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I bathed. (I smell like ylang ylang now.)
I read. (Still Committed.)
I ate a yum dinner.
I pet (petted?) a sweet black dawg.
I have my nature/relaxation/spiritual connection plan all lined up for tomorrow.
I allowed myself some frivolous time to watch Natalie Portman on YouTube after watching Black Swan last night. (OMG, I didn’t watch the other nominees’ films, but she TOTALLY earned that Oscar!)
I did writing and got even clearer that my current craving for partnership is muchly based in illusion and false hopes that it will decrease my discomfort in general.
I came to grips that my experimentally short haircut is possibly not something to blame my current lack of a partner on; if I had a hair-dependent partner, then what would happen if I got cancer, or got attacked by a crazy hairdresser in a case of mistaken identity? (People do often think they have met me before.)
Mused on this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZzEk09W0lk , which I was reminded of by Gilbert on page 98:
(from Aristohanes): “Once upon a time …we humans had two heads and four legs and four arms-a perfect melding, in other words, of two people joined together seamlessly in one being….Since we each had the perfect partner sewn into the very fabric of our being, we were all happy… We lacked for nothing; we had no unmet needs; we wanted nobody…We were whole.
But in our wholeness, we became overly proud….The mighty Zeus punished us for our neglect by cutting all the double-headed, eight-limbed, perfectly contented humans in half. thereby creating a world of cruelly severed one-headed two-armed, two-legged miserable creatures. In this moment of mass amputation, Zeus inflicted on mankind that most painful of human conditions: the dull and constant sense that we are not quite whole.”
THANK YOU
THAT IS HOW I FEEL
I’ve tried to affirm it away. “I am whole and complete without a partner.”
But that doesn’t feel true, honestly it just doesn’t! (Now I can see that it more likely than not would still feel untrue, even if I had a partner. But you get my drift.)
Gilbert continues: “For the rest of time, humans would be born sensing that there was some missing part-a lost half, which we love almost more than we love ourselves-and that this missing part was out there sompleace, spinning through the universe in the form of another person.”
YES. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I’VE THOUGHT AND FELT!
Today I started making the painful list of what I think would increase and decrease if I found that great partner I seem to be craving. I get the sense that making the whole list and taking it in will be similar to listening to a fourth grader try to describe a very complicated math theorem. (There, there, dear. 1 part admiration for such audacity, next to 5 parts pity for their thinking they know what they really do not know.) (But you can’t just say that outright because it might hurt their little feelings.)
So I’m clear tonight – yes, I’m somewhat craving. Yet it’s not an unconscious craving, and I don’t have any desire to hurt myself. I am indeed physically feeling desire. But I also do want connection with it – talking, holding; at least upper-middle quality, even if the highest isn’t available on short notice!
(This is opposed to recently when for about 30 seconds I thought I was craving sex with HL; being very present with that and having some good program in me lately, then I realized I was just craving the inevitable “after”….the letdown when the balloon deflates and it feels sooooo familiar. It’s like the sick comfort of going back to the hospital where you had that surgery a few years ago. Yes, you were in pain, but the people kind of took care of you, and meals were regularly timed.)
One of my roommates asked me recently, “Don’t you fall in love when people stroke you?” after I explained more about OMing since I have been doing that more often lately.
I said no. I still feel defensive of the practice and want, in my own codependent way, no one to have a single hesitation or negative thought about it.
But, actually, I think I do fall in love when I’m stroked-in a version of love. And I attribute this craving tonight to that. And if I were of the total abstinence mindset, I would assume it’s best to just not go there. Stop OMing and you won’t have that feeling of falling in love with people.
On nights like this, though, I do not want to do that to my plan, to just abstain. To shove my desire in the category of, “wait until you have at least a moderately acceptable sexual partner, then throw all of it at them like it’s going out of style and hope they survive!”.
