Affirmative Action

Just a quick thought for today.  I think, speak, and preach a lot about the power of positive thinking and visualization.  I do believe some people are turned off by these sentiments because they sound too new age, too hippy-dippy.

Today it occurred to me, it's really the power of affirmative thought that brings the action -- it doesn't necessarily have to be positive.  Case in point - yesterday I had a gut instinct that what at first seemed like a dream come true was really a nightmare in hiding.  My friend even told me he could "hear the anxiety in my voice" as we chatted over this dilemma on the phone.  Finally, near the end of the conversation, I told him I wished that the opportunity would just get taken away from me so I wouldn't have to say yes or no, and, lo and behold, that's exactly what happened.

It was a good lesson in affirmative action -- being positive doesn't mean you are walking through life every day humming Kum By Ya with a perma-smile on your face, it means you are making assured decisions, you are sure about your course of thought, and you are positive that is the direction you want to take.

Or in this case, not to take.

The Counting Years

As a child, I was always impatient.  My brother, three years my senior, always seemed to have just a slight edge over me -- a few more privileges than I had, and I wanted the same.   I couldn't wait to turn seven if it meant my bedtime was extended by a half hour.  Each year seemed to mark some right of passage, until I entered my teen years and literally felt I would burst at the seams -- timed seemed to tick on so slowly, and I couldn't wait to drive, then drive after nine, turn eighteen, turn twenty-one and so on.  I couldn't wait to get out of high school and into college.  Then I couldn't wait to get out of college and work only one, really great paying job, instead of three crappy ones.

Once I hit and surpassed all of these sought-after milestone years, I found myself looking around, as a single woman in my twenties, asking, what's next?  The milestones were now mile markers, strewn throughout my past, and fading in the distance as I looked back on what had brought me where I was today.  What was there left to count down to?

It was then I coined the phrase "the counting years," those tumultuous years filled with growing pains and life lessons that we were all so anxious to conquer.  But, once we have emerged the victor, what's left?

Now times speeds by much too quickly.  My children have aged at warp speed it seems, and now I wish I could find an anchor to slow down this speeding ship we're on.  Why does time move so slowly when we are young, and so quickly as we age?  I dread my looming birthday and each one after that, fearing the new milestones -- turning forty, then fifty, then, if it's still around, collecting social security.

Why does time fly?  According to some scientists, it all has to do with perception:

The experience of time is not linear. Fear and joy stretch time as do stimuli that move towards us. When we experience something as “taking a long time” it is really the result of three inter-twined processes: the actual duration of the event, how we feel about the event, and whether we think the event is approaching us. 

So basically, if we are waiting for an event to happen three months from now, those three months seem to come upon us much quicker than we are prepared.  However, looking back on an event that took place three months in the past, we can hardly remember it because it seemed so long ago...

In fact, some investigators have suggested that the amount of energy spent during thinking and experiencing defines the subjective experience of duration.  In other words, the more energy it takes to process a stimulus the longer it appears as a subjective experience of time.  Something moving toward you has more relevance than the same stimulus moving away from you:  You may need to prepare somehow; time seems to move more slowly.

We can never fully prepare for the events that will occur in our lifetime, but, can we slow down the impending passage of time if we change our perceptions of the events in our future?  Can we create a new set of Counting Years?

Momentum

Moving forward. Getting past this.  Putting time, space and distance between ourselves and whatever bad thing it is that we need to get away from.

But what happens if you are constantly moving forward, putting something behind you, creating a huge time gap between you and the big bad, but nothing changes?  Moving forward is easy.  Forgiveness is easy.  It's what comes after that -- or rather, through that -- experience that will determine what happens next.  It's because you can't really move forward without momentum.

According to wikipedia,"in classical mechanics, linear momentum or translational momentum... is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. For example, a heavy truck moving fast has a large momentum—it takes a large and prolonged force to get the truck up to this speed, and it takes a large and prolonged force to bring it to a stop afterwards. If the truck were lighter, or moving slower, then it would have less momentum.  Like velocity, linear momentum is a vector quantity, possessing a direction as well as a magnitude."

When you take this concept of moving forward down to its core, you have to factor in momentum.  If you are in the throws of a contentious battle with someone in your life and both sides are hurling grenades and ratcheting up the tension and conflict with every interaction and the wheels keep spinning faster and faster until everything seems to just spin and sputter out of control, then you may be at a point where you can't fight anymore.  You want the tension to end.  You want the conflict to go away.  But moving forward can't happen until you factor in the second part of the equation above -- slowing down.

