Posts Tagged ‘Emotions’

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Ugly

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Ugly is awful. When things ‘get ugly’, people get hurt. Fat ugly tears get spilled. Ugly words are spoken. The ugly faces of jealousy, insecurity, spite, fear, pain and judgement shine. Ugly can’t be taken back.

Ugly is progress. Ugly is releasing the pressure valve. Ugly is [more] honest. Ugly is make or break time. Ugly is purging the toxic. Ugly is exorcising the Demons. Ugly can’t be taken back.


Sometimes ugly is necessary. If I have never seen your ugly side, I have never really seen you. If you can’t handle my ugly side, you can’t handle me. If you don’t embrace my ugliness, you don’t deserve me.

Sometimes it has to get worse before it gets better. Sometimes ugly is the only way forward. Sometimes ugly is the birth of something … beautiful.

The most beautiful lotus flowers grow through the mud and emerge beautiful and clean.

Farewell to the worst week ever.

*Photo credit

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Unplugged connection

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Yesterday I feel like a traveled back in time. I caught the train into the city to meet a friend. No blackberry. On the train I read a book. A real paper book. Not a blog or an E book on a smartphone or tablet. We sat on her couch and on her bed like we used to when we were 15 (yes I have known her that long) and we talked. We didn’t communally watch TV, play a game, sms, or update our  Facebook pages. We even let our phones go to voicemail. Oh the horror. We went to lunch at a local cafe and had pies, not some elegantly put together tossed salad, and enjoyed tea and soft drink. No diet or artificial sweetener to be seen. We even shared the best chocolate éclair ever! Yumm.

I read some more on the trip home on the train and when I had the carriage to myself I called a long distance friend to catch up with her. On the walk home I picked up some ingredients for dinner and actually visited a ‘video store’! Two DVDs later (two of my faves) I went home to cook dinner and watch DVDs curled up on the couch with my husband, under a hand-made patchwork quilt no less!

It felt fantastic to just connect. Not connect in the über modern sense of knowing what your friends had for lunch thanks to twitter, or where there are thanks to foursquare, what they did during the week thanks to their Facebook pics. But real connection, to hear the wobble in their voice when they talk about something difficult, to see the smile crinkle the corners of their eyes in a way that an emoticon simply can’t convey. To laugh with someone. To feel that genuine connection, where so much is conveyed between the words.

I don’t know about you, but pretty much every young woman [20 to 35] I care about has been on an emotional roller coaster recently. And we seem to be stuck in the big dipper part swinging from low to lower, with an occasional sharp upswing. The thing that is keeping me (and I know a lot of them) sane, is female connection. Its power simply cannot be underestimated. It is like alchemy for the soul!

Have you thanked your ‘girls’ recently? Mine know who they are… love you guys! xxx

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The other emotions

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Anger I can do. Frustration and I are friends. ‘Meh’ isn’t an emotion, it is more a mode. But you know exactly what I mean when I say that is how I am feeling.

The world is ok with the good emotions (for the most part). We can handle the fiery emotions. But we cannot even name the other negative emotions that plague us. You remember these?

Loneliness, Anxiety, Rejection, Jealousy,

Mourning, Resentment, Regret, Helplessness

We have a collective delusion that these emotions are ‘icky’, that they are shameful, that we have no right to feel them. We subscribe to the notion that someone in a happy relationship should never feel lonely. That a confident person never feels anxious. That it is only acceptable to mourn when a loved one passes. Even then many don’t allow themselves to ‘indulge’ that emotion. Socially regret is frowned upon – if you have regrets then you are obviously not living life to the fullest.

It’s crap. Total bullshit! A life fully lived spans the full gamut of human emotions. Disowning some of our emotions results in us suppressing them, ignoring them, bottling them up, looking for a fix. We never settle into them, accept them, honour them.

Recently I have felt lonely, anxious, rejected, mourning, resentment and helplessness. I am not a sad sack. I enjoy my life. But I am fully human. And I am a more balanced adult when I own all my emotions.

What emotions have you owned or disowned recently?


