All We Are

My last post was a revelation in forgiveness. Today is a revelation in love. Perhaps you can't have one without the other?

People say I am boy crazy and it's at least a little bit true. I am very "relationshipy" and I've had many boyfriends. But as many times as I've said those three words, I have only truly been in love twice in my twenty-seven years. To me, and maybe this is where I am a realist, love is not a quixotic, unexplainable, mystical phenomenon that creeps up on you. Love is simple. I define it as the "pull" toward someone or something. It isn't the feeling you get when you are with that person but rather, the feeling you get when you are not. It is the ever-present desire to surround yourself with your object of affection, which ranges from mundane to complex manifestations of that desire. That might sound neurotic or obsessive, but it seems to have happened to everyone who has ever been in love.

When was the last time you went to the grocery store and realized that you never buy plain cheerios anymore because he doesn't really like them as much as the honey cheerios....and only mid-way through that fleeting thought it dawns on you that he has been gone six years? It doesn't go away. It never will. This is not a trivial matter, the cheerios. Think about it, something in you changed because you loved that person. Your freedom to act on every whim was forever altered. No longer will you ever look at the cereal aisle the same, even when you think you do. And whether you've realized it yet or not, your mind is not as powerful in these matters as your heart.

Obviously, sometimes the signals are not as dramatic or telling... maybe there are things that have changed you on a deeper level. Maybe he or she changed your whole philosophy....and continues to do so. But the crux of love is this: it changes you. My favorite way to describe being in love is that all your craziness suddenly has a purpose.

Love is only the third highest need in Maslow's hierarchy... But don't dare try to convince someone who has lost a love that there is anything of greater importance in the world. A lost love is probably the one thing that sticks with you as long as, say, having a child or stepping foot on the moon. It's that monumental. If you don't think so, I would argue that you didn't truly love the thing that was lost. And sometimes, sadly, you can know that only once it's gone for good.

But all love is not lost. In the occasion that your love continues, grows, and evolves, then you are one of the lucky few. See, people do not stay the same for long, they change. Adapting to that change is without a doubt one of the 7 Wonders of the (Emotional) World. Love cannot thrive without renewal and that comes through change. I am by no means an expert, but I believe that the key to weathering the lowest lows and embracing the highest highs starts from a seed called Trust. Some people are really good at this. Others, like myself, tend to shy away from situations where I have to put my faith in someone or something. I always figured that the only person I could rely on was myself. This has been a virtue in school and work, but a severe detriment in love. I wasn't always this way either.

My first true love I was able to trust with all my being. And it was pure, unadulterated trust! I did not trust him because that I thought he walked on water, or that he would do everything right and make sure life was just the way I wanted (not too hot-not too cold, like Goldilocks) - rather, and more importantly, I trusted that he would do everything in his power NOT to hurt me. He was just that kinda guy. It was me and him against the world. That's what our trust was built on. I believed that when I was hurt, he was also feeling just as much pain. We were in it together. He hated seeing me cry. It would make him cry! He wasn't a wimp, but he had very very deep feelings for me and for the world. He was a dreamer like me, a true visionary. He saw the horrors in life and wanted to shield me from them...now, he was usually unsuccessful in protecting me, but that's not the point. He cared about me SO much that I honestly couldn't see how we would ever separate. Until one day we did.

My world was rocked so unbelievably hard. I awoke to see that everything was still intact - except my trust. Somehow I had gone from thinking that love could be a many splendored thing to thinking that fairy tales only exist in books. I learned from that and grew immeasurably. But I was still hurt, and any snippet of hurt that I experience nowadays is felt tenfold. But I keep trying. And I think being willing is more important than being right.

