Category Archives: relationships

VULNERABILITY

amends, ego, Fear, freedom, Inspiration, life, love, relationships, shame, trust, truth, vulnerability

vulnerability

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”  ~Brene Brown~

Vulnerability, to me, means telling the truth, even when it gets me in trouble or causes me embarrassment.  It’s saying, “I’m sorry” and asking for forgiveness. It’s saying, “I don’t know” and, “I love you.”  It’s sharing my fears and secret shame with those I love and trust.  It’s admitting I was wrong and that you were right. It’s allowing myself to be really seen, flaws and all.  It’s following my dreams, despite the fear of failure.  It is writing this blog and sharing it with the world. 

Vulnerability feels like having a wide open heart; loving someone so much that they have the power to hurt me deeply, and loving them anyway.  It’s allowing others to care for me when I’m sick or grieving.  It’s sharing the truth when you ask me how I am feeling.

Being dependent is not vulnerability.  Dependency makes me feel weak.  I’m learning that there is a vast difference to being dependent and depending on others.  It takes vulnerability to depend on someone, knowing that they could let me down.  And if they do let me down, it’s knowing that I’ll be just fine, despite feeling hurt.  I think that’s the main difference.  Dependency creates the illusion that I have no power to create the life I want; that if you leave me or disappoint me, my life will come crashing down around me, causing irreparable damage.

Feeling pain is a sign of vulnerability.  Rather than run from it, I allow it to flow freely through me, rejoicing in the knowledge that my heart is open.  A closed heart doesn’t feel pain…it feels angry or numb, both defense mechanisms.  When my heart is really open, my spirit is aligned with Source energy.  This feels so amazing, it’s worth embracing and walking through the pain.

I would love to know what vulnerability means to you.  Please share your answers in the comments section below.

Namaste.

REGRETS AND COMMITMENTS

Inspiration, life, relationships, Uncategorized

commitment copy

There is no word for guilt in Tibetan.   The closest translation is “intelligent regret that decides to do things differently”.

Today, I’ve made the decision to move away from shame and guilt and allow only for intelligent regret.  This enables me to do things differently and more purposefully.  The following are three of my deepest regrets and the commitments I’m making to live a more joyful and beneficial life…

1. I regret wasting my energy on judgement and resentment instead of cultivating compassion.  I have been angry for so much of my life, I didn’t even notice the severity of it until I began to move away from it.  I was angry as a child, which continued throughout my teenage years and well into my early 40’s.  It wasn’t until a few years ago that I made the decision to look at my anger, dive into its source and pull it out by the roots.  I discovered that most of it came from shame and guilt for things I’ve done or should have done, said or should have said, and stuff I allowed to cling to me, even though it wasn’t mine.  I know I never set out to intentionally hurt anyone. I do the best I can with what I have to work with at any given moment in time.  As I learn and acquire better tools, I become more adept at expressing myself honestly and productively, with less collateral damage. When I’m wrong, I accept responsibility and endeavour to right that wrong.  Denying my culpability only wastes enormous amounts of energy.  Holding onto the lies necessary to keep denial alive keeps me frozen in place.  I cannot move forward and enact change in my life if I’m not accountable for everything in my life.  I am the sole creator of my life experience.  It’s not always easy to see what my part is.  It takes skill and rigorous honesty to unravel the knot and discover what’s mine and then real mastery not to wallow in shame and guilt over it, which is another waste of energy.  This investigative process leads me to a much deeper understanding of myself and others.  I know that if I’m being harsh with myself, that harshness will seep into all my relationships and even my interactions with strangers.  With this realisation, I commit to being more patient and compassionate with myself and all beings.

2. I regret not allowing others into my heart.  I don’t know when or why I closed off my heart and, honestly, I didn’t even realise it was closed until a few years ago.  When I first began to notice this, I made a few excuses…..  “I can’t handle the input that comes through an open heart.”; “If I remain open, I’ll get hurt.”; “Some people are unsafe and if I’m open, they’ll get in and wreak all kinds of havoc!”.  I’m slowly learning that all these excuses, which sound quite reasonable, are simply untrue.  There is a way to keep an open heart in the presence of negativity by recognising that it’s simply a cover for suffering.  Showing our suffering makes us feel vulnerable. I don’t handle feeling vulnerable well.  In fact, I go to great lengths to hide it, even from myself.  This is why I started this blog.  I made a decision to open my heart and allow my vulnerability to come through.  This is the path toward joy and being of greater benefit to others.  I will only be hurt if I allow others’ negativity to imprint on me.  If I accept what is not mine and what is not true, take personally what is not about me, then I will suffer.  If I come from a place of negativity, I will only add more negative energy to the dynamic, which is unproductive.  I commit to remaining open-hearted and affirming positive intentions even in the face of overwhelming suffering.

