly in your heart had their positions eliminated this past week, 3 of them seemingly entirely out of the blue. F O U R. That’s a lot of loss. You knew it was “out there” but it hadn’t hit so deeply home for you until this. They are all dealing with it differently, and what a gift to be able to hear what at least 2 of them are going through around it. You remember seeing the book title when you were a little kid, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” and you couldn’t understand for years why bad things would ever happen to good people (and you somehow internalized that if something bad happened then YOU were bad….maybe you should read more than the title of that book!)
You wondered if Agent could be a good job for a Projector (from Human Design). The fabulous experience with that was completing the marketing letters for the children’s book illustrator. AS YOU WERE WALKING TO MAIL THEM, a friend you hadn’t heard from in months happened to call you. When you told the friend what you were up to in that moment, he said, “I’ve written a children’s book, and have been looking for an illustrator! Would you put us in touch?” Wow wow wow wow wow
You had a wonderful experience yesterday babysitting 3 little girls, 6, 5, and 2 years old. When you were playing the White Winged Dove of Peace Queen game with one of them, you asked her if she would share with you her magical powers and give you the ability to use them on other people. She thought about it, and then carefully said,
“No, I can’t do that. When you give your power away, then you only have half a heart. If you were able to find one of those people with 2 hearts who could give you an extra one, then I’d consider it. Otherwise, I need to keep all my heart so I have power to help other people.“
You heard a great share of someone’s early recovery and what helped them. Before she did the addictive thing that she couldn’t stop, she would take at least 1 healthy action. So even though she was acting out, she was building the muscle of taking healthy action. Nice!
You had your first directly professional writing experience this week, which felt wonderful.
You remembered and got solace from the program axiom,
“I don’t have to like it to accept it.“
Your birthday is on Monday. You are going to work your damndest to not focus on what you DON’T have and instead focus on the gratitude of what you do:
-loving friends
-spiritual practices across a wide range that you can do any time
-willingness and ability to sit with feelings
-people who read what you write on this thing (thank you thank you thank you, readers!!!!!!!! you’ve already given me my gift, to be seen!)
-physical health
-renewed love of tennis and motion
-mended relationships with family that feel wonderful
-business and clients that have come your way with ease
-interesting future business partners in a range of fields
-active volunteer position that directly impacts an issue of large significance to you
-massage trade partners
-people to be “real” with
-a home in your favorite city
-and most importantly, connection to spiritual guidance
Bless you at all ages.
You are loved, and wonderful, and you are exactly where you are supposed to be.
Reminder to future self looking back on this post. I listened to this song 20 times today and I have at least 20 more listens in me. We’re accepting happy music as acceptable obsession material these days. (“Them chickens jackin’ my style.” HA HA Ha ha hahaha)
I wrote a vision statement draft for someone today, and it totally lit me up. I called 5 friends who would get it before I found someone to listen. I cried after I read it and my face burned from all the feeling. Sometimes the hardest thing about life is accepting how dang good it can be.
Tonight on the way to play tennis I ran in to the friend I have mentioned before here who is a Buddhism teacher. He lives in the East Bay now, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him in a SF cafe. I’ve been running in to some “politeness” lately, where I show my love for people by staying out of their hair. So worst case scenario, I would have just walked by and told him about it later. I did text him that I had just walked by the cafe but didn’t want to disturb him. My story was that he was on a date with the hot woman he was sitting there laughing with, and I didn’t want him to “have” to explain how he knew me! (We were roommates at OT.) Turns out, he texted me immediately “Come back!!!” so I did. Also turns out the lady I met with him plays tennis. I got her number to play, as she lives in my area! Also turns out, I announced to them feeling great about the professional writing gig, and she is a professional writer and editor! Woah. Dude.
This may be a disconnected thought, but it’s where my mind was around that time so that’s why I’m stringing them together. I noticed that when I have a craving for sex (or at least that’s how I identify it now…maybe it will change when I put attention on it), I think about my pelvic area. And I was walking through the Castro looking at the sex shops and wondering, when gay men have a craving for sex, do they think about their anal area? If so, is that habit, or is the craving literally arising from there and that area literally needs some sort of attention. I don’t know how controversial this next statement will be for people, but it’s true so I’ll go ahead and say it. I prayed for God to touch me on the inside, and I prayed for God to help me allow God inside of my body. I guess that’s controversial for ME to say it to myself, so that’s why I’m worried what you’ll think. I’m just realizing I spent such a long time thinking it was a toxic waste dump inside of me that I wanted to protect everything and everyone from getting the toxicity on them. I know I’m not the only one, and I’m glad that I finally know I’m not the only one.
