Transformation and Entering Through The Looking Glass

 Hello wonderful and unique humans! A little about me and the thought process for this site’s title. I got my Bachelor’s degree in contemplative psychology, I have a masters in positive psychology and am a certified life coach. Additionally love to dance and I love mermaid’s. I love mermaids so much, I’m pretty convinced I was a mermaid in a past life. Now, I know mermaids are mystical water creatures and don’t really exist in this world (whose to say they don’t in an alternate universe though)? Addittionally from my perspective a lot of what goes on in our psyche doesn’t necessarily exist in reality either.

Another reason I like the metaphor of a dancing mermaid relating to the human psyche and experience is because a true mermaid doesn’t have any legs to dance with. In stories, fairy tales and folklore, a mermaid would have to trade something for legs or find land, so that her scales would dry and legs would transform. Just as the brain often trades ideas and transforms through experience. In most mermaid tales (pun intended) the mermaid, once she gets her legs, she has to learn how to use them.

Oddly enough, I used to hate to dance. I’m terribly clumsy, do not have good coordination or rhythm and above all I hate cardio. However, after graduation I wanted to get back into a routine of exercising every day and joined a new gym. This particular gym offered many exercise classes and I wanted to try them all…Including dance. I convinced myself it would be fun and headed to the class. I wish I could say it went well. However, I was awful! I missed steps, turned the wrong way, ran into other people and by the end of the class I couldn’t breathe. 

I did have fun though and I continued to go.  While I will most likely never be able to say I am a good dancer, I am much better than when I first started and just like a mermaid learning how to use her legs. I am a mermaid transforming and learning to dance.

-The looking glass (the portal into other worlds)

The looking glass or mirrors in folklore are often used as a portal into other worlds or as a way to see things that cannot be seen. An example of this is Lewis Carroll’s, “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Where the main character (Alice) is transported through a looking glass back to Underland…And in Underland or Wonderland “Most everyone is mad.”  Entering the human psyche or trying to understand what is going on inside another’s head, is like entering through a looking glass and experiencing an entirely different world, one that doesn’t always make sense. There are so many forms of psychological experience (somatic, emotional, clinical, developmental etc). It is impossible for anyone (even psychologists) to fully understand another person’s psyche. The reason being, is that no two people’s experiences are the same.

What may be a totally normal perception to one person, may seem totally insane to another. These are my experiences through my looking glass and you, the reader may view my experiences in a whole different way, so I invite you take a journey into my world through your looking glass.

~The Dancing Mermaid~

Stories and Human Connection

The importance of telling stories goes back to the beginning of time. Through telling stories, humans are able to relate to each other. Through stories, we are better able to connect with one another and with each story we hear and tell, we develop and define our ego, our sense of self and how we perceive the world. In the words of Dr. Daniel Siegel, human development psychologist, “We all have individual stories and personal life experiences, through which we deepen our self-knowledge and develop a greater understanding of ourselves and our relationship with others.” Stories are both told by us and to us, which helps us define who we are. Stories are not only important to the self, but to the human experience as well.

Vulnerability: The Courage and Strength That Forms Connection

In American culture the need for authentic connection is everywhere. As a species humans rely on a safe, secure social surrounding to survive and thrive. Lack of connection increases feelings of vulnerability and the desire to reconnect.

Vulnerability is a precious and magical thing that should be handled with care. Being vulnerable as a metaphor is ripping out your heart and asking others to accept it as a gift. If they do, it is wonderful. If they don’t, it can be excruciatingly painful and damaging to our sense of self worth. Unfortunately, in our America vulnerability is rarely seen as a gift and instead it is often seen as weakness.

Being vulnerable with someone else takes bravery and courage, it is never weakness! In the words of Dr. Brene Brown, Research professor at the University of Houston, “To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly. Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.” When a person is willing to be vulnerable, it is an opportunity to show up and be seen and an invitation to be vulnerable back. When this happens genuine connection is made and that is a beautiful thing. Something our society could learn from.

