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Posts Tagged ‘divorce’

Get Your Wings

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2008| 7 Comments »

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It was a great album by AeroSmith and something I’ve been thinking about for several days. I feel a theme coming on it’s about transformation I even created a new page about a transformation I’ve been going through over the past year, actually since I started blogging and during the time I took off from writing on here. I always write, sometimes it’s stories and that is what I have been working on a story of transformation. A lot has occurred to me over these months and some of it is worth posting.

I have scenes that play over and over in my mind, like old movies and these have kept me stuck in the past. I think we all do. 2 such scenes involve interactions I have had with significant men in my life. One day as I was walking down the hallway when I was 10, I looked up and saw my father in his usual seat at the kitchen table, eating. Seems he was always eating, or preparing to eat. A big man. An Old man, and still just a man, he was in the habit of saying whatever he thought without censor. He was also in the habit of extending his pinky whenever he held a cup. He was dark skinned with hairy knuckles and black rimmed glasses. I didn’t like looking at him and liked his manner of speaking even less. Often his tyraids went on for several hours, during which I would zone out. He liked to call me unconscious and felt a strong urge to get my attention by slapping me in the back of the head.

On this particular morning as I walked down the hallway towards the kitchen I averted his glance, said good morning and attempted a bee-line down the front stairs. He barked out, “Your getting so fat you look like the broad side of a barn!” Your mother and I are going to put you on a diet and I will pay you $1.00 a pound for every pound you lose. From then on I was feed pre-specified meals and could not eat what my brother and sisters ate. I lost 30 pounds. Thus began a life time of self recrimination and stupid ass diets.

Fast forward to the second scene that plays over and over in my head. My Ex on the eve of our decision to part ways and a night I spent crying. I wrote a post that highlights the beginning of that evening called, “The Vagabond and The Poacher“, but what happened next is not something I have been able to write about until now. You see when we came home that night he informed me that he had compiled a list of pros and cons to help him decide whether or not we should stay together. When I asked to see his list he said it wouldn’t be a good idea and that showing it to me would be in a word, mean. So I asked him to tell me what his conclusion was and he said that pros and cons were about equal, except for one item, basically a deal breaker. He told me that I had a beautiful face, but that he was disgusted by my body and could not have sex with me. I was, of course, devastated and spent the rest of the night on the couch with a box of kleenex. He spent the night sleeping soundly in our bed. I had already been replaced with a younger, slimmer model, and while I had a strong intuition about this, it took a while to confirm it.

There is a reason I am sharing all this and it is about getting your wings and transforming into someone who can look in the mirror and see themselves as the best thing since sliced bread. It’s about transforming into someone who doesn’t give a shit about what other people think. It’s about transforming into someone who can fly, finally, after years of crawling along in a cocoon of victimhood, self deception and denial. You see while I recognize how awful the men in my life were, I also recognize that they gave me a gift. This may sound odd, but something in me rose up against what they were saying and said, this is more about you than it is about me and if you don’t like me you can leave. But, and when I did it I was blaming them. I was taking it all personally and so I got hurt, even though I knew deeply that it had nothing to do with me at all.

People often believe that transformation is something that should just happen, you know you wake up one day and you are better, but I’m here to tell you that this is the furthest thing from the truth. Transformation is a harsh, ugly, painful experience that once gotten through will leave you feeling refreshed and alive. Yes, do think of the butterfly who must knaw it’s way out of it’s shell, or the baby chick, or reptile. They fight for it and if you are looking at it via time lapse photography it might even seem quick, but we don’t know what’s going on inside that shell, nor do we have any concept of what time feels like for that being.

Getting your wings is all about acknowledging those distractions that keep you in the cocoon. Is it food? Is it alcohol? Is it drugs? Is it Coffee? Is it sex? Is it television? What the fuck is it? We all know what it is we just don’t like to admit it, but it’s back there scratching away at the shell whispering. It says if you stop doing this you will fly!

