Resonating... live like that

Live Like That -Lisbeth Darsh

Stop chasing what’s already gone, what’s done, what’s finished.

(Accept it, like you accepted this morning’s clouded sunshine. You didn’t argue that, did you?)

Let go, like all those silly people tell you to.

They are right. (As surprising as that is — and yes, I know you hate to admit they are right.)
The lights are ahead. Drive into the fog. You will be able to see, even when you can’t.

Live here.

Live now.

Live well.

Live so that people say, “Holy heck, I can’t believe that’s her. She’s amazing.”

Yeah, live like that.

Letters to you… the lesson of letting go

Thank you for being a brief interlude in my life.  For teaching me the lesson of letting go – both of my attachment to the past and also of you.  You are truly amazing and a gal will be lucky to hold your hand and walk side by side with you through this life – some day.  When you are ready.  But you’ve been clear with me from the start that you’re not yet prepared for that journey and I am.  I want a partner to share this life with. 

I have found my happiness deep within and though I am confident and surrounded by love – thriving – as I walk this road alone, I am also now ready for a man (the perfect one for me) to share my life with, to add to my happiness as I do to him.  To care for me and to be cared for in return.  Keeping ourselves but adding a relationship to the mix.

I need to let you go though to make space for him.  I trust that the universe is already sending him my way to shower me with affection – to look at me with sparkly eyes and to choose me.  Just me.  And while I love spending time connecting with you and the flirting that brings a smile to my face every time and the passion that electrifies my body when we touch – through all that excitement I still have to let go.  I am an all or nothing girl and to be true to myself I can’t settle.  I choose to be authentic and I know I deserve amazing things, more so I know that they are coming to me already.  For that I need space.  I need to let go.

Thank you for teaching me the lesson of letting go.

With love,

J.

Resonating... the wunder year day 294. better than a manual.

The Wunder Year: day 294. better than a manual.


People don’t come with instruction manuals.
 
Communication might be a whole lot easier if we did, but unfortunately, more often than not, we have to learn each other through a frustrating game of trial and error.

Somehow, even though I am well aware of the fact that nobody comes with a handbook, I often forget that the people around me don’t just inherently get me.

My sister, my boyfriend, the dude making my coffee – they actually have no idea how to interact with me on any given day.

Other than some social norms and general codes of conduct, until we’re well into the dance of intimacy, my motivations, my behaviours, my feelings, my human experience is a total mystery.

The golden rule might say “treat others as you wish to be treated” which granted, is a pretty good place to begin. The thing is, if I’ve learned one thing about what people need to feel respected, valued and heard, it’s that we’re not all looking for the same thing.

Some people need space, some people require guidance. Others want a laugh, and others may simply need you to hold their hand while they cry.

And the really confusing part? Given the situation, we may not always need the same thing.

I believe it was Oprah that said “you teach people how to treat you.” It’s not exactly a revolutionary statement, but when put into practice, it can transform even the most dysfunctional of relationships.
I realized it last night as I was wallowing in a soggy mess of self pity.

In the past, when my uncertainty and fear have caused me to feel open to judgement and shame, I’ve reacted by pushing the people who love me away.

If I had a manual, it would read “When the subject cries, snaps at you, slams doors and screams into her pillow, she is experiencing intense vulnerability. Contrary to her physical and verbal cues, she would like you to wrap your arms around her and be present with her as she works through her fears.”

You can imagine that for a long time I was very confused as to why the people in my life gave up trying to “deal with me”.

It’s taken some trial and error, but as I felt myself moving into that space of emotional instability last night, instead of expecting J to know exactly how to handle me, I calmly asked if he could just be with me while I sobbed for five to eleven minutes.

Now I know a) he thinks I’m a bit crazy and b) he had to resist every urge to try and fix my emotions for me, but the simple act of asking him treat me as I needed to be treated in that moment was enough for me to move through the wave of vulnerability.

It was far more effective to ask specifically for what I needed instead of blaming him for being incapable of reading a manual that doesn’t exist.

And in my request, J didn’t have to say yes. He could very well have ignored my ask and continued playing his video game or given me a hundred different solutions to my problem.

But when someone makes a reasonable request for what they need to feel valued, respected and heard, it would be pretty unreasonable for you to say no.

People don’t come with instruction manuals. But we do come with a voice.

