Friday, January 25, 2013
Written 12/06/2012
I have been under sexual assault these past 4 months. Just because I put my name out on a dating site, does not mean that I am looking for a sexual relationship right away. I want to be loved for me, not my sexual parts and expertise.
So, who am I that someone could love?
I am responsible
Fiscally sound
I work hard
I am spiritually oriented
I try to give love
Intelligent
Good conversationalist
Good listener
Good friend
Problems:
Sexually shy – for good reason
I can lose my temper, but usually only when my buttons are pushed
I don’t feel good about my body image – for good reason
I can get immobilized when depressed, but that is getting more rare
What do I enjoy doing?
Working in my yard
Loving my dog
Watching tv shows that I can learn from
Dining out – especially when not alone
Good conversation on a variety of topics, news, spirituality, new ideas, politics
Losing weight healthfully
Looking goooood
Learning
Following my spiritual bent, whether in discussion, meditation and prayer, reading, quiet time, listening to talks on spirituality
I LOVE AND TOTALLY ENJOY BEING FREE from relationship compromises – music (I like classical almost exclusively), eating (what, when, how prepared, where), sexuality (how often, foreplay, positions, oral sex), activities and entertainment (what, how often, where, with whom), house and yard work (how to split chores, level of care in work, things needing to be done vs doing extra vs things that can wait)
Travel – beach, keeping in touch with relatives, exploring new cities, listening to classical music on the way,..
Playing computer duplicate bridge – a computer partner, no fuss, no muss
Rosalind 8:49 AM
Written 12/10/2012
No news on who I am. Still intelligent, fairly healthy, strong – but I lose my balance, get leg cramps. How will I age? Will this long trip be my last?
I am looking forward to “My Big Adventure”. I will be visiting relatives and friends. But what does it mean? Will I find out more of who I am? What am I made of? What is my purpose?
This earth, just a tiny spot in the universe, brimming with intelligent animals who are questioning existence and its meaning. I am a speck among the myriads. I have no answers, sometimes not even any questions. Is there a spiritual realm? What are Dark Matter and Dark Energy? How does the infinitesimal creation and destruction of tiny particles/waves give rise to a living organism that can shape its environment to some extent?
Will humankind venture into space to ensure continuity of our species and other species of our planet? Are we alone?
On a much smaller note, what will my having lived mean? Am I making the best use of my time that is left?
I do believe that my spiritual quest involves connecting my inner spirituality to the outer spirituality to gain the energy to love and do good, and to have another way of knowing. Yet, often, it is an empty exercise, the connection just a gossamer thread that lacks a reality and is distanced from ordinary living.
To make that connection, do I need to find a more active outlet in good works, or is being a money maker and giver enough? I do get lost in the busy-ness of ordinary life - eating, sleeping, healthful living, working, finding companionship, keeping up connections with family and friends, chores…In some ways, it is too selfish. Perhaps the problem lies here. But is there more of me to give?
Part of this “Big Adventure” will be a time for reflection, contemplation and prayer. I need to connect to my inner core and to that outer power. I will journal, take pictures, document my personal retreat. I will look for meaning, hidden truths, subtle changes, whispers from who-knows-where.
Rosalind 8:49 AM
Written 1/23/2013
My overriding desire is to belong somewhere to something or someone. I must feel comfortable. A one-on-one relationship in the past years has been the area where I have found succor. Groups have been painfully rejecting. This last relationship with Mike turned out to be rejecting also and it hurt.
It is fun to watch the courtship dance that George and I are engaging in, but will it last? Will, in the end, I be turned down in my bid for intimacy, for closeness, for love? We fit in areas like intellectual discussion, working out, day outings, eating out. But George is not on a spiritual path and that is vitally important to me. He is more into the physical aspects of the relationship. He is going slowly and I am gaining interest in that area of my being as one to explore and evolve, especially if we emphasize the sensual side in the beginning. Buying the massage table may be the expression of commitment that I am looking for, as I do believe that he is still in love with Chrissy. I am but a diversion from that pain. Is George just a diversion from the pain of my breakup with Mike?
My Big Adventure turned out in the end, to be an attempt to feel a family around me, to make connections that are so easily destroyed by distance. I am interested in becoming the Family History Keeper as passed on from Len Nadel. But he is showing hesitancy and it is hurting me somewhere deep down. Can’t I even really belong in my own family? (Len answered my email immediately, this morning – is there really hesitancy?)
My place at Highmark is in jeopardy now, or at least I feel that pressure, due to the failure of the Exchanger plan to make the deadline. (Jim Kallam said the he NEEDS me on his team! Again are my doubts about myself unrealistic?) No one has said anything to me yet, but I feel that I have been rejected by the CSS team and that is the cause of my dispensability. I was not really a part of the Exchanger team so I can take no part in the blame for the failure, but my inability to “keep my place”, and a very lowly place at that, is basically the reason for my rejected status. My talents are not really appreciated or used here and perhaps it is time to move on. It is just good to work in the proximity of my home, rather than being out of town. I also have to consider Missy now.