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Let’s Talk About Sex . . . and The Single Girl

Posted in codependent, dating, divorce, internet dating, love, marriage, relationships, tagged , , , , , , , on November 20, 2008| 6 Comments »

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Okay, okay, okay! Let’s start this out by asking a good question about sex and the urge to have it as an impetus when we are gearing up to date again.

As you may or may not know I have been putting off dating in order to give myself a chance to determine what I like, I’ve been dating myself first, and I have come to a determination of what characteristics I want in a man, what I value the most and also what type of person I would be compatible with. To my mind this could be a tall order to fill, since I’m pretty far off from the traditional “gurl” and can be quirky, odd, free-willed and independent to a fault. Plus I tend to be a loner and have difficulty believing that I could find someone who I would want to see every single morning, bad breath and bed head and all. And I have decided to put myself out there and see who I meet. The venue you ask? Well, what else but the internet for me? I’m basically a recluse in a town where your choices of available men are 2, the Rednecks and the Jocks, well there is some odd bred in between the 2, but they are hard to find, usually married or just plain weird. You do have your geeks, but they are off somewhere at computer conventions, I think.

But I digress. The thing is when you’ve been single for a long time something starts to happen biologically, maybe it’s the biological imperative, I think I’m too old for that. Maybe it’s a monthly hormonal imbalance. Maybe it’s just plain human to want to get your groove on with the opposite sex. Whatever it may be, I’ve been having a lot of it lately, and this gives me cause for concern, since there ain’t no way I’m jumping into bed with some normally un-dateable dude just because I have an itch I need to scratch.

I know there are women out there who are going to think I am not into the feminine movement because of what I’m about to say, but frankly Maude, I don’t give a shit!

The way I see it, no matter what you try to tell me or convince me of, men and women are biologically different, and equipped differently as well. I thought I would point that out in case you hadn’t noticed. It’s this difference in equipment that makes the sex act a completely opposite experience for each partner, duh. Let me splain, you see when women have sex they are taking in the man’s energy, when men have sex they are expending energy. Now, I don’t know about you, but I want any energy I take in to be fully qualified to enter. This goes for the people I surround myself with too, but it is most important when I’m deciding who to couple with. Nuff said!

So even if your hormones are calling, don’t date that dude unless he is well qualified, because you’re the one who has to deal with the repercussions later, and a hot bath won’t get it done.

As a result of all this thinking and reminiscing about errors in judgment I have made in the past I’ve decided to make a list to help you decide if you’re just too horny to date safely.

· You’re a 46 year-old woman who thinks about sex as much as a high school boy

· Your mind begins to wander whenever you see something long and cylindrical

· You’ve cycled through 12 sets of C batteries and 9 sets of doubles AA’s and you and the guy at the porn store are on a first name basis

· Formerly un-dateable dudes seem oddly alluring?

· You believe you could make millions by developing a perfume named, “Odoor-D- Sex”

· Paying for sex makes logical sense

· You actually know “why the caged bird sings”

· You have developed a deep empathy with cats-in-heat

· You would give your eye teeth to catch a ride on the back of a motorcycle

· You and your stationary bike have developed a personal relationship

· You haven’t had a “headache” for years

· You keep checking your calendar to see when your next Brazilian is, the last one was so erotic

· The cashier at the grocery store keeps asking you why you buy so many cucumbers

· Chocolate has lost it’s appeal

· You have amassed a large collection of Thongs, but don’t remember buying them

· Anything that vibrates is gold

· People keep asking you why you are so jittery

· You buy men’s cologne to spray on and then keep smelling yourself

· You go to home stores and strike up conversations with random male employees

· Tight jeans feel good

Word to the wise or soon to be wiser, if you can answer yes to 5 or more of these statements you may want to reconsider dating until the urge passes, and it will pass, especially if you start cruising some photos on one or more of the dating sites, this is enough to make a sane woman stone cold sober. This should be a very interesting experience for me . . .

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Don’t Be Afraid!