While we may have lost it somewhere along the road, it’s never too late to begin to the practice of teaching the people in our lives what we need to feel valued. And in doing so, we begin valuing the people in our lives in return.

http://liveinwunder.com/2013/10/21/day-294-better-than-a-manual/

Resonating... What If We Strip Away the Artifice & See Each Other As We Are. ~ Vicki Rivard

What If We Strip Away the Artifice & See Each Other As We Are. ~ Vicki Rivard

What if I don’t want to talk about the weather?

What if, instead, I want to talk about the doubts that tiptoe their way up your spine, lodge between your vertebrae and soften your backbone? What if I want to ask about what keeps you up at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep and about the recurring loop-dream you’ve been having and what you think it means? What if I want to know about the pink scar on your chin and where it comes from and why you try to hide it with your scarf?

What if I don’t care about what’s on TV or the Breaking Bad finale?

What if, instead, I care about the secret song that lives in your lungs that nobody hears but you? What if I ask you to breathe it to me and I promise to listen and I really do? What if I’m curious about the last time you lost, the last time you grieved and is there anything in this world you would die for? What if I’m interested in your proudest moment, your most haunting regret, the face you thought you’d remember but that now you forget?

What if I don’t want to sit in a noisy pub and guzzle beer until the night becomes a blurry haze?

What if, instead, I want to sit with you in a park, in the dark, swallowing mouthfuls of moon and sharing memories of our mothers? What if I want to take your hand in mine and touch the bones that live there, the knobby joints, the rough patches, the creases at the wrist? What if I want to run my fingers up and down your arm, tracing the route of your veins, revering the blood flow that keeps you alive? What if—for a whole minute, a whole hour—I want to look into your eyes without flinching, to tour the truest part of you, that place that cannot die?

What if I want to break open your sternum and glimpse inside your tattered heart and tell you it may be tattered, but it is your loveliest organ and there is a blood-red garden growing there?

What if I don’t want to chat on Facebook and skim through your photographic highlight-reel?

What if, instead, I want to see your broken parts and blemishes? What if I want to strip away the layers and stand with you, skin and souls laid bare, bony bits protruding, ugly spots exposed? What if I want to place my head on your belly and listen to your liver communing with your spleen and feel the gurgle of your gut and the inklings of your instinct? What if I want to ask you the question that scares you the most and swear I won’t run away when I hear your honest answer? What if I don’t run away?

What if I’m choking on the artifice of it all and feeling like we’re missing out because we’re scratching the surface with the questions underneath the questions, but the veneer is thick and we have barely made a mark? What if we’re all here, on this perfect planet, at this time, together, because we are treasures for each other to discover and rediscover, but what if we’re too distracted by our Twitter feeds to notice?

What if I don’t give a damn about where you studied or what your job is or how much money you make?

What if, instead, I give a damn about the first time you found love and the way your cells shifted to make room for that new feeling that was more force than feeling? What if I give a damn about the tattoo on your thigh and why you have it and when you got it and did it hurt and do you love it? What if I give a damn about what turns you on, what turns you off, how you like to be touched and how you pray? What if I give a damn about the things that amaze you, that fill you up, that move you to tears, that move you to move, that make you wonder, that make you glow and go slow and look up and see the stars and feel the stars inside you?

What if I give a damn about you, remarkable, fragile, dangerous you?

But what if I don’t want to talk about the weather? What then?

Think we could be friends?

“Lie beside me and let the seeing be healing. No need to hide. No need for either darkness or light. Let me see you as you are.”

~ Jeanette Winterson, Art and Lies.

Resonating... Date a Woman Who Knows Everything (& Nothing). ~ Renée Picard

I love every part of this and the beauty is that many things on the list have graciously already found their way into my life and into my being.  I'm living much of this and the rest I can learn from.  I am grateful everyday for spending the time to learn about myself and to grow into the beautiful woman that I am, that I love. ~J.


Date a Woman Who Knows Everything (& Nothing). ~ Renée Picard

What we do (hobbies, work, roles) matters. It says something about our souls. But I also think that we can get too caught up in what we do when how we are matters more. So here is my version.

Date a woman who knows the beauty of being alone.

Date a woman who is hard-headed, who is not afraid to speak her mind, who can be stubborn and passionate and wants to have the occasional debate because she wants to learn how you think and how you see the world. She questions assumptions (including her own), explores ideas, breaks molds. She is naturally curious. She wants to be stretched.