That fight you've been engaged in with that other person is no different than the 26-ton truck that took a lot of prolonged force to get up to the speed of 65 mph.  Your battle didn't poof out of thin air -- it took a lot of concentrated negative energy to get to that point, and it isn't going to go away until you purposefully take a lot of concentrated positive energy to bring it to a stop.

Clean slates are great in theory, but what does that really mean?  Sweeping hurt feelings, judgments, blame or perceived slights under the proverbial rug may accomplish a truce in the short term, but it is destined to fail.  Why?  Because people ultimately do not change.  The only thing you can change is your reaction.  So, the only way to slow down that speeding truck is to stop and look inward.  How can I change my reaction to what is happening?  How do I make this situation better?  How do I build that momentum?

Own It
First, we need to take responsibility for what has happened.  That tends to be the hardest pill to swallow for most people, because it's so easy to justify our actions by blaming the other person.  If the other person hadn't done this or said that then you wouldn't have reacted the way you did, right?  No.  You are the only person in control of what you do or say.  You may have felt slighted, but that doesn't mean you needed to react by biting back.

Trust It
You cannot have trust without acceptance -- if you cannot accept the other person for who they are, then you will never trust what they do.  And without trust, without the blind faith that pressing the brakes will in fact stop that 26-ton runaway engine, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes.

Don't Regret It - Learn From It
Speaking of mistakes, we have all made them.  We cannot erase them.  We can apologize, we can try to fix our mistakes, we can try to make it right, but we cannot go back in time and take back those words we never should have said.  Don't dwell on it.  Accept those things you cannot change and simply do better next time.  Ask yourself why you let yourself go there in the first place, and realize what you need to do to make it so there isn't a next time.

Want It
It's easy to say you want a negative situation to go away.  It's easy to be nice to someone in order to get what you want in the short term, even if there is no sincerity behind that niceness.  But if you really want change, then you will go out of your way to make it happen.  You will be able, finally, to look inside yourself and ask those tough questions, accept blame, offer forgiveness, have an uncomfortable conversation, and ultimately accept and trust the other person.

Embrace It
In the best of circumstances, the situation will become resolved -- an open and honest relationship will be established.  This is when the real work begins.  However, in some cases, you may never get that resolve.  The other person may never forgive you.  They may not want things to change.  Disengage from the negativity the best you can and still offer that trust, that desire to better the situation -- stay in your integrity.  Remember that you cannot change the other person -- embrace that philosophy.

Embrace the idea of faith -- have faith in your ability to stay true to yourself and follow the path of trust and acceptance.  Can it be exhausting?  Yes, but remember that 26-ton train of negative momentum that propelled you into that nasty situation to begin with?  Well, what do you think a 26-ton train of positive momentum will do?  I can guarantee you the results will be much different.

Why I May Start Wearing Earphones in Public Places

Sick and tired of my three-day weekend morning routine of getting out the griddle and cooking eggs, pancakes, sausage and the like, my husband suggested IHOP on Sunday and it was music to my ears.  That was, until we overheard some of the conversation at the table behind us.

At the table were two young women, early 20s, with a child who was probably six or seven.  All of a sudden, once our food arrived and we quieted down to eat, I heard the following:

"Yeah, I know he likes to, like, sleep around or whatever but he's so hot... he's so hot I'd do him I don't care who else he does."

There was more, but honestly I think I've blocked out the rest.

What has happened to these young women?  And, by the way, I have a hard time even referring to those two as women - to me they are girls, because they haven't yet grown up or matured or even figured out that maybe that's a conversation that, if they can't stop themselves from having at all, they should at least not have that talk in front of a child.

I just want to know this: when did feminism devolve?  When did women stop caring about important equalities -- like getting treated the same as their male counterparts in the workplace -- and only care about being on the same playing field sexually as men?  Is this all Sex and the City did for us?  Is Samantha to blame for announcing it was okay to have sex like men?

Historically, feminist moments include:  getting women the vote, demanding equal pay (which we still don't have, but I digress) and fighting for reproductive rights.  So when did feminist ideals turn into sleeping with every guy who will let you and then talking about it in front of your child at IHOP? 


Don't get me wrong, I love Sex and the City.  However, I haven't watched it since...well, since I was in my 20s.  I almost walked out of the second movie and seriously wanted my money, and those 146 minutes, back.


I think where Sex and the City went wrong in the later years, is that the emphasis, the screen shots, the outfits -- everything was sex.  Yes, there is a time and place to be all, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar, but I don't want to have a side of your sexual cravings with my pancakes, thank you very much.

