All Knowing Nothing

"I know" is a very strong statement.  We use it everyday, and sometimes multiple times a day.  Someone tells you the something that you believe you already "know" and our response is "I know".  So what is it exactly we know.  The answer we tell ourselves is practically everything.  We know it all. But do we?  I am struggling with this concept because like I said, I'm trying to familiarize myself with living in the "grey" areas of life rather than my most candid approach which is oh so familiar, the black and white of any given fact, situation, or circumstance.  As I've stated earlier, this is extremely hard for me because at times I feel as if I'm lying to myself or in some what denying, or "unlearning" what I already know, which is the cold hard facts.  I've realized that I have studied science for so long that not everything is black or white.  There are grey areas of life, mostly in matters of the heart.  I read once that women should never believe anything what a man says but to believe what he actually does, his actions.  I have lived by this for so long but again, to me this is black or white.  You either follow through with what you have said, or simply you do not.  This is how I have based the decisions that I have made while keeping my heart at bay.  "When one is ruled by their emotions, they live a very challenging life.  Be the surgeon.  Stay neutral.  Go in and get the job done and leave.  Do not feel."  This was the advice given to me by someone that I've trusted for sometime.  So I have been wrestling with these thoughts of being ruled by my mind and logic or being ruled by my heart.  This week at yoga, the theme was to "unlearn what you already know".  How powerful is that statement but yet so confusing at the same time.  How can we just ignore the facts?  How can we throw caution to the wind and imagine what exactly we want for our life without a care as to what we do already know?  The answer, ironically is I don't know.  I can only go by, dare I say it, what I feel.  And what I feel is, oh so overwhelming.  And my heart, oh my heart.  So alive and scared at the same time.  Can the hope I have be real?  Can my faith manifest itself so greatly that all of my wishes, desires and dreams come true?  God I hope so.  Otherwise, what is faith?  Why do we believe?  Why do I believe?  So really, all I know is that, I must trust that all of this is for a reason.  I must have faith that all will be right.  I must believe in happy endings.  I must unlearn what I already know and search my heart.  Trust my heart and feelings and have the courage to march into the unknown.  For as the poem states " the less I know, the more I am free."

Coming Alive

There are so many movies that have been done about women being lost in what the various stereotypes society casts us in. We become lost in the corporate world, as in being so "buttoned up" and closed off that we do not let anyone near us or in to our true selves.  Some of us become lost in the role of wife or mother that we cannot identify with anyone who is not a wife or mother.  These are just some of the more popular scenarios that have been depicted.  But in every movie, book, story, the woman is triggered by someone or something that brings her back to her true self meaning she reclaims her woman hood and remembers what it's like to be a woman again. Because all of us from time to time forget.  We type cast ourselves as a daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, student, VP, CEO, wife, and so on and so on.  However even though we are all these things, we are first a woman with healthy carnal urges to be adored, admired, seduced, loved and sensual.  Feeling this way I find makes me a better friend, lover, daughter, sister, or whatever role I'm playing for the day because inside I feel amazing about myself knowing that someone sees me as the woman that I am.  I remember the director Adrian Lyne talking about the movie he made with Diane Lane, "Unfaithful".  This movie was so controversial, but  the director Mr. Lyne who also directed "Fatal Attraction", when interviewed about "Unfaithful" stated that it was really about the journey of the female character,Connie, played by Diane Lane,  and what it takes for a woman to come alive again, which ironically is not much.  After being suppressed to mother and wife, her new role in life, someone triggered something in her that made her feel that incarnate spirit of what it feels like to be a woman, to feel desired, wanted, loved just for being the woman that she naturally was before she suppressed that need to attend to others needs.  And he went on to say that you can see the transition in her instantly when it happens to her. You can see when she finally let's go and returns to her femininity and puts the labels aside for just a moment to regain a part of herself that we as women are trained by society that we must give up in order to be the perfect wife, mother, daughter, sister, CEO, VP and so on.  I beg to differ.  I know that for me, my business, my personal relationships, my family, my friends, everything in my life is so much better when I've channeled this energy.  It's intoxicating and the people around you get drunk on it, and so do I.  It's beautiful. It's carnal. It's natural.  In "Unfaithful", something or someone made her sparkle again and she knew it, owned it and embraced it as a part of her.  There is something to be said about that.  I feel as if I'm going through something like that myself as if you couldn't tell.  Something or someone has triggered that part of me that has reminded me of how to be a woman again, and once more, I quite like it. Actually, I love it.  I can't get enough of it. It feels natural, sexy, and comforting in a way.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm in my thirties now and feel more sound, confident and settled or if there is indeed a trigger.  All I know is it is beautiful.  I look around me and see so many women who have simply forgot how to be a woman.  They do not take care of themselves the way that they should.  This might sound narcissistic but a woman should worship herself as she wants to be worshiped.  I'm not talking biblical, so don't get uptight about this.  God himself said to men..."love your wives as Christ loved the church".  So why is it that women forget that and discount themselves?  Why is it that a woman becomes last on the "food chain"?  Listen, I know as a mother you must take care of your children first and foremost. But also being a good mother means that you must also take care of yourself too.  You are the example for your children and they soak up everything we do.  Show them how to take care of themselves and others by taking care of you!  I do know a lot of mothers, my friends who still make themselves look great when they are out in public or even in the privacy of their own homes with their husbands.  That is part of being a woman.  For me lately, I felt this spirit come alive. It is like an insatiable fire that I cannot put out and quite frankly I don't want to put it out.  I want it to grow.  I'm embracing it and trying not to ask questions which is very hard for me, but I'm going with it.  I just wonder if Adrian Lyne is right....can you see me coming alive? I think that you can because this is something that even I cannot hide, and nor do I want to.  It feels too damn good.

