Peace, Love, Joy

 

In all the crazy of the world right now, there is still a space for peace, for love, for joy.

This seems an almost impossible place to be right now. I have seen friends in the deepest depression, they have lost jobs, they have lost loved ones, they have been dealing with the ones in their homes for a lot longer than they normally do.

But during this insanity we all still have something to give.  Parts of our hearts that we should allow people to see. Our lives have changed forever in the last several months. These months showing us who people really are, who we are.  Which leaves us with a choice and the question of who we want to be, regardless of those around us and the inundation of media and people’s opinions telling us who we should be.

However, right now, I don't think that who I want to be is up to the media, or other people’s opinions.  I think that currently I need to be the softer, more loving version of myself. First to myself, and then to others. I need to be more forgiving of hurt, and more giving of love.  I need to remember that I will have moments of fear, and times where I breakdown or hide from the world. I need to remind myself that even these moments will bring me to the other side with relief and a less hardened heart.

I feel that allowing myself to be the most real, the most compassionate version of me will help me to find a place where I can be there for others. That if you need something you will feel ok coming to me to ask. That if I can be an ear to listen or a (virtual) hand to hold, that I can be.

And I hope that moving forward I can take these things that I’ve worked on and keep being that person.  The me that has peace, love, and joy inside me that is easy to get to for others.

K

The Subtle Feminist

So this month I turn 44 years old and in the life that I've had thus far I've always considered myself a feminist.
I've never burned a bra,  I've never marched in the streets, I've never had to fight for the right to do what I wanted.
Or so I thought.

But as I read the newest feminist articles that women in their 20s are writing I realize that my generation of feminists kind of fell between the cracks in the fight.
It seems that we were lulled into a version of feminism that allowed us to have most of what we wanted, so that we didn't feel the need to actually fight for all of what we needed.
I find that as I read the newer feminist blogs and articles that I've missed out on having say and input on the things that I feel should have been addressed for women, for myself.
Things that I didn't realize previously were important to me.
Now there are things that I see in some of modern day feminism and I think to myself, "Good lord honey, calm down, no one wants to hear that...." and I realize that I've not grown into the modern feminism that is in your face, you will listen to me, I will make you respect my rights, feminism.
When I was younger I put up with a whole lot less bullshit than I currently do as a woman, so what happened to my fiery, fuck you, I'll do what I want attitude?

Well, first I learned that demanding that people give you what you want typically isn't effective.
No person changes their belief systems simply because you asked them to.  People for the most part have developed who they are and what they believe over a lifetime and if I scream that they are wrong in their faces they just dig in their heels and refuse to listen.  And really if I'm being a lunatic why should they listen?

Secondly I learned that I have limited energy.  There are things that I fight for daily, there are things that I stopped fighting for because they are no longer a focus for me, but there are things that I will rage against for the rest of my existence. Feminism for me is a daily fight, but sometimes I just don't have the energy to fight and so acceptance wins out in that moment.  I let the patriarchy win for that battle because I just can't participate in the war that day.

Lastly I have learned that subtle changes in my own life can and will effect the people around me for the better.  Me pointing out to the new guy that I'm deemed unprofessional if I don't wear make up and do my hair and wear specific clothing to work is an opportunity for him to realize that things are different for me than they are for him.  Talking to my son about the fact that I will always expect him to treat women as equals because, well, they are, even if the world might tell him otherwise.  Attempting to not give in to the ridiculousness that exists in my male dominated career where each guy has a different way of dealing with the woman in the office, be that talking to me like I'm fragile and can't take constructive feedback, or treating me like one of the guys to the point where it's almost uncomfortable, or feeling awkward because they want to be forward thinking but deep down they still wonder if a woman can be good at IT.

Each person has to define what they believe feminism should be, for the most part all it does is verify what we should already know, that everyone should have the same opportunities and the same rights.  It's recognizing that everyone doesn't have equality and that should matter to us.
I choose to express this in a more subtle way than some, but I've figured out that sometimes that works.  That my subtle feminism allows me to be heard, that sometimes humanity as a whole needs to take a less aggressive approach to change so that the changes stick and aren't just talk.
I'm fiery in my belief for equality but subtle in how I express it and moving forward I will continue to fight in whatever way works best for me.  That is feminism in and of itself.

Standards and Expectations

In a society where we are taught to try and live up to someone else’s ideal in order to have a good relationship and where article after article (and movie after movie) tells us how to have that relationship, be it through manipulation or honesty it gets crazy confusing as to how to have the “perfect” relationship.