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Compassion

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

We give lip service to compassion. It is a lofty ideal that, more often than not, we use to calm ourselves when we are pissed off at someone else. For example when someone cuts us off in traffic or the check out chick is rude to us we talk ourselves back from a rage by being ‘compassionate’.

Compassion is more than cutting someone slack.

Compassion is deeper than considering someones feelings.

Compassion goes beyond pity.

I didn’t realise until I got the responses from my 150th blog post (the ask a friend challenge) how integral compassion is to who I am as a person in the world. I meditate on compassion. When someone wrongs me my response is, after the requisite clearing of the angry emotions (I’ll post on this process soon), to find genuine compassion. Finding that place of genuine compassion recongises that we all in this together. Compassion effortlessly forgives.

Compassion means – to be deeply aware of the suffering of another.

AND to have the desire to alleviate that suffering.

I actively cultivate compassion. I focus on the suffering on untold millions and try to take it into my heart. It hurts. It is supposed to. I try to breathe out compassion. For myself. For untold millions. It is hard.

Harder still. Hearing that my oldest friend lost his mother today. A graceful, impossibly strong woman with wicked sense of humour is lost to this earth. I don’t know what to say. Compassion is all I’ve got. Suddenly compassion doesn’t feel like enough.

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Home

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Home can mean so many things. It can mean our physical residence, our city, our country. Something can smell like home, feel like home, sound like home. We can consider a person to constitute our home. Our home could be where we were born or raised. The ‘home team’ doesn’t mean the members all live at the field/ground. Yet I feel ‘at home’ at my girlfriend’s place and don’t often admit how ‘at home’ I feel in the kitchen.

Have your ever found yourself saying ‘I am going home for the weekend’ in reference to your parent’s house. Only to turn around and and announce your departure from their home by saying ‘Alright, I think we should be heading home now’? I know I have.

Home is a feeling. A safety. An acceptance. Home is familiar and comfortable. Home is nice. We are always welcome at home.


My son understands this concept better than most adults. Being a toddler his world revolves around safe, comfortable places. Home is the thing he understands best. Yet he can feel totally at home in an alien place, so long as the right people and objects are with him (the real reason for a baby bag). Home is like his bar (yes, you remember tip) he asks to ‘go home now’ when he is tired of where he is. He tells me that loved ones have ‘gone home’ as soon as we close the front door after a farewell. And often for hours, days and even weeks after that. But reassures me that they will ‘come home soon’ – meaning our home.

Our place really is like that. It is a space where people take their shoes off, not because I am precious about dirt. That is laughable. They take their shoes off (or so I hope) because they know they will curl up on our couch with a coffee or a beer. They often help themselves to said coffee and beer, too! If the proverbial shit hit the fan, I know some of our friends would be comfortable here. They would crave their things, autonomy and the space their own home affords, but I like to think they wouldn’t miss the feeling of a home.

I know I am home when I smell the sea breeze, or feel my over-sized glass teacup in my hands. I feel like I am home when I smell my husbands cologne when my head is resting against his chest in a hug. I feel like home when my son is cuddled up in my arms. I feel like I am home when I see my kitchen bench. I feel at home in jeans.

What feels like home to you?

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The darkest hour

Monday, April 19th, 2010

5If you tell me you haven’t had your fair few dark hours, then you are one of two things; 1) a liar, 2) someone who has never lived. This post is for the rest of us.


We know that the darkest hour is just before the dawn. Crazy but true. If you are anything like me, you underestimate how dark it can get. You are craving the light like a fashion junky craves new Jimmy Choo’s because you are certain that it can’t possibly get any darker than this moment. You are wrong. Invariably we are wrong. We underestimate how much darkness we can withstand. We cannot quantify how much darkness we can swallow whole. You know it really is the darkest hour when you stop expecting the light.

It really does not get any darker than pitch black. So black that you are sure a blackness this profound must go on, and on, and on. That is the darkest hour. That is also the switch that calls in the light. When we are immersed in darkness and instead of denying it, hating on it, rejecting it or feeling guilty for it we do something radical; We accept the darkness. Something magical happens in that moment.

The darkness doesn’t devour you are you feared it would. You devour the darkness.