Willingness cannot be underestimated. When your little seed becomes a sappling, you've reached level two in the laws of love. The second lesson in weathering the ups and downs of love is to GIVE. If you don't have the capacity to sacrifice some of your needs and desires for another person, you should not pursue a love relationship. It's been said, one who dares not touch the thorn should never crave the rose. That's what this is all about. Being giving means not asking what that person can do for you in return. This kind of giving should come relatively easily ... and regularly. It need not be monetary or tangible. It could be a massage, time alone, or a shoulder to cry on. Lovers intuitively sense this about one another. I think. Call me idealistic, but how hard is it to see that someone needs something? I am pretty sure humans have been programmed to "see" when someone needs something. The only caveat here is that it is NOT always clear WHAT a person may need. Those who tend to like shoulder massages usually give pretty good shoulder massages. But those who tend to like shoulder massages are absolutely awful at giving a person time to be alone. What I have come to realize over the past year is that our needs surface in a relationship all the time. The thing that distinguishes a good relationship from a bad one is how those needs are met, ignored, or answered the "wrong" way. Granted, this takes time to learn a person's unique needs...but it should never be something you don't want to do for the person you love, mostly because you TRUST that this will be good for you both in the long run....and you see the light peeking through every dim day when you look forward to holding that person again. That's something you won't foresake for your own temporary gratification.

Your tree of love is fully realized when it holds up to the third law of love:TIME. This is the one I have a good bit of trouble with because it is closely correlated with patience. Love takes time, precious time. Love takes time apart, to realize how much you really want to be with that person. Time together, to ensure your time apart is justifiably unpleasant. Time to see, since certain things can only be revealed after you've grown to a certain level of ONENESS. Time to spare, because you always end up doing what seems like nothing for entire stretches of hours or days (but that's ok with you). And if you don't have the stomach to wait it out, then maybe it's not worth it to you. That's ok too. Sometimes things aren't worth it. The good part is when you realize that. Time is not something that can be rushed or taken back. Love will stand the test of time whether you want it to or not.

Those are my thoughts on LOVE.

Forgive and Forget

The old saying "forgive and forget" never quite resonated with me. What is forgiveness, exactly? Literature is rife with quotes and all-too-familiar definitions. Religion has a very specific way of describing it. But forgiveness for sins never made much sense to me. You have to believe someone has wronged you, or believe that you've wronged someone, in order to engage in the act of "forgiveness" and possibly even forgetting. The laws of the church don't apply this concept well. The self-condemnation that comes from following a socially-sanctioned moralistic conscience is a vicious circle and inhibits being whole.

The secular view of forgive and forget doesn't make sense to me either. Sure, we can go ahead and forgive, but what part of that transgression - the thing we are forgiving - must be relinquished before we have successfully and truly forgiven someone? Is it possible to forgive someone fully if you still hold on to little pieces of the hurt, the mistrust, or the fear? Or, by the very definition of forgiveness, must we forgive the act in every sense, all memories included?

To put it another way, why would humans have memories if the goal in life was to forget certain things? Granted, the human mind is a deep chasm of subjectivity when it comes to recalling supposed "memories" in the first place. But, the way we encode a memory and retrieve it does matter in terms of learning from our experiences. This could be a good thing then... this thing called remembering. We need those memories to remind us not to do certain things that caused pain, and to engage with more conviction the things that brought us joy. Learning from experience is only possible when we access, rely on, and apply our memories to future decisions.

Therefore, I decided a long time ago to "forgive but never forget" because I believe that you have to trust your own recollection of your experiences and use that to propel you forward and help you decide which turns to take on the road called life. The act of remembering your past is a powerful catalyst to making more informed decisions as life progresses. Who controls the past, controls the future.

But for the longest time I was still stuck trying to figure out what forgiveness is really all about. I figured it's dependent on the act that caused the rift, what made one feel the need to forgive, and assumptions about whether the forgiveness will change anything. But let me expand your mind for a moment. Maybe what forgiveness is about is actually pretty simple: telling the truth. Maybe the word forgiveness is not really forgiveness at all; rather, it is the act of leveling with oneself about the event(s) that transpired. Forgiveness, in this sense, is not about hearing "I'm sorry" or telling the person that he or she has been forgiven. Forgiveness isn't about letting go of anything at all. It's about understanding your version of "the truth" and putting that tidbit in a safe place in the back of your mind, where it can't haunt you anymore.

