REFLECTIONS
I’m utterly comfortable using my pretty green cup from week 1’s change. My morning coffee is now tasty in a pretty cup. I don’t feel prettier or more feminine, but the first step into the mystery of transformation, may come from acknowledging where I am stuck…
Week 2’s challenge was to change my pyjama style.
As expected, gathering my tattered, faded, yet, oh so coveted pyjamas, into a pile to discard, caused me anxiety. If my plan had been to wear the new, but keep the old tucked safely into the back of a drawer, I would have been okay. But real change must elicit discomfort. So after staring at the pile for 2 days, I reluctantly washed, folded and donated 5 pairs of pyjamas. I did not embrace the new. It felt as though I had gone shopping with a friend and after much persuading, I purchased her recommendations. Something like the Reality Show, “What Not To Wear.” We, the audience, agree that the transformed woman looks better in her freshly chosen clothes, but I wonder if she feels as comfortable in this ‘new look’ as her smile would indicate or if once the lights and cameras are off and she is sitting in the dull light of her own room, she weeps.
My one consolation, no one sees me in bed. I cannot imagine wearing a dress with heels in public…maybe Week 52…
ASPIRATIONS FOR Week 3 of 52
CHANGING MY EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE
I have spent my life searching for love, and as that memorable song from Urban Cowboy advised, I was looking in all the wrong places.
I was looking for love in all the wrong places,
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what.. I’m dreaming of…
Hopin’ to find a friend and a lover
God bless the day I discover
Another heart, lookin’ for love
Being an extremely literal person in the past (only recently do I truly understand the concept of metaphor) I thought this meant to stay out of the bars!
On reflection I admit that the places I have looked for love were found in the material world of accumulation. I have sought men with money, men with looks, men with power and men with brains.
But I now think love is more than a dozen roses, a Mensa Membership or a Rolex. I have accepted many gifts in the years of my relationships. I’m not denying the value of material expressions of love but I think the feeling accompanying the gift has to mean more to me than the gift itself. The material generosity must no longer supplant the heart.
I also believed in the theory that once a relationship lacked love, merely changing the man would correct the problem. Several years, several men later, I did clue into the fact that maybe I had to do some of the changing.
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world”. Ghandi.
So if I believe in what Ghandi says, I must be a loving person if I am to find love in a relationship. And herein lies my challenge. I have spent hours trying to understand what a loving behavior looks like. I’ve read through countless articles and quotes on love and decided for me, that true love must embody altruistic giving. As usual, Oscar Wilde says it most eloquently!
Oscar Wildequotes:
To give and not expect return, that is what lies at the heart of love.
So, the new behavior that I will adopt for this week and maintain for the year of The Other Woman, will ask this of me. Each day I will give something to someone, expecting nothing in return. I have now come to believe that whenever I hold an expectation of response, I pervert my act of giving.
Simply put, I will not expect a wave from the car I let in front of me, nor a thank you for the door I held open, nor a return compliment from the friend I just complimented.
As soon as I wait for a specific response or any response at all, I am in a controlling mindset. I gave this so you must give that… a quid pro quo expectation.
I will practice giving anonymously without any expectation of reciprocity.
For I must learn that even though I love someone, there can be no expectation that they will reciprocate my love.
If I desire the freedom to love whomever I want, with the accompanying freedom to express this love as I am so moved to express it, I must then give this to every person alive.
What I want for myself I must lovingly give to others.
I chose photos of 2 women( my daughter’s ideas); one woman who seems to embody materialistic love, Kim Kardashian and in contrast, one woman who seems to embody altruistic love, Aung San Suu Kyi. I apologize to both Kim Kardashian and Aung Sann Suu Kyi for shoving you into broad, all encompassing categories to serve my own needs. No one is as unidimensional as my depiction would imply.
But when I need a visual in my quest to embody the energy of The Other Woman, I will picture the altruism of Aung San Suu Kyi.
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