Sunday, November 10, 2013
Blanket of Love
Love is the great weaver. Each person who has entered our lives and sparked her creativity are colors in our love blankets. When our lives cross, she weaves away smiling beautifully as our individual love blankets grow and become more colorful. The more we reveal about ourselves to those she shines on, the tighter she weaves. For those who have sections of love that has been unravelled, never fear. The great weaver is never finished. Embrace all of her weavings. We are never alone.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Exploring Shadows
Every now and then, my Jungian shadow tickles my feet and demands my attention. My shadow whispers encouragingly to shuck off my socially constructed mask and embrace myself in my entirety. I want to dance, to laugh, to drink alcohol, to sing, and to kiss. I feel passion for many, desire for new experiences, and anger toward anything that ties me down. I feel carnal, lustful, and I long to consume. I feel starved for loud, aggressive, and intense experiences. I want to drive fast, and kiss long and hard. My ears want to devour fast beats, and deep bass notes while my body dives into the sexual resonance of that music and dance until my body refuses to move. I want to look beautiful women in the eyes of their mirrored souls and show them how beautiful they are with my lips while holding them as close as possible.
Ah, but as a married woman, what can I do with my tickling shadow? Many New York Times bestsellers reveal this as where the taboo/secretly desired affair would come into play, but alas the long term effects of such an affair (pun intended) is undesirable at best. After the usual "newness" and intensity that comes with any new relationship is gone, the commitment and companionship usually built in a marriage is absent. Then there are all of the broken hearts after reality kicks back in and responsibility is remembered. Or if one chooses the affair instead, there is a potentially broken family. Nope, just doesn't seem worth it to me. So then what?
For me, the most important remedy for such internal angst is confessing to my wife. Confession, when confessing to an audience that practices unconditional love, is the most cleansing experience. I am so amazed that my wife still loves me after everything I have told her that goes on in the depths of my soul. We have an agreement that if we have a crush on someone else, we will tell each other. We understand that we are just human and we will have feelings of attraction, and if we confess, it's amazing how quickly the crush dissipates. It's like all of my feelings of attraction and infatuation build up like water behind a dam. I can release that pressure by opening the flood gates in an intense affair, or I can confess to my wife that my feelings exist, then a small hole is put in the emotional dam that lets the pressure out slowly. Then these emotions can flow back into the universe and back toward my wife since she has become my focus again via confession. Being honest in our relationship has been incredible. We vowed to each other that we would not take normal wayward human feelings personally. We embrace our humanity in its entirety and recognize our emotional/sexual waxes and wanes.
Another way I embrace my shadow as well as my moral self is recognizing the importance of feeling sexy. A fiery affair can certainly make me feel sexy, but I love my wife and the life we have built together too much to allow that to be the only thing that makes me feel sexy. In my introspectional search for feeling sexy, I recognized that personal grooming/pampering makes me feel sexy. Simple rituals such as long showers, shaving my legs, and washing my face makes me feel sexy. I have just recently recognized the importance of the great feminine face washing ritual, and actually had to ask one of my very good friends who has the best complexion EVER to educate me. The vocabulary in and of itself is exhausting! Cleanser, toner, astringent (doesn't that just sound awful!), and moisturizer is about all I could remember during our first lesson. During our chat, my friend and I discussed how caring for ourselves is important because we value anything we spend time on, therefore we learn how to value ourselves which is empowering. This also reflects a relationship between our external self and our internal soul or emotional self. If we care for our external self, not for others to find us desirable, but because we yearn to value ourselves in our entirety, then our inner emotional self can breathe a sigh of relief from its greatest critique: ourselves. If we do this, we can experience a boost of self esteem and yes even a boost of sexual confidence. I think Bible Belt Christianity's idea of "die to yourself" can be falsely interpreted as refusing to value yourself so you can value others. As I have said before in my blog, I believe it's important to love ourselves before we can love others well.
Lastly, when my shadow tickles my feet, I am tempted to be deviant. I just want to rip myself from the invisible social rules I have entangled myself in and "let loose." Thankfully this comes pretty easily for me since I grew up in the Bible Belt Culture where being deviant can be as simple as cussing or even looking at someone worthy of respect the wrong way. So for me, when my shadow tickles me, a night out can satisfy my wayward desires. Going to a club or bar with my wife and some friends where there is loud music and riskay dancing, and what? Alcohol?! fulfills my desire to be deviant.
The more I grow, the more I realize the importance of balancing the natural duplicity of my human nature. As humans, we are constantly experiencing light and dark emotions, a Jekyll and Hyde if you will. A vast amount of literature addresses examples of how humans handle the onslaught of these bipolar emotions but too often, in the Bible Belt especially, we just run away from emotions our culture has deemed "bad" so we must be "good." However, some will get tired of being so "good" all the time so they will "act out" by embracing their shadow fully. But in reality, we constantly exist with both light and shadow and have the power to choose which we embrace. Why can't we embrace both? Whatever happened to the Pauline idea of moderation? What's wrong with giving a big resounding "SHIT!" in our car after a bad day at work? What's wrong with consuming alcohol responsibly every now and then? I believe we can embrace our duplicitious humanity and still remain socially responsible. I believe we can learn to love ourselves better when we embrace all we are, then we can learn to love others in their entirety.
