So Truth Then, And A Beautiful Girl
This summer has been the best summer in over 7 years. I push through some incredibly intimidating fears and met face to face with some challenges that I had been putting off for years. This summer I became comfortable with being alone, and became open to feeling lonely. This summer I shared so much more about myself than ever in my life, with friends, family, and the chance girl that I found attractive. My amazing summer can be read about here The Point. I want to mention this because without taking solid control of my life, of bringing a concentrated awareness and effort towards living my edge, I would never have been able to figure out “my truth.”
Today I had a chance encounter with a very powerful girl. She glowed. She radiated an inner strength and self-awareness that was very, very sexy. She is an old acquaintance of sorts. When last I spoke with her I thought her tough and wise. Now, some many months since we have talked, her energy just blew me away even more. She loves her independence and is seemingly tireless and relentless to protect it. She swears off guys and relationships as something that, right now, would only be a distraction in her life. As I’ve gotten more and more into finding others who have similar outlooks as my own, her happenstance appearance in my life today only worked to reinforce how important it is to surround myself with others who actively and relentlessly challenge themselves to be self-sustaining, to be comfortable being alone. As we talked today, we connected at the level of similar desires, sharing our mutual insights on how we handle both setbacks and successes in our own pathways towards something like self-fulfillment. She depends on no one emotionally. She listens. And she is not afraid to make tough choices when it comes to doing what she feels is right for her. On top of all of this, she is ridiculously sensual and just plain beautiful.
The entire time I spoke with her I was torn between my feelings of attraction to her and simply the joy of being able to talk to someone who “gets it,” gets this whole process of living a life of awareness, or wakefulness. I felt energized. My hands were even a bit shaky and my heart raced, well, initially anyway. After we started got in to sharing our experiences, feelings and thoughts, I just felt quite natural and easy. My focus in my interaction with her was often directed deeply into her feelings. I found myself “feeling-through” her, literally just taking her in. We connected on feeling. I felt her frustrations when she spoke of them. I could feel her wants and desires as she spoke of them. I felt her excitement when she spoke of her future. I never thought I would ever have a chance to speak to her again after I spoke to her months ago. So, this time, I just took her all in, her voice, sentiments, posture, body, breathing, the intensity of her eyes, and even the delicate corners of her lips which upturn ever so slightly, hinting at a smile that is always just mere moments away.
Can you tell I was completely present with her?
I left our interaction feeling a vacuum-like moment. Here was this beautiful, wise, smart, and effort-driven girl just tearing life up, and for only a brief moment I was there with her. My life was better for our talk, but damn if I did not want more! Not from her, but more “connection” from everyone in my life, and, more importantly, from new people. One of my core desires is to feel connection with women I find attractive. This was one experience, but she is not in a place where she is able or willing to open herself consistently to a guy in a more than friends way. I respect that. It’s sad and a bit frustrating because, well, she represents one key aspect of the life I desire. I desire to meet more women like her, and there she is just standing right there before me. So close. Yet so far, as she is right there before me literally claiming how powerful she feels to not want a guy in her life. Again, I respect that. And, I really do get that. So what I took from this amazing experience was more insight into what my truth is…
And here we go…so truth, then.
My truth is about where I direct my focus, my 100% effort, in those moments when I relate to others, myself, and my world. My truth is about how I live, moment by moment, not just some abstract thing I will live by. This whole week I’ve become painfully aware that as goes my focus so goes the content of my experience of life, how I engage my world. Satisfaction or dissatisfaction, each experience grows out of where my focus and attention is directed at all times.
So, with this in mind, I set out to work out “my truth.” My truth is all about how well I respond to the world and NOT how well the world responds to me. There is no want of cookies here…but there are three questions to be answered. Here we go…
How do I want my world to be?
Poise & Humor
The world is a gift. The most useful focus with which to engage my world is one that respects it’s ambiguity, its fullness, and its wiggly nature. Letting it be what it is and laughing alongside it, I will focus on making use of its opportunities for building the life I desire (my OPD). I want to be an improvisational virtuoso, literally “playing ball on running water” (Thank you David K. Reynolds). Playfulness amidst a world that does not give a damn about me, a proper response would be poise under its pressures and humor at its jests. I want my world to be a world where people meet difficulties head on with poise and humor.
How do I want to be in my relations with myself?
Kindness & Acceptance & Action
One word: Kindness. Plain. Simple. The most useful focus with which to relate to myself is one that accepts all its sensations, desires, quirks, and failings but remains focused on what needs to be done in the moment to create the life I want. I want to thank LoGun’s great article You’re Not The Only One for helping remember that even failures are beautiful things that should be celebrated. I will focus on taking actions to create the life I want, while accepting all the feelings of Never Ready-ness to push my edge. I want my relation with myself to be honest with a comedic confidence that is humorously self-deprecating, with my attention always scanning my body for sensations of fear and excitement as cues for the “right” actions to take in the moment.
How do I want to be in my relations with other people?
Connection: Freedom & Honesty & Feeling Through
One of the best moments of the summer came during my exploration of Listening. I spoke with a very pretty girl, discovering a kind of “creative connection” where neither myself nor her could’ve been who we were in that moment without our unique brand of freedom we brought to our interaction. Another time I Gave a Pretty Girl the Freedom to just be who she was in the moment. Both experiences I left feeling so satisfied at just allowing others to be who they want to be, indeed, even giving them what they need. This is not just for women I find attractive, this goes for everyone in my life. It is no coincidence that when I apologized to my father for years of silence, he literally said: “now I can put this to rest.” He needed that. So, the most useful focus with which to relate to others is one that gives them the freedom to be them. In addition, my focus will be on those opportunities in the moment to share honestly with others, finding similarities and connecting at the level of core desires. Another way to speak of this focus is to “feel through” to the emotions of the people in my life. To literally feel with them in moments when they are being expressive of their own joys and frustrations. In the end, my focus will direct my attention to them, their life, their emotions, to becoming aware of opportunities to connect when they arise in the moment.
My truth:
Relate to the world with Poise & Humor; Relate to myself with Kindness, Acceptance & Action, and Relate to others with the focus of building meaningful connections through Freedom & Honesty & Feeling Through.