The About Face workshop I’m doing this Thursday has half guys in the class so they asked for a masculine focus. Oy. Feeling challenged by that. I don’t know how you boys work well enough to know what to say. It has been extremely powerful to recover alongside guys. Before that, I wouldn’t have guessed that guys ever worried about body image or weight.
I’m working with a new client tomorrow. A friend who I know from spiritual practice who is also a massage therapist. We spoke a couple of months ago about my helping him with finances, and I do recall sharing my “real” story with him, including OneTaste. He booked an appointment for me (that’s tomorrow) to help him with finances and organizing his office. Turns out he took the OT courses since we last spoke! I noticed my first thought was to offer to OM with him. That’s still a primary language, well past it being a primary practice for me. Interesting how that habit got in there. I think I’m used to the old days when there weren’t that many women who knew how to coach strokers. It’s changed since then, I think, and it seems like the evangelical work done by OT has increased the number of OMers, which is awesome. AND I don’t have to do it out of any internal responsibility. For whatever reason, OMing is not something I’ve turned to in the last year. Not sure why. It still makes sense to me. I love it and recommend it. I think conscious touch in all forms in powerful healing work. But the last time I practiced OMing I got 2 hours of sleep that night and it just didn’t feel quite right. I guess that’s just another example of my not having control over things I wish I did. (Item # 4 million on the list!) So, I didn’t at all mention it to him, and I don’t have to mention it tomorrow. I can just be a supportive professional friendly gal with some common interests.
I got another clue to the puzzle of why I’m so weird in person with Cadillac. It’s from a David Richo book, who I’ve been wanting to read for years, and am thrilled to have gotten around to him. Great stuff. “Some people reflect back to us our own Shadow side. We configure others to be “greater than” us, positively by awe, and negatively by dread. Actually, we are fearing the admirable or despicable qualities unintegrated in ourselves.”
Oh.
Told ya it was good.
Add to to-do list: integrate qualities! Stat!
: )
Texas cheerleader suing – didn’t root for attacker
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle November 5, 2010
If you’re a high school cheerleader, you cheer for the whole team. The stars and the scrubs. The nice guys and the jerks.
But what about a player you’ve accused of raping you?
You’ve got to cheer for him too, according to a federal appeals court, because you’re really speaking for the school and not yourself.
The court dismissed a free-speech suit by a Texas teenager who was kicked off the cheerleading squad for sitting silently, with her arms folded, while her assailant shot free throws in a playoff game.
The former cheerleader and her family are appealing the ruling by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which includes an order to pay the school district’s legal fees on the grounds their suit was far-fetched and frivolous.
A case that has gripped a small town in southeast Texas also provides a window into the diminishing state of free speech on campus.
More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared that neither students nor teachers “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech … at the schoolhouse gate,” the former cheerleader’s judicial rebuff reflects a shift in perspective that has the courts showing more deference to school authorities.
“What I want out of the whole thing is for somebody to admit they were wrong,” the 18-year-old woman, identifying herself by her initials H.S., said in an interview last week. After undergoing therapy and graduating from high school, she’s taking a semester off before college, where she plans to study forensic science, partly because of what happened to her.
The basketball player has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, received a suspended sentence, and is making plans for college and “going forward with his life,” his lawyer said. He has denied raping H.S.
Court’s backtracking
The Supreme Court issued what appeared to be a declaration of free-speech rights on campus in 1969, when it allowed high school students to wear black armbands to protest the Vietnam War and said schools could clamp down only if students disrupted the educational process.
The court started to retrench in 1986 with a ruling allowing a high school to censor a student’s sexually suggestive speech at an assembly. Two years later, the court upheld a high school principal’s authority to prohibit articles on pregnancy and divorce from appearing in a student newspaper.
The Constitution does not require a school “to promote particular student speech,” the court said in a ruling that became a precedent for the H.S. case.
In 2007, the justices allowed a school to suspend a student for carrying a banner that read “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” at a school-approved parade near campus, saying the message could be interpreted as promoting drugs.
These days, “student speech is not given the respect it deserves. …There’s a mind-set that school officials are in total control,” said David Hudson, a Vanderbilt University law professor and scholar with the First Amendment Center who has written about the H.S. case.
