When I Fight Reality, Reality Always Wins

~ a curious firefly ~ Leave a comment

In The Authority song, John Mellencamp sings,

“When I fight authority, authority always wins.”

Although that may be true for him, what I know for sure is that when I fight reality, reality always wins.

When I fight the way my body looks
When I fight the truth about a relationship
When I fight the way people really are
When I fight what my situation looks like…it’s a losing battle.

When I fight reality, I suffer. Because when I fight reality, reality always wins.

So in this new year, my goal is to stop fighting reality and instead to see and accept things as they are without judgement. I cannot force people or situations into being anything different than they are at this point in time. Maya Angelou’s wise statement, “When people show you who they are you have to believe them,” can be applied to any situation. I have to believe and accept the reality of both who people are and the way things currently are.

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Especially the Bed

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Living alone has its perks. Having the whole place to myself, especially the bed can feel like a luxury. I can eat what I’d like when I’d like and play only the music I want to hear. I can be as tidy or as messy as I choose. And when it comes to the bed, I can stretch out across the entire space and the covers are never stolen. 

But living alone can also be a drag. My place can be too quiet and feel too spacious when it is just me. Sharing a home creates a strong connection with another person. There’s a give and take involved–and when done well–both parties become better people through the experience.

And when it comes to the bed, well, there’s nothing else quite like sharing that space. A intimate connection is created when you sleep with someone. By this I am not just referring to having sex, but also to the act of actually falling asleep with someone next to you. It is a private and personal experience that involves vulnerability and deep trust. There are certain intimate conversations that can only take place in the bed. It’s a very unique space.

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What Fills Your Love Bucket? Seven Things to Keep in Mind

~ a curious firefly ~ 2 Comments

Healthy, meaningful relationships take work. Attention needs to be paid to what matters to each person involved. It’s like each person in the relationship has a Love Bucket with a small hole at the bottom. In order for each person to feel loved and emotionally secure in the relationship, regular deposits need to be made into their Love Bucket. If regular deposits are not made, the Love Bucket slowly drains until it is empty. This is not a good place to be.

In order to maintain a healthy, full Love Bucket, it is important to be aware of the following seven things:

1-What fills one person’s Love Bucket may be different that what fills another’s.  A careful reading of “The Five Love Languages”, by Dr. Gary Chapman is a good place to discover what deposits are meaningful to each person. It could be acts of service, words of affirmation, affection, spending time together or giving gifts. Take some time to determine what is most meaningful to you.

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It’s the Marriage That’s Broken, Not the Home

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When most people ask why my marriage ended, I usually reply that we were never doing the same dance. It was much more complicated than that, of course, but this is the most simple way to explain it. I was trying to tango with someone doing a line dance. It just didn’t work.

I stayed a lot longer than I should have for a variety of reasons, one of which was that I did not want to be divorced. I did not want my kids to be from a “broken home”. 

But since we weren’t doing the same dance, there was no love connection. Even though we were living under the same roof, in a sense we were already separated and broken.

In Grounded Spirituality, Jeff Brown writes:

..many seemingly intact families are deeply broken…a home is not broken when parents are separated or divorced. A home is broken when there is an absence of love.”

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Push, Push, Crack: Difficult Lessons in Pushing Too Hard

~ a curious firefly ~ 2 Comments

I’ve heard it said that if you don’t learn the lesson the first time, the Universe will give it to you again and again until you do learn it. Oprah describes this by saying that the lesson will arrive again; it’s just wearing a different pair of pants. It’s a good visual to remember. 

Recently, I learned the hard way another aspect of the DO NOT PUSH lesson I wrote about in a previous posting. The lesson arrived in two different forms—one wearing skinny jeans and the other wearing pants made of wood and glass.

Let me explain. 

I have a friend who is in a particularly difficult place right now. I am trying to understand exactly what is going on and have been peppering her with questions. I wanted to dig deep and help her see the light, but that‘s not what she needed at this time. Also, it was not my place to do this. I pushed so hard that I may have cracked her and broken the friendship.