A record of how I have gone for it tonight so far. With the intent to connect, and to feel, and to express this flow coming from deep inside of me:
5:35pm, texted HL to see if he would stroke me tonight
After some back and forth, he called it a night and I didn’t see him at all.
7:38am, called an ex who I recently reconnected with. The last time we met and OMed was SO clean and nurturing that I felt very free to call him. (A nice feeling to get to for 2 people who sometimes got to the edge of homicide with each other.) He’s also in for the night. We set up a stroking date for another night, which is pleasing!
7:43pm after hanging up with him, I called a sweet friend who still lives at OneTaste. He’s on the clock and not available tonight. OK. Bummer. It’s tough to keep going for it, but the sensations that are flowing through me make it tougher to not.
7:49pm called someone with whom I haven’t yet OMed but we’ve been trying to set something up. Left message.
7:51pm called former OneTaste roommate who is an excellent no-strings-attached cuddler and appreciator. Left message.
7:53pm called recent traveling partner. Left message.
So it’s seeming like tonight I’m meant to be warm and cozy in my nest listening to the cold rain outside. I’m glad that’s ok. I’m glad I have plenty to focus on. I’m glad I have solo practices and willingness to be intimate with myself. I’m glad I’m out of my feminist phase, of the flavor that I CAN DO IT ON MY OWN, and I’d beat my desire up like she had really messed up this time (again; as if it was a surprise to feel her again). I’m glad I don’t have to go trolling around trying to scratch an itch and feel tired, cold AND deflated. I’m glad for the saying, “this, too, shall pass”. I’m glad that I’ve traveled from a) people who want death are selfish, stupid creatures, to b) it would be a relief to die right now, to c) on my gosh, I feel so much better, I want to live as long as possible!!, to, d) It is what it is, and as far as I can tell it is all good.
This advice has gotten much more refined as I’ve played with it over time.
The controlling neurotic perfectionists will likely be able to relate the most to what treacherous bridges must be crossed to begin Saying Yes.
It can be all-out war inside.
I’ve enjoyed many delicious examples of Yes today. That I’m here at all is big fat Yes.
Where am I? Gesalen, FriendHusband’s woodland retreat. I got out of bed just minutes ago, and it is 2:30pm. (Okay, I peed and ate breakfast, but still.)
Why am I here? This afternoon I begin a 4-day silent retreat at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. Gesalen is just up the road.
What did it take for me to get here?
*willingness to spend the money (but I’ve already done retreats, why do I need to do another one/ I’ll never save up enough for a house down payment if I keep this up/ but can’t I just meditate for free at home and at the Integral Center?)
*willingness to take a few days off from my business (HARD – what if clients forget me/what if clients choose someone else because I’m not around/I don’t work all THAT hard so why the heck am I taking a break from it, etc.)
*willingness to be friends with FriendHusband at all (but he’s much older than I am/but he…lots of his business I won’t dish)
*willingness to not travel East over the holiday (but family really only gets together once a year/but they’d do all the work and why am I so selfish that I keep myself away from them at a special time/you never know how much longer any of us have on Earth)
*willingness to let go my rigid control around my food choices (but what if I gain weight and then really nobody wants to make out with me/but what if I can’t “control” myself/shouldn’t I “behave” since I’m just emerging from a hard time?)
And on and on.
And you know what, I stared at the trees and the rain and listened to my second favorite sound in the world for hours today. I wouldn’t trade anything for it. FriendHusband offered to go to the store while I laid in bed for my breakfast and lunch, so there went that worry without my having to do anything but tell him what I wanted. I asked him to play with my hair which I love love love, and he did and it felt wonderful. I usually tease him about his astrological study, but I was in a good space to hear it (yeses beget yeses) and it was actually fascinating how he explained it. (My chart says I’m mainly about sex and death and uncovering the unseen things in life. AND I’ll have tender feelings about the whole thing. Woah! That works!)