Shame is an epidemic that effects everything we do. Shame causes unattainable and conflicting expectations of who we are supposed to be. As children, we learn certain conditions; attitudes or actions are essential to remaining worthy of love. From an early age we are taught to be a certain way. Because of this we are taught to isolate parts of who we truly are and only show parts of ourselves. The parts that fit into a tiny little box that society deems worthy of love and acceptance. The parts that are strong, in control and perfect.

Trying to maintain control and not allowing ourselves to be vulnerable can be debilitating and damaging. In a culture where we are constantly trying to control the circumstances in which our ego will be affected can only drain our inner power, strength and ability to connect with others. Being vulnerable in our society takes daring, bravery and courage.

Being vulnerable isn’t easy, doing so involves the willingness to accept the risks: rejection, misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Vulnerability may not always be appreciated by others, but it is much better to be real with people and not let them or society dictate how we show up in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCvmsMzlF7o

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Valentines day is the perfect time to talk about love and relationships. What is love? How is it defined? Google says, “it is an intense feeling of affection.” If you surveyed a bunch of people on the definition of love, you would get many different answers. I know, because did this exact study as a research project. I surveyed both men and women on the definition of love and the idea of relationships. What happens after sex for both genders, the rate of divorce in America and many other topics surrounding love, sex and relationships.

Here is what I learned when I googled love. I got massive amounts of tips, information, ideas, etc. There is so much information out there on love. Hollywood loves to glamorize it, authors love to write stories about it, songwriter/singers have songs on it and poets write poetry and sonnets all about love. And why wouldn’t they? At the core humans have an innate desire to love and be loved. Being loved and nurtured is not only a want, it is a human need. 

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4136760.

Love in a generic sense can refer to anybody, friends, family, pets etc. I define love in a couple of different ways: A deep emotional connection, a sense of responsibility or loyalty to another and a deep concern and care for another person. 

The first time I fell in love I was in high school and it was love at first sight…WRONG! It was infatuation at first sight. Hollywood loves to convince us that there is thing called love at first sight, this spark, butterflies in the stomach. It’s all a bunch of BS. Love at first sight is actually attraction at first sight, the spark doesn’t actually exist. It something pop culture has made up. The butterflies are actually anxiety producing  imbalances in the body’s stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, and the precursor hormone DHEA.

Romance on the other hand is very real. Romance is defined as a quality or feeling of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life. When entering a new relationship, this is often the feeling one experiences.  Based on my experience, listening to friends and family and with all of the research I have done, here is what I believe. Love is both a feeling and a choice, it doesn’t happen out of thin air and it can develop quickly, as well as over time. It can also grow, change and fade and it can sneak up on you when you least expect it.  You don’t say I love you just because, you say it because you mean it. Love isn’t always easy, but it doesn’t take work, relationships do.

Family: The Foundation For Our Future Relationships

According to relationship experts there are four types of relationships: Family, Friendships, Casual and Romantic.How we interact in our relationships stem from our family dynamics.

Family in the traditional sense begins with marriage, the paradox is that when marriage first became a thing, it was nothing more than a business transaction. Today it is similar, only it includes love and devotion to another person, but it still entails a business transaction.

The wedding industry is a multimillion dollar business and today sixty-one percent of those marriages end in divorce. There are 7.5 billion people on Earth and if you believe in the “until death do us part,” that is a lot of sacrifice to make without a guarantee that the love and devotion will last.

I’m not saying it isn’t doable or worth it and that marriage is impractical. I’m just saying that with the cost, expectation and pressure involved, it makes more sense to have a marriage license,  get the tax cut, declare yourself married and have a lower budget celebration, then spend the wedding money on something more practical.  The important thing when two people love each other is simply to love and be loved.

After marriage many couple’s  contemplate having children. As someone who has worked in childcare for fifteen years as a babysitter/nanny, youth fitness coach, a youth advocate for youth at risk and co facilitated a workshop for empowering preteens. I strongly believe you need to be certain you want kids and even more certain that you are ready to have them.  