Maybe telling the truth about your anger is a way to get back to your experience of "being," where you love yourself and therefore have something left over with which to love someone else. Forgiveness is about taking responsibility for your mind and the things it does to you. Responsibility means that whatever you are doing, you are willing to experience yourself as the cause. A commitment to forgive, and by extension to free yourself of mental torment, must be based on the awareness of what is, and on the willingness to be responsible for ourselves the way we are now. When you are lying, when you are keeping a secret, you are withholding information and feelings in order to protect something meaningless, usually to preserve a constant state of being or equilibrium.

Today, it is my belief that forgiveness is necessary, but not on a social level. Forgiveness is an internal decision to be honest with yourself about your pain. Forgiveness feels good in this way because your mind is not burdened with the stigma, drama, or trauma that once characterized your thoughts. The primary cause of stress, depression, and anger is living in a story and lying to maintain it. Forgiveness, freeing your mind by telling the truth, is the only way out.

When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place. ~Lao Tzu

*Parts of this blog were adapted from the book Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life By Telling the Truth by Brad Blanton

Psychological Warfare

Seriously....Is it true that women never say what they mean or how they feel? Both men and women are guilty of the same psychological warfare. But men have different motives - ego preservation.

Just take a look at some common boy-speak, and see if you can tell where he's protecting his ego.
1. He Says: "We should hang out sometime."
He Means: "I'm afraid you'll say 'no' if I ask you out."

2. He Says: "I'll call you later."
He Means: "I may or may not call you at some point between now and three months from now."

3. He Says: "My ex is crazy."
He Means: "I messed her up, and she got upset."

4. He Says: "That guy seems like a good friend of yours."
He Means: "Was there ever a thing between you?"

5. He Says: "It's a long story."
He Means: "It's a story that makes me look bad."

6. He Says: "That's a new look."
He Means: "You look weird."

7. He Says: "Why are you being so emotional?"
He Means: "Why are you acting like a psycho?"

8. He Says: "That's not what I meant."
He Means: "That's totally what I meant, but now that I see you're mad, I wish I hadn't said it out loud."

9. He Says: "It's fine."
He Means: "It's not actually fine, but I'm in no mood to discuss it."

10. He Says: "Can we talk about this later?"
He Means: "I never want to talk about this again."

*Men's language decoded is courtesy of Cosmopolitan.com

The Great Debate

Obama has the right idea and the right attitude, but he doesn't understand how politics work well enough to change the system. It's sad, and it's going to leave a lot of people in a lot of misery for years to come. I love Barack, don't get me wrong. But he is human, and fallible, so things will never be as easy or beautiful as his speeches profess. Obama Drama has always been a multi-sided story, unfolding over the last several years...and in true Hollywood-esque fashion, Barack has been effectively revealing true American values, biases, stereotypes, ugliness, and intolerance for any amount of diversity. Many people choose to ignore these facts, and in so doing, they ignore any chance to make real, permanent change.

Everyone would love to blame "someone else" but what truly matters here isn't what party affiliations you have, or how much money you can throw at lobbyists who will do your dirty work. Any reasonably aware person should understand by now that "The Great Debate" is - and has been - about more than rich versus poor, healthy versus sick, or me versus you. It's about doing the right thing. It's about being humane. Some of the same people who preach about fetal "rights" are the also arguing that people who don't have jobs should not be provided medical care for cheap or free. Really? How the hell does that make any sense? You can't simultaneously argue for and against humanity. This is about people being laid off, underinsured, or just having a stroke of bad luck. We've all been there. It doesn't mean you deserved it. People need to quit blaming the victims, quit believing in the "Just World Theory" (Lerner) and quit being so god damned ignorant and selfish.

