What you deserve

I have often heard similar sentiments expressed by my friends.  Equally often I agonize over what I want and the apparent lack of receiving it.  What I want most in life is to have a partner and be loved by him.  And yet I never seem to get there.  I’ve experienced one disastrous relationship followed by a series of very short-term experiences or simply one night stands with the wrong individuals.  Some will say that Fate or a Higher Power is preventing one of these individuals from becoming more because I’m destined for someone who I truly deserve.  But when is that ever going to happen?  How long must I wait, how many more unsuccessful experiences, how many more lonely nights and bitter tears before I get what everyone else seems to get with so little effort?  Once there was one who made me feel that I had found that person for me but it didn’t work out; it seems I wasn’t the right one for him.  Intellectually I understand and appreciate that mature decision in that regard but my heart is still sad and my mind is frankly still very jealous and envious that he can simply move on and I cannot.  I begin to move on and then I’m drawn back in again and fall again and then I end up suffering again as I try to fall out of love again and try to get unstuck and move on myself.  I feel like I’m stuck on an endless merry-go-round except it’s not merry when I can’t get off.   And it’s mostly of my own doing.  But some of it isn’t.  Words, actions and body language tell me a confusing story:  the words say “You’re very important to me”, the actions sometimes say “I reject your offers of spending time together or keeping in touch, I’m just too busy” but the body language says “I’m territorial over you.”  I don’t know which to believe as they are contradictory.

It’s been very difficult to go backwards in this.  Perhaps our mistake was not becoming friends first.  It was a mistake in timing, that is very much true.  But should I have clung to a shadow of what we had by readily agreeing to being just friends so that I didn’t lose it all entirely and hold on to a thread of hope in vain for a change of heart somewhere down the line, or should I have been stronger and broke it off completely?  I’ve tried backing away now and he won’t let me go.  I feel claustrophobic, like I need space, like I need to be rid of these negative emotions of jealousy and sadness and abandonment and grief. They weigh heavily on my mind and soul and cause me a lot of emotional pain.  I need to break the cycle, it’s killing me.

I’ve been told that you cannot go back to being friends with a former lover.  And yet as the above sentiment in the poster says, do not settle for less when you deserve more.  I’ve been told to be thankful for what I have and not pine for what I don’t have.  Again, this says to settle for less.  I’m tired of settling, tired of having to accept less in my life than I want.

I want nothing spectacular although I would love to have the grand romantic gesture just like in the movies.  I’m a romantic sometimes, I admit it! lol  I also confess to the darker, less honorable side and say I wish sometimes that I could have the power to walk away first from a relationship for once and have someone realize what a loss it is when I am gone.  A friend of mine has said that nearly every ex of hers has said afterwards that they wish they still had her in their life and they regret losing her.  Yeah, it’s an ego thing but sometimes I wish it was like in It’s A Wonderful Life where I could have the chance to see the impact and just the kind of loss it would be on people’s lives if I was no longer in it, would it really make a difference, would they realize then my true value? Would it change my life like it did in the movie? But not only that, would it change THEIR lives to know it and make them see things and act differently?

I realize I can’t make someone love me the way I want them too, nor can I make the right person appear when I want them too.  I can only try to make myself more loveable and ready for it when it does happen.

I want an intellectual equal, I want a loving companion to work with me through our time together.  I have a lot of learn and I have a lot to teach.  I offer my loving heart, my kindness and compassion, my trust and my life.  I can only  hope that everyone is right and I will find him eventually. Patience is hard.

I deserve it just as anyone else does.

My Bucket List

When I moved from home I decided to create my own proverbial Bucket List of things I wanted to do before I died.  It included some fairly innocuous things but I am happy to say that I have accomplished a number of them already.  Some I cannot share here but I am grateful that I had the chance to experience them.  Some of the ones I can share are:

• Have my future told by a psychic
• Try port and brandy
• Try a martial art
• Be hypnotized
• Ride a horse again
• Go to a rock concert (saw Maroon 5 and Train)

Things I want to do:

• Have my portrait drawn or painted
• Climb the Grouse Grind
• Learn about wine
• Conquer my extreme dislike of flying
• Learn Punjabi and German and use my French more
• Go to Utah to research my genealogy

Gosh isn’t it funny how you can think of so many things right up until you have to document it and then everything just goes out of your head?! LOL  I can’t recall anything else right now so I will have to update this list as things come back to me.

The nice thing about keeping a list like this is that these things, big or small, will give you a sense of accomplishment when you complete a task and give you a chance to keep adding new and exciting things to your To Do portion as you  discover new things in your journey.  Everyone should have their own Bucket List; what’s on YOURS?