 I firmly believe parenting is the hardest job anyone will ever do. It is a full time job with no pay, there is no rule book that comes along with it and even when you strive to be the best parent you can be, somewhere along the way you are bound to mess up.  That is part of being human.

Having children is a BIG responsibility! Not everyone takes this into consideration or realizes how much work goes into having children, raising them and being accountable for them. Once you have children your time, money and life is no longer your own. There are rarely any breaks and no time off when you are a parent, unless you hire a nanny or a babysitter.

Hiring someone to care for your children is ok every once in a while, but when parents rely on someone else to care for their chil/dren for prolonged periods of time, it becomes a problem. Children have an innate understanding of who they can trust and who they can rely on. When a nanny/babysitter or someone else is caring for them more than the parent, this understanding becomes messy. When a paren becomes absent in the home, the child/ren begin to distrust the parent/s and begin to view the primary caretaker as the parent, the one they can trust and rely on, the person to listen to, which creates problems once the parent takes over.

I fully support parents having adult time away from their kid/s, but I also believe that when hiring a caretaker, it is important to make sure the child/dren are in good hands. Even the best and most well behaved kid/s take energy, work and require someone who is adept at caring for another human being. Some parents today are not willing to pay a fair amount for childcare and it infuriates me! Children are not expendable, they are human beings who deserve to be love and cared for.

I strongly feel that everyone should have the experience of caring for a child before they have one. It is so important for a person to KNOW they want kids before bringing them into this world. Often times parents don’t understand the impact their parenting has on the development of a child. How we are raised plays a major role in how we act, what we believe, how we show up in the world and on our future relationships.

Friendship: One of Life’s Greatest Treasure’s

Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

– Muhammad Ali

True friendship isn’t just about having fun, although that’s a huge part of it. True friendship in my opinion, is about being there when they need you and even when they don’t. Real friendship, is  being able to be honest with your friends and accept their honesty, even when the truth hurts. True friendship is being able to admit when you’re wrong, being able to call the other person out on their shit and not worry about whether they can handle it and apologizing if and when we should.

Genuine friendship is accepting the other person for who they are, working with their shortcomings (because we all have them), encouraging and supporting them without an agenda. In my opinion friendship should be a two way street, it should be a give, as well as a take.

Boundaries are important in any relationship platonic, family, business, romantic etc. When boundaries are messy people can get hurt, intentions can be misread and assumptions can be made. The most important thing is honoring your well being! if something doesn’t feel safe/right trust that feeling!

Defining boundaries isn’t always easy. However, knowing your limits helps. My friends mean the world to me and I would do almost anything for them. If I am not comfortable with something, It’s my job to voice it. I am the only one responsible for how I handle that. When it comes to boundaries only you can be responsible for your own well being and your own happiness, no one else can.

Casual Relationships

FWB- The age old friends with benefits, it’s a nice idea when a person is horny and is not ready for a relationship, but any kind of intimate relationship involves two people (or more) and the only way a FWB works is when two people are in the same headspace and if there is no emotional connection.

Once you are emotionally connected and try the benefits, someone will more than likely get hurt and often times both parties get hurt. More often than not, the friendship crumbles and when it does there is no one there to help you pick up the pieces.

F*** Buddies- This scenario is much like FWB, except it is just the benefits. No dinner, no movies, no hanging out. It doesn’t even resemble Netflix and chill. It is purely primal. It may work for a time, but eventually it ends, because humans have needs and while physical intimacy may be a part of those needs. There are greater needs lacking.

Open Relationships- Here is the thing about open relationships, they don’t really work. The reason being is they lack open communication and without open communication there can be no understanding. Both parties may openly communicate their expectations, needs and what their plan is, but once feelings get involved it becomes very tricky, most often one party gets more invested in the relationship and one or both parties get hurt.

Open relationships often begin because a person decides to be with someone rather than be alone or is with someone who does not meet their needs and rather then leave the relationship, they stay in it and continue searching for someone who will meet their needs.