Women, especially, were designed for this role. We are the life-death-life mother embodied. We take light and make it dark, only to make it light again. We are great transmuters. We inherited that gift from our mother, THE great transmuter – Mother Earth. She takes crap, I mean real crap, and uses it to nourish herself. Nature takes dung, rotten leaves and plants, carcasses and breaks them down into fertiliser. She uses fire to cleanse her skin and baby shoots and saplings sprout in the ashes.

Don’t underestimate your capacity for darkness and certainly don’t disown it. Shunned darkness turns into wickedness. Shunned darkness becomes dangerous. Darkness owned is transforming. It wasn’t until I realised that “I could never hurt my baby” was a lie, that my full capacity for mothering was born. It wasn’t until I hurt my husband in the worst possible way, that our relationship could be born. It isn’t until we swallow whole the suffering of the world that our compassion is born. (There are many examples of meditations to assist with this. This is an example that I *LOVE*)

Something I know for sure: Your lightest hour will only be as intense as your darkest. Embrace the dark.

*image credit

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Taking stock

Monday, April 5th, 2010

9 days into marriage and I feel, well….. nothing. Nothing different, anyway.

All my married friends have told me that marriage changes everything and nothing all at once. This is true for my husband (it still feels weird using that title), but I seem to have only got the ‘nothing’ part. Well, other than my immune system completely crashing, that is. But still, it is early days yet.

A dear friend  (a very wise one at that) reminded me at various stages throughout the reception that a marriage, like any other ritual, is symbolic. That it is powerful and will take time to integrate. Truer words have never been spoken, but I do wonder if you must endorse the ritual or simply participate to truly be changed by it.

I have been thinking a lot since the wedding. About love and marriage, not to mention the events of the weekend itself.  So much took place. So many virtually all those we care about were in the one place at the one time. That alone is a mother-load of quality time to process. Add to that potent mix the vows, speeches, drunken deep and meaningful conversations, poignant one liners, interesting situations (often interesting drunken situations) and you have too many memories to process, to many moments to take into my heart, in 9 short days.

My response so far has been to write – a hell of a lot. I have listened to my old favourite music. I have rearranged the kitchen and my bedroom. Lost my appetite. Done a truckload of laundry and spoken to my girlfriends heaps. There is nothing out of the ordinary in the list other than the laundry. Damn I hate laundry! Oh and the appetite.

As for married life? Is it safe to assume married me will be a thinner washer-woman? I hope not. The jury’s still out on married life.  When I see it I’ll let you know.

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Posted in Life, Marriage, Personal Development | 2 Comments »

I used to love like a man

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

About 10 years ago I was falling asleep to Bryan Adams ‘All for love’ and ‘Everything I do I do it for you’. On the other side of my double bed (fully clothed) was my mate and at the foot of my bed on a futon was my now husband and our other best mate. We had had a night of dressing up, drinking and dancing for my mother in law’s 50th. I think.

The songs playing was so very poignant to me at the time. You remember what it is like being a teenager who has just discovered her family of choice. It’s special. It’s adult. Thank heavens I chose well. All of those men are still in my life. All are as good, genuine and strong as they were then. I was as strong as they were then. Not physically, of course (two of them are over 6 feet) but I was as uncompromising, as full-on, and stuck to my guns just as well as they did. If not better. I was seen, excluding the tits, as one of the guys.

Things change. We change. I changed. Where I fit in changed. I am no longer one of the guys. I haven’t been for 5 years. Not since I became a girlfriend.

In retrospect more changed when I became a girlfriend than just the status of my relationship with some close male friends. It was the beginning of the taming of the shrew. I began keeping house, learned to bake, channeled my inner Stepford wife, began to compromise. The way I made decisions changed. The way I loved changed.

As one of the guys my love was direct, action orientated and on my terms. It was almost as though it could be turned on and off. But when it was on intense was the only way to describe it. As Bryan Adams puts it “I’d fight for you, I’d lie for you, walk the wire for you, yeah I’d die for you.”