Dancing in the Dark

For me personally, life has been crazy over the past month.  I have experienced the highest of highs and  the lowest of lows, and back again.  This morning I sit here writing feeling so, dare I say it, happy.  I have no idea why I feel happy but I do know that I have done everything in my power to not allow myself to feel this happiness that has washed over me.  I'm not kidding.  I feel as if I have been through a war, with myself.  I have tried to talk myself out of what I'm feeling time and time again and despite my best efforts, the happiness has won out.  Ha! Through all of my wrestling with myself I found out some key aspects to why would someone, or me, fight feeling happiness.  Why, after all of this time would I stop myself from feeling something that comes natural?  Questions of "Is this wrong? Is this right?  How can I feel this way?  Do I deserve to feel this way after everything that has happened? Will it go away?  Will it stay? What does the future hold?".  Exhausting just reading these questions isn't it?  So what are the answers? Well if you know anything about me, I exercised every possible outcome to find the answers.  This is just the scientist in me.  There is always a solution to any problem/hypothesis. That reminds me in the movie "Clueless" when Cher says to her father who is a high profile attorney "Daddy, have you ever had a problem that you can't argue your way out of?" His response "Tell me the problem and we will figure out a way to argue it."  That's me. However with some of these questions if not all of them, there was no way to find a solution as hard as I tried.  There were lessons to learn with all of these questions.  One, I had to let go of the past.  Now I had thought that I had successfully done this.  I've been to therapy, took classes, written many hours in several journals but I had not really let go of the past until just recently.  God, it feels amazing.  It feels liberating.  I finally feel that I can move forward.  I let go of the guilt that I kept carrying around with me and with that, I let go of everything else.  All the labels, all the hurt, all the expectations, all of it.  Just let it go!  Ironically, all of my daily devotions had been centered around letting go of things that do not serve us and letting go of the past.  With that, transformation happens.  This is the magic time.  This is the time that you actually can actively feel God working in your heart.  The universe and you are in line with the exact plan and you feel it in your bones, your soul.  How could I fight this feeling?  Then there is the blessing.  You can't hold on to things that God has already forgiven you for and then expect to receive his blessing.  He forgave you in order to bless you.  And he always will forgive.  That is his promise to us.  He will forgive, now it's our job to open up, release the guilt and shame that are not of God, and receive the blessing or what he has intended for us in our life.  This is impossible to do if we allow the darkness to keep haunting us.  The past is the past.  Yesterday, last week, last month, the last moment is the past.  We have this time, this moment, this second to make our present and our future.  So with all of those questions that I have wrestled with, the answer is I don't know.  I've stopped worrying about all of those unnecessary things because I do deserve happiness, as we all do.  And feelings are true and real and quite simply, it is what it is so believe it.  So as much as I have wanted to know how all of this will play out, I have released that control.  I literally am dancing in the dark and I wouldn't have it any other way.