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This is the last personal blog post that will appear on LinkedIn via Twitter feed. Not sure if any of you beautiful folks used LinkedIn as a ping that it’s time for Bethbloggoodness. You can always subscribe (box to the left) if your heart so desires.
Just arrived back in SF.
I showed my One flare on the plane.
a) I created a new weekly scheduling template for myself. A system that will allow me to ensure optimum recovery, tennis, client, and self time. That when I bump 1 important thing, I have a reminder to move it somewhere else instead of just drop if off. I’m hoping that this is the way we use Outgoing to help Incoming flourish.
b) I created a new grocery system. A par list, as it were. As well as a schedule. This thrills me. It saves planning and deciding time!
c) Got a lot of reading done on CrashProof 2.0: How To Profit From The Economic Collapse by Peter Schiff. It’s helping me put some of my instinctive concerns into words and actions around my investment activity in particular.
2 quotes I particularly enjoyed:
p 102 RE the PCE = Chain-Type Price Index, which he explains if you want to get the book. “I like to make the analogy of a person sitting in a comfortably heated room under a chandelier eating filet mignon. Now fast-forward a few inflationary years. The same person sits in the same room; but having no heat, he is wrapped in blankets; having no electricity, he is using candlelight; and unable to afford filet mignon, he is eating cat food. However, since the individual spends the same amount of money in either circumstance, according to the PCE there is no inflation. After all, he is still warm, still has light, and is still eating.” DOH
p 172 About variable-interest home loans, Adjustable Rate Mortgages/ARM for short….”Compounding the problem is that our country’s lack of domestic savings forces it to rely on foreign financing. When foreign leaders finally lose confidence in the dollar, interest rates will skyrocket, sending ARM payments to the moon as well. For a nation so vulnerable to higher interest rates to further compound its predicament through overexposure to ARMS is reckless beyond belief. It’s analogous to a cheating husband, caught red-handed in the act, putting a noose around his neck, throwing the other end over a tree limb into the waiting arms of his jealous, enraged, soon-to-be-ex-wife, and hoping she decides not to pull.”
d) I did a study from saved contacts in my cell phone. Of the individuals for whom I have numbers (which includes friends, family, colleagues, service professionals, clients), I recorded data on what I know of their housing situation (own or rent?) and romantic/domestic partnership situation (married? single? partnered=dating someone significantly enough that I think of them as a solid unit? or single and divorced?) (I did not track remarriages or partnerships where one or both parties are divorced.)
Here are the results, which I am confident enough in as a person who doesn’t keep up with Facebook can be. (i.e. some of them maybe have split up, gotten together, etc., but I think these are solid)
Own a Home/Married = 36 individuals, including 7 couples who I know both people well enough to have saved their number in my phone
Rent/Married = 7 individuals
Own a Home/Partnered = 10 individuals (they don’t necessarily live together – the contact in the phone owns a home)
Rent/Partnered = 20 individuals, no duplicates or couples where I know both of them well enough to have both numbers
Own/Single and Divorced = 8 individuals
Rent/Single and Divorced = 8 individuals
Own/Single (no divorce known) = 14 individuals
Rent/Single = 57 individuals
Now here’s where it got even more interesting for me. These numbers are all in addition to the folks above.
I know their own or rent status but NOT their relationship status = 9 individuals
I know their relationships status but NOT their rent or own status = 61 individuals (woah!)
I know neither their relationship nor their housing status = 57 individuals (double woah, I have got some curiosity muscles to build!)
I guess the book stimulated my thinking about my goal of owning real estate, at least as my primary residence.
e) Spoke with members of the UVA Womens’ Tennis Team before the flight from Charlotte to SF. They play starting Friday at NCAA at Stanford. They’re in the equivalent of the Sweet 16. I asked them about training tips and we talked topspin techniques. I was such a groupie, it was great. Even stuck my little face over the back of the coaches’ seats to wish them luck and give them oogly adoration eyes.
http://www.virginiasports.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPID=10611&DB_OEM_ID=17800
The main one who helped me has the black stuff under her eyes in the pictures. I could rock that look next.
Well of course I have more to tell you….apparently the term bisexual does not work for everyone who likes all genders….apparently there are hormones to study….apparently I’m going to need to put Dancing With The Stars in my new weekly grid….I have 10 years’ of episodes to catch up on…..but this will do for now.
I hope you are bursting with joy and peeking around corners where you never looked before.
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!
: )
- 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.
****************
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.
I sent Client A a message this morning that maybe we should just settle up and consider this phase of our working together through.
He sent me back this video with his response, just because he’s cool like that.
His idea is to meet and talk. My counter idea is to meet, talk, AND make Free Hugs signs and display them at the Ferry Building. And hug people. Freely. When they want it.
He’s in!
That’s fun.
Other fun thing. Remember the just-engaged photo I took after tennis the other day? Tennis Partner and I played again today, were taking a cool-down walk around the park, and were stopped by a woman who was having a heck of a time parallel parking. So we helped guide her into the slot. I was less cynical and resigned this time, to practice. The sunshine and endorphins definitely help!