So let's hang out with our shadow a little and find creative ways to satisfy our completely normal human desires in ways that won't hurt others or ourselves. Let's embrace ourselves and our humanity.
Ah, but as a married woman, what can I do with my tickling shadow? Many New York Times bestsellers reveal this as where the taboo/secretly desired affair would come into play, but alas the long term effects of such an affair (pun intended) is undesirable at best. After the usual "newness" and intensity that comes with any new relationship is gone, the commitment and companionship usually built in a marriage is absent. Then there are all of the broken hearts after reality kicks back in and responsibility is remembered. Or if one chooses the affair instead, there is a potentially broken family. Nope, just doesn't seem worth it to me. So then what?
For me, the most important remedy for such internal angst is confessing to my wife. Confession, when confessing to an audience that practices unconditional love, is the most cleansing experience. I am so amazed that my wife still loves me after everything I have told her that goes on in the depths of my soul. We have an agreement that if we have a crush on someone else, we will tell each other. We understand that we are just human and we will have feelings of attraction, and if we confess, it's amazing how quickly the crush dissipates. It's like all of my feelings of attraction and infatuation build up like water behind a dam. I can release that pressure by opening the flood gates in an intense affair, or I can confess to my wife that my feelings exist, then a small hole is put in the emotional dam that lets the pressure out slowly. Then these emotions can flow back into the universe and back toward my wife since she has become my focus again via confession. Being honest in our relationship has been incredible. We vowed to each other that we would not take normal wayward human feelings personally. We embrace our humanity in its entirety and recognize our emotional/sexual waxes and wanes.
Another way I embrace my shadow as well as my moral self is recognizing the importance of feeling sexy. A fiery affair can certainly make me feel sexy, but I love my wife and the life we have built together too much to allow that to be the only thing that makes me feel sexy. In my introspectional search for feeling sexy, I recognized that personal grooming/pampering makes me feel sexy. Simple rituals such as long showers, shaving my legs, and washing my face makes me feel sexy. I have just recently recognized the importance of the great feminine face washing ritual, and actually had to ask one of my very good friends who has the best complexion EVER to educate me. The vocabulary in and of itself is exhausting! Cleanser, toner, astringent (doesn't that just sound awful!), and moisturizer is about all I could remember during our first lesson. During our chat, my friend and I discussed how caring for ourselves is important because we value anything we spend time on, therefore we learn how to value ourselves which is empowering. This also reflects a relationship between our external self and our internal soul or emotional self. If we care for our external self, not for others to find us desirable, but because we yearn to value ourselves in our entirety, then our inner emotional self can breathe a sigh of relief from its greatest critique: ourselves. If we do this, we can experience a boost of self esteem and yes even a boost of sexual confidence. I think Bible Belt Christianity's idea of "die to yourself" can be falsely interpreted as refusing to value yourself so you can value others. As I have said before in my blog, I believe it's important to love ourselves before we can love others well.
Lastly, when my shadow tickles my feet, I am tempted to be deviant. I just want to rip myself from the invisible social rules I have entangled myself in and "let loose." Thankfully this comes pretty easily for me since I grew up in the Bible Belt Culture where being deviant can be as simple as cussing or even looking at someone worthy of respect the wrong way. So for me, when my shadow tickles me, a night out can satisfy my wayward desires. Going to a club or bar with my wife and some friends where there is loud music and riskay dancing, and what? Alcohol?! fulfills my desire to be deviant.
The more I grow, the more I realize the importance of balancing the natural duplicity of my human nature. As humans, we are constantly experiencing light and dark emotions, a Jekyll and Hyde if you will. A vast amount of literature addresses examples of how humans handle the onslaught of these bipolar emotions but too often, in the Bible Belt especially, we just run away from emotions our culture has deemed "bad" so we must be "good." However, some will get tired of being so "good" all the time so they will "act out" by embracing their shadow fully. But in reality, we constantly exist with both light and shadow and have the power to choose which we embrace. Why can't we embrace both? Whatever happened to the Pauline idea of moderation? What's wrong with giving a big resounding "SHIT!" in our car after a bad day at work? What's wrong with consuming alcohol responsibly every now and then? I believe we can embrace our duplicitious humanity and still remain socially responsible. I believe we can learn to love ourselves better when we embrace all we are, then we can learn to love others in their entirety.
So let's hang out with our shadow a little and find creative ways to satisfy our completely normal human desires in ways that won't hurt others or ourselves. Let's embrace ourselves and our humanity.
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