A Masterpiece

Once upon a time, I dated an artist. It was a very short romance. As most stereotypes, he oozed charisma. His flirtations were a wide net and I was the catch; inescapable. I had no chance the moment he put his arm around my waist and whispered in my ear, “I think we’re going to be trouble.”

The hooks were in deep. But then came the mood swings, the verbal abuse … the other women. He no longer talked with me, but at me. All conversations were art lectures, or therapist appointments in which I played the role of the incompetent therapist. Listening for hours, not able to offer advice, and leaving more perplexed about “us” then when I had walked in. His narcissism and womanizing revealed itself soon enough and that lead to a swift demise.

I went to a music concert recently and this quote from a song stuck out to me:

"Like a flame not allowed to last very long but how fantastic and strong."

(Frontier Ruckus - If the Suns Collapse)

From my end, our relationship was as short as it was intense. But it was not all bad, because I learned some invaluable lessons. I learned what I will allow and what I will not. I learned that I want to be an equal in a partnership, not a fiddler player of the background music to someone else’s life story. The question this short relationship asked of me was, do I want to be the muse or do I want to be the artist, the creator myself? I have learned I am the creator of my own life story.

So this afterthought isn’t about how to date a creative mind. This is about how to cultivate your own creative power, how to become your own creator.

 At some point you must find the strength within yourself to step out from your partner's shadow. Living in the shadow of an artist can be difficult. Artists are contagiously creative, passionate, and emotional.  They brood in thought and like a mood ring can be 50 colors in one day. Not all these traits are bad. But they can effect you negatively if you let them. The American photographer, Lee Miller, met surrealist artist, Man Ray, when she was 22 years old in 1929. She became his lover and muse. While with him, she managed to learn from his photographic techniques, help run his studio, and become an artist. At 25, Miller left Man Ray and Paris to return to New York and establish a portrait and commercial photography studio with her brother Erik as her darkroom assistant.  She would go on to become an acclaimed photographer for Vogue, serving as war correspondent during WWII.

Lee Miller in Hitler's bath Photo: David E. Scherma © Lee Miller ... http://www.pinterest.com/pin/177329304052472517/

Examine yourself. Who are you and what are you creating? The painter, Frida Kahlo, once said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." Meeting the famous artist Diego Rivera at age 20, Frida wanted his opinion on her work. He replied, “You’ve got talent.” This encouragement and her perseverance would result in the Louvre buying one of her paintings, “The Frame”; the first work by a twentieth-century Mexican artist to be purchased by the renowned museum. Although Kahlo’s fame came posthumously, her authentic sense of self has lived on forever in her art and its admirers. Your creations are eternal.

http://www.friendsofart.net/en/art/frida-kahlo/the-frame

I invite you to create a list of qualities you’d like in an ideal partner. In a 1981 speech given at Yale, the ground-breaking feminist, political activist and journalist, Gloria Steinem stated, “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” Ask yourself if you have the qualities you would like to have in a partner. If you do, that’s great. If you don’t have them, focus on those qualities you lack and see how you can cultivate them. Remember to create your own masterpiece before giving all your paint away to a jackass. Your personal artistry will lead you to making your very own masterpiece if you let it.

http://agypsiblog.com/2013/03/15/femme-fatals-gloria-steinem/

Your Flaws Make You Flawless (and 5 ways to embrace it)

Your Flaws Make You Flawless (and 5 ways to embrace it)

“You are wholeness. Not good, not bad.  Perfect by your imperfections.”

I heard this sentence in yoga class at age 21. From what I can remember, the Yoga Instructor started the conversation with explaining the root of a Sanskrit word, and somehow led into revealing this nugget of knowledge; “You are whole, not perfect, but whole.”

 I was born into a religious community that believed in “Original sin.” Confession was a regular sacrament.  This inherent badness needed to be cleansed from the soul. Yet no amount of Confession would ever clear it away. Cleanliness is next to godliness?

But what if I was enough? Wholly, uniquely myself, without looking for forgiveness or reasons to legitimize my worth? 

We all grow up with societal pressures.  Even with the most emotionally supportive parents, you can’t help but begin to hear “you’re too fat”, “You’re not tall enough”, “….skinny enough”, “…black enough”, “enough.” They say at age nine, girls reach their peak of self-esteem and then it begins to submerge into the murky waters of self-doubt*. 