I hope you have brilliant weekends.
I hope someone rubs your feet.
I hope you are playful and witty and delighted to be alive.
The way I feel about Lady Gaga….
I’d be honored were people 10 years my senior to feel this way about me…
She’s creative, fun, bold, surprising.
Go girl.
I believe in my heart that when she sings about riding on the disco stick, it is not a phallic reference. I think it’s a real disco stick she’s talking about. You point it at people and it makes them dance.
To continue the Love Game reference:
Yesterday I got close to the tennis ball. Here’s how it sounded in my mind as I was playing.
While my partner was throwing the ball in the air, I’d think while watching the ball, I love you! I want you to come to me!
When it would come across the net, I’d welcome it. Hi! Welcome to this side! I’m so glad you visited!
When I was getting ready to serve: I’m so glad you’re here. I love you. Thanks for playing with me!
The few times it flew right by me, ha ha You’re so good. Look at how fast you went. Aww. Good job being a ball. Sweet good tennis ball.
After playing tennis tonight, she and I walked back to the car. Just off the courts, a dressed-up young couple asked if one of us would take a picture of them.
I reached for the camera and he said with equal confidence and nervousness: “Actually, you’re taking a picture of me and my new fiancee, as of now”. Dearheart looked like she was the deer in the path of the oncoming car. Then she started to feel it and started crying. She pulled back from him to hide her tears from the camera. She looked beautiful and delicate.
I asked her if she was surprised and gave me a “YESSSSSSS. NOW WHAT?” type of look.
My tennis partner is probably 5 years older than I am, I’d guess. The unspoken thoughts between us as we walked away from playing photographer were palpable. When we were out of earshot, we did joke about the couples’ youth and sense of frozen promise.
The Landmark seminar I attended last night pointed to the usual human dynamic of being resigned and cynical. So, on the one hand, I’d give this couple 6 months tops before things get really bad, maybe unmendably bad. Then I look at, well how do I know that, and what do I actually know about them? How could I not be resigned and cynical about this in particular?
So what’s the difference between really just making a freaking good educated guess and looking at typical patterns, versus the fresh approach of, “I don’t know! Maybe it will work for them! Anything could happen!”
Yes, and…..Really?
So this whole resigned and cynical thing kind of taints the whole world, it seems to me. The state of the markets. Health care. General kindness. And on and on. Without some group of people getting over being resigned and cynical, we would seem to be kind of screwed. To me, it seems we’re pretty much screwed already, but maybe I’m just being resigned and cynical.
I argued with my therapist a couple of weeks ago about freakin’ affirmations. I gotta be honest with you, I have enough mental challenges and I choose to not actively add LYING TO MYSELF to that list. Which is what affirmations can seem like. I like the concrete affirmations. I’m glad I have a safe warm dry place to sleep tonight. I’m glad I have friends who love me as I am. I’m glad I ate delicious healthy food today. Those work for me.
I love myself unconditionally. NO I DO NOT AND SAYING IT DOES NOT MAKE IT SO.
But then where’s the room for growth? How do I learn how to expand my sense of value and worth? How do I run with people playing big fun good games? How do you grow?
The author Nicole Williams said, “Tennis is the Swiss Army Knife of sports. It combines the agility of basketball, the coordination of baseball, the aerobics of running, and the strategy of golf.”
I realized today as I was playing tennis that there are an outrageous number of overlaps between tennis and sex/relationship. (What my mother calls “relations”.) I noticed:
1. The ball needs both space to bounce and land, as well as firm solid contact when the time is right.
2. If you hit it too hard, it goes out of bounds and while you might get an initial rush of power, you don’t get the result you want.
3. If you hit it too soft it just doesn’t even reach the other person and there’s a shared awkward disappointment that second when both people just look at the ball lying on the ground between them.
4. When I look at the ball and think, “this isn’t going to go anywhere”, it really doesn’t. I’m rarely pleasantly surprised when I have a negative thought right before I hit it.
5. When I have more attention on the score than the shot, I’m ”about” the game, not really all in the game. The game isn’t played just in observation or analysis mode.
6. A nice racket doesn’t mean the person plays well. It all depends how you use your equipment and engage with it.
7. Thinking I’m good means nothing necessarily. I don’t know if I’m good until I actually play.
8. The more I’m focusing on outside of the 1 shot at a time, the less likely I am to connect well with the ball.
9. If I talk nicely to myself, it’s more fun and motivating to stay in the game. If I beat myself up, it can seem like the game’s fault, like we’re just not a very good match (when really it’s just the mean coach inside of me, which will be waiting there for me when I take up softball or bowling, for example).
10. The sweet spot hits that feel good and land where I hope they will are magical. They keep me coming back, even when I inevitably hit it into the net or crazily out of bounds.
11. Sure, I can drill it down the other person’s throat, or send over a tricky floater that sends them diving to keep it alive. But if we’re volleying, it’s better for the overall experience if I work on getting it to them instead of past them. That way it’s more fun for both of us.