Incident at party
H.S., then 16, attended a party in her hometown of Silsbee, Texas, in October 2008. She said she was dragged into a room, thrown onto the floor by several youths and raped by Rakheem Bolton, a star on the school’s football and basketball teams.
Bolton and a teammate were arrested two days later, but were allowed to return to school after a county grand jury declined to indict them. They were later indicted on sexual assault charges, but in the interim came the February 2009 incident on the basketball court.
H.S. joined in leading cheers for the Silsbee High team. But when Bolton went to the foul line, and the cheers included his name, she stepped back, folded her arms and sat down.
“I didn’t want to have to say his name, and I didn’t want to cheer for him,” H.S. said. “I didn’t want to encourage anything he was doing.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/05/MNDQ1G1R78.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz14imYxHww
- Someone I talk to about internet dating complains that the women don’t look like their pictures, that they’re usually 25 pounds heavier than they appear online. How to tenderly, compassionately say to this person that the women probably experience the same thing with this person?
First instinct: FIX IT for this person. Fix their brain around it. Straighten them out to enjoy the present moment and find the beauty in every single person that chooses to spend time with them.
Second instinct: oh crap, I need to take that advice myself and accept people around me exactly as they are. Dig deeper to find their inherent beauty, no matter how much they try to hide it from the world.
- A close friend remarks they saw a picture of me in the OneTaste days and I looked so confident. This friend doesn’t experience me that way in present life.
First instinct: Jerkwad, you have no idea how insane I was behind the scenes of those pretty pictures. Insufferable diva. Committed acts of violence that technically should have gotten me kicked out of the community. AND there was free talented labor on hand to style my hair and take me shopping and do whatever I wanted. It was beautiful. Yes, the pictures look good and that’s not the whole story. Sigh, men will never get it. They just want the skin deep trophy.
Second instinct: uh-oh, there’s not actually a problem in my life, not a single one. Got stuck again in trying to manufacture one. Oops, thanks, guy, for just making an observation. [Dismount the defensive battering ram, please ma'em. Step away from the hypocritical reflexive negative judgment.]
- Unconditional Serenity Regulars (hereby known as “USeRs“ ha ha ha ha ha) may remember my Diamond Cutter phase. Buddhist principles applied to modern day business practices. The definition of “karma” is something I remembered tonight. Basically, my actions create what I see in the world. I do good…I see good. I do bad…I see bad. The external circumstances will be what they will regardless. It’s not magic. It’s patterning, and the theory is that the brain can’t possibly see everything, and simple patterning will have us notice what is already planted inside.
First instinct upon remembering that: Oh crap again. I am so screwed. There is not enough time in this wee lifetime for me to start doing enough good to be able to see the good I’d like to.
Second instinct: that is SO yesterday to worry like that. I’m cleaning up so much. There are people I trust who see that the changes in me over time have rendered me unrecognizable in some ways. When I meditated tonight, part of the instruction was to focus on what you really truly want. First thought, no kidding, was to be connected to God. From there everything flows. I want it so bad. It makes everything beyond tolerable. It guides me, it calms me, it’s the light that shines in so much dark. And I’m still working on building that faith that it will never run out and I’ll never be punished for being bad or wrong.
**********************************
What’s on my radar? I like to do an occasional round-up.
*Obviously, love and sex relationship. I can try to wrest my mind and body from it, but that’s just me wanting to control Mother Nature. (“Don’t talk to your motha that way. You behave and follow your healthy instincts.”) How to play and engage in health and creativity. Nourishment is what I want to exchange.
*Quickbooks. Found a City College class. A generous friend is also going to show me his company’s QuickBooks for a live demo. Also want to brush up on Quicken for a new client who wants me to clean up past years’ records.
*Tennis league. First practice tomorrow night. Go, 1-woman team.2 challenges have gone unanswered. Uh-oh. It’s okay baby, just keep going.
*Massage trades. Currently just trading messages with folks but want to get on it.
*Reviewing Dave Ramsey investing lesson to then talk with mentor about setting up appropriate type of real estate savings account(s).
*Setting up new clients, especially after a fairly heavy duty weekly client wraps up in mid-December. I LOVE the variety that is coming through now. So fun!
*St Francis prayer. When I find myself wanting, turn it around and discover how to give what I wish I was getting.
*Dancing. I ante’d up for a 4-class card at Dance Mission, yay. Also, performing this Friday at FNB is an amazing singer from St Louis who loves playing for dancers and it should be rockin’. I hope little grandma here can stay up for at least part of it!