To avoid backlash from the women in their 20s who would never have this conversation at IHOP, let me be clear:  I know plenty of ambitious, socially-conscious, incredibly mature women who clearly have adopted the third wave of feminism in a positive way, and who clearly deserve better labels than what their generation has been titled (i.e. Generation Whine). 

And then there are the nitwits we encountered on Sunday.  Young women out there having vapid conversations about meaningless, loveless sex in front of their children, around strangers, never thinking twice about how they are devaluing themselves, their lives and their womanhood. 

If nothing else, remember one very important difference between the woman you aspire to be and the woman that Samantha is on Sex and the City:

Samantha isn't real. 

New Transitions

Samantha:  This is a catalog for pre-menopausal women.
Miranda :   New Transitions, nice name.
Samantha:  Why don't they call it what it is? J Crew for women who are drying up, and FYI, I'm not in transition, I'm happening.

Recently I was in my doctor's office, unsure of how to say what I needed to say:  I was going nutty.  Not full-scale, straight-jacket nutty, just tired, overwhelmed, frustrated, and always feeling like I was on the edge.  I keep saying to my husband, "I don't feel like myself."

While I wouldn't say I use homeopathic remedies or whatnot, I still am not a fan of medicine.  Even when I have a headache, I'm hesitant to take a Tylenol, so the thought of being put on some sort of anti-anxiety or anti-depressant medicine made me want to gag, literally and metaphorically.  I was pleasantly surprised, and relieved, when Dr. G told me that, as a woman transitioning from her 30s to her 40s, she went through the same thing and it's just hormonal, pre-menapausal changes.

Lovely.

All I could think of was the Sex and the City clip quoted above and that awful phrase, "new transitions."  But there was one remarkable difference.  Unlike Samantha, I don't feel like I'm "happening," I feel like I'm counting down the days to start feeling like myself again.  I followed the doctor's advice and tried some female-hormonal balance homeopathic drops from a health food store, and, all I can report from that experiment is that those drops taste like the inside of a dirty tire. We talked some more and she put me on Paxil -- aside from feeling like a zombie I also noticed zero change -- so I nixed the Paxil and actually felt noticeably better once I stopped, but still felt...off. 

Those who know me well know that while you may not consider me religious because I don't attend any houses of worship, that doesn't count me out of the world of religion because I do, in fact, believe in a lot of things.  I believe in not dwelling on the negative experiences in life, because negative thoughts beget more negativity and you quickly get sucked into a downward spiral as tough to escape as it is to wiggle out of quick sand.

During some random channel surfing Sunday morning I paused on Joel Osteen and he just happened to be telling the story of a woman and her family who had gone through a medical hardship that resulted in them losing everything: their jobs, their money, their home.  She stated they had been through enough and just wanted things to go back to the way they were.  Mr. Osteen reminded her that wallowing in those negative thoughts would only bring more negative experiences to her (that's why I like listening to Joel -- he gets it) and he also told her that God basically put her through this situation to have her come out different at the end -- not the same.  Why would God guide you through any experience -- good, bad or indifferent -- if the end result would basically be nothing? 

Ahhhhh.  Touché, Joel, touché...

Whether you believe in God or higher powers or nothing, the point remains a valid one.  The Universe does not label experiences positive or negative -- we do.  Regardless of the type of experience, it would be physically, mentally and emotionally impossible to come through any journey unscathed -- simply by going through something we never have before, we cannot help but gain new knowledge, new understandings and new perspectives.  Once we have filled our buckets with all of these new feelings, desires, hopes, actions and experiences, how could we be anything BUT affected?  It's like that saying, "if I only knew then what I knew now..." but that doesn't make sense, does it? Or at the very least, it completely defeats the purpose!  We have to travel the path -- life simply does not allow us to remain stagnant, it's constantly moving and changing all around us. 

The ah-ha moments come, typically, at the end of those paths.  We get just so far, sometimes maybe farther than we should have needed to go, in order to look back and truly see the picture as a whole, or in HD, in order to glean a lesson from it that helps us to propel ourselves forward, moving beyond, accepting or even attempting to change. 

I will never be the "old Julie."  I now realize how ridiculous that is.  Everything I have been through -- getting married, having children, and dealing with some very negative situations that are out of my control -- all of those things happened to this woman, not the person I was five years ago. There are qualities about myself I will always fight to maintain, to return to, if you will, but still, each experience leaves its imprint and I cannot help but acknowledge that and continue to evolve into a new consciousness.  

As I make this transition, I need to recognize there is nothing to return myself to.  I can only move forward and embrace the differences, the changes, the paths and the ultimate journey that lies ahead.