Personality quizes

Admit it: personality quizes are a guilty pleasure.  We all want to know what they say about us just as we want to know if our horoscope or Tarot reading is correct about our lives.  It’s fun to sit and compare results with our friends and see if others agree with the assessment.

I just did a quiz on what I want in a partner and this is my result:

The ISSUES that lead to misunderstanding and conflict

• Accomplishment really boils down to social and economic stability — we’re talking about issues like a partner’s profession, level of success and noteworthy achievement, being socially revered and having a respectable lifestyle.
• Physical Chemistry really boils down to raw physical and sexual attraction — we’re talking about issues like a partner’s physical appearance, attitudes toward sex and sensual style.
• Drive really boils down to mental and physical wellness — we’re talking about issues like a partner’s physical fitness, zest for life, energy level and openness to new opportunities.

WHAT YOU “SAY” YOU WANT

Your scores on the “Lost in Translation Test” suggest that you want a man who’s “not overly accomplished but is highly driven and strongly values outward physical chemistry.”

What you “really” want

According to relationship experts, what you seem to be looking for is an “ADMIRER.” An admirer is well-poised to meet the hidden or unspoken needs you might actually be trying to fill in a search for a relationship. An admirer is…

• Someone who doesn’t make you feel like an underachiever, who’ll give you some physical and emotional space so that you can focus on your personal interests and goals.
• Someone who won’t cast a shadow on you, socially speaking, in constantly grabbing the spotlight.
• Someone who’s steady and economically stable but who knows how to balance professional ambition with being accessible to loved ones.
• Someone who feels no need to impress others but instead focuses on the needs of his loved ones.
• Someone who’ll always strive to make you feel attractive, desirable and loved with undivided attention and a sense of physical security.
• Someone who’ll make you feel young and alive with a flirty manner around you, and who’ll renew your passion for life by opening your eyes to new experiences and opportunities.
• Someone who takes pride in his appearance and works at being attractive to you inside and outside the bedroom.
• Someone strives for longevity by being true to a physically and psychologically healthy lifestyle.

To increase your odds of finding an ADMIRER, look or listen for these key words or themes when you search profiles or talk to romantic prospects:  clear priorities, humble, skillful, centered, passionate, sensual, romantic, articulate, expressive, eager, kind, sweet, responsive, confident, attentive, loyal, committed, well rounded, worldly, fit, protective, family oriented, optimistic, curious, adventurous, uninhibited and fun loving.

Hmmm, pretty accurate.  Now I wonder what it is my Admirer is looking for?  If only I could read HIS quiz results. LOL

 

I am very guilty of this.  I feel within my own mind that this has damaged some relationships although in reality I’m reassured that it hasn’t.  But overthinking leads misunderstanding which leads then to jealousy which is one feeling I have a very difficult time overcoming.

On creativity and cooking

This morning I awoke with a slightly run-down feeling, a sore throat and a great desire to make homemade spaghetti sauce.

I make no secret of the fact that I cannot cook.  In fact, I liken my cooking skills to that of a first year college boy:  creative but only barely edible.  However, I have yet to waste away on this diet of my own making which I think could be one of life’s great ironies if it weren’t for the fact that my friends often take pity on me and give me food at work.

At home my mom was the cook.  I could help but rarely did I ever actually cook anything.  In childhood I baked more than cooked.  I can scale a fish, pluck a chicken stuff jars for canning but to create a complete meal from beginning to end, not a chance.  I’ve always considered myself to be too impatient to cook.  With baking you get the fun of combining the ingredients and the leisure to watch them bake but to me the fussy work of watching food cook was torture.

Having moved away from home at the ripe old age of 36, deciding finally to live a life for myself rather than caretake for others I discovered that cooking was one of those life skills I was sadly lacking.  Of course I never needed it because I had mom and then I got lazy and never needed to try.  I gradually came to the realization that I wanted to cook better but didn’t know how.  Some of my “experiments” weren’t so successful.  And then I remembered an old episode of House where House was stuck at home and bored and decided to learn to cook.  He was incredibly good at it because it was more like a science experiment of mixing ingredients just so in order to get the right outcome.  Hey, I have a scientific mind, I can do that!  And then I discovered something else on my own.  One weekend I was bored and depressed and decided to bake something in order to have something to do.  It didn’t turn out as I had hoped, but I realized that the act of creating something with food felt as good to me as the act of creating something artistic always feels.  I remembered the advice I give to depressed patients:  do something creative with your hands when you are feeling low as it will access another part of your brain and help you feel better.  And it’s true.

Opening your creative pathways is an important and exciting experience.  The benefits are great, even if it is not as successful as you desire.  But at least you tried.

And so today I am making homemade spaghetti sauce, drinking a wee bit of wine and making a small step towards accessing the “finer” things in life.