I said Yes yesterday when FriendHusband and Yam encouraged me to do the whole 9 yards of the retreat, which means 5am-10pm each day. I have this thing that I only want to say Yes when I can 100% guarantee I will do it. But that’s not really a dynamic approach. I meant it then. And then when I thought it through today, I realized my motivations for doing the retreat that way would be in pleasing and proving. Been there, done that, got the suffering T-shirt. So today I’m a Yes to NOT doing it from 5am-10pm each day, because I’ve learned about myself and my constitution that it wouldn’t work well for my health, really in any way. Could I force myself? I think so. Do I want to? Kind of, because I don’t want to get teased. Am I going to? No I’m not. There is a broader picture to consider, and I pray for guidance in continuing to consider it every day.
So I’m curious today, to what have you said Yes to? To what would you like to say Yes to, and what might be in the way? What’s the “long tail” as they say for what your specific yeses may lead to?
Happy Yes’ing
Love the tape deck! Love the black halter and black nails!
I’ve had to cut myself off from listening to anymore Susan Tedeschi today. Love her too but you see I’ve made this playlist of 5 of her songs that talk about being left, lost lover blues, having fallen in love with a sturdy man that she thought would always be there, oh, and the best one for crying is about she can’t reach him because he’s wrapped in the arms of another. OW OW OW OW OW
I know it’s not entirely about me. He’s going through about one of the worst things he could be going through. If I could take that away I would. If I could re-do some of the corporate values that I imagine got him in the awful situation, I would.
A friend told me yesterday, “Beth, you got kicked in the gut. It’s okay to just feel that now. You don’t have to be totally spiritual and accepting. Have your feelings about it.”
There is a program exercise to identify:
“Why is this the best thing that has ever happened to me?”
F***** hell. Oy. Okay might as well. I wasn’t expecting this post to go there.
1) The pain had me reach out to TONS of people and reconnect and be reminded that I’m loved and appreciated.
2) I had a divinely healing experience back on the edge last night, which I will write about separately behind the Silver Curtain. (Oh, and the password issue should be fixed now. Shoot me an email if it still doesn’t work for you. beth@unconditionalserenity.com)
3) The title of this post. Oh my lord, am I feeling those back taxes of relationships that I left immediately and without feeling it at the time. I have SO much gratitude for the ones who made it through and we are still friends. I want to be that brave. E just sent me a Happy Birthday text, for example, and the way I cut him off back then was, now I know, practically unforgiveable. And he forgave me and we’re not the closest of friends but there’s love there that we get to express.
4) Last night FriendHusband was my birthday chauffeur extraordinnaire. At one point in time, the plan was to see Cadillac last night after seeing FriendHusband for an hour or 2 where I probably would have been anxiously awaiting the time I could go get face and body time with Cadillac. Instead, FriendHusband and I had some really sweet rich adventures. One of them, a small but significant one. I returned a due book to the library. I hadn’t finished it but couldn’t renew it. I took a few moments to thumb through it in the car. Oh wow, wouldn’t you know the part I hadn’t read happened to be about grieving the end of relationships. Not the linear total end, that was the interesting thing. It talked about how each phase in the relationship when you get more reality that it’s not perfect, it may not work, it’s not the be all end all, that health is grieving those at the time. Well that’s interesting and I never thought about that. It helped me understand some of the back taxes phenomenon I was talking about paying. Not only were there relationships I jumped ship from without giving them the proper respect, there have also been these losses along the way that I didn’t feel because either we were still ostensibly together, or I didn’t think I “should” feel them or something like that. It also said it’s impossible to grieve the loss of 1 while you’re moving on to another person. Yep, learned that through experience, too. Hope to be more disciplined about that this time around.
5) I’ve been willing to ask for more, for whatever reason. I guess with a cracked open heart and a psychic and emotional place that was vacated by a best friend and lover, there is more willingness on my part to maybe hear No when I ask. And to hear Yes. Example. My roommate asked me this morning if I had any special birthday requests. It culminated in her brushing my hair (one of my favorite treats), French braiding it, and leaving her fabulous essential oils collection in my room to enjoy today. Fun!