To feel alone in the world is a very distressing situation. It leaves the Higher Power as my source of strength and belonging. But my ability to open to that transcendence is transitory, fleeting and ephemeral. That is the reason that my spiritual path is such an important part of my current life; it forces me to look at myself to open to the transcendence, to make a more permanent connection. I need that security and feelings of being loved, appreciated and cared for.
Notes from Spiritual Makeover: Ten Practices for Falling in Love with Your Life by Sirah Vettese
Synchronicity is auspicious coincidence. (Jung’s term is the Buddhist traditional definition)
Marianne Williamson - “One moment of enlightened awareness doesn’t completely transform your life. The spiritual path is slow and arduous at times, as every single circumstance becomes the ground on which both the ego and spirit seek to make their stand. Spiritual practice is like physical exercise: it has a cumulative effect, and if we want to enjoy its benefits, we can never stop doing it.”
Sufi mystic Rumi “Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters in.”
Gordon Wright – “The past is never completely lost, however extensive the devastation. Your sorrows are the bricks and mortar of a magnificent temple. What you are today and what you will be tomorrow are because of what you have been.”
My emotional weakness – fear of abandonment. It has happened before and it will happen again. I will be looking for intimacy, closeness, love and it will be given at first – but it dies away and I am left alone – again. Can I find self-sufficiency in my aloneness? I hide behind my spiritual journey, but is that really a substitute for human intimacy? Others have chosen to live a single life and indeed chosen that life to be closer to the Higher Power over human intimacy. Am I headed on that path? Or will I be brave enough to try again, overcoming my fear of abandonment?
My mental weakness – waster of my precious time. I can go into a funk and accomplish absolutely nothing, wiling away my time watching television shows – good ones to be sure but still a time-filler. I am trying to use my spiritual journey as a protector and destroyer of these funks. I use my insights to create to-do lists to get through some of the necessary things. That will allow me time to write, observe myself, try to make sense of my life by putting it in perspective, finding and setting goals. Are there ways that I can be more creative, bring things to life, build, beautify? I take stewardship of my home seriously. I take my spiritual journey seriously. I take my search for intimacy and love seriously. I take my search for meaning seriously. Do I have an idea that I can uniquely contribute to humanity? Should I take looking for that idea seriously too? What happens if I find that idea and no one picks up on it as happened with George. That is painful.
My physical weakness – my body self-image is damaged as well as having an unhealthy view on my sexuality. Due to physical ailments and subsequent operations my body image is damaged. Mostly it is hidden beneath my clothes and I don’t often choose to expose myself. Did my openness with Mike hasten his abandonment? My sexuality is hampered by not only my body image but the germiness of the whole thing. Will I give anybody a disease?
My spiritual weakness – my relationship with my Higher Power is ephemeral and so on and off. I would like to develop more discipline in my spiritual practices that my relationship with my Higher Power becomes more constant, one that I can turn to whenever I get into a funk or bad times. I am journaling here because I want that relationship to grow stronger, for me to understand my inner workings more clearly so that I can align with the universe, create, love, build, beautify, discover a new and unique idea…”to walk humbly with my God”.
Rosalind 8:44 AM
Thursday, January 17, 2013
The Real “I”
The real “I” is the awareness, the consciousness that is a drop in the ocean of Awareness/Consciousness surrounding everything. You too are part of the Awareness/Consciousness – the degree of your participation depends upon how aware and conscious your “I” is aware and conscious that you are part of the Awareness/Consciousness surrounding everything.
Opening ourselves to the Awareness/Consciousness, allowing it to flow through us, to shine upon us, we become, we flourish. We are the anti-entropic energy building, allowing more complexity, growing. We are the hands, the builders, the manipulators of matter. We receive feedback about that creation through our senses. Is the the Awareness/Consciousness aware and conscious of our creations, our senses?
What is it that we build when in contact with the Awareness/Consciousness: loving, nurturing, sustaining environments conducive to awareness and consciousness and more life? Blocked off from the Awareness/Consciousness do we build our Hells? We can only test this.
So the first part of a spiritual journey is clearing the way for our melding with the Awareness/Consciousness. We know that our true selves are not the matter surrounding us. They also are not our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies, our intellectual gymnastics, our histories. Once we realize we are a drop in the Awareness/Consciousness we can tap into its energy, its insights, its purposes – leaving behind our petty thoughts, emotions and mental constructs. Now the real purpose of our lives can begin.
We must take the time to focus our awareness and consciousness on melding with the Awareness/Consciousness – commonly called meditation, prayer. The whisper of the purposes of our lives will become, will take flight – at least, that is the promise. We will know how to act, to build, to love, to create that is in tune with the purposes of the Awareness/Consciousness.
Our time will end but our creations will mark our brief existences. Do good. Live well. Make your time count.
Rosalind 12:56 PM
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