Gratitude

(Thank you PS for the gift of your breast.)

Tears blur my vision, dripping onto the keyboard. My heart is filled with Gratitude. So much Gratitude for so much Love in my life.

Two years ago I created for myself the possibility of being fully self-expressed. And as I manifested that in my life, I found myself struggling with freedom, with feeling truly free to be myself, to be whatever I wanted to be. And then something happened. I had a breakthrough in 'being' and found that I was free to fully express myself as Love. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "be the change you want to see in the world." And this freedom to be the change I want to see in the world, to Be Love, has enriched my life and the lives of those I touch, and the lives they touch. It is a wonderful thing, to know love and to be love, and to feel its presence in my life when it comes back to me, manifold.

In my heart there is sadness and longing and anticipation and joy and... so many things simple and complex. But gratitude and love are foremost. It seems that every day I've been in Portland this year, an extraordinary person has come into my life. And there has been such a sense of urgency to bond with these people, to make that connection that will withstand distance. I'm trying not to mourn the loss of easy access to my friends new and old. At times I am more successful than others, but I am comforted by experience: I know I can maintain deep and meaningful relationships over long distances. And I do plan to come back to Portland often. The sense of community here is so amazing. There is so much going on, so many people committed to doing good things, great things. People committed to helping others and growing and being and sharing and co-creating a livable world.

The pain and loss this year have broken me open in a way that I always feared. These feelings are at times so intense that I find myself unable to breathe, unable to stop the tears. This is what love feels like--the other side we don't want to think about--the side that keeps many of us from being open to love, and to Life. Everything superfluous and unreal, every barrier and mask and inauthenticity was burned away from me and I am standing naked to the world, exposed, pink and new and vulnerable and terrified and people have responded with unanticipated love and tenderness and kindness. Who knew there was so much lovingkindness in the world?

It has been a whirlwind week. Work during the days, play during the evenings, repeat as necessary to satisfy myself and my friends. I have hugged, kissed, nuzzled, danced, wined and dined, tried butter shots, licked chocolate off of body parts, slept snuggled up to a wonderfully curvacious bottom, wandered the halls of a hotel during Orycon in my pajamas, enjoyed an impromptu cleavage convention, watched lap dances, fire dances, and asses dancing under floggers. And that's just the PG to R-rated stuff ;)

And as it hits home that I am leaving this wonderfully expressive, connected, touch-positive community this week, I know gratitude, and love, and grief. But my world is not ending. I am embracing what life brings next, and I will carry this community in my heart and mind, and I will create it anywhere I go, because I am Love.

Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the
sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Winter is coming, and soon the Spring. I will sow the seeds of a new life in a new place and find joy in discovering what grows out of my efforts. Thank you, my friends, for letting me love you. And thank you, so very much, for returning it ten-fold and more. Truly, I am blessed.

Trading anger for peace

I used to be angry. Not an apparent anger--I wasn't irritable, abusive, bellicose or argumentative--but I could be stubbornly contrarian and there was this well of cold rage that sometimes surged upwards and radiated from me as a form of intensity that caused people to take a step (or two) backwards. I was told that I had this calm demeanor, but sometimes my eyes had flames in them, and I radiated an intensity that let people know I was displeased.

But I'm not angry anymore. And what is interesting is that the people who have come into my life the past few years don't believe that I've ever been anything but a very peaceful, loving person. I can tell them that I used to be introverted and angry and averse to attention and they don't believe me. One person, whom I've known just a year, even argued with me about my basic personality type etc. Eventually we agreed that I'm becoming what is possible for me, rather than being limited/stunted by the attitudes and expectations of the past.

I've gotten sexier, too. My appearance hasn't changed much. I don't have this great body or stunning good looks, but nonetheless, I'm more comfortable in my skin, more comfortable with honoring my feelings and being however I want to be in the moment, more peaceful and powerful, and somehow that makes me more attractive on a very fundamental basis. It is wonderful!

How did this happen? Therapy? Yes, but it only took me so far. Self-help books? A few, but there is a difference between reading a thing and 'getting' it. Self-help workshops and seminars? Just one three-course curriculum that transformed how I thought about life.

What happened was, I got a handle on the past and how it ran my life. I made my peace with it, which freed me to live in the present. But before I could do that, I had to understand the Power of Choice. That was the first major thing, and it was a moment of enlightenment. I suddenly understood that I carried the past around like a bundle of burdens and that it was my choice to carry it around or set it down. And I learned that I could set it down and walk away, or I could pick it back up and hump it around until I was ready to let it go. That was freeing, knowing I had the choice, that I wasn't losing anything by putting the past down and leaving it where it belonged--in the past. And suddenly, it all clicked, and I was at peace. Truly, deeply, at peace.

The second breakthrough was that I accepted responsibility for my life, for the choices I had made that brought me where I was, and in so doing recognized that I could create my future by intentionally choosing it--by making choices with my goals in mind. I found this very empowering and today I celebrate the small victories that reveal the incremental progress I am making toward the future I am creating for myself and my life.

The third was the breakthrough I had regarding 'fear'. I recognized that I was afraid. And I learned that everyone else is afraid, too, on a very basic level. And I learned that the difference between people who live ordinary lives and those who live extraordinary lives is that people living extraordinary lives acknowledge their fears and act anyway. They don't allow themselves to be stopped by fear or circumstance. They, to borrow Nike's trademark phrase, Just Do It. And so do I.

Fourth, I came to understand that mistakes happen, that mistakes themselves are often acts of creation, and that it really is ok to make mistakes. I am no longer paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, and I no longer get angry with myself for making mistakes. I accept responsibility for them, do my best to clean up any messes and apologize where necessary, and then let it go and move on.

And lastly--I stopped taking Life personally. Life happens. It happens to everyone, not just me, and if I choose to take it personally-- if I'm always asking "Why does shit always happen to me?"-- then I'm choosing to see myself as a victim of life. And that will not do. When I stopped taking life personally I started living it fully and powerfully. I stopped feeling angry and helpless and stuck. I stopped sitting on the sidelines. I grabbed hold of Life with both hands and started taking big bites, started shaping it to meet my ends, and realized my own freedom. Today, I fully understand that my thoughts and attitudes are causal, creative forces in my life, and I get to choose what I think about my life and how I approach it. And as a woman thinketh, so she is.