Over happy hour, I recently spoke about this self-esteem epidemic with a friend. She abruptly broke out into reciting a Beyoncé song, “Pretty Hurts”: 

“Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts/Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst/We try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see/It's the soul that needs the surgery”

I wouldn’t call myself a knowledgeable Beyoncé fan. If I hear her music on the radio I always do turn it up, but I had no idea about this song. As my friend sat across from me, uttering the last line, we both had glimmers of tears in our eyes as the last word, “surgery” dropped heavy on the bar top. The tears weren’t necessarily sad tears; they represented the realization of how delusional we are when it comes to doubting our self-worth.

The idea that you are enough, just the way you are, is an empowering concept - if one allows themselves to believe it. Once you believe that all your flaws make you flawless and that you are not good or bad, but simply you - the whole, limber body, beating heart, breathing you – an undeniable spring is put in your step. Your sulk becomes a strut.

Some people already know their true worth. They hold their heads high and do not question those silly, negative, self-hating thoughts, or believe people that make them feel small. But others need more practice. Case in point – yours truly.

How am I no longer continuing to be my own worst enemy? How am I reversing the unhealthy habit of negative self-thought? What was the first step in my healing? One afternoon, I looked into the mirror in my bathroom. No makeup or shower fog stood between me and my reflection. I had to face my whole self. I stared straight into my eyes and asked, “Do you think you’re worthwhile?”

Whether or not a tear rolls down your cheek doesn’t matter. Let the tears pour, let the words fall out of your mouth, feel the powerful step you just took. By taking this first step you’re beginning to disable and throw away the shitty, cheap, plastic toy block foundation of self-hate you’ve built within yourself.  You are now setting the first stone of a formidable marble masterpiece: a foundation of self-love and acceptance.

Like any significant change, this will take time, patience, and practice. Don’t expect an overnight fix. Don’t get mad at yourself. Some days, it will seem impossible to love yourself. But most days, the smallest effort of self-love will contribute to yielding a bed of roses for your whole soul to lie in. 

Here are some ways I cultivate self-love and appreciate my whole, flawlessly flawed self: 

1. I pamper myself: Mani/Pedi, Restorative yoga class, haircut, new dress, whatever makes you feel taken care of and comfortable.

2. I eat healthy and exercise on the regular: “Your body is a temple.” Treat it with the respect it deserves. Working out to lose weight is fine, but more importantly, you loving yourself by keeping your mind and body healthy. 

3. I do not compare myself to others: “Comparison is the thief of joy” – There is only one you. If you are going to be brave enough to be your authentic self, go all out! Be true to your winning characteristics and improve upon the ones you think you can master more. 

4. I embrace my talents and discover new ones: Do what makes you feel alive as often as possible. If you have a creative spirit, create. Following a passion is the sure way to success. If you have no idea what you’re good at, take a class and see if you uncover a hidden talent. 

5. I find a space to just be: Claim a park bench, library, coffee house, your bedroom and just be. Prioritize taking at least 10-15 minutes every day to just be and connect with yourself. Meditation can help this. 

Ok, no go on with your whole self.  

*http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Mirror_Mirror_Wall/

Bee-friending

Bee-friending yourself

The apiary is a small one, which only a select few know about. It’s located in the courtyard of a monastery.  You can see the monks walking around, or visitors who’ve booked a weekend to get lost from their lives.  There are no cell phones or laptops allowed, and the rooms have no clocks. Yet, no one is alone at the monastery and everyone depends on one another for encouragement, love, food, and peace of mind. Like the bees I tend to at the monastery, the monks and visitors depend on each other to make a thriving community. The stronger the hive the sweeter the honey.

A year ago, I sat on the DC metro thinking about what it would be like to live here.  What would a new life in DC look like?  What kind of friends would I have and where would I get my haircut? I’d have to leave everything I had built to find that out. 

As I was flying back from DC to Austin I got the call.  I was offered the job and four weeks later I was migrating from Austin, Texas to D.C. After three years of living a sweltering, magical existence in Austin, scarfing down breakfast tacos and causing a ruckus on east 6th street, my time in the city had come to a close.  The thirst I felt in Austin was getting drier and I needed to search in another direction. I loved my friends, but they could always fly to come visit me. I had no family, mortgage, or paramour.  I left in three weeks.  If it didn’t fit in a box it was sold on Craigslist.  If it couldn’t be sold it went to the curb and was promptly gone the next morning. Austin being a city of transients, everyone there likes a good deal.