In my opinion this is incredibly selfish on more than one level. Even when there is complete openness about the situation, it prolongs both parties from finding a partner that is better suited for them. It creates unnecessary trust issues and hurt feelings, especially when one party is more invested in the relationship. It also, keeps both parties from fully engaging in someone else and from finding happiness. I mean, let’s face it, if both parties were truly happy, they would close the relationship and commit.

Romantic Relationships

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement and acceptance.”

― John Lennon

Trust, connection, passion, excitement, openness and acceptance are some of the key ingredients to a happy and healthy relationship. Without trust and connection you have no foundation, without passion and excitement you don’t have any fuel to feed the fire, and without openness and acceptance there can be no moving forward.

Lasting romantic relationships don’t just happen they take time to evolve. In order to form connection, both parties must be open to being vulnerable and open to trusting each other. Both people need to understand that trust isn’t just given, it is earned with time and patience. There needs to be an element of fun and excitement otherwise the passion can wither.

In order for a romantic relationship to last the couple must be willing to work with each other’s shortcoming in order to grow and move forward. Both parties must be able to meet each other’s needs and sometimes they must make sacrifices. Sometimes they might even need to take a leap of faith, but when it’s real, there will be someone there to catch you if you fall and falling for love is worth the risk.

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus (Really We Are All From Earth, Society Just Conditions Us Differently)

I’d like to point out that when it comes to relationships, men and women are not so different ( I’d like to apologize to any non binary folks who might be reading this. I am writing about my experience and what I know. Please feel free to comment on your experience).

There is a lot of discussion these days about gender bias and gender inequality. When it comes to the M/F genders the brain does develop differently, but society plays a huge part in how we perceive the world. Things that are acceptable in our society change over time, but one thing has always been pretty apparent, Males and Females are treated differently.

For women it’s all about submissive behavior and physical appearance. For men it’s all about being in control, having rank and position. For women in our society there is this idea that we must be practically perfect in every way. For men in our society they must be powerful, strong and never be seen as weak. For both genders that is an incredible amount of pressure.

We live in a society that tells us we are “supposed” to be a certain way and often we are conditioned to deny the very essence of being human. No human being can do it all an perfectly and everyone that comes into this world, regardless of their gender has emotions and feelings. The idea that a certain gender needs to hide their feelings in order to not be seen as weak is incredibly toxic and damaging. Yet, our country profits from following gender norms. For women, it is in the beauty industry, for men, it is in the “sporting” industry. The societal expectations for gender doesn’t stop there however. Societal expectations are everywhere including in our relationships.

During my personal inquiry and research regarding relationships, I surveyed both men and women on numerous topics. I interviewed relationship coaches and therapists and I spent countless hours on Google finding scientific studies, as well as common interest relationship articles that I can only name as rubbish. According to the “rubbish” articles, it is a woman’s job to attract a man, keep that man and be perfect  for that man.

For men, there are fewer articles out there and the ones that do exist typically revolve around dating advice and how to understand women. By the time I was done reading some of the rubbish articles, I was pretty appalled.  What the “trash.” articles did prove however, is that both binary genders, get sucked into the gender trap. Women are wired to think they need to be attractive and submissive in order to find a mate.  Men are essentially wired to “fuck it or kill it.” Which is ironic considering the vast majority of relationship articles out there

In general these articles assume that men have simpler needs and women are more complicated and emotional. What these articles fail to mention is that the reason men seem to have simpler needs, is because of the conditioning they have faced in childhood and/or have experienced in society. This conditioning has taught them to hide and repress their needs and emotions.

Women on the other hand are allowed to show their feelings, talk about their emotions, cry and let it all out.  Because men do not usually have an emotional outlet, it is harder to heal the hurt they feel and often they bury it or carry it around and it becomes part of their script.

Healing hurt is often a lot longer process for most men in our society. Dr. Scott Carol, Relationship expert and psychiatrist, states, “many men never learned how to properly deal with their emotions, they don’t know what to do with them when they suddenly arise. “The tricky part is that men are raised to hide their feelings and to not let you know if you hurt them—the worse the pain, the more they have to hide it.” Emotionally, men and women are not that different, we have simply been taught to deal with our emotions differently. In my opinion, this is a real problem, there are many significant gender biases that need to be shed in order for both genders. 

