We all know we are different, men and women. I’m thinking today about really how we are the same, though come at our desires and needs differently. I’ll venture to say that even with sexuality, with a commensurate blend of mind and heart, men AND women seek fulfillment of pleasure, (yep, satisfaction) and connection there as well. We however need those parts satisfied in perhaps different ways, but not SO different I’ll postulate. Just thinking. (Ha)! Mind. Heart.
As a woman, I know I need to feel connection and do so through heart, dialogue, seeing someone’s eyes, listening, talking, surrounding myself with empathic folk. That’s me and many of the women and honestly, more conscious men in my circle of influence.
Our culture is high on the 3rd chakra scale…and if you don’t know what that is, look it up, they are wheels of energy, measurable energetically just as organs in our body are, spheres of energy that work within us and if they are too big (energetically speaking), turned slightly askew, (again, energetically), they can mess with our sense of well being.
(Quick side note, children historically placed on Ritalin when taught to mindfully control the energetic size of specific chakras, have managed their energy and thus behaviors differently and have been successfully taken off medication).
I know this is a tad ‘out there’ for some of you and forgive me that I have no greater language for this field of study, though I’ve studied and practiced manipulating these energies and it’s real and it’s powerful.But back to men and women, one of my favorite topics and not much explored here (yet) in this blog. We all have a brain and logic and a heart and feeling, though the male and female brains work differently, the combination of the two, I feel, is key for a healthy and balanced WE….as far as any of us can COME to balance.
When I consider our relative dis-ease in the world these days, again, our culture being excessively ‘mind-y’….I think that perhaps we often look too hard in ONE direction and maybe not enough in another.
I had the rare privilege to partake in a poker evening with my new friend and his 6 male chums in a garage tucked away in the suburbs of Georgia. Such an enlightening experience to tuck my head in, play some cards and be a part of their world….all fascinating really. It held my interest longer than I thought it might…..mostly in seeing how we all dart and dodge, choose and pick our degree of intimacy, friendship, transparency, intensity, our lobbying (I’m talking me here as well….) for our attentions, to be heard, seen, recognized for who we are all the while playing our safe hiding games.
And then there is the unconscious in all of us.
I continue to want more than might be considered someone’s ‘share’…I allude to it as my ‘MORE’. I’m not ashamed. I don’t want a pallid existence and I want to taste a great many things….all that I might feel, yes even the uncomfortable stuff, which I find that if I make it real, I can then move past it to something more preferable. Preferable is good!
I wondered at the lives of these several men, all full of piss and vinegar and all that testosterone. I’m used to such a gang growing up with all brothers and all boy cousins. I’ve a good measure (I think….maybe), of mind-y and heart but a similar knee jerk reaction to things that sting….not always willing to just be with the feeling, consider what someone else is sharing, breathe and listen.
I could see the same with these fine men.
I wondered at the lives they live, their marriages, if they are fulfilled in their day to day. I expect a lot from myself and my quality of connection with people who matter to me.
How humbling to feel my own fears when trying to truly connect, hoping to be open, mindfully vulnerable, though know certainly we all have not always been met with understanding or open arms. So, we each develop brakes which we employ when newness insists on taking us past our comfort zones.
I hope to be an example, a mirror of openness despite my trepidations.
And, don’t we all deserve our preferences. I think so! Mine always changing as my heart (okay, and mind), will allow!
I rally for more open hearts as I’ve felt the difference in being right vs. being loving.
I’ll work to stay loving.
And thank the special people showing up in my life for being so as well.
BB Webb
(And, Happy Birthday and fond memories to my first dog, Peter PIper Shiningcliff Banta, a West Highland White Terrier. Piper would have been 48 years old tomorrow, that’s 336 in doggie years. That sweet pup taught me what a true friend is).