Bees leave their hives for many reasons.  One type of flight is called a “foraging flight” in which the bee flies out of the hive in a random direction in search of nectar, honeydew, pollen, or water. I was seeking sweeter nectar.

I left with a bang. My last weekend I managed to have a fling with the co-worker I’d been infatuated with for a year. It didn’t help that he wasn’t single, but the intensity felt in such a short period made my takeoff that much more charged with rocket fuel.  I felt I had come to Austin how I was leaving it; open to change, slightly heartbroken, confident I was making the right decision.  For the second time in my life I was ready to live in a city where no one knew my name.

The first few weeks you move to a new place are thrilling, exhilarating. You walk around the streets with a smile on your face.  Every face entrances you; every building arch you’re enamored by is one you’ve never seen before.  The inevitable daily drudge has yet to muck up this new city you live in, and for those first few weeks all you can see are the possibilities, the promise, places you never knew existed.

After the first three months faded, real feelings began to set in.  Not the fun ones. I felt achingly alone.  I’d moved before to a different city without knowing anyone, but this time I felt hollower on the inside. I missed the fast fling I had left in Austin, even though I knew there was no way it would’ve worked out with him anyhow.

A week later I got into my first bike accident ever.  In Austin I had lived as a commuter cyclist, with no car for three years and never got in an accident.  This accident in DC seemed even scarier since I wasn’t wearing a helmet. There I was, glass and blood coming out of my forehead from the cut above my eyebrow, dribbling down my favorite late-summer slip dress onto the Adams Morgan concrete beneath me. I could hear the shrieking ambulance sirens approaching.

It was harder to make friends in DC.  Unlike Austin where I had had a grad program acting as a crutch for early friendships, here it was different.  No community to lean on.  Who was I in this new place?

I guess I thought that once I finished high school, studied abroad, graduated college, got my Masters, paid my own bills, lived in a city as a single, independent woman, every question mark I ever had in my head would turn into a period. Instead they all just turned into ellipses and I wondered what I “needed” to do next.  What was next on the checklist? I couldn’t move to a new city again. There was no escape plan in that exhausted idea. 

A man! A man was the only thing missing from my checklist. Maybe once I had him all the ellipses would be periods. Finally, I could take a nap and get some rest. If I had only known the ways of the bees months before I wouldn’t have come to this fear based conclusion. In the hive community the Queen bee births all the brood (offspring). She is the sole source of life. Without her presence there is no hive. It is not a patriarchal system. Although the Queen bee does need Drones (male bees) to produce brood, she relies on her fellow Worker bees (sterile female bees) to help her and the hive thrive and stay strong.

Did I mention I have a proclivity for Ernest Hemingway-like men who are much older than me and make me feel like shit about myself? Well I started dating one of those men. He would fix it all. These months of my heart being high-jacked were ones of struggle, no appetite, and tears. All my energy was spent trying to impress him, getting to know him, lusting after him.  I had no energy or foresight to go make new friends. He would be my key to new friends, a new life; happiness. I was constantly trying to convince this drone that I was worth loving. I listened to him talk a lot, but never did much of the talking. I nodded so much I probably looked like a bobble head. I felt like one too. My head wasn’t really connected to the rest of my body so my soul felt like a big jumbled mess, confused between the head and the heart of my plastic existence.

I was being inauthentic.  I remember sending a “Merry Christmas” email to Ernest Hemingway only to get a response a month later saying, “Sorry we lost touch - you know how that happens when people date?” Another bold, searing question mark. I was back at the beginning. I couldn’t take anymore question marks. 

Darwin was bothered that he could not rationalize the fact that sterile Worker bees would display altruism towards the Queen.  Where did this will come from if they were unable to be encouraged by the possibility of offspring? One theory, “Kin selection,” explains that worker bees are more related to each other than they are to their parents. By helping each other, they are helping themselves to produce a strong, thriving hive, in which genes can be passed down for the generations.

 I didn’t need a drone to complete me. What I needed to practice was Kin selection; find a hive to shelter myself from this raging tornado of abandonment. I didn’t know it yet, but by engaging in a community, I would find strength as well as enhance the community’s purpose. This was the only way I’d feel I was helping myself find the periods to the sentences.

Ever the academic as my student loan debt can confirm, I signed up for an urban bee keeping class. Why Urban bee keeping?  I had never been stung by a bee in my life, much less kept a bee hive. I live in an apartment complex in DC with no backyard. I knew I wouldn’t be building a hive my first bee season, but I wanted to learn about bees. They seemed like a blue print for a perfect community. They seemed so in sync with one another and mysterious to me. 