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , on July 30, 2008| 2 Comments »

“In order to learn the important lessons in life one must, each day surmount a fear.”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Many times when we talk about being afraid we jump right to being afraid of the big things like disasters or mugging or murder, stuff in horror movies or even what’s on the news, which I like to avoid at all costs. And in some ways we live in a society governed by fear and sometimes it feels like we are always on guard looking around us and being paranoid, but I think the big fears cause us to lose sight of the little fears, the underlying fears that are with us all the time! In fact sometimes we are afraid of things that we aren’t even consciously aware of. Fear of what’s going to happen in the future, fear of rising gas prices, fear of losing our jobs, fear of never finding a partner, fear of gaining a few pounds, fear, fear, fear. Most of the time our fears are irrational, or unsupported by truth and contribute to an almost constant state of anxiety that feels normal.

I was thinking about this the other day while I was getting a root canal, while I was literally having a panic attack in the chair and the endodontist and his nurse were telling me to breathe I had to ask myself what exactly I was afraid of? What’s worse is that I was stressing the procedure all day and had all I could do not to cancel it out of fear. I had to push myself through the fear of the procedure, an irrational fear, in order to get the work done. And within the fear of the procedure were included like a hundred mini fears, including paying out the money and how that would effect my already huge payment load, and it just went on and on until I was in a little mini frenzy. See I do stress the small stuff, while logically, what experience has shown me is that I always come out alright. I always come out on the other side, fine and dandy and usually if I am lucky I learn something from the experience, even if it takes a while for that learning to kick in.

Often when we think about surmounting our fears we think of fear of flying, or jumping out of an airplane and we go to seek out thrills that will help us over come it, but what I am going to do rather than run out and do the bungee cord thing is to search my mind for the little daily fears that I may not be aware of and then surmount them by telling myself that it ain’t no big thang and when the fear creeps in I’ll address it and then one fear at a time I will eventually become fearless. Some really smart person cornered the market on conquering fear when they said, “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself!” And if you really think about it you will realize that in most situations where you are afraid it’s the fear that rules you. Fear has it’s place but let’s face it, fear should be used with caution and in circumstances where it is healthy and justified, not in everyday living where it is defined as stress. So figure out what fears you and let it go! I believe fearlessness is the key to freedom of self and self mastery. Imagine how you would feel if you weren’t afraid of anything . . .

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Serenity Sunday

Posted in codependent, dating, divorce, love, marriage, relationships, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2008| 5 Comments »

Pamper Yourself ~

What have you done for you lately?

I was sitting at my good friend’s hair salon yesterday, for hair day, and being the “watcher” that I am I was noticing how much all of the patrons were enjoying the services they were receiving, be it a color, cut or shampoo and then it dawned on me that this appointment, usually scheduled every 4 to 6 weeks, might be the only me time they got. Hmmm? It was probably a little slice in the time slot of their weekly schedules that they had all to themselves, away from responsibilities of home and family, work and stress and I wondered if they even noticed how much they were loving it? We all need me time, alone time, time to be pampered and looked after. And sometimes simply adding something like a monthly massage or pedicure or manicure can be the key to helping us enjoy life a whole lot more. We often do it and aren’t aware of it, or we don’t do it and feel like something is missing from our lives.

I’m the self indulgent type, so I usually treat myself to little gifts, massages, waxing, (doesn’t seem like a treat), facials, pedicures and once for 6 months in a row I had flowers delivered to my door, (monthly). I even wrote myself a note telling myself how marvelous and incredible I was. In essence I sent myself love during a time when I was feeling slightly unloved. We can fulfill our own needs and often the best way to achieve this is by identifying them. Are you feeling like you never get touched? Schedule a massage! Come on, you know you can afford it if you save up weekly, it will give you something to look forward to! Are you feeling like you can never be alone add something stupid like an hour walk for yourself, you don’t even have to take the dog, just tell everyone that’s what you are going to do and then do it, people around you can adjust to your needs as long as you communicate it them properly. Are you feeling like you need a change? Go to a hair salon and do it, get a haircut, and color, and guys can do this too and they can get massages, pedicures and take walks. The best place for me to walk is by the water. Most states have a register of hiking trails, albeit they can be difficult to find, but then it becomes and adventure. Walking by large lakes, rivers and of course the ocean are all places I can lose myself. Pampering yourself doesn’t have to be about money indulgence it can just be about finding something to do that is outside of your normal routine, something that you have always wanted to do and that you never seem to find the time for. If it feels like work you aren’t pampering yourself, if it feels like fun, if it feels like something you can lose yourself in especially if you forget about time when you are doing it you know you’ve found the one thing you’ve been longing for, that one thing to complete you and when you do it you improve your relationship with yourself. You complete you! Contrary to popular opinion, self indulgence when done in the light of self care is a good thing and we all, everyone of us is in need of it, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. Figure out what you need, what is missing and then fill the void. You’ll feel a lot better and you will have more to give back to the world!

