You can’t have your cake…

‘You can’t have your cake and eat it too.’

The women of my family are almost famous for this phrase. It speaks to, in our case, a genetic disposition for becoming a martyr. It is used as an excuse to not have what you want, to not shower yourself with the gifts and indulgences you deserve, just in case.

It implies that having cake and eating it are mutually exclusive. Which is not necessarily true.

Let us first look at what it means to ‘have’ your cake. Do we honestly imagine we can keep a cake indefinitely? Surely not. This old proverb speaks to delayed gratification and wisely using what you have, not of our cake eating habits. Wisely using resources, be they love, time, money or luxuries, is timeless advice. What I find hard to swallow is the assumption that ‘having’ something precludes us from using it. I firmly believe the only real value in something is in its use and in sharing it.

Let me explain. As a child did you have clothes that you were never allowed to wear? The really pretty dresses that you Mum was afraid you would destroy if she let you wear them ‘around the house’? How many times did you wear said dress before you outgrew them?

How about the beautiful toy that was placed on a shelf only ever to be looked at incase a child were to break the toy amidst the joy of playing with it.

Do you own fine china? (Another of my little obsessions). Why do we insist on drinking our tea out of thick, cheap mugs when we have exquisite china tea cups? Isn’t their value the sensation of pressing the china to your lips and the feel of the delicate handle between your fingers?

Why do we use the informal lounge while the formal lounge, with the plush chairs and air-conditioning, only collects dust? The same goes for the expensive jewellery we never wear, the amazing bath salts we are saving and the gourmet condiments that sit on the shelf and are never opened.

Unless an item is truly irreplaceable, (in which case it probably belongs in a museum) enjoy it. Multiply the joy by sharing it with others. Make yourself feel special by knowing the value of the indulgence. You honour the intention of the object when it is used in this way too.

So if you aren’t eating your cake, I would challenge that is isn’t really yours to begin with. And if you don’t share the cake with others, then you are missing out; by sharing something you create more of it and multiply the joy.

**This piece was first published in the Online Magazine Connect2Mums.com.ning.au

Disappointment

Expectation is the mother of all disappointments. We will never get what we want. They day that we do we want something more, something different, ‘have you got it in antique white?’, ‘well yes it was great but…’.

Desire is our nature. Our thought processes are all about something we want or something we want to avoid. We want:

5 more minutes sleep, a hot cup of coffee, no traffic on the road, an empty email inbox, appreciation at work, the client to call before 2pm, the dress in the window on our way to lunch, to avoid the crowds at the food court, someone else to handle the mess waiting for us on our return to the office, people to pull their weight at work damnit!, the last half hour to fly by, for clients not to call 5 minutes before knock-off time, there to be a smooth run on the way home, to listen to Hamish & Andy on the way home, a creamy pasta for dinner – stuff the calories, to watch our favourite TV show, for the bottle of wine we opened to be nice, a piece (or block) of dark chocolate to accompany the wine, a long hot bath and a good nights sleep.

There is nothing wrong with desire, its what drives us on. Desire climbed Mt. Everest. Desire created (and nurtures) a family. Desire completed the degree. Desire vies for promotion. Desire makes the best chocolate cake you have ever eaten.

Desire is desirable. Expectation is not. Desire is an open ended question. Expectation is a closed question. Desire leads us in a direction. Expectation paints us into a corner.

Desire the most amazing things you can imagine. Desire the most decadent sweets, the most exciting adventures, the most supportive family, the most fulfilling career. But never, ever expect these things. The experience will allways fall short; for your reach will always exceed your grasp.

Not just soft

The feminine is not just soft. She is graceful and open, receptive and welcoming, nurturing and loving. But she is also cyclic.

Cyclic nature is a graceful dance of balance and change. The simplest principles are often the hardest to understand. Such is the case here; cycles are grossly misunderstood.

The element of change is easy to see in a cycle; Autumn turns to Winter. Day turns to night. This type of change is so evident that the way the change occurs is overlooked. Cyclic change is predictable, measured & balanced in the truest sense of the word.

Cyclic nature by definition must have opposite extremes and move through these extremes on a regular basis. Like the waves of the ocean; the peak of the wave is only as high as the troughs are deep.

So how does this cyclic force manifest in the feminine nature? Diversely. Yes the feminine is graceful, open, receptive, welcoming, nurturing, and loving. The feminine is also awkward, unavailable, unfriendly, inhospitable, destructive and harsh.

I know many women but I don’t know any who would be happy to be called awkward or harsh. We aspire to the ‘softer’ side of our femininity and spurn the counterbalance. We disown half of our nature and thus forfeit half of our power.

We are led to believe that only the gentler side of our femininity is acceptable and apologise for our moods, our sarcasm, our withdrawal, our scorn and our wildness. We overuse our whisper and gag our screams. If we only use the softer half of our repertoire we belie our depth.

When you next need to scream, don’t bite your tongue. When you want to cry, don’t hide your tears. When you know you have to leave, go. When you need to crash, create for yourself a soft place to fall.

A woman’s strengths is derived from her cycles. All of her cycles. The feminine is not just soft.

Balance

Believe it or not, balance is a naturally occurring state. Something either balances or it doesn’t. It flows or it doesn’t. Making something balanced by brute force will never work, because when the force is gone so is the balance.

If we try to force balance in our lives we are never able to relax. We become exhausted and our forced balance begins to slip. We feel ‘out of balance’ and we go looking for tools, techniques and coaches to teach us how to manhandle things back into a forced balance.

We have all done it. I know I used to. I sense that something was consuming too much energy and pulling me off centre so I would work extra hard, ‘fire myself up’ in the hope of creating more energy or try to prop everything else up.

We feel we are not spending enough time with our friends. It would help to spend a leisurely afternoon and spending quality, restorative and refreshing time with a friend. Instead we over schedule ourselves trying to catch up with everybody in the same weekend. Or we feel like work is taking over our life so we do more overtime believing if we work super-duper-ridiculous hours we will get on top of it. All we end up doing is working more, and finding more work to do. The ‘on top of it’ moment never comes.

So what other choices do we have? We could quiet the noise, cease the busyness and just listen for a moment. Listen to what you really want to do next. You see when we feel off kilter we usually have a deeply hidden desire. Your intuition is whispering the ideal counterbalance. A yearning so simple we most often dismiss it. An unpretentious pleasure, easily achieved. If you tune in & act on the quiet voice the outcome is remarkable; instant balance.

Some of the small indulgences that have saved my sanity in the past include:

1. A pot of peppermint tea
2. Fine dark chocolate
3. A walk along the beach
4. Old movies
5. Reading a great book
6. Journaling
7. A sleep in
8. A day at the Museum
9. A good cry
10. Putting my feet up
11. Singing at the top of my lungs
12. Buying fresh flowers
13. Sitting in the park under a tree
14. Hiding in a secluded café for an hour
15. A weekend away

A girlfriend I caught up with recently named pedicures as one of her balance inducing activities.

None of these are goal orientated activities. In and of themselves they don’t  actually achieve anything. That is the key. You don’t create a balanced environment ripe for producing results by being results focused all the time. You have to play as hard as you work.

My small indulgences create space for me to stop ‘doing’ and just ‘be’. They break the cycle of craziness long enough for me to breathe. After a breath and a moment of real ‘me-ness’ my natural balance bubbles up to the surface and I can move on with more grace.

Now when I feel off balance I take my foot off the gas instead of flooring it.