*My birthday is November 22. Mark your calendars. I love love love my birthday.
This is the soundtrack for this post. Run it in the background, please, friends. Be with me. Bounce with me.
I gave the talk at a meeting yesterday on body image. Inside out.
And have been studying more lately what men and women are looking for/drawn to. Outside in.
Check out this video from the movie Science of Sex Appeal for more specific ‘outside in’ example:
The jealousy stuff factors into this body image conversation. So we have the above 2 categories that have to do with me plus those potentially attracted to me. (Me being anyone in the center of this inquiry.)
Then there’s the category of body image as it applies to those other women (let’s keep it simple for this discussion) who those attracted to me might ALSO be attracted to.
Scarcity would have me (still, the any one of us ‘me’, although it has been true for me Beth, as well) believe that the women in this third category are BAD and SUBTRACTING from the attraction. In that frame the equation would be
me pretty alone + potentially attracted person= good for me
Add the third category and the equation becomes
me pretty + her pretty = less potentially attracted aka bad for me
Okay so it’s not mathematically perfect but it will do.
I truly have been playing with this equation in my mind, especially in light of the ambiguity in the relationship with Cadillac and my not putting any stake in the ground per se about ‘this is what I want no matter what’. My mantra lately is be in the gray, be in the gray. So as I was looking at a woman after my body image talk yesterday, I noticed ‘she is pretty’. I prayed for her, to have direction and pleasure and nourishment. Just me and her in my mind, no threat.
Then that little wise voice knocked on my internal door and presented me with the image of Cadillac also finding her pretty and wanting to get wit her, yew knew what I’m sayin.
I felt a crunch inside. Woah nelly! Nothing happened! And I still felt some pain! That tells me it’s self-generated. Just looking at a girl who didn’t even know she was being looked at, I generate that whole ride inside of myself.
This could be obvious to the entire world except for Beth. YET I’m clearly doing something with this jealousy stuff that, let’s say to be kind…..could be more skillful. I want to think it’s out of my control, that I’m just built as a possessive jealous woman and it’s out of my hands, but it can’t all be biological or even pre-cortex.
I know there are women who like to admire other women with their guys. Good on ya. I admire that. On a great hair day with no hormonal interference after I’ve gotten paid and when there’s someone else interested in me on the side, I MIGHT be able to do that for a few seconds with a main squeeze before closing down in fear or anger or suspicion.
I’ve enjoyed peak experiences of including conscious turn-on between men and more than 1 woman, and every single time there was a hellish emotional crash either during or after. I’d go so far as to describe it as debilitating.
So at the moment I guess I could say I know it’s possible and I haven’t wanted to hurt the quieter gentler parts of me who bear the brunt of the crash.
I guess the little seedlings growing in the garden of my mind revolve around is there a way to do this, and perhaps the best partners to choose around communication style, level of trust, temperament, etc., that could help me very gradually change my thought patterns. I tried the rush-in-no-holds-barred-guns-blazing-skinny-dipping-in-the-polar-bear-club approach for years, and I don’t choose that going forward. I have literally experienced trauma that way. I don’t know why, but I do know what I experienced, and it had the psychological and physiological symptoms. I also chose the totally-avoid-the-topic-emotionally-prepare-to-withdraw approach and that’s not the level of enlivening that I want. Okay so it’s Goldilocks at play, yes, wanting it to be just right, but it’s also wanting to find the livable sustainable gray between black OR white.
I want to want what’s best for everyone.
I want to remember that any curiosity and interest and aliveness is a good thing.
I want to remember I don’t possess any human being, or their emotional state.
I want to be playful under a wide variety of circumstances.
I want to choose health.
I want to invite God and all that means into every single part of my existence, and live in the knowledge that it is all Divine. Nothing left out.
I want to do things because I want to do them, not because I’m afraid of the not doing them.
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I joined an online tennis league today! (Cadillac’s inspiration set the wheels in motion and then the Giants’ athleticism has electrified me. Thanks, guys.)) My goal is to practice once a week and play a league match once a week. I sent my first challenge request within the league. They have 24 hours to respond. ***rubbing little hands together*** I printed the league rules and now Tennis has its own folder at my house. Not only does it have its own folder, I put it in my Live Clients special black folder that separates it from all else! Tennis is my happiness/strategy/athletic/edge-pushing client.
Grateful today to be newly of service to a part-time client.
And it’s a welcome-back to the spiritual/sensual realm for me. This time as 100% coach and 0% player.