There are lot’s of stigma’s that surround the different sex’s, for example: “Women, shouldn’t make the first move,” “men love the chase,” “he won’t buy the cow when the milk is free”. “men are only interested in sex”. A lot of these stigma’s surround expectational norms for different genders, these beliefs are often old school and  either need to be rewritten or thrown out.

First, It is absurd to think that women shouldn’t make the first move. Any gender can and should make the first move when interested. So many relationships never happen, because someone didn’t make a first move. Secondly, everyone love’s the chase…and the reward. The chase is exciting and all genders find it exhilarating, especially when it is successful.

The fact that there is the stigma where a cow refers to woman and milk to sex infuriates me! I have no idea where that saying came from, but it is misogynistic on so many levels! A woman should never be referred as a cow or property and the idea that a man might purchase her even in a metaphoric sense, is not only revolting, it is outdated as well.

Finally,  most people like sex, it is a natural human desire, any genders can get attached after sex and can get hurt. The stigma that men are only interested in sex is one of the biggest farce’s of all. Biologically men have more testosterone than women, which means they have a higher sex drive, but for the majority of men, pursuing a women isn’t just about sex. It is about honoring the needs they have repressed for so long. It is about finding a mate and the innate desire to be loved and accepted.

Relationship expert and coach Eric Charles,” confirms, “Men do want to feel love, but you will seldom find a man that will outright say he’s looking for love. The reason for this is that for men, we’re very goal oriented and for the most part the more emotional we feel about something, the more it throws us off our game.”

As I said earlier, humans have an inborn need for love and connection. Males and Females may be wired differently by biology and society, but at the core we all want to be loved and accepted. Maybe with more love and acceptance we can shed the ideals and unrealistic expectations society puts on us and change our world for the better.

Heartbreak Isn’t Something To Fix, Heartache Is Something to Nurture

The term heartbreak is a popular word often used when a meaningful relationship ends. The term “heartbreak” really irritates me. I prefer to use the term heartache, the reason being is that “heartbreak” implies that something needs to be fixed. When your heart is hurting it doesn’t need to be fixed, it needs to be nurtured, so it can heal. Heartache is truly the worst feeling in the world. It is like someone reached into your chest cavity, pulled out your heart and squeezed as hard as they could and just when you think you are about to die, they put it back in the hole and leave you there to bleed.

People can do crazy things when they are in love and even crazier things when their heart is hurting, because logic and reason go out the door when a hurting heart gets involved . An article in psychology today compares the feeling of heartache with drug addiction stating, “these powerful withdrawal symptoms from the loss of love impact our ability to think, focus, and function… We would never expect an addict in the midst of withdrawal to be able to function in their  job or personal life because we understand they are in a temporarily abnormal mental state.”

When a relationships ends whether it be a romantic partnership, a friendship or other, it hurts! It is a loss.  After experiencing loss, it is normal to grieve. Grief happens in a few ways denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. A person might experience all of these or just a few and not necessarily in the same order. The most common of these symptoms are, anger, denial and depression. After experiencing loss, it is normal to feel angry, hurt, confused and sad. Once we have taken the time to grieve however, it is important to let go of the anger we feel.

In the words of Buddha, “holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal, with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.” Holding on to anger only harms the person who is feeling angry. It is so important when experiencing grief to deal with the anger, own the sadness, accept the loss, heal the hurt and move forward.

When someone hurts us, we have the choice to hold on to the negative feelings and bewilderment. We can remain angry and confused or we can choose to let go of the confusion, trust what we know to be true about the situation and acknowledge our pain and sadness and then move forward. Almost everything we do in in life is a choice and I would much rather choose to trust what I know, accept what happened, acknowledge my feelings, move forward and remain open to love. Our world is so full of anger, hurt and hate right now. What it needs is more forgiveness, more understanding and more love.