So the big topic of discussion that I want to address (outside of the fact that a perfect relationship doesn’t exist) is the expectations that we think we have the right to impose on our partners.

I’m not saying you can’t expect them to love you, or that you can’t ask for the things that you want.  But in a healthy relationship between two adults there are expectations and standards.  Knowing the difference is somewhat mandated if you don’t want to be in a constant state of frustration with the person that you have chosen to spend the rest of your life (or the forseeable future) with. The standards in each relationship are going to be completely different depending on the people that are in that relationship.

So the question comes down to what can we realistically want from a relationship and where is the line between standards and expectations.

stan·dard

: a level of quality, achievement, etc., that is considered acceptable or desirable

standards : ideas about morally correct and acceptable behavior

: something that is very good and that is used to make judgments about the quality of other things

So of course most of us tend to develop relationships with people that have the same moral compass that we have. 

In my opinion there is not a right or wrong way to have a relationship unless partners can’t agree what the moral compass of the relationship is going to be.  That is when issues arise.

Acceptable behavior (standards) are always at the discretion of the partners the only mandate being that they have to agree on what those are and when they change.

ex·pec·ta·tion

noun \ˌek-ˌspek-ˈtā-shən, ik-\

: a belief that something will happen or is likely to happen

: a feeling or belief about how successful, good, etc., someone or something will be

I actually love the definition of expectation because it states right there that it is a belief, not a fact, not how things will be, but how we would like them to be.

Meaning that the expectations that we have of our partners are what we believe to be good for the relationship, that it’s something that we would like to happen.

But there is no guarantee that it will happen.

Having the understanding of what standards and expectations are it becomes a simple concept.

Standards are the accepted truths of the couple.  Expectations are directly tied  to the belief of the individual.  And that is where many of us run into trouble.

We suddenly want our truth to be that of our partner.  Sometimes assuming that they will “come around” or that they will see that our way is better.  Many times negating the natural gifts that they do and could bring to the relationship because we want it our way.

Having an expectation of the people that we love is normal.  And we all have the right to ask for what it is that makes us happy.  However, when we demand that they meet our expectations, or when we have expectations that we never shared with them that we want to be standards, things get dicey.

Relationships must grow, just like people must grow.  Being in a partnership requires us to grow together, maybe not in the same way, or at the same time, but for the most part in the same direction.

So I look at growth in standards as an agreed upon change that the partners have decided to make for the good of the relationship.

I look at growth in expectations as the personal growth of the individual that can grow the relationship or tear it down.  There are many instances where partners grow apart because of unmet expectations of one or both of them.  However, what they choose to do about it is completely up to them.

 We can’t separate the expectations of one person from the relationship if it has direct impact on the relationship.  But we can if it doesn’t and sometimes we confuse what does and doesn't impact the relationship.

 

To be clear, I love yoga.  My partner does not.  I don’t need him to do yoga so I will go and do yoga with others that love yoga.  I won’t expect him to suddenly want to do a headstand when that was never his interest in the first place.

Should he decide to do yoga, I would be thrilled!  But from the first paragraph of this post I said that I can’t expect him to change unless he wants to.  So I won’t.

Our expectations of our partners have to be realistic to the relationhip.  If he knew that I didn’t eat meat when we met, then he can’t expect me to want to do that now, unless I decide that I want to.

Part of this is a respect issue.  You should always expect your partner to respect you and what you want, you can’t expect them to feel the same way about it. They aren’t you.

So my goal in my partnership and in all of my relationships is to move forward with the understanding that I have these people in my life because they are important to me, that they add something to my life that brings joy and growth, and that the more that I love them as they are allows them to love me the same way. That my expectations of them has nothing to do with them and everything to do with me.

That Beautiful Quiet Space

I hadn't meditated in over a year.
I can't tell you the specific reason that I stopped.
Maybe I thought I was too busy.  Maybe a part of me thought I didn't need it.
Maybe the thought was I didn't deserve it.
But I made the decision tonight to try again.

The beginning was hard, I laid in my favorite position (legs up the wall) on my mat and instantly realized how tight my chest was.
My breathing was heavy and not even close to even.
Something almost close to panic.

Then I focused on my body and the tense muscles that needed to let go.
Slowly as the music that I had chosen went to the next song my back released onto the floor, my legs got loose against the wall, and I flexed and stretched my fingers and my arms.
By the third song I was completely drawn into my own breathing and I could hear but wasn't paying attention to the dogs barking, the traffic on the street, and the voices of my family downstairs.