3. I regret spending so much of my life running…. Running from love, running from connection, truth, responsibility and just being present in the moment.  I have a fear of being trapped.  The technical term is Cleithrophobia.  I only know this because my colleagues and I were goofing off at work one day looking up phobias for fun.  This particular phobia caught my eye because it describes me perfectly.  My husband and I have an inside joke about me mentally packing my bags whenever we have a disagreement or any kind of discord.  It used to worry him, but after 17 plus years together he’s learned to trust that I won’t actually leave.  I always do a runner in my head as it fills some need in me that has to feel free to go, free to be free.  The moment I feel tethered or restrained, my fight or flight response is activated and I go through the mental exercise of packing my bags into my car and speeding away, leaving skid marks on my driveway.  Over the years, with a lot of determination and training, I’ve managed to slow down the reflex to fight or run and simply be in the moment.  I allow for the mental process instead of denying it.  I find that resisting the feelings by labelling them “bad” and trying to banish them only makes them stronger.  I’ve learned that there are no bad feelings….there are just feelings.  I have a practice of finding a safe place (for me it’s writing in a notebook) and allowing all my feelings to pour out, unedited and unrestrained, onto the pages.  I take them as far as I can into the realm of pure ridiculousness until they have no power anymore.  It’s quite funny sometimes, reading it later.  Humour somehow takes all the potency out of even the strongest of emotions.  So, I commit to continuing this practice of staying, remaining like a log, as they say, being present in the moment and allowing all my feelings to have a voice.

These commitments might seem hard and even downright impossible to some.  But I know from personal experience that they are possible to achieve.  I may not maintain them perfectly, all of the time, and that’s ok.  By renewing my intentions every morning, and even moment-by-moment when I catch myself wobbling, I reinforce and continue the momentum of positive energy being put forth.  What comes back to me is pure bliss.

Om mani padme hum.

Newton’s Laws of Drama….I mean, Motion.

Humour, Inspiration, marriage, relationships, Uncategorized

Lately I’ve become very interested in Physics and how they relate to my marriage.  Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion seem to coincide nicely with the nature of drama.  Bear with me as I explore this further.

Newton’s 1st Law of Motion, called the Law of Inertia, says that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.  Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion (Force=mass x acceleration) says that an object with a certain velocity maintains that velocity unless a force acts on it to cause an acceleration, which means to me:  Love=emotion x drama.

Here’s an example of how these first 2 laws apply to my relationship:  When everything is going smoothly in my marriage, and I actually allow that to continue, my marriage is a happy one (at rest = no drama).  However, my nature is to not let this last for very long.  I can become quite an “unbalanced force” (thank you menopause!) and will abruptly change the speed and direction of our lives without any consultation, whatsoever, with my husband.  This acceleration greatly changes the velocity of our relationship.  He’s expected to just keep up, no questions asked.  As you might imagine, this creates a wee bit of tension.  I’m not entirely sure where this insatiable need for drama comes from.  I get that a lot of it is just simple hormonal surges, but surely there’s more at play here.  I know plenty of menopausal-aged women who seem quite balanced and content.  Are they all great actors or is there a tendency toward drama that’s more pronounced in some and less in others?

I spend a great deal of time analysing this drama phenomenon.  I’ve discussed this with a lot of my girlfriends, who all agree there is something quite seductive about a good dose of drama, although as grown women we’re not supposed to feel that way anymore.  In the absence of any real drama in our own relationships, we find others’ drama quite delicious.  I guess that helps to explain the gossip connection.  But what is the actual (or perceived) payoff in engaging in a good dose of drama?

Historically, for me, it served many functions.  It staved off boredom.  I was taught well by chick flicks that contentment and an easy friendship with a man are NOT sexy.  Nice guys who adore and cherish us are booorrring. I was trained to believe that lots of conflict and drama in a relationship creates passion, which in turn equates to true love. And let’s not forget the thrill of the chase.  Being unsure about how someone feels about you and the insecurity that comes with it causes that flip-flopping feeling in the stomach which is often mistaken for love. When, suddenly, all that adoring and cherishing goes away, it is all you can think about and all you want. The animal-instinct to chase it ensues.  Then there good old-fashioned self-doubt.  I had the very wrong idea that I didn’t deserve adoration and cherishing.  I thought, eventually, he’ll figure out that I’m not so great after all and split.  I decided the best answer was to drive him away by being the worst version of myself and then I would get the added benefit of “victim” drama.  This is where I get to whinge to all my friends about what a jerk he was (and they would all agree) and I never had to look at my own culpability.

I’d like to tell you I’ve matured and have no more need for all this drama.  Well, that’s just not true.  I don’t engage in it the same way I used to, but it’s still a factor.  This leads me to Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion:  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  I like to call this, “The Pissing Contest.”  It looks something like this…..  He’s being grumpy and I ask him why he’s so grumpy and he says he isn’t grumpy, that I’m being the grumpy one.  I tell him I was perfectly happy until his grumpiness caused me to become grumpy.  He says he was perfectly fine beforehand and is simply reacting to my grumpiness.  On and on it goes until we’re not speaking to each other anymore. Hours turn to days and days turn to weeks.  The drama phenomenon has been activated.  My husband knows me all too well and that I’m likely packing my bags in my head.  Old habits die hard, I reckon.  He’s come to expect that and no longer really worries that I’ll actually leave.  At this point, I’ve usually forgotten what I’m even angry about, probably because there was no good reason to begin with.  In my head, of course, I’m using the tried and true anthem of the 4 year old…. “but HE started it!”  My overdeveloped pride keeps me from just calling a truce and apologising, although for what I’m not really sure.  I’m ashamed to admit that it’s generally him who puts down the sword and comes forward with all that annoying logic and reason saying that it doesn’t matter who started it.  Isn’t is more important to just be happy?  Isn’t that what we all want?  Ironically enough, we were happy before all this unnecessary drama started.  Why this ridiculous detour?

There’s only one answer…..Physics!