These days I love like a woman. Feminine love is different. Yes we may take actions out of love and offer umpteen gifts of service, but it is in the spirit of constant love, acceptance and support. It is a borderline compulsion. Where the hell is the off switch? I am yet to find one. Feminine love packs lunches and changes nappies. A woman’s love can be wild and fierce, but in my experience feminine love sounds less like a power ballad and more like a lullaby. Sung quietly in the dead of the night.

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Happily married

Monday, March 29th, 2010

This is effectively my out of office reply. I am currently up the mountains with family and friends and my very very new husband (formerly my old boyfriend and fiance).

I have a habit of running my mouth off drunk. If you have ever had a drunken conversation with me you will know things you wish you didn’t know that you didn’t want to know. (There is a reason I don’t drink often at all.) But there is a time when a propensity to share intimate details with a wordy flair is a good thing – if you happen to be writing your own wedding ceremony.

So without further ado, below are the vows I vowed to my new husband, not 48 hours ago.

In writing my vows, words failed me. How can I express in words a love that continues to grow exponentially? Numbers have even become redundant descriptors – I think we last settled on “I love you infinity*centillion*brazillion factorial”.

How can I express the love I feel at the simple touch of your hand? The acceptance that radiates from your smile? How can I show that each step I take is sured by the foundation of your faith in me. With your support we turn my weaknesses into strengths and with you at my side I set my sights on climbing mountains without doubt or hesitation.

I love you because you are:

• So strong that you hold me together when I am falling apart

• So soft that I fear not when I need a soft place to fall

• So wise that you teach me patience and persistence (and geography, Portuguese and all things geeky)

• So un-judging that I can tell you my deepest secrets and

• So honourable that I know my heart, and my secrets are safe with you

• So unflappable that I am free to be me; wild and gentle as the mood strikes

• So honest that I grow with the guidance of your constructive criticisms &

• So accepting that I am able to explore my depths knowing that you will love all manifestations of me.

Because I love you I promise to see only the highest in you and to honour the best in you by embodying the best of me. I promise to look to your divine heart and to appreciate your humanity, every day for the rest of my life. I will lovingly be your friend, companion, lover, partner, co-parent, yogini, nursemaid, student, teacher, therapist, editor, P.A, Shakti, partner in crime, coach and playmate.

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Tying the knot…

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010

When I agreed to finally end our 5 year engagement and tie the knot, I didn’t expect to have any knots in my stomach. And I don’t. Marriage has been inconsequential in my relationship from the very very early days when we both knew we would be together forever. Since we actually got together after a looong and very fucked up (excuse the French, but no-body could think of a more appropriate term) courtship, nobody has questioned our commitment to each other.

I am looking forward to our wedding weekend. 2 sleeps until we leave for our venue in the mountains and 3 until I am a married woman. Or so my bridesmaids and excited guests keep telling me on Facebook, blogs, SMS and phone calls. I am excited, though not for the reasons they expect. I am nervous, too. But I am not nervous about the declaration of my love for a wonderful man – I am worried that my brownies will not live up to their awesome reputation. Honestly. I am considering making another batch.

A dear friend blogged today about her nervousness regarding my nuptials. I get nervous, only because everybody else is. I am afraid I am missing something. What have I forgotten? Will I get to the top of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle and have the gravity of my marriage hit me like a ton of bricks? Should I be freaking out now, so I don’t later on? I am unworried about my vows. I wrote them in one sitting, with very few revisions. I have known what I wanted to say for the past 5 years. I say these words to my future husband regularly. I tell him what he means to me, beyond the ‘I love you’ so often that we need to find new challenges in our relationship because we are so confident in our union.

Weddings are important. I realise this now, I didn’t when I had panic attacks about guest lists shortly after becoming engaged. I didn’t when 6 months ago I picked this coming weekend –  the weekend of the 5 year anniversary of our relationship – as our wedding day. Weddings are important because they are about love. They are about a couple so in love that their love has overflown their hearts and they want to share it with their friends and family.

Sitting here in my state of relative calm, a secret smile graces my lips. I may the picture of tranquility, but I am sick. I was struck last night with a throat infection. And twice in the past week I have extracted objects from my foot. I am not nervous, but perhaps my body has different ideas.

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