Push, push, crack. 

During this same week, I also broke a window. 

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Soil for the Soul

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In a conversation about marriage, my wise sister, Chris, once told me,

 Everyone has shit in their marriage, Karin. You just need to be able to talk about the shit.”

Over the past year, I have thought a lot about her advice and how much it describes what was missing in my marriage. It also brought to mind the marriage and relationship struggles my friends have shared with me, a few of which involved some pretty difficult things. Two friends in particular went through what most people would consider deal-breaking situations, yet in both cases, they worked through them and say their marriages are now stronger than they’ve ever been. They feel connected on a much deeper level.

Being able to transform the shit in a marriage or relationship made think about gardening and how the addition of manure helps to make a richer, healthier soil. Maybe the same is true for marriage or any other meaningful relationship. Depending on how it is handled, maybe some shit can actually be good.

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You Better Shop Around: Seven Strategies for Seeking that Special Someone

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Now that I am no longer married, I’ve decided to take a peek into the wide world of dating. Although I know I am capable of living alone, I’d much rather be in a relationship–to have that special someone by my side to share tacos, sunsets and all the other joys of life. 

I want to be purposeful about the process—to be mindful and take it seriously–but also stay lighthearted, have fun, and try to see the humor in all of it. I’ve joined a few meet-up groups and have created profiles on a few dating apps. As I have been swiping left and right, I was amused to find the voice of Toni Tennille singing “You Better Shop Around” running through my head:

 “Try to get yourself a bargain, girl
Don't be sold on the very first one
Good-looking guys come a dime a dozen
Try to find the one who's gonna give you true loving

Before you take someone and say I do, now
Make sure he's in love with you, now
Make sure that his love is true, now
I hate to see you feeling sad and blue, now
My momma told me, you better shop around”
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A Juicy, Fruitful Life

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I have noticed that for most people, the word divorce rolls off the tongue like any other word, but it is not that way for me. When I try to say it, I feel my throat tighten and when someone else says it, I feel myself flinch. The word holds pain and sorrow–so much so that when asked about my marital status, I prefer to say I am no longer married rather than using that word.

For a short period of time, I was seeing a great life coach who helped me with many things, one of which was re-framing this aspect of my life. She encouraged me to come up with my own definition for the word. I tried to see beyond what I was experiencing at that time, and came up with this definition:

Divorce: A deep, dark, difficult decision, out of which rises a door, through which discovery, development and a new direction are possible.

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The Gifts of Uncertainty

~ a curious firefly ~ 2 Comments

I was texting my friend Kevin awhile ago and he gave me a pep talk on staying positive. I replied that mostly, I am staying positive. I just wish the future wasn’t so muddy. He replied, 

The future is muddy regardless…just sayin’!

I paused to think about what he said, then had to agree he was right. The future is always muddy. Regardless of well-laid plans, current health conditions, or whatever else is happening right now, the future is muddy and uncertain.

In the book, “The Immortalists”, one of the characters states that her mother gave her the gift of uncertainty. When I read this, I had to set the book down and ponder. Uncertainty is a gift? How is that even possible? I had to unpack this idea.

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So BE It

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I have always been an easily frustrated and impatient person, which is evident in old videos from my youth. I remember one in particular where I can be seen chasing my brother around the yard. Since he is older, bigger, and stronger, I cannot catch him. Suddenly, I stop running and stand there, arms straight by my sides. I’m sure if there was audio to accompany the video, you’d hear a loud “Humph!’

Because of this, I have often prayed for patience. When I was in high school, I had heard that Amen roughly translates into the words “So be it”. When I first heard this, it was magic moment. I had always thought of Amen as the bookend to a prayer. I begin with Dear God and end with Amen. “So be it” now felt like waving a magic wand and what I ask for would appear. Ta da!

Needless to say, this caused me to pray more fervently for patience. But instead of feeling patient, I was presented with many challenges that tested my patience–situations where my frustration rose. Not at all what I was praying for. Clearly, I was missing something.

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