When a new Queen Bee is introduced to the hive, she is lowered into a hive encased in a glass vessel, with a cork made from sugar.  As the weeks go by, the bees get used to the Queen and her pheromones as they slowly eat away the sugar cork.  I desperately wanted someone to eat away at my sugar cork and let me burst free from this glass house I’d been living in.

My class became my colony; the hive from which I entered and was enriched by. Each Saturday I woke up early to get to bee class.  I even had a man ask for me to sleep over at his house after a long night of kissing. I wasn’t feeling him that strongly anyways, but it was fun to say, “I can’t, I have an urban bee class tomorrow morning!” and receive the strangest face ever. That’s how I knew he wasn’t really for me. The bees saved me from another Ernest Hemingway.

I no longer cared about completing my checklist. I only cared about the bees, and questioning the question marks. What else did I want to do now that I had freed myself from a checklist existence? What else was I here to do?

My purpose is not to be the world’s greatest bee keeper. But taking the class got me out of my comfort zone, led me to question my insecurities, embrace new people, and make new friendships. Even if I was a newbie and had no clue what I was talking about when it came to bees, I was now a part of a community. There was no winning or losing and all my hellos were received with smiles when I sat in my classroom chair.

 

Because of bee class I had someone to spend a Sunday brunch with. And not just one person, but a swarm of people. As I sat on the patio that Sunday, sipping a mimosa under the early spring sun in the cool breeze with my new found friends, I realized there were periods at the end of the sentences in my head. And the ones that ended in question marks did not scare me anymore. I had found my place in the hive.

Elizabeth Gilbert: Success, failure and the drive to keep creating

https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating

Build you house and don't budge from it.

I'm in the waitress phase.

breakthrough.

For the first time in a LONG time, i felt whole. I felt that everything I needed, I had. I wasn't wanting anything, I wasn't missing anything; I felt truly complete. It happened at yoga last night and it was a personal highlight for me this year.  I was in the half moon pose!!!

i have been getting signs lately. and it's getting me really excited. I can hear my intuition clearly now and I'm confident it's leading somewhere magical. for awhile there, I couldn't hear it at all and didn't know what to do. I was feeling shame, guilt, and apologizing for no reason.

my future goals are more visible now, but i am also trying to live in the present. it's a balancing act that only gets better with practice. that's what I've learned these past few months.

ALSO can i just say, "The Four Agreements" has been an amazing read these past few months. It may seem at first like hippe bullshit, but it is a book which has reminded me about things that are key to have in finding personal acceptance, contentment, confidence. 

The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam

I read an article about genetic memory: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25156510

It got me thinking about other things, like past lives.

I spoke to a close friend of mine a few weeks ago. We determined if we did in fact have past lives, we knew exactly who we were in those lives. I was an Italian Prima Donna opera singer at some point. I'm positive. Why, you may ask?

 

• i am in love with love
• i love to sing, and am quite a good singer actually
• i love theatrical drama
• i love character driven stories
• when i was in italy, it felt like a new home to me
• i am obsessed with italy in general
• i am obsessed with italians 
• i love art, art history
• i am sassy and can be a bitch if need be
• i usually have ridiculous, insane love affairs

The friend that spoke with me on the subject believed she was an ex-groupie from California in the 1960s.



She said she didn't fear life struggles as much, because she knew she had lived life once before, her past life.
"Don't you get that feeling, like, 'Well, it worked out before so it's going to all be fine again.' "

I think i can relate to that. Also -
isn't it odd when you get an "at home" feeling in a brand new place, like you have been there before or are from there?

And what about when you meet someone, and feel as though you know them, even after only speaking with them for a short time. I'm convinced at least two of my past lovers I have known in a previous lifetime. Stuff that I felt and things that happened between us were just too coincidental to ignore.

Isn't it in the Disney movie, "Sleeping Beauty" that illustrates this concept of love so well?

I know you
I walked with you once upon a dream.
I know you
The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam
Yes, I know it's true
that visions are seldom all they seem
But if I know you, I know what you'll do
You'll love me at once
the way you did once upon a dream

The opposite could happen as well. Predetermining your taste for a place or person due to an uneasy feeling or energy you sense from them.

This unexplained comfort/discomfort could just "be" the way it is. But the Cosmos seem so deep and mysterious, I think there is something to the concept of past lives, past journeys, a past experience we are not fully conscious of.