She wants to change your mind and she wants her own mind changed.

Date a woman who knows fear, sorrow, loss. Who isn’t scared to get naked. She knows that her own beauty lies in knowing her true value (but now and then she forgets, and then you can step in to remind her).

Date a woman who knows her way around her own heart and is not afraid to break it. She knows what it wants and she stands up for it with conviction.

Date a woman who knows how to make real eye contact, because she values intimacy. She thrives on her capacity to build authentic relationships and surrounds herself with only this kind.

Date a woman who knows that she loves at least one thing fiercely: her children, her work, her art, her trade, her garden, her animals.

Date a woman who knows that taking/offering space to grow can sometimes be the best kind of love that one person can offer another, even when this means saying goodbye.

Date a woman who you are unsure of at first, not because she doesn’t seem like enough but because she scares you a little bit in her realness. Yet she continues to surprise and challenge you in this very way every time you see her.

Date a woman who knows how to laugh at herself, who might sometimes just crack the corniest jokes but they make you smile anyway.

Date a woman who sees as much possibility in sitting in silence as she does exploring every nook: world, body, mind, soul. She holds a quiet confidence. She walks with purpose.

Date a woman who knows that her heart is fragile. When it becomes too melty and heavy she might tuck herself away to feel better: let her. Then drop her a note or stop by for tea to lighten her up (she will need this but might not be able to ask for it).

Date a woman who will drop everything in a millisecond to help a friend in need.

Date a woman who knows that love is something that comes from inside, not something that she can ‘get’ from someone else, because she knows that she is love(d).

Date a woman who accepts herself today but (gently) pushes herself to be better the next. You will want to do the same by just being around her.

Date a woman who understands the problems with being ‘too busy.’

Date a woman who is sure about this one thing: that we can never really be sure about anything.

Because life is fluid. And each day she realizes how beautiful and scary this is, and so she humbles herself to it. She starts each every day looking to learn, experience, create, teach something new, because she knows that this is what makes life (worth living).

Date a woman who knows art and music. She may not create it herself but she needs it to move through her because it makes her (and the world) better.

Date a woman who understands the value of taking a risk, who is not afraid of making a mistake because she knows how to pick herself back up after she falls.

She’s ready to accept your offer to help her up the next time she does.

Date a woman, not a girl. But when the little girl in her comes out now and then (and she will), you will still love her as the woman that she is.

Be with—no, know—a woman who wants to understand herself a little better each day. She wants to understand you too. You may not have met her yet, but in a way she already does.

Real life… september 6th, 2013...

I’m in a weird yet wonderful place right now.  It’s a strange contradiction.  A life full of abundance and amazing, all things gravitating to me, lining up in perfect order – the less I try and control the more the beautiful things keep happening.

In many ways I have you to thank.  Looking back – the heartbreak and hurt, the gut wrenching sobs that left me shattered, the hurtful words witnessed – I wouldn’t change any of it now, from this perspective.

I remember telling you on one of our last truly connected days how I have a way of just figuring things out.  We had just crossed the street from the antique store that is now closed – walking side by side in the sunshine heading to my favorite coffee shop on the morning you (finally) opened up to me fully – unafraid.  You asked to borrow some of ‘it’ then even though I couldn’t explain to you the ‘how’.  It just happens, always has – my ability to walk through the fire and come out better on the other side.

You taught me so many things that I understand with this distance – things I couldn’t see in the thick of it all – the need to let go.  To stop letting others make decisions for me and to know that hurtful words are a reflection of those speaking them rather than about those they are directed at.  At the time, your words of  me ‘not being a people person’ stung but I have realized in so many ways since then that the opposite is true.  The words uttered were merely your reflection of my ability to see people – their true colours and motivations – choosing not to waste my energy on those that aren’t real, authentic.  The ones who outwardly pretend to care and fake happiness but underneath are anything but – the ones that have hidden agendas and selfish motivations. 

Thank you for letting me go.  For giving me this space to find myself again, more solidly this time than before.  Though there was a moment you made me feel like I wasn’t good enough, I’ve realized now more than ever that I am – just as I am.  A solid belief in myself.  I’m surrounded by so much love, it continues to gravitate from new and unexpected places and keeps growing from sources that have existed all along.  My golden heart and caring ways breathing life into those around me.  I’m surrounded by abundance and I feel blessed and humbled by it.  I also feel deserving because as it drifts towards me it also radiates back from me – the energy inside me burning brightly, exploding from me.  A replenishing and renewing cycle. 