How can people be so rigid and say that unless an individual pays for insurance directly out of his/her own pocket then it isn't justified or deserved? What's the difference between someone who marries a person with health insurance and getting spousal benefits (thus "cheating" the system since it's not coming out of his or her own pocket)? What's the difference between someone having an employer that pays most or all of the costs of health insurance for the employees (thus again, the cost is not falling on the individual insured)? Did this person "work hard" and get a good job? Sure. But what has been revealed in earnest lately is the truth, sometimes shitty things happen to good people and there's no reason for it. Or sometimes a lazy ass person marries into the right family, then contributes nothing to society for the rest of his/her life. Ask yourself, did that person work hard for these coveted health benefits?
 
People are so ignorant, they think this is about "poor people" not working hard. This is about reforming a broken system and getting proper medical care to everyone. That is the humane thing to do. Everyone deserves to be healthy and have an equal shot at it. Look, even some people who can easily spend $$$$ on health insurance cannot get the insurance if they want it. That's what this is about. Say you're a student or self-employed and you've had previous medical condition like cancer - with today's healthcare system, you will be UNINSURABLE.
 
 Don't these people get it? They talk about poor people thinking they're entitled....it's those who have insurance and have never had to fight for it, those who've never struggled with being sick and your fellow humankind not giving two shits about you to help, even though you have put into the system just as much if not more than the "average" healthy person. People who need insurance the most don't WANT to need it. They aren't abusing the system. They'd much rather be healthy, you see. It's those people who say ME ME ME and MINE MINE MINE who make me go absolutely batshit bonkers. These people are the most entitled, ignorant, selfish assholes in the world. What they don't understand is a little bit of philanthropy can go a long way. The $10 per month you will likely end up paying into any public healthcare option won't kill you, but it just may save someone else's life!
 
Time and time again, we see examples of people doing the right thing by others. I hope humanity doesn't collectively let us all down.

The boredom, the freedom, and the time spent alone

Someday, if all goes according to plan, I will actually miss these days...my twenties....my single, fearless, shot-out-of-a-cannon, take-no-prisoners, throw-caution-to-the-wind, lonesome, single twenties. The boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone with yourself allows for a kind of deep reflection that is not often available. Even so, the time spent in utter silence doesn't seem to quiet the brain...not as much as I'd like anyway. My brain refuses to shut up.

I wouldn't say that I'm unhappy, just bored. Bored with life. I need more excitement, more to look forward to, more to miss when it's gone. But then, the great tragedy of filling your life up with "events" or "things to do" always results in waking up one day 40 years from now asking yourself where the time went. I should embrace the boredom for boredom's sake. Maybe even buy a TV and entertain myself like most people my age. But entertainment is over-rated too. Boredom should be cherished.

I wouldn't say that I'm anxious, just waiting. Waiting for the freedom to pass. I feel the urge to relinquish my freedom with that thing called 'marriage' and 'kids' and, odd as it sounds, some days I desperately wish I had someone to answer to. Someone who would not only listen to my stories about my day and give me a new perspective, but someone who would also ask where I've been if I come home late from work or find myself mesmerized at the shopping mall for what seems like a few hours too many. Someone who would wonder about me... all the time.

I wouldn't say that I'm alone, just solitary. But I'm learning to be ok with that. Keeping to myself has never been easy. I've been surrounded by friends, family, animals and random people all through my life. The silence is deafening. When I come home, it is how I left it. Every time. Nothing out of place. Nothing unexpected. Nothing moved. This, to me, is still taking some time to get used to after 8 years of living "on my own." When I lived at home as a teen, nothing was ever in my control and nobody ever left me alone. This is very different. A Chinese Proverb states "solitude is only enjoyed when one is at peace with oneself" and I'm positive this is the undisputed truth.

Someday, if all goes according to plan, these days that I take for granted now will surely be moments to reflect on with great joy, pride, and a sense of nostalgia for what was. I might even miss this boredom, freedom, and time spent alone.

