I Gotta Identify My Own Needs So I can Quit Resenting Other Folks For Sucking The Life Out Of Me!

I am in a mood and it ain't pretty.  I am not angry, but I am damn close. I feel drained, sucked dry and invisible.  There is not one person or thing  or situation I can point to as the sole cause of my mood.  I am the architect of my malaise.

I have to take back my life and the care thereof.  I have to set a better pace for myself and become a lot more selfish.  I am quick to tell a sister-friend to put herself at the top of her list, and yet I consistently find myself at the bottom of mine.

Not dealing with identifying my needs keeps me a slave to other peoples needs only. I am not saying that I won't cater to the needs of those I love.  I need to add my needs to the mix and carve out time to fulfill them. Acting all stormy is not the way to be and doesn't get my needs met.

Directing my anger at folks for asking me for what they need is my foolishness.  How can I be mad at that? I need to be more like that...ask for what I need.  I can articulate the finer points on most anything under the sun, but when it comes to what I need, I lose my voice. I am at a loss as to what it is I truly need.

This revelation leads me to modify the question of who am I? And what do I want? To I know who I am, so what do I need?  Getting to the heart of  what I need in my everyday practical life will squash the resentment I have toward folks that ask me to fulfill their needs. My deal isn't with folks asking me and depending on me. My funkiness lies in my internal neglect of listening to where I need attention in my own life.

What is it I need?  What do I need?  

I Am A Slayer... Dragons Always Come Back.

I have come to understand that when you slay one dragon, eventually another will show up.  The devil doesn't just take a loss and move on.  The Devil will bring the weapons necessary to win.  The Devil isn't some unknown being.  The Devil lives within, always looking for opportunities to take over.  In my experience he doesn't show up in moments of weakness.  The Devil shows up after a win, smooth sailing, shit going your way.  If the devil can knock you down from being on top of the world, you will do the rest of the work to destroy yourself without the devils help.  We become our own assassins if we surrender.

The devil whispers, and seduces and slips into your unconscious mind... you can't do anything, you're not good enough, you are weak, you are dumb, you lack in things that everyone else has--beauty, intelligence, grace.

I have slayed many a dragon.  I have become very good at fighting back.  I hoped to not have to fight anymore.  I held fast to a romantic fantasy that has nothing to do with the truth.  My truth is, I have demons.  They lay dormant waiting and hoping I lay down my sword.  I fooled myself into thinking that I could walk the world without my tools to protect me.  I thought if I just believed in love that I would be free and safe. Being in love and walking in love and living for love is just one part.  There are other parts of love... to work for and fight for.

Love is work.  Love is worth fighting for. Love is not docile or tame or meek and helpless.  Love is precious enough that I must stand brave for it.  What would I do for love?  Would I do anything? Love attracts all the best, all the light, all the joy.  But it also comes with the worst, the darkness, the fear.  Love is a choice.

To slay the dragons and beat the devil, I have to choose.  Everyday I have to choose as if yesterday's choice did not exist.

Brenda Russell - Get Here. Dedicated to my Sweetheart.

I Love Love Love Brenda Russell and this is one of my FAVORITE songs!  I am dedicating this to my Sweetheart who is making his way back to me. I miss that Man more than I can say.

Being 49...

Being 49: Remembering my life  and asking questions

It is breath-taking to remember over my life.  I am not doing it in a morbid way.  It is really just taking a sweeping look at everything...where I've been, what I've done, who I have loved, and what's next.  I can't say I have regrets about too much.  Yes, there are some, but I am a woman for the here and now.  I am very rooted in the now.

Even as I look back at the archives of this blog, there is real growth and depth.  There is great joy and pain.  I started this blog in pain with nowhere to go with this pain but to this blog.  I have shared my progressing loveship.  I am still amazed at how my heart just answers the call to love and be loved.