If it wasn’t for us breaking, for me breaking – I would never have found this place.  A place where I can stand on my own and feel grateful.  A place where I can honestly shout that I am truly and completely in love with my life.  In love with who I am.

Dear future husband... femininity and strength...

Dear future husband,

My mother is the strongest woman I know and I spent many of my formative years emulating her strength.  What I failed to notice was her softness.  Her strength was easy to see, in the way that she walked away from everything she knew to give us both a better life.  Me and her, a formidable team.  I cherished this quality in her as it changed the course of my life.  So different that what it could have been – it gave me opportunities and safety and love.

But in this focus on cultivating strength, I kept people at a distance, including her.  It wasn’t until a month before my 36^th birthday that I found the means of letting go of this need to control.  Instantly a weight lifted from me and the love radiated freely – finally – from my open heart.  Selflessly and there was power in my vulnerability.  Softness.

I have come to love myself this past year.  The ability I’ve gained to roll with life’s punches knowing that the universe has a higher purpose for me if I just let myself be guided, relinquish control and be fully here and now.  Present.  I have stopped holding onto the past, stopped living solely for the future and I’m happy truly in this moment even in the face of constant and unrelenting change.  I can embrace the hurdles that life throws in my path because I am full of gratitude and surround by love.  My belief in myself buoyed by my friends and family who believe in me all the same. 

When times get tough though I sometimes revert back to my strongest self.  Standing solo because I know that I have and will survive this way – on my own –as I have for so many years.  Know though that I don’t want to push people away anymore – I’m learning that receiving the strength and support of others is necessary for navigating the struggles of life.  Be there beside me even if I resist, hold my hand and remind me that I am not alone.  Wrap your arms around me and remind me that I am safe and loved.  You are my rock, my partner.  Lend me your strength so I don’t lose my sense of self, my femininity, my grace.

All my love,

J.

Letters to you... all about me

I like you, adore you even for exactly who you are at this point in time.  I love your charm and manliness and how you can easily drive me mad.  You challenge me but you also make me smile in huge fully open ways.  You make me want to be a better person and I know you’ll always hold me accountable to that.  You’re the man I want to speak with when life takes an unexpected turn because you have the ability to reassure me that it will all be okay, to just have faith and to believe.  Your belief in me reinforces my belief in myself.

You are amazing.  One of my strengths is my ability to see a person’s true character and I’ve learned to trust my intuition a lot this past year, knowing it’s guiding me down the road I need to be taking.  It led me to kissing you – know that I’m very selective not just in who I kiss but in who I let into my life.  My life is happy in this moment even in the face of the bumps along the way.

I’ve finally found myself through the years and I love the woman I am.  It’s because of this that I only surround myself with other great people and my life is bursting in this regard, I am truly blessed.  I don’t have a million friends in my inner circle but I’d go to the ends of the earth for the ones that are there.  You’re on this list.

Know that kissing you was unexpected.  Unplanned.  It took me by surprise as much as it did you but it just felt right in that moment and I went with it.  I trust in the timing – it wasn’t six months ago or six months from now or anytime in between, it was that moment a few weeks back – the reason is still unclear.

I care about you, fully – it’s the way I live life.  When I said I was an all or nothing woman it’s is just that – I don’t feel things half way, for anyone that gets close. It’s who I am and something I love.  And it doesn’t mean anything more than that – you are a part of my life and I care.  What the future holds I don’t know but I’m grateful you are here now for however long and in whatever capacity that is, no expectations, just a trust in the journey. 

I understand you had a solid plan going before I came along – you still do.  I think that’s admirable – know where you’re at as I’ve been there too this past year.   I accept it and you for where you are and maybe one day things will evolve but only time will tell and as I said, I have no expectations.  I do enjoy the time we spend together, getting to know your stories and laughing and teasing and yes, exploring each other’s bodies.   I want to be vulnerable with you in more ways than just my naked body but I find myself holding back right now because I’m afraid of you thinking it’s too much – know it’s just what we make of it and I’m not asking you for anything other than the time you want to spend with me – easy and carefree and simple – I’m way beyond drama and difficulties, life is too short for any of that.  So let’s just be us and have fun – our paths crossed in this moment for however long and for whatever reason, let’s just have faith in that and enjoy the ride.