"Harmonious Minds" - 5 new articles
So Long For Now!Well I started this blog in May and I have enjoyed writing each day. It probably has served to open me up to many of the ideas that are now in need of more attention from me. And, because I don't like to give less than my all, I would rather end this on my own terms.
I do hope to come back to this daily writing at some point, but right now there are just too many other to-dos on the list that cannot wait. It has been fun. Writing, for me, has always been cathartic. It enables me to end some of the conversations that are constantly going on in my head and give some sort of structure to them. Even if you don't publish what you write, I think it is good to put pen to paper as much as time permits. Just imagine what you or I will think about the things we've written here and now. It is fun and scary at the same time. But the single point of life is to move forward on your journey. When people say sacrastically to me, "Well you're not the Taisha I knew," I think to myself, "Good, I certainly hope not!" The thing is, most people are afraid of change. Most people don't want to step out of their comfort zone or heck even off of their block. They don't realize how much clinging to what it is they think they have stifles them. But I intend to be different. I suppose, in many ways, I am already different. That is what life is all about for me. I intend to get the best from life rather than allow it to get the best of me. Change is good. Embrace it in others and in yourself. So, for now, there are two quotes that I will leave you with and wish you the very best. It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen, self-help author
Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. Norman Mailer, novelist, journalist, playwright and film director
 Meet Joe BlackMeet Joe Black is one of my favorite movies. I've watched it a couple of times. But really there is one particular scene that, for me, makes the entire movie worthwhile. It is the scene early on where the Father played by Anthony Hopkins asks his youngest and favorite daughter, played by Claire Forlani, the following question, “Do you love Drew?” Drew is the brilliant and handsome young man who works for her father and is also her boyfriend. She pauses, then answers, “You mean like you loved mom?” I love the conversation that takes place thereafter, when her father applauds the intelligence and aggression of Drew, but is quick to point out that that is why he likes him, but wants her to think about why she does. Here is what follows:
Father: “It’s not what you say about Drew, it’s what you don’t say.” Daughter: “Maybe you’re not listening.” Father: “Oh yes I am. There’s not an ounce of excitement, not a whisper of a thrill. This relationship has all the passion of a pair of tick mice. I want you to get swept away out there. I want you to levitate; I want you to sing with rapture; and dance like a dervish.” Daughter: “Oh that’s all.” Father: “Yeah be deliriously happy or, at least, leave yourself open to be.” Daughter: “Okay be deliriously happy, I shall do my utmost.” Father: Laughing “I know it’s a cornball thing, but love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. I say fall head over heels, find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him, well you forget your head and you listen to your heart. And I’m not hearing any heart. Cuz the truth is honey, there’s no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love, well you haven’t lived a life at all. But you have to try cuz if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived.” Daughter: “Bravo.” Father: “Oh you’re tough.” Daughter: “I’m sorry. Okay give it to me again, but the short version this time.” Father: “Okay stay open who knows, lightning could strike.” There is a lot to be said for love; not the delusion that makes people lose their minds, but the experience of it that reveals one soul to another. I know a lot of people who have a checklist prepared for choosing a mate. This has always struck me as rather odd, probably because I would imagine that the field of possibilities would be too great unless the checklist is full of minutia. I realize that love is something that must be experienced and we have little control over that process. The only thing we can actively do, as the Father in Meet Joe Black states, is stay open. I have thought long and hard about love for as long as I can remember. And I cannot honestly say why it seems to have been such an intellectual pursuit of mine. But one thing that I always knew is that I didn't want to participate in any relationship that attempted to mimic love. I wanted the real thing. I wanted the passion and unyielding desire to commit my all to someone. There are few times that I have witnessed this between people who claimed to be in love. But on some deep level, I have always known that it was possible or, if not possible, then I would rather be left alone. And that is a tough call for some people. But I'm the kind of person who believes in having it all. Everyone else can decide for himself.  How Do You Know This Is Soul Mate Love?Sometimes in the midst of doing something completely irrelevant like washing dishes or dancing around the house, I have these epiphanies. It is kind of weird actually because all of a sudden an answer to some random question that I haven't thought about in forever will just pop into my head. Needless to say, I always have to stop what I am doing to write this down in order to prevent it from slipping my mind.