My breathing slowed, mellowed and found it's rythym.
Slow and steady, deeper and deeper, my heart relaxed and my chest with it.
I pushed out a 5 second exhale and my eyes filled with tears as I let go of the pent up feelings I didn't need in that moment.

I spent the last 5 minutes in child's pose, my own cocoon of dark and peace.
As I listened to the music and allowed it to fill the spaces I had opened.

As I sat up relaxed and happy, I thought, "Old habits die hard....Thank God. "

Hey you! This is your body, and we've got to talk.

Hey, look,
I know that sometimes we just don't get along, but I decided that we needed to talk.  Or rather, you needed to listen.
When did you stop loving me unconditionally?

I mean, when we were little you never thought about me in negative ways, we ran together, we played together, we learned together.  We did everything together.
But these days it feels like you don't appreciate me.

You never think I'm thin enough, you don't like the wrinkles that are starting to show on my face, the cellulite that is beginning to occur on my legs, and the size of my hips well, you think they're too big.
You HATE my belly, and that hurts me.

You see I don't ever see you the way that you do.  I understand that we have struggled together to just exist.  That we've been sick most of our life, with diabetes, and kidney disease, that we could never just be healthy, that it's always been work.

But we always did it together.  You and I, we faced everything together and experienced it together, from the first scrape on the knee to the last infection that we had from the meds we take.
When did you start thinking that we were no longer the same person and start thinking that you could do better or be better than me?

You see I'm the only body you've got, and to your credit the majority of the time you are so ready to take care of me, you feed me well, you exercise, you get enough sleep, and you do what is best for me.  But you've got to remember that what you think, well, it MATTERS. 
If you are looking at me with disdain and judgment, if you are bitter about our illnesses and full of sorrow and stress....well sister, that hurts me too.  If you can't accept me as I am, then how do we continue on?

You need to realize what a gift I am, that not only do I house the soul that you have, but I help you to express what you feel, how you see yourself, that amazing, joyful, beautiful person that you are resides in me. 

Neither of us knows why I'm the body that was chosen for you, or why you had to have a sick body but none of that matters now, because it's been 42 years and I don't see us ending our partnership any time soon.

So just a heads up, I love you.  Yes, I, your body, love you and I know that you are more than capable of loving me.  I've heard the way that you encourage others to feel beautiful and special.  I've seen you hug them with compassion and courage when you are feeling badly yourself.  I know that you push on even when it's hard.

So I wanted to tell you, keep doing that!  But don't shake it off when your husband tells you how beautiful we are.  Or ignore it when your friends admire that we are in great shape.  I encourage you to remember that not only are we in this together but we set an example of how amazing our life can be regardless of what gets thrown at us.

We have a choice to see our self as beautiful, you seemed to have forgotten, so I just wanted to remind you.  We are beautiful inside and out, please don't forget it.

Love,
Your body

Fight.

Most of my life I have consistently fought for what I wanted.  There are few moments where I can look back and say "Yeah, that was just too hard so I gave up.".  I can't think of even once when I backed up from what I was fighting for and decided it wasn't worth it.
Now.  That does not mean that I have never been shaken in my perspective.  Or that I have never broken down and sobbed in the middle of the fight.  I do not claim to be undefeated in my fights, or even closer to winning than losing in most of the battles I have undertaken.
I have screamed in agony and cried in despair.  I have beaten my hands on the floor and shaken my fists at the sky.
This is how I have always lived my life.  The state of "I just don't care" has never been a comfortable space in my life. I've always been incredibly black and white.  I have always had strong beliefs and feelings and I have always believed in expressing them.
The fight and the feelings involved in the passionate existence that I have chosen as my path can encourage someone to pick up and fight themselves or it can be a weapon dipped in my own truth.
Some people fight with compassion, and grace, and take a quieter path than I.  It took me a long time to see that sometimes the path of less resistance wasn't giving up, it was stepping back to try again later.
When you fight like I do, sometimes your feelings take over so much that logic and peace and other people's thoughts are overshadowed and forgotten.  Sometimes you get so involved in the fight that you forget what you are fighting for.  This has happened with me more times than I would like to admit.
But luckily I have been blessed as I've gotten older with something that allows me to clearly remember what I'm fighting for and why it's worth it. To figure out exactly what is worth the fight.
Most times you won't see me trying to fight someone to tell them that they are wrong.  You won't see me fighting to make everyone else eat how I do, or believe what I do.  You won't see me picketing the White House about global warming, or see me spray painting someone's property because I don't believe in fur (which I don't).
What I fight for is love. 
I will every day look at a stranger and smile at them because they look like they need it.  I will call a friend that I haven't spoken to in ten years so that I can find out what "really" happened that they posted on Facebook.  I will drive across town to take flowers to my best friend who had a bad day.  I will go and cry with another friend who just lost a loved family member.
If they tell me not to come, I will show up anyway.
Because my fight is to remember those that are important to me and love them undeniably, to be in their lives and to fight what they have to fight. Be that a health issue, money issues, relationship issues, whatever it may be, it is my fight too.
I think that we as a society have lost our ability, or at least our will to fight for what we want.  I think that subjective, objective assessment of whether or not to get involved in another person's life has overshadowed what is really needed, which is to continuously show up with open arms and say "I am here".  We are too worried about giving out our time, too worried about getting up for work, too worried about saving our energy for......ourselves.
We've forgotten that the best way to love someone is to show up.  To give of ourselves, our energy, our time.
Fighting always seems to get a bad rap.  It's usually seen in a bad light.  But I will fight to my last breath to make sure that the people in my life know how important they are.  I will fight to hug them as they push me away, I will fight to say I love you even when they don't want to hear it.
I am blessed in that this passionate need to love is built in, but equally cursed in that loving that deeply makes me vulnerable, and many times hurt.