What will you create today?

“You deserve to wear a smile in your heart. Not because of what you have or what you do, but because of who you are. Yes you are changing each day but you are always amazing just as you are.” -Anonymous

On wisdom and intelligence

One of the things I have always wanted to be is wise.

I have been told I am intelligent and in many ways I am.  I have a basic formal education.  I took academics in school, seemed to do well in certain sciences because of my inquisitive nature, literature (with the exception of Shakespeare!) because of my love of reading, history because of my interest in the subject and music because of some small skill at it.  I had no corresponding natural inclination for art, no physical abilities or inclinations for sports and my aptitude for mathematics just plain sucked.  And truly another year has gone by without seeing me use ANY calculus since high school! 😉

It seems to surprise people when I tell them that I never went to college.  Following high school had no interest in doing so as I was burnt out from high school.  I took job-specific training for my career and that is really the extent of my formal education.  The rest comes from two simple sources:  observation and reading.

I like to think of myself as an “intellectual sponge”.  I am attracted to individuals who are intellectual and as intelligent as myself but have an increased knowledge in their area of expertise.  And through a kind of osmosis I absorb that knowledge and learn more.  Then I follow up by directing my studies through research on that topic (although that has a kind of hazard in that I can get sidetracked in the process into new territory).  I need that intellectual stimulation and I often struggle to find it but when I do I am very excited to do so.

I read and study a variety of subjects.  Often it starts by reading some work of fiction which contains a concept or historical event that piques my interest so I will seek out more information, other books on that topic and now thanks to the Internet, articles and documentaries and the likes which can augment that search for knowledge.  I’ve read on medical science, history, religion, science and technology, martial arts, I read biographies, autobiographies, conspiracy theories, text books and anything in between.

People now ask me why don’t I go back to school and pursue formal education.  The answer is simply this:  I reject the concept of measuring my level of learning on someone else’s scale.  Only I know if I have learned something and the satisfaction needs to come from me, not an external source.  This concept returns us to the paternalistic state of childhood where we need to have the approval of an authority figure of our success or lack thereof.  And yet we tell ourselves that we need to reject that view and to achieve success from within.  Two contrary messages.  Is it any wonder we are confused?

I have come to a stage in life where I have finally received the respect of my experience in my career.  In other jobs I have always been the youngest, hardest worked, most reliable individual whose opinions were often not wholly considered.  In my field there has always been a lot of jealousy and politicking from easily threatened individuals.  However now I have been blessed to find a place where these things have no place at work.  No longer the youngest but still hard working and reliable and whose opinions and decisions are sought and often even followed!

And I feel I am coming to a place where I am finally achieving a higher level of awareness of my own wisdom.

I spend a lot of time thinking.  Some people meditate but I like to quietly ponder.  I take things I’ve read and learned, I take my observations, I take my conversations with people and put all this information into my mind and think on it.

Like I’m doing right now.

On madness and the potential of the human experience

“There are some whose experience of life is so far removed from our own that we call them MAD… We call them so in order to relieve ourselves of responsibility for their place in the human community… But for them, their is no difference between what we think of as DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES and the world in which they live their daily lives. What we call VISIONS and relegate to mystics –the miracles of Christ–the lives of the Saints–the apocalyptic revelations of John–are for them the stuff of common, everyday experience.  In their view, there can be sanctity in trees and toads–living gods in fire and water–and a voice in the whirlwind to which, if only we would listen, they would direct our attention.  Such are the conditions under which those who suffer DEMENTIA exist. They do not live in ‘other worlds,’ but in a dimension of THIS WORLD which we, out of fear, refuse to acknowledge.” -Robert Daniel Parsons, 1901 (Timothy Findley’s Pilgrim)

What if what we think of in our reality as madness really isn’t?  What if our reality is the true madness and the reality of the labeled “mentally ill” is really dimensions of the truth?  Ponder this.

Sometimes it feels as though one is guided towards revelations by an unseen and unknown hand.  Over the last little while I seem to be drawn again and again to an intellectual concept through a variety of mediums.  I came across the book Pilgrim by Timothy Findley as my co-worker was reading it at work and I had asked to borrow it.  Not expecting to have my chance for some time I had forgotten it until I had gone looking for used books one day and found it in the store.  I needed another book to make my quota for receiving a free book so I got it, figuring it would work out better for this way my friend wouldn’t feel compelled to finish the book right away.  And it turns out that she got bogged down in it and hasn’t been reading it much lately.  I, on the other hand, struggled through the first few chapters and nearly abandoned it because it made me more depressed than I already was.  But I was curious enough to keep going and now am so engrossed in it that I cannot bear to put it down!