Today the answer to the question, "Is (s)he my soul mate?," sort of unraveled in my head. And grant it, I believe that soul mates come in many varieties, but in this instance I use it to refer to the marrying kind. As the thoughts spread out and tried to connect to other experiences or other knowledge, I actually felt that I had arrived at something that made sense, at least, for me. I don't know yet if this will be helpful to others, but here it goes. The word revere came to mind. Then I thought to myself, "That is what's been missing for me." To revere someone is simply to regard someone with awe or deference, coupled with profound honor (American Heritage Dictionary); or to love unquestioningly and uncritically (WordNet). I am clearly one who has to find an intellectual soundness for everything, including love. Not everyone approaches life this way and that is okay. But for me, if my mind is not convinced, nothing will ever reach the depths of my heart. So I needed this, if only to get me over the initial shock and horror that love can imbibe. :-) Okay so maybe I am exaggerating a little. But, in order for me to know that this is someone with whom I am to share my life, I need to revere him. This, I believe, is what daughters who seek out men like their dads are really searching for; not a "daddy" so much (although some do want that...yuk!) as someone to whom they can look to with deference and uncritical love in spite of what may be his many flaws. In this way, you create enough distance to allow that person to work through whatever issues they may have without denying that they have issues. But, at the same time, there must be something in the character of who they are that truly humbles you; something that has nothing to do with how that person relates to you and only how they relate in the world. He may not remember birthdays or call as much as you might like, but you love and respect him as a person separate and apart from yourself. It is a love that simply is. I think that's a good way to know when (s)he is the One.  Discovering Perfect Love"Perfect love means to love the one through whom one became unhappy."
Soren Kierkegaard
This is a tough concept to accept initially. Here we are dealing with the "soul mate" love. When people step out into the world seeking that one and only soul mate, what they are really searching for is the one person who will push them beyond the illusory boundaries associated with the life they have created. Basically, the soul mate is going to force you to suffer or to grow. And, if you are even slightly hard-headed, then both. :-)
The soul mate is that person in whom you trust enough, whether consciously or unconsciously, to reveal you to yourself. You, of course, happily provide this for the other person. And through this suffering, you are given the opportunity to transcend the love feeling that you have known and experience perfect love. James Arthur Ray, one of The Secret teachers, said on Oprah, "True forgiveness is when you can say the following to the person who hurt you: “Thank you for giving me that experience.” That is perfect love; love that is not contingent on being treated a certain way or praised or made to feel happy or whole. Perfect love exists when you are thankful for the life you have been given and for the opportunities it has presented in order that you may grow into your best self. Soul mates offer a perfect mechanism in which to try this out. If we are willing to release the unrealistic expectation that our life partners will make us happy everyday, we allow ourselves to discover authentic happiness through our own inner growth.  Relationship Or EntanglementI return to one of my favorite books, A Year of Conscious Living by Gay Hendricks who writes, "I no longer use the term good relationship because, in my belief, either you are in relationship or you are not. If it's not relationship, remember, it's entanglement."
Hendricks then sets out the following 7 points to describe conscious relationships: *Both people are totally committed to employing the relationship as the arena for self-knowledge. *Both people are committed to being close. *Both people are committed to their own individual development. *Both people tell all the truth, all the time. Anything else is an entanglement. No exceptions.
*Both people take full responsibility for themselves. There are no victims and no villains. *Conflicts are resolved in a win/win manner. No one has to lose in order for someone else to win. *Both people consistently demonstrate that they choose having a good time over being right and making the other person wrong. Now while some people apply different relationship rules to their friends as opposed to their life partners, I am not an advocate of this. I think practice makes perfect; and it makes far more sense to practice having conscious relationships throughout our lives with all people. The above parameters should apply whether it is in your friendships or partnerships. The interesting thing that I have discovered is that when people assess their various relationships accordingly, most often they find that they are in conscious relationships with their platonic friends but not with their life partners. Um what is up with that? Why do we find it so easy to accept, without expectations, our friends and not our partners? Essentially that is the place you must get to in order to experience true love.  More Recent Articles |