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Are You Dating Him or His Representative?

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , on July 24, 2008| 9 Comments »

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”

~Oscar Wilde

A wise friend once told me, that for the first year of every relationship you are not dating the person, you are dating their representative! Pretty funny, right? I believe this is fundamentally true. I think in love relationships as in life we all wear masks. Not to say that this is a bad thing. I mean we, most of us, would act differently around out mothers than we would around our closest friends and even our bosses and co-workers. This is how we navigate in society and while our primary M.O. is usually constant we are adaptable and able to change when circumstances require it. So it goes without saying that when we are dating we do what we can to make the best impression on a potential partner. Some people are better at this than others and it may take a lot longer to get to know those people than it does to get know people who are not so good at it.

I was told over and over again by my X and by my daughter in particular that I should try to be more like the former. I am too right out there with what I am thinking. I have often been told that I am TOO honest, if that’s even possible, and that I need to learn when to keep my mouth shut. In essence in “love” relationships, especially in the beginning less is more. But what the fuck is up with that? I am not good at coy disguises and I believe that being up front with someone is the most important quality a person can have, but you know, when you hear it from more than one person you start to question yourself and your primary beliefs and worse yet you start to question the true motivation of others. Am I dating him or his representative? Is it real or is it Memorex? Since I am up front and out there with everything almost right from the beginning, I unconsciously believe that everyone else is too! That for the most part people are as honest with me as I am with them and that simply is not true. Alternatively people who are secret keepers and who are less honest also believe that everyone else is like them and that must truly suck! In some ways dating is like a really long job interview and I was never too good at those either, telling more than was necessary of the truth and failing miserably as well. I think that is why I work for myself. I can’t stand bullshit artists and I simply don’t bullshit well, unless I have too, then I am a fabulous liar, but never in my personal life and I hate the idea that I have to alter my personality to be coy and mysterious when I’m not and eventually I will be found out, I mean eventually when you live with someone everything comes out doesn’t it? And wouldn’t you like to know everything sooner rather than later? I certainly would! Probably not on the first date or even the second or third, but definitely before I crawl into bed with you.

I was talking to another close friend about a surgery I am scheduled to have and before I chose a surgeon I interviewed 5 doctors and still I was afraid I had chosen the wrong one. I said, “What if my bad choice in men bleeds over into the way I choose surgeons?” Being the highly intelligent creature she is, (My friends are so smart), she said, “But you’ve done your homework, you’ve done the research, it’s sad, but true, that most people never do any research about their love interests or the people they date, they simply jump headlong into the relationship without finding out who they are with or what their track record is!” I found that answer to be a little bit of genius and I promised myself I would never get into another relationship with someone without doing my homework! It makes too much sense not to!

How do you know if you are dating him or his representative?

Well, pay attention. I’ll say it again pay attention. Peek behind the mask. Watch how he acts around friends, his mother, his children and if he isn’t willing to let you into that world where you can observe him, don’t let him into your pants! That is the mistake I have always made in the past, only to find out later that he treated his mother like shit and his home looked like an atom bomb went off inside spewing debris everywhere or I’ve seen the alternative where his home was so meticulous that he alphabetized his canned goods, it should have been a warning to me, but that warning came too late because I had already gotten too intimate too soon. For me and probably for most women, (not all), having sex equates to feeling really connected to someone and then the blinders go up because we want more and then it’s too late to nip it in the bud. So find out if you are dating him or his representative before you let the relationship get physical. It’s only good common sense, unless you just want to get laid and then it doesn’t really matter does it?