Am I becoming the woman of my dreams?  Am I making enough love in my life?  There are days when I feel out of time.  There are other days when I am so alone that it makes me sick.  And there are days when the peace of the house when I am here alone is just the tonic I need.

Being 49: My sexual wisdom.

I love making love after midnight and then again just before dawn.  My sexual desires are as strong if not stronger than when I was a much younger woman.  I am not in the experimental stage... I know what I want, like and need in a lover.  The best way to seduce me? ... write to me...sing to me...create something for me.  I am a woman of sensual delights...I am delighted by the senses.  Want me for eternity, give me breathing room, but come home at night. There are still ghosts that linger around.  I do my best to make them at home.  They no longer scare me.  In my loveship I am growing to love being held from behind (not to be confused by being fucked from behind..which I love by the way).  I am becoming comfortable with someone wrapping me in their arms and not feeling like I am going to suffocate.  I can talk about commitment and not start to sweat.

Being 49: The on-going, ever challenging, long-standing conversation with my head, heart and spirit. Always in transition.  Always in love.

Perhaps I am responding to the changing landscape of my life; the desire to stop desiring things and people that don't make sense. I am shutting up more these days, because people don't need or want advice, they mostly want validation for the continued foolishness of their lives. You know, always finding themselves in the same mess, with the same people in the same go nowhere relationships as if they had no hand in it at all!  I know this because I have lived this in my own life.  Being 49 comes with clarity... hard earned and hard fought for clarity and truth.

I am moved by the lateness of the hour to examine my heart and mind without benefit of a fine wine for company.  I am sober and calm.  All is as it should be in my life at this moment.  I'll leave tomorrow's changes for the good morning.

Beyoncé - Love On Top

Love HER! Love This Song!

Faith Forward Friday: Managing My Disappointments....

His behavior of not seeing our kids is not a newsflash.  He has done this before.  Again this is not about him.  What I must do now is to begin the process of talking about disappointment with my kids.  They are of the age where I no longer can sprinkle fairy dust on their Father's behavior.  They have eyes and they are smart.  They are starting to see how things are.  What they do not have is a reference point for how to process what they see and how it makes them feel.  They also are not privy to the whole truth of things.  So I have to teach them about how to manage disappointment and still maintain love for the one who disappoints you.

This is my work to do in my spirit.  Manage my disappointment of my Ex as well as the overall disappointments of my life.  However way I handle this, it does  becomes the lessons I am teaching them. If I allow the disappointment to become larger than life in my everyday life, then they will internalize that and that will be the lessons I am teaching.  This is my teachable moment about truth, love and the reality of what I see  and experience on  top of what I feel.  I cannot allow them to be ruled solely by their emotions.  I cannot be solely ruled by my emotions. There has to be a balance and real truth telling that allows them and me to find that balance.  I do not mean the truth telling that requires me to tell them every bad thing about their Father... his actions alone will do that.  What I am talking about is the truth that we are all human, we all make mistakes and that we all benefit from undeserved grace.  There is no blame, there is only owning your own messes and doing the best you can to manage your life.  And I do mean manage your life and allowing for all the experiences that come with living... joy, pain, sorrow, happiness, love and disappointments and fears.

If I do not manage my disappointments right now and teach them to manage theirs, they will begin to look for their father in every relationship they have moving forward.  They will unconsciously try to fix in those coming relationships what is not theirs to fix.  They will play out this drama over and over again and not understand why they keep ending up in the place of lack and unhappiness.  I am not saying I can save them from unhappiness.  I can however model for them a behavior that they can absorb as a tool moving forward.  This thinking and action helps them manage their being in the world and not reacting to the world. It helps me become more the Grown Woman of my dreams.

True Love Tuesday: It's Not About Him At All

It is so easy to allow myself to go back down the road toward mess. My Ex is being his classic self and I refuse to respond to it.  I refuse to feed into.  I refuse to sink to that level.

