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It’s been some time since I have written to you all. I’ve been so busy this past month that I can’t believe how fast the month has gone and that we have entered the wonderful season of everything pumpkin (pumpkin latte anyone?). It’s no wonder that the month has flown by with everything that has been happening recently. Starting a new job, meeting new people and nurturing lasting relationships, coming up with a research proposal and thus a senior project. It’s both amazing and terrifying how quickly time passes. Recently, I’ve even had some time to relax and do some fun girly things. However, lately one topic has really been dominating my thoughts.

What does it mean to me be emotionally open?

That is to say what does it mean to me to not be guarded emotionally? And furthermore, what does it take for me to be open and honest about my emotions? And how does my expression of emotions affect the people around me? How does it affect how I carry myself?

You see, sometimes I really feel that I can be all talk—like because I tell someone to be confident and to not worry, that I should always be confident and never worry. That I should never have any insecurities or get embarrassed or feel humiliated about something that has happened. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. That feeling that perhaps you’re nothing but a fake. That feeling of doubt that you’re actually doing the opposite of what you intended. Y’know that feeling. It was interesting for me, as I was recently laying in bed thinking about my man and how I was very much upset about not seeing him for four months (I had gone home to Southern California two weeks after meeting him for three months). Anyways, I was lying in bed one night and I was crying because I had had a really rough week and I was crying because I wanted nothing more than to see him. I became naggy and demanding—I wanted him to come and see me, but I it had never even crossed my mind that I could make the effort to go and see him. I was lying there and I realized that I love this man. I love that he works so hard and that he is so focused (while I am often a bit scattered) that he is so understanding and forgiving.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine as he was getting ready to go to a party, and he said to me, “You’ve mellowed out over the summer. I don’t know what it was but it mellowed you out. You use to be a real uptight bitch. More than you are now.” I thought about it and I said, “It’s probably all the shit that went down with Tyler (my ex)” and he said, “Probably.” I thought about it some more and I told him, “You know what, I owe Tyler. If it wasn’t for him and the awful crap that followed after the break up, I don’t think that I could have had any compassion for Kevin and what he’s gone through.” You see, the man that I love so much as suffered greatly. He was once engaged and then his ex-fiancé break it off with him. Telling him that she wanted to sleep with other men. I won’t pretend to get it because I don’t get it. I don’t believe that I will ever get the aching pain that must accompany such an awful experience. However, I do believe that I can have compassion for him. I believe that if I had never experienced heart ache that I couldn’t even begin to have compassion for him. I also believe that, from my heart of hearts, that we don’t stop loving our past loves, rather we make more love and give more love.

Yet, I know that love isn't alway smooth or always on a high note. I believe that love is having respect for my partner and for myself through the highs and the lows. The thick and the thin. I am an emotional being–an emotional spirit. I experience many emotions in a week and in a single week. It's perfectly normal for me. However, I also know that my soul holds on to past events, past feelings. From time to time these past feelings come forth from their deep depths. Occasionally, I worry that I project these past emotions onto people who are currently in my life. 

A Simple Introduction

Time seems to pass so quickly. Each moment carried on the wind, constantly moving forward to a new time and place. So it’s strange how as human beings we take this for granted. We’ve forgotten how fragile life is despite how strong we seem to be.  It has been in my experience that while I have had this realization many times before that I am always blown away by how fast an event has come and gone.  How the present becomes memories in the distant past. It seems like not too long ago I was beginning a new chapter of my life and already I am half way through it. It’s already been half way written and a new chapter is in the making.

Perhaps, we as human beings, myself included, take the present for granted because we are so focused on our every day activities that we never really take the time to genuinely appreciate ourselves let alone the world around us. That is to say that we see the trees as just trees, job as work, food as fuel, lover’s as the person who helps us get by, etc. Though do we ever really appreciate them? From our very core?

Rarely.

We mostly seem to be blind sided by these brief realizations that we are not infinite beings. That everything is temporary and comes to an end.

We become so caught up in the every day hustle and bustle of our lives that we seem to literately forget how to live. We’ve killed others and ourselves! It seems that we have been conditioned to go about every day in a strict routine with no room for any spontaneity. Like we have to give ourselves permission to want to do something that strays from our mundane routine, but we rarely actually stray from that routine.

It has been in my experience that too much routine can drive a person mad. Worse yet we don’t even seem to realize that we’ve gone mad nor have we been allowed to imagine that there is more than just our daily routine! We’ve come to accept such a low expectation for ourselves that we have become content/comfortable with them. That is to say that we will often complain about going to work, taking care of our kids, etc., but we rarely add any excitement to our own lives let alone other people’s lives. Instead, we encourage a mediocre lifestyle. 

When we ignore ourselves, our needs, we become increasingly deader inside. Others don’t feel our energy. And it is this energy that we give out that others respond to. And when we don’t radiate our energy, we fail to be our true selves. We attract people who are toxic to us. Who encourage us to be less than what we are. And we in turn have a tendency of following suit, continuing the cycle.  

So what can we do to stop such a destructive cycle?

We have to commit ourselves to higher standards for ourselves and commit to our own personal journeys to becoming our best selves. 

Why continue to invest so much of our energy to belittling each other? Bringing one another down? Why continue to be small? To take?

I believe that in order to truly commit ourselves to become our best selves, that we must make the conscious decision to be our core selves. To embrace who we really are at the end of the day, when no one is around. However, we must do this while people are around. We must give our presence to the people that we care for most. You see, in my experience it becomes all too easy for us to fall into our everyday patterns when we are with the people that we claim to love.  It’s funny isn’t it? That the people that we love so much, we also hurt the most in our actions by being shut off to them. I believe that we must use our energy to better ourselves. We must delve into our spirit and free what has been caged up and hidden for so many years.

So, it’s all-well and good, to say what we should do, but what actions can we take? In my experience here are a few actions that have worked well for me:

·      Embrace your emotions fully and completely feel them. We really feel our emotions as women when they become physical for us. This does not mean that these physical feelings will necessarily be difficult but they could be uplifting as well.

·      Appreciate and acknowledge our fears.

·      Give to yourself and others.

·      Discover your inner resources.

You see, I believe that we can’t fully appreciate the life that we ‘live’ (as it seems like we more or less go through the motions of living but we don’t actually experience life as it was meant to be lived) unless we feel the appreciation from our most inner of inner beings. Until we do so, we aren't really living. We rob ourselves of our full potential and live mediocre lives.

Questions? Thoughts? Leave a comment below.