A Follow Up to Breaking Up

Courtesy of Yahoo.com

Lori Gottlieb’s new book, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough—is an eye-opening story about dating. Gottlieb is a single mother who, at 37, wanted a biological child and had one on her own. She wrote a story in the Atlantic about being a single woman trying to date; based on that article, her new book takes a deeper look at modern relationships and dating.

“There’s a big difference between compromising and settling,” Gottlieb says. “I don’t want the takeaway to be, pick the next guy off of Match.com and marry him. I’m saying, you don’t have to do anything differently if you don’t want. But if you feel like it hasn’t been working and you’re wondering why you haven’t met Mr. Right yet, think about looking for the qualities that are important. You can find someone you’ll be really happy with and fall totally in love with. These guys are all around you but you’re not giving them a chance. You could be passing up tons of Mr. Rights. And you’re going out with all the Mr. Wrongs. It’s less about what you wear or do on a date than it is about having healthier standards. You can still have the fairy tale, but it will look different from what the media portrays as the fairy tale.…The same unrealistic expectations we have about dating, we have about marriage, too. Married people have said that this book makes them appreciate their husbands more.”

According to Gottlieb, Here’s what many single women do that we might want to reconsider:

1. We feel entitled.
Gottlieb: “Women try to be good friends to each other. We say, ‘You deserve this, you’re so great! You’re such a good catch! Any man would be lucky!’ [Men don’t say that to each other.] We are good catches, but we also are human and we’re not perfect and somebody’s going to have to put up with us for the rest of his life. And we forget. My dating coach said, write down all the reasons a guy would not want to date you. At first I didn’t think I had that many things, because you think you’re a pretty good catch. He said, what you think of as quirky, endearing, and cute, is really annoying to someone else. But he would love you so much that he would overlook that. And you need to overlook things in him. Everybody has to compromise.”

2. We think we have unlimited options.
Gottlieb: “You walk into a store and you know you want a sweater and it has to go with this outfit and it has to be this color, and you’d like to be on sale. You find something great, but you wonder if there’s something better out there, so you keep searching. In the end, after three more weeks of searching for the perfect sweater—was it so much better than the one you could have bought originally? Whether it’s with men or sweaters…if you just think you have unlimited options for the rest of your life, of course you’ll keep looking, who wouldn’t?”

3. We’re judgmental.
Gottlieb: “The guys I interviewed for the book said women judge them so much. Women gave me 300 reasons they wouldn’t go on a second date with a guy, and men gave 3. When guys are ready for that stage of life, they find someone who is good enough that they’re totally in love with—but that person may not seem to the outside world to be as appealing in superficial ways—maybe she’s not as accomplished or funny as the last girl. Whatever he sees in her, he does. Guys don’t sit and micro-analyze a woman the way a woman would with a man. He knows she’s not as hot as the last girl he dated, but that’s okay. She’s hot enough.”

4. We’re pickier than men.
Gottlieb: “With online dating, we judge based on objective criteria (height, sports nut), rather than subjective (attraction), which you can’t judge until you meet the person. When you read other people’s profiles, don’t make assumptions or rule them out because of one thing they wrote. You can fall in love with a guy who wrote that he likes Madonna, but you can’t fall in love with a guy who isn’t kind.”

5. We go for the alpha males.
Gottlieb: “In cities where you find a lot of really ambitious, Type A, driven people, like in NYC and L.A., with the entertainment business and Wall Street…you get a lot of ‘maximizers’ [people who keep looking over their shoulder for something better]. Maximizer women date maximizer men. They will be just as picky in a bad and unhealthy way. The men who are actually available and wanting commitment and who are smart and funny and cute—maybe one guy is a little bit shorter, so he’s not getting the women. Maybe he’s not smooth initially or in big groups, but he is one-on-one. These are the kind of people who when you’re 35, 45, 55, that you’ll be happy with when you’re married, and the guy who is super charming at the party and has the crowd of women around him, maybe he’s not going to make as good of a husband. Maybe he’s not going to call you back. That guy is going to be judgmental and picky, and who wants that?”