I own my mind, heart and soul.  I get to decide how I want to feel or behave in any situation.  I am choosing peace.  As I look back on our history together it is filled with him always going for the jugular.  Always drawing blood first.  He is who he is and I accept that.  we are no longer wedded to each other.  He has a new Mrs. Not-Me.  This isn't about him and what he has done to me.  This is about me staying in grace and truly knowing that I control my being.

I have learned that people need you to stay in your role so that they remain in theirs.  When you break out, it creates a shift.  The shirt forces everyone in the vicinity to look at how they are living.  I get this.  So when my Ex does his hot-headed thing, I used to add to the drama by meeting him in that space. He could depend on me playing my role and it gave justification to why he was doing what he was doing (treating me like shit, walking away from the kids for periods of time).  I have no desire to be that women doing that dance with him.  I have no desire to remain tied to that mess.  I see it for what it is and I am not seduced by trying to get him to see my point.  I am not interested in getting him to see things my way. I am not interested in repairing his relationship to the world. Yes I did a lot of heavy lifting in that marriage for all the wrong reasons and at the expense of my own personal growth and faith walk.  I had no idea what love could be and should be like.  I, like so many folks had a fairy tale notion of happily-ever-after.  I had no idea of the real intimate work that is required.

Wait I did have an idea of love.  My intuitive self called for it.  I saw glimpses of it and I was and am drawn to a deep and abiding love.  A love that begins from within.  My inner-light attracts love. I believe that is how I became a mother, I attracted these children.  This is how I am falling and growing into love with JMD.  He already carries this light of love and has been waiting for me to mature and join him. Indeed, I am running toward us!

It is stunning sitting at this vantage point and seeing life unfold.  I have had the tests, now I am learning the lessons.  It's not about him, or them, or they. It's not even about my Ex.  It is about me and God.  It is about a fullness and richness to my life that I design and create.  It is about clearing my mind of clutter and allowing love to fill all the spaces.

It is not about him at all.  My heart has no desire to engage anyone at the dramatic level (unless you fuck with my kids, then I'll have to cut you).  I am not holding onto any perceived wrong-doings.  The role I want for myself is one of peace and joy and love.  And the only way to get it is to behave my way there.

This Is For The Cool In Me.

I am always blown away when I take a step forward and God takes several more toward me.  Of late I have been thinking about being still and calm in my spirit as I interact with people.  I heard Deepak Chopra talking to Oprah say he hasn't been mad, or upset or argumentative with anyone in 30 years.  I was intrigued by that, more so I wanted to know how does he do it?  I understand.  He made the decision to live a certain way and he doesn't allow folks to pull him out of his zone, his space, his peace. My sweetheart has the same personal conviction.  I want that too.

No sooner than I said that, the universe opened up and sent me all kinds of tools.  First the lesson, then the test.  That is how God works!  Without going into detail about what brought me to this revelation (which is a first because I tell just about everything). This time I didn't want to give that mess the impression that it had any importance.  I have come to realize in a very real and personal way that if I choose wisely how not to respond to things, people and events, that I can and will remain peaceful.  And that when I make a decision NOT to respond to foolishness then the place of where the foolishness is coming from stands alone in that mess.  You see, as long as I change my role, the situation changes, and the place of foolishness just hangs in the air. I DON'T HAVE TO DO SHIT!

I have much work to do. I like this new found gift. I am already looking for ways and places to embrace this thinking.  I can be an activist for sure, but I can also be peaceful in my spirit.  The call to action can be answered in other less obvious and habitual ways that have kept me hostage to things, people and places.  I can behave a different way.  I can own myself wholly.  No one can draw me into a gun fight.

I am laying down my weapons of mass destruction.  My weapons becomes my balm and I no longer have to be afraid.  I can speak of love without fear. WITHOUT FEAR I CAN SPEAK OF LOVE. I CAN BE LOVING.

I am feeling very spiritual and serene.  This is is for the Cool in Me... I get it.