The main plot is that of an individual compelled to commit suicide but is for seemingly supernatural reasons unable to complete the task so he is placed under the care of Carl Jung at a famous psychiatric clinic in Switzerland in 1912.  Dr. Jung attempts to figure out the mystery of Mr. Pilgrim.  The book utilizes real biographical data and medical research in weaving this interesting story.  For me, a good author will intertwine their fiction with fact, will make difficult, technical concepts accessible to the reader and inspire a desire to learn more about the subject through non-fiction means.  This is certainly the case with this novel.

At the same time I have been perusing documentaries which, after watching, I realize have a common underlying theme of the collective human experience and our evolution through it in our history.  Most notably I found myself fascinated with the concepts described in Quantum Communication ( http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/quantum-communication/ ).  What if we could learn to tap into a collective human consciousness?  Would we not feel wonder and untold freedom at the experience?  And yet … would others not think we’ve gone mad as well?  Or at least a little crackers?  For do we not feel that way about metaphyscists, psychics and other “alternative” individuals?  Many of us would spurn alternative forms of health care or forms of spirituality as well.  Yes, most of us have a prejudice about these folks just as we do about the mentally ill, although few are truly honest enough with others and even themselves to admit it.  I have been no exception.

I’ve made it no secret now that I suffer from my own mental illnesses:  major chronic depression with a history of anxiety, panic disorders, social phobias and agoraphobia.  I no longer care if people wish to avoid me because of this, I wish only for people who attempt to understand yet also refuse to allow me to fall into the victim role when I cannot stop myself from losing a battle with this disease.  Though it is a cliché, I do feel this is a war I shall win.

I recently watched a documentary on the history of Bethlem Hospital–or Bedlam–in England.  It enthralled yet scared me at the same time.  The treatment these poor individuals endured was unconscionable.  Many of them were already tortured in their existence and yet those charged with the task to care for and treat them tortured them further, often for entertainment.  In my genealogy research I know that several relatives spent time in Essondale (or Riverview) Hospital for their mental disorders and that scares me too.  They needed help and didn’t get it.

I’ve never been admitted for inpatient treatment although recently I begged a friend to take me there as I was frightened of my illness enough that I wanted to be admitted.  Medication wasn’t enough, social isolation, recent physical illness, mental stress and emotional pain had triggered another episode of dark depression for me.  I’ve never actually attempted suicide but have often fantasized of it and this time I was worried I might actually try it.  But as with most depressed individuals, we seek escape rather than death.  We want to terminate this painful existence which is unendurable any longer. .  But we don’t always want death.   We want freedom and peace.

At times like these I consciously think to myself that I have gone insane.  However it is said that the insane don’t know they are insane so therefore I am mundanely and safely sound of mind.  De-escalation of the mental stress trigger leads to regaining balance and clarity and recovery.  The biggest struggle is knowing there will be another relapse for each time I am successful in recovering I always hope this will be the last time I have to experience this agony.  And so far for me, that as not been the case.  Yet…

I have always known that I am a sensitive individual.  In life this has manifested itself as being emotionally oversensitive: I take words and actions at face value and at the same time very personally.  What someone might consider to be an off-hand remark or a thoughtless action had been to me an end-of-the-world experience.  It has taken a lot of change of will to learn and accept a deeper meaning of these things and realize that changing how I perceive these things will chance my reaction to them.  I also feel that I  absorb other people’s anguish.  The Dalai Lama explains a technique of receiving someone’s pain, replacing it with your own positivity and then letting that negativity go from yourself.  I have only ever done part of the technique, I realized after reading of this, for I would receive the pain, send my loving intentions but hang on to the pain within myself, unable to release it along with being unable to release my own pain.  This only compounded my own suffering exponentially!

Now what if the mad, the crazy, the insane, the deranged of the world were really only sensitive individuals who have tuned into another individual or collective consciousness and are unable to manage it effectively?  What if the schizophrenic hearing voices was really receiving communications through this consciousness?  What if the multitude of people believing they were Napoleon Bonaparte were really reliving fragments of the real Napoleon’s life through an experiential human memory?  What if the depressed individual felt like they were living someone else’s pain, a type of reincarnation if you will?  And what if our labels of mental illness to describe these things was wrong?  What if the insane are really sane with a gift that they merely are unable to control and use effectively?  Is there a difference between the seers and visionaries and divinely revered recipients of mystical revelations and visions of gods and the universe and those labelled clinically abnormal?

I am now trying to learn new ways of managing this part of my life and am exploring many methods and techniques.  I may flit from one to another until I find ones that truly speak to me.  But for me the most important thing I am going to do is open my mind, soul, inner being to the possibilities and let it take me wherever it may on my journey.