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Serenity Sunday

Posted in love, tagged , , , , on June 22, 2008| 2 Comments »

I read this story earlier in the week in response to something a friend of mine is going through. What it says to me is that we can’t always see why circumstances happen, we don’t know when we are in the middle of something devastating what purpose it will serve. We tend to listen to the voice in our head that tells us everything bad that can happen will happen, forgetting that life is a mixture of experiences, rather than accepting the fact that the only constant in the world is change and change can feel devastating especially when it is forced upon us without our consent, especially when that change is one that is our of our control, sometimes we have the mistaken belief that we can control everything and when life goes wrong we are reminded that we control nothing, except how we handle the circumstances. So here’s a little reminder that we don’t always see in 3 dimensions.

When Your Hut’s on Fire

The only survivor of a shipwreck was washed up on a small, uninhabited island. He prayed feverishly for God to rescue him. Every day he scanned the horizon for help, but none seemed forthcoming. Exhausted, he eventually managed to build a little hut out of driftwood to protect him from the elements, and to store his few possessions. One day, after scavenging for food, he arrived home to find his little hut in flames, with smoke rolling up to the sky. He felt the worst had happened, and everything was lost. He was stunned with disbelief, grief, and anger. He cried out, ‘God! How could you do this to me?’ Early the next day, he was awakened by the sound of a ship approaching the island! It had come to rescue him! ‘How did you know I was here?’ asked the weary man of his rescuers. ‘We saw your smoke signal,’ they replied.

The Moral of This Story: It’s easy to get discouraged when things are going bad, but we shouldn’t lose heart, because God is at work in our lives, even in the midst of our pain and suffering. Remember that the next time your little hut seems to be burning to the ground. It just may be a smoke signal that summons the Grace of God.

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Fess Up, It’s Friday!

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 23, 2008| 6 Comments »

This is not the confessional part of our program today, no it’s another fun and exciting program to play with when your bored and feel like having a little bit of fun. Above you will see my first cartoon. In general I am not that funny, and I wish I was, but I know the comedians out there who are filled with brazen, cheeky humor would love to get their hands on this little link, it’s called comic strip generator and if you are really creative or even if your not you can spending many hours creating meaningless funnies to share with your friends. I found this link on Bookbabies blog and I am always delighted to go there. She continually finds the best stuff on the web!

Okay now I’ve shared that it’s onto fessing up!

This is really hard to admit and I was thinking of making a “post secret” and never mentioning it at all, but I have promised myself that I would blog it all out on here even if it’s uncomfortable because admitting to something out loud or in writing helps me to pick it apart and I know I have a personal journal for that, but since I’ve been blogging I don’t use it too much.

You see, since my ex-husband left me, basically for another woman, I have not been able to get him the fuck out of my head. I had been seeing a therapist about this for sometime, but she being the upstanding, highly moral woman she was, said that many of the emotional problems I was having could be attributed to my physical health problems, (mainly thyroid, insulin and hormonal), and that I should stop seeing her until I got my “system” under control, and since I could not afford to pay her and pay for health insurance at the same time we decided it would be best for me to get the insurance. Which I have done and I have already written about the results of that and my plan is in action.

I initially went to see her because of my obsessive thinking process and my addiction to love. I wanted to learn how to change my thinking process and push the thoughts of my X, which were all consuming, all the time, out of my head and think about something else! She unlike other therapists believed in a method that is not about rehashing the past but changing your thinking right now, in the moment. Because the past is the past! And I learned a lot about re-focusing and changing my programming and living in the moment. This is the key to letting things go, but also in the moment I have a lot of anxiety and rage, but basically it’s shame for still missing someone who was so consistently rotten to me, but at the same time he was my touch stone. You know the one person in the whole world who you can tell anything to! I mean even that dark, dirty stuff that you NEVER admit to anyone. I have not shared some of this stuff with my best girlfriends and now that he is gone I feel like I have lost that forever and I am having the hardest, hardest time recovering from it.