But know this:
I will fight with you. 
You are never alone.
I love you.

Now go find someone else to fight for.

:)
K

TMI - thoughts about sharing everything

My entire life I have always been an open book.  It's always been my default to share whatever happens to be on my mind regardless of what it was or who was hearing it.
Granted in the past 30 years or so society as a whole has encouraged people to share all of their feelings.  Especially those that are sad or angry.  Because those feelings are better out than in right?
Well, I'm not sure anymore that people should bare all of their souls or at least we should all be picky about whom we share things with.  I have this belief for a number of reasons.
 I live with and love an introvert.  And even though I sometimes have to dig deep for patience because he is very self sufficient I have also learned from him that many of the things that I have always shared of myself are actually very private to him and in keeping his privacy, private, I have learned that I actually prefer that sometimes myself.
Holding things close to my own inner self has also allowed me at times to step back and decide if the feelings that I have in a situation or with a person are worth expressing or if they are a temporary feeling that will fade.  I've become a fan of making sure that I want to make a big deal out of something in the moment or if it's something I need to let go.
Expressing who you are should never be a debate, however, I've learned that words don't always do the best job at expression.  That hugs, a smile, and nuances of body language and facial expressions are a better representation of where my heart and mind are.  There is little room for doubt when someone is hugging you and means it.
I have found that sometimes I catch myself by surprise as to how I truly feel about something when I'm not putting it out there for everyone and their mother to have an opinion about.  I find that my own thoughts can provide me exactly what I need nine times out of ten and if I need input that the people closest to me are more than willing to tell me how it really is from an outside perspective.
Admittedly, there are down sides to not expressing yourself when you probably should.  People shouldn't have to guess what you are feeling, you shouldn't expect mind reading to be going on so that you don't have to share the important things in your life.  It is each of our responsibility to reach out and ask for help when we need it and tell people when something is wrong.
How we do this depends of course on our past experiences with trust and how we have been helped or hurt by situations and people in them when we shared a painful or scary experience.
Even joyful experiences can have a negative impact on us if someone else can't share in our joy.
One of the things that I have had the chance to evaluate about myself as I started to share a bit less was that I was sometimes only relaying information to people that I thought that they could handle and sugar coating the rest.
Or I would not share because I was afraid of judgment, or ridicule, or because I might hurt someone by sharing my feelings.
In essence I was playing God with my feelings and not trusting those around me to be able to handle who I really was or how I really felt.  Which was incredibly selfish and arrogant.
So instead of overthinking my feelings and who can handle them or who can't.  I come to the table in full fledged honesty these days, except that I share that honesty with less people and the details for the few friends that I know don't judge or give me tons of advice. Instead they allow me to speak while they listen and they let me work it out through hugs and love and sometimes when asked, words.
Me learning to say less has also allowed me to let other say more.  That, in and of itself is a thing that I treasure getting better at.  Being a listener allows me to learn more about the people that I care about and to put into practice the love I have for them.
So that next FB post, that next Twitter, that next conversation......decide what really needs to be said and how you really want to say it. Find kindness in your honesty.  Without overcomplicating it, find out how you really feel and what you really want to say....that is if you decide to say anything at all.

K