My knowledge and experience will be utilized, helping someone else get some of what I got.
I like that!
I’ll be sending this client on some high-quality adventures, and probably going along on some, as well, for observing ‘in the field’.We’ll be doing debriefs after the adventures to see what worked, what didn’t, and what are the next steps.
I do get the message in my consciousness, “why are there so many people looking for partnership? There are plenty of available people. What’s up with that?” So this will be a chance to take some action on that. We’re going to try it for a month and see how it goes. Yay.
I wish I could introduce him to some of you 50-somethings out there. BS, you should visit and let’s all talk Marina Warner!! : )
Longer term, I don’t yet feel clear on my overall career organizing principle.
I’m letting go of the cold icy grip I lived in for the past couple of weeks and moving some slight pieces forward to just look around and see what’s there, inside and outside of me.
1) Today I’m completing the application for the Womens’ Initiative Business Class series that begins in June. I almost put this on hold. What if I get a job? What if what if what if. If it’s not right I won’t do it. But I definitely won’t do it at all if I don’t take the necessary step. <<Reality check. I’m going to do this now. THEN I get the dessert of writing to you. Crap. I couldn’t finish it because I need to ask them a question in person. But I did as much as I could, and I left a message for them with my question. Settle down. The class is in January. There’s time.>>
2) Beginning to ask people, how could I monetize my public speaking skills? That’s a big great part of my skillset and what feeds me. I can’t see the details yet, but I’m still shopping for ingredients so of course I don’t know what the soup tastes like yet.
3) Massage again? Maybe. I’m easing back into doing trades, and it’s on my list today to find my massage school notes to brush up. <<Oh, right. Must find those before I finish this, as well. Found them. Sweet.>>
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Okay, this documentary is now on my wanna-see list.
http://www.about-face.org/gow/newten/6/three.shtml
Classic quote: “If you’re going to worry about your health, go to college.”
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I finished Step 12 today in OA for the first time! It only took 6 years! : ) It takes what it takes. And there’s no rush. Tremendously grateful. Next I begin working in a hardcore AA book with my sponsor. I’m excited about that.
I’ll give you a sample About-Face experience. (For those of you who don’t know, About-Face teaches teenagers how to deal with negative effects on body image that media can have.)
Watch this video, even a minute of it. The best bits start at 2:00min.
I used this clip in the presentation I gave today to awesome young women organizing the Women’s Health Summit. The teenagers form a Steering Committee to pick what topics are important to them, then about 1,000 high school women gather together to work on the issues and connect wit each other. Really inspiring.
Back to the video. Questions for you to notice, which we talked about in the workshop today.
How many men do you see in the video?
How many women?
What are the men wearing?
What are the women wearing?
How many men do you see wearing a faceless mask? How many women?
How many men do you see taking their clothes off? How many women?
How many men do you see lying on the floor at another person’s feet? How many women?
You know, the basics.
The types of media manipulation we cover in the workshops are
Fear
Longing
Competition
Sexualization
Did you happen to notice any of those in the video?
(Extra credit if you noticed the irony of the ad at the bottom of the video. “JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.” Uh huh.)
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Speaking of the value of scantily-clad women. I had a super experience getting clear with a friend today. She had sent a Facebook request to her guy’s friends to write something about him for his birthday. FriendWife told me about it since I’m not on Facebook. I poured some love into writing it because he is a very dear friend, and sent it to her, and hadn’t heard back whether she got it or not. FriendWife also told me that she heard that he was having a birthday party where the women would be wearing lingerie and FriendWife didn’t get invited because she’s “just his friend”. Okay, I didn’t get invited, either. I must be “just his friend”. Like that’s a downgrade and only toys get to be with him on his birthday.Grr. Judging! Lame.
So instead of stewing in my story, I just called the lady up. Thankfully she answered and we got to get clear. I asked if she had gotten the message I wrote for his birthday. She said oh yes, and what was more, they gave him a gift of surrender at his party. She picked my piece as the one to read to him during the Surrender. (I imagine he was tied to a chair cause that’s how we roll.) She didn’t tell him who wrote it and said he guessed it was me right away. Ahhh, love both ways! She said he was deeply affected and she just hadn’t responded to me. So that felt really good.
I then asked about the party. Said that I didn’t want to come across as entitled to an invitation, but that it did seem funny that the people I heard about were invited and I wasn’t. (A few years ago I would have passed out from the discomfort of a conversation like this!!) She said it was meant to be a tiny gathering of a certain type of person to him, and that people just kept inviting other people unexpectedly. So, okay. That information is good to know. It wasn’t a downgrade, it was more of an etiquette breach that they weren’t aware of.