Most of the time I just pretend he died. Yeah, it’s kind of morbid, but in a way he HAS died. He has disappeared off the face of the Earth never to be heard from again. Sometimes when I have a really difficult life situation to deal with I imagine what he would tell me to do and this helps a lot. See I am not very practical or logical and he was just the opposite. His emotions didn’t rule his decisions. I suppose he was like everyone else when they dole out advice, he could see things clearly because he wasn’t in the situation, so he had perspective, but also because he knew me better than anyone. I trusted him with everything and now I feel like such an asshole because none of it mattered to him at all. He is guilty of the ultimate betrayal and of course I can never forgive him for that, but forgive is what I must do. After all he is just as human as I am and he did what he had to do to live his life. I suspect it was incredibly hard for him to live with me and my neurosis day in and day out. I will never be sure why he thought he could handle it to begin with. I will never be sure why he asked me to marry him and now that he is married again I can see the sickness in him too, and everything becomes clearer.

I have come a long way from where I was a year ago and I am healing this, but even when I go for hours at a time without thinking about him, since a full day has yet to go by without my doing that, I dream about him at night. Sometimes weeks will go by without dreams and then they come on with a vengeance and of course the next day is filled with thoughts of him. This is a cycle that has been occurring regularly for me since he left in 2005 and I keep a dream journal. I keep wondering when it is going to stop. How long can we grieve for someone who is dead to us? Or will we ever stop grieving? I know I am not ready to date anyone else yet, but a distraction would be nice and it wouldn’t be fair to the person I was seeing. Certainly what I am doing is an experiment in healing because I have not just gone out with someone else. I have to wonder though if it would just be easier to do that, like he did. So I would not have to feel the pain of losing him. So I could bury the pain by focusing on someone besides myself, that’s what I have always done, but the fucked up thing is that I just can’t. I feel like something is/was missing in me for all those years and I am finally now just noticing it. I don’t want to jump ship before it all becomes clear, before I solve this thing once and forever. So I never have to experience it again!

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Is it Our Duty to be Happy?

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2008| 3 Comments »

Recently I have been very interested in finding the key to happiness. Yeah, Yeah, I know this could be described as a universal quest, but regardless of the fact the my journey to adventure is the same as everyone else’s I have set about investigating it. You see in the beginning I thought, erroneously that the key to happiness would be secured when I found a husband. But my error was in thinking that marriage was a magically delicious zone where happiness was granted. What I found out, after the thrill wore off was that I still was not happy, sometimes not even content. I wasn’t in the “best” marriage, with the “best” guy in the world, but at the time I thought he was, so I am factoring that into my happiness equation, but still. I believe that happiness is something I should bring to the relationship and I know that I did, many times I did, but I also brought a lot of other stuff too. Most of it emotional baggage which I’ve written about before. But now that I am single and relying on myself I have been not really reading about happiness as much as doing what I want to find it in my daily life. I am defining happiness as a simple peacefulness that feels warm all under and it’s a place where I am completely satisfied with my own company. It feels like I have a smile on the inside and I also find myself smiling, just because. This is a nice feeling.

While on my quest without really searching I found a blog/website called “The Happiness Project“, because if I have thought of it there is always someone out there who thought of it first. One of my goals is to have an original idea, but this wasn’t one of them. The founder of the site is writing a book and yesterday she wrote about 8 psychological terms to strength friendships. It was an interesting read and if you want to click over it’s up to you. But one of the things she mentioned was “the duty to be happy”. I am not sure I agree with making happiness a duty because I am all for feeling what you are feeling and then acknowledging it somewhere, because happiness is not something that can be forced. I believe that forcing any emotion can lead to repression of what is real. I am not advocating walking around in a cloud of negativity all day either. I think what I am saying is, that in life, in day-to-day existence there are times when we will not be happy and I think it is our duty to admit it, then we can make light of it, then we can clear the air.