There’s more but it’s time to go for now. Thanks again everyone for reading. My critical voice tells me “You just write about yourself. You’re so self-absorbed.” But I know some of the themes are universal. OH! And part of the last night experience that I don’t want to forget is that I consider part of my life’s purpose to be giving people permission to be exactly who they are. That has always been important for me, I just didn’t have words for it until adulthood.
So I pray for today to include myself in that.
I pray that Cadillac travels safely and has a wonderful time.
I pray to engage in my re-exploration (Now behind the Bodily Spiritual Practice header; formerly called Medi) in healthy and conscious ways.
I pray that you know how special you are, and that you express your gifts.
I pray that people get free to be sane and connected and nourished.
I pray that you’ll tell at least one little truth today that you may not otherwise have dared. (Example for me. Morning with Charlie’s Angels included a conversation about my edge play that I had assumed they couldn’t handle. But they did and it was beautiful.)
I pray that you listen to your body well today. Do you need to hydrate? Do you need a hug? Do you need to rest your eyes for a few minutes?
I pray that you welcome every little part of you that wants to speak up.
I’ll leave you with this inspiration from a meditation book.
“One must not lose desires. They are mighty stimulants to creativeness, to love, and to long life.” ~Alexander Bogomoletz
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!
: )
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.
Here is what went right on the Style mission last night. IMHO.
1) We took a few minutes to connect in person before we went in.
2) I was feeling a little sick and a little weak and so my resistance was lower than usual.
3) He wore some of his colors that I associate with him and as soon as I saw them in my peripheral vision I felt comforted.
4) I had given a couple of close friends the heads up about the adventure, knew they were rooting for us, and I could also call them afterwards and cry if I needed to. (Which I didn’t at all, but still nice just in case!)
5) I surrendered to him as driver and me as passenger.
6) I read this passage in a book the day before and realized what I had been doing with him, and that I was 100% prepared to quit doing that.
“There’s a danger with challenges. Some of us might get so used to needing something to push up against and an occasion to rise to that we begin creating drama-addict challenges, the kind that sabotage our relationships, work, and lives.” (Melody Beattie, 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact)
7) I wanted to jump him the whole time. Turn-on can be a fabulous painkiller!
8) I realized just over the weekend that Hi-5 reminds me of my very first crush, Han Solo. Once I got in touch with that, many things fell into place inside of me. As I was searching for some visual evidence for you, I happened upon this fabulous video. Han’s head will appear in the sky for a moment, but you should also watch the whole thing because it is genius.
9) I heard back from the professional style consultant after we talked for a while and he sent me his basic proposal. $ 2 , 0 0 0 After that sticker shock, girlfriend was just glad someone was willing to take her on the ride and not charge that much!!
10) He held my clothes. The ones I wanted to try on. The ones I had decided on. My backpack when I was in the fitting room. How tender and considerate is that?! Awww.
11) The look in his eyes when I walked out in the pink shirt and gray skirt. Yeh.
12) He hugged me extra long when we said hello. I love that.
Okay, there’s more good but duty calls.
To celebrate a very fun night, I’m going to boldly post a photograph of me in some of the goods. Enjoy!
And, thanks, honeyo. : )
What can I say, I’m on a roll with animals and love. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXo3NFqkaRM
If anyone knows anything about the Noe Valley Merchants’ Association, hit me up. I’d like to get to know my ‘hood and share my professional goodness with them.
I’m experimenting with a new answer to ‘what do you do?’. Still a work in progress, but you heard it here first.
“I help spiritually-motivated people get more clean in some area of their lives. I blend the personal with the practical, and people often feel relief, pride, satisfaction, and joy as a result of our work together.”
Apart from that, can I just say that I feel honored that someone found my humble blog by searching for “tennis player porn”. Cheerio!