So even if it was a downgrade, I can still live with that. I just want to know.
I told a potential financial counseling client today that the not knowing became much worse for me than facing the fears of knowing. I want to know.
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I picked up a Common Ground magazine today and read about Burning Man. I haven’t thought about this in the longest time, but I got to interview Larry Harvey, one of the founders of Burning Man, twice while I was at OneTaste. Once for the podcast series I did. It was just me and him and Daniel Pinchbeck and they riffed like crazy on philosophical society issues. Then I moderated a forum that about a hundred people came to. Life was so interesting there. Like, those experiences hardly registered on my radar because there was so much going on at the time. It never stopped. Fascinating. So now I get to take a moment and say, wow, I got to interview these cool cats. <Side notes: The kid did not stay in the picture in this case of this video!! Pookie makes the videos at OT.> Enjoy:
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In my continuing exploration of resistance, I got clear on something today.
I’ve been equating peoples’ resistance to hiring me as their coach as something I’ve been doing wrong. Service not high-quality enough. Marketing message not clear enough. Blah blah Beth Wrong blah blah.
Untrue, at least on a basic level. Of course there’s always room for improvement. But I will go crazy if I continue to try to take the blame for other people holding back on doing hard work. I held back, still do sometimes, and that was never a reflection on my teachers.
So I get it that I’m good. My prescence is pretty impeccable. My range is fairly immense. My knowledge of what I need and want to know is more thorough in certain areas than anyone I know of. And I’m fun to work with, regardless of how painful the topic is. I get it. I really get it.
Hang in there, Little Bethie. They’ll get to you when the time is right.
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And the time was right for one young woman today after the About-Face presentation. She had asked a couple of dieting questions during the presentation. I did share with the group that I’m in recovery for eating disorders, and that the issue is SOOOOO much better for me than it used to be. We picked out things we love about our bodies, and at some earlier point that would have had me walk out of the room. Or sit there and silently seethe at why the instructor was hurting me so much!
So this woman shared with me afterwards what she hasn’t been able to connect with others around around dieting and body image. Her family tells her she’s fat and thinks she should think it’s funny. Her friends judge her for not doing extreme dieting anymore like they do. And then there’s the assassin between the ears that is alive and well within her. Bless her heart.When the other girls walked by, she pulled her long hair over her face so they wouldn’t see her crying. OMG, bless that child. She worried that she’s a hypocrite for doing work to empower young women when she hasn’t broken free of this issue yet. I told her, and listened as I told her, that if we waited to help others until we were done growing and accepting everything, that we would never help others. And that our shared pain can be a beautiful way to connect and then get better together.
I truly wouldn’t trade having been there today and talking with her for anything. I didn’t earn as much money today as I planned or would have liked. I went through some frustration with getting and returning the equipment. I was nervous to face the topic. The judge between my ears looks at the slick videos/ads/etc and feels hopeless that the juggernaut will ever just let women be how they are, curves and blemishes and emotions and unpredictability and all.
And it’s an irreplaceable experience, just giving freely of one’s self and experience.
I hope you get to have that pleasure.
“Anger is smoke; anger is never fire.”
Thoughts? I composed that in my mind as I was drifting off to sleep this afternoon. I truly can’t think of a time where the pure direct emotion was anger itself. It so often seems to cover fear or vulnerability or lack of acceptance or judgment.
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The About Face presentation I’m doing next week for high school girls is for, “hard-working high achievers”. My women!!!
Girl Scouts is cleaning up its outdated image. These videos are fun.
Link: http://www.girlscouts.org/itsyourstory/
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Juliet Wayne’s story had me crying and smiling so hard I listened to it twice in a row.
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Thought today about why I haven’t written about my orgasm yet. I think it would be easy to write around it…what it’s “like” and what it’s “not” are the first things I think of.
What IS it?
Still on my plate and marinating.
Then I judged myself. Grown-up Sternie Beth said, “You should write a business plan first! Work first, play later!”
Yet, helllooooo….if I’m not in contact with what turns me on, my business will not get more than an impotent limp off the ground.
This world is knowing what I like and going for it and standing for it. I intend to do all of that.
I do think I need to get in front of groups again. Which groups and what specific message are next.
After I write about, as I’m deeply in contact with, my lovely mysterious important life-shaking O.