Let’s face it, if happiness was a constant there wouldn’t be so many people searching to find it, in books, in religions, in relationships. Happiness is a part of life, one part. Developing a happy spirit to embrace life is another and accepting what life offers is the key!

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Serenity Sunday

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2008| 2 Comments »

And Today the Buddha!

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. -Buddha.

The thought manifests as the word. The word manifests as the deed. The deed develops into habit. And the habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care. And let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings. -Buddha.

As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts. -Buddha.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. -Buddha.

You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. ~Buddha

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed. ~Buddha

Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. ~Buddha

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill. ~Buddha

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. ~Buddha

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule. ~Buddha

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Self-Help Junkie

Posted in love, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

For most of my adult life I have been a Self-Help Junkie. I have hundreds and hundreds of books on the subject, most incredibly say the same or similar things and because of reading so many self-help books I tend to come off sometimes sounding in my writing like a self-helper. I cannot stop myself from wanting to help people to improve themselves and I cannot stop myself from wanting to improve me. My friends simply accept this as part of my personality and for a long while I have accepted that is who I am, doling out advice as if I have all the answers and God love me maybe I do, but who wants to listen to that shit all the time? People do come to me for advice and I love it, but what I have found is that people mostly just want to be heard. Because I have noticed big-time that most people don’t do as they are advised. I know I sure don’t! And let’s face it if I did follow the advice of every self-help book, manual or tape/cd set I own I would be the most enlightened puppy on the planet. You can read stuff, pay a therapist, go to an anonymous meeting or get a psychic reading and still never follow the instructions you receive, it’s called free-will. So if you know this stuff are you required to practice it or just take it all in and see what comes out at the end. I like the saying, “ignorance is bliss” because if I don’t know I don’t have to shit!

Lately though I have stopped main-lining self-help stuff and have in fact sold many of my self help books on Amazon. It’s a truly freeing experience and I have earned some extra cash in the process. But I’ll tell you what at first it wasn’t easy, parting with all those books, some I hadn’t read. Ugh. I hope someone else will put them to good use. So I have been going through this change in realization that I can steer my own ship, make my own way and find my own path without all of this extra-curricular activity and then today I open one of my email messages and this is what I find:

“The Disease of Self-Improvement”

“The very act of trying to improve ourselves causes us to believe that there is something wrong with us in the first place.”

It’s a free report by Dr. Robert Anthony and if you go to his website you can download it. And on his website he also takes comments so I read through them and found this, my favorite one:

“I really like the clarity of your thought and writing, Dr Anthony. This reminds me of an article I read called “From Self Help Addiction To Self Reliance” by Wily Walnut. It is kind of funny though where you start out this report saying so clearly that we have all the answers within and then end it by trying to upsell us to your Real Mind LIfe Strategy system! Hilarious too all the fuzzy-wuzzy SECRET stuff at the back end laced with all the hypnotic commands to ‘STOP RESISTING, START ALLOWING’ and to ‘put yourself into a non-resistant state of mind ! All while reaching for my wallet presumably!! I love it! You are such a rascal! You are really the best at this stuff, so subtle and skilled at it that I really like you even if you are hypnotizing the shirt off me! So, for me, A+ for the front and A- for the back! Thank you for the free report and for all your other ideas so beautifully expressed.”

I did NOT download that free-report since I quit my addiction, but I think that this comment proves that someone will use reverse psychology to sell another self-help book labeled as a non-self-help book as another way to part you with your money and the free report thing is simply a sales letter to hook you in. Great marketing strategy, but I still feel it feeds off of those of us who believe that if they can find the answer in a book life will be golden, but it just isn’t true. I did of course click over to read what Wily Walnut had to say and I liked it a lot and he wasn’t trying to sell me anything a big plus in my book nowadays!

I think the way I am feeling right now can be summed up in a quote, well I have so many:

“People say that what we’re all seeking is the
meaning of life…I think that what we’re
really seeking is the experience of being alive.”
~ Joseph Campbell

So let’s have at it!

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