6. We think, “I love me more.”
Gottlieb: “We don’t need a man. We don’t. But if you want one and you go around with this attitude of ‘I love me more,’ [what Samantha said in the Sex and the City movie, after she dumps a hot guy who helped her through cancer (and female audiences cheered)] well, a relationship is about reciprocity, so you need to love yourself and you need to be able to have some selflessness and love somebody else. Women take Samantha’s message as really empowering. If you don’t want to be alone—maybe Samantha does—that’s a dangerous message.”

7. We think he needs to share every interest.
Gottlieb: “We say, ‘I’m a writer, but he doesn’t read! I’m creative.’ But people can be creative in different ways, and the fact that he doesn’t read the same books that you do, well, maybe he wants someone who he can talk about the baseball game with but you’re not that person. The guy doesn’t have to be one-stop shopping. You’re not going to share every single interest, and that’s okay. The shared interest should be, Do we want the same things out of life? Do we both want to be married right now?”

5 Breakup Warning Signs

Courtesy of Yahoo.com

Have you ever found yourself in a relationship where the frustration level and the number of times you butt heads with each other seems to increase by the second? You say blue, she says red, and the fights just seem to be going in circles.

If the answer is yes, then you may be at what I call "the breakup point." Here are five signs that your relationship may be past the point of fixing. Whether you are living together, married, or just dating, these breakup signs are usually loud and clear.

1. You stop relationship-building behaviors. In the honeymoon stage of a relationship, which we all know is the first 90 days of pure bliss, you are learning about each other and making efforts to create romantic moods and nice evenings. When you're in that stage, you are really working at building your relationship. Then, at some point, you start to butt heads with each other. Critical relationship elements deteriorate. Maybe you stop kissing each other goodbye or stop texting each other during the day. Instead of adding things to the relationship, you start to resent each other like two five-year-olds who stop sharing their crayons. This is a breakup point.

2. You don't understand each other anymore. The fighting escalates to a place where you no longer feel like you're understood by your partner. Physical intimacy stops, communication stops, and you are living like roommates. You're at the point in the relationship where you are trying to understand each other, but you get so frustrated because you feel like you just don't understand each other anymore. This is a breakup point.

3. You start punishing each other. When you get to the point of no longer understanding each other, what happens is that you end up just kind of coexisting in the new dynamic. Resentment builds and you get in your head too much. You are no longer about feelings, and you start punishing each other. "Well, he hasn't done this for me, so I'm not going to do this for him" are the kind of thoughts that take root. The longer you stay in that dynamic and the further away you get from the dynamic you had during the early part of the relationship, the less likely it is that you'll ever get it back (and, after a point, you won't). You have hit the breakup point.

4. You fight less. When you get to the breakup point, you actually fight less with your partner. You fight less because in your mind and heart you start detaching yourself from the other person, and you don't care as much anymore. You have already made a determination that they don't understand you, that they will never understand you, and that the relationship just won't work out. The minute you get into a fight, you just walk away from it. That is a sure sign that you are at the breakup point.

5. You've taken the time to think it through. When you think you might have hit that breakup point, you must tell the person that you're disconnecting from them. You need to be honest and raw. If you don't think the relationship is going to work, or you know you've already disconnected based on how things have been going, then you might want to consider walking away for a week. When you're in the thick of things, they never seem to be able to work out.

So take a break. Spend a week without your partner. Take the week to ask yourself some questions. Go visit some friends or family. Really think about what life would be like without that person. How would you feel? Then, go back and either take a stand for the relationship or break up.

Whichever decision you make, you need to be honest with yourself. Life is too short! There are a lot of wonderful, amazing people out there ready to meet you.