dd

Because what better karma is there for liars or cheaters (or liars and cheaters) than to attract some other liar or cheater into a potential long-term legal partnership?  They may think  they’ve found their own little slice of nirvana, but from what I’ve seen, it quickly becomes their own private hell, even though they generally won’t admit it for a couple of years.  The behaviors that brought them to this place don’t go away—they just change focus.  Cheaters rarely stop cheating, and liars rarely stop lying—they simply cheat on different people or lie to a new spouse.  They find that out about each other soon enough, and  that’s what comes around again.  I’ve been caught laughing a little too often over the prospect of someone else marrying some past romantic interest because I’ve known enough secrets about at least half of the happy couple to know that marriage between those two people is the greatest punishment  I could wish on anyone.
 
So if your lying, cheating ex is marrying someone else, congratulate him or her…and then smile to yourself.  You don’t have to do anything at all for them to get what’s coming to them.

Ms. Redbird poses while I stalk her through a window, window screen, and patio.  Photo copyright by Lorna Tedder; all rights reserved.

I believe that a person’s word should be good enough.

I  refuse to put my hand on a Bible and swear to tell the truth.  I refuse to swear to tell the truth, period.  I believe that my word is good enough.  In fact, I find the act of having to “swear” I’m telling the truth to be offensive to me and overall meaningless when it applies to other people.  If someone has integrity, they have it without putting a hand on a Bible and if someone is going to lie or mislead, then I believe that person will find a way to do so regardless of which holy book is present or which Deity is called upon.

Bibles and swearing are not some kind of “Simon says, ‘tell the truth’” tools.  In my world, you don’t get to lie indiscriminately and then, when someone sticks a Bible under your nose, you say, “Oops, NOW I have to be honest but as soon as you remove that Bible, I can lie freely again.”

In both personal and professional relationships that have failed or ended quickly, I often find myself shaking my head and frowning while mumbling, “But he SAID—“ or “But she SAID–.”  I’m always confused until I back away for a moment and realize that I’ve based much of the relationship—whether romantic or business—on the other person being truthful.  My reactions to them and the path I take in those relationships is always based on my idealistic understanding that they will live up to what they have said.  In my profession, the majority of my contracts are negotiated under the Truth in Negotiations Act, so I’m hardest hit in my personal negotiations where I often take for granted that the other person is acting with integrity.

I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and not distrust every stranger I meet.  I prefer living that way to being paranoid and hiding from the world.  Occasionally, I become involved with someone who blithely tells me what he or she thinks I want to hear or what they think it will take to get my agreement.  Then when they fail to follow through, it’s whiplash for me.

One of the sourest business deals I’ve been a party to  was when a potential business partner begged me to work with her.  I pointed out all the reasons I was hesitant, and she countered each one, telling me how she felt about the situation and how each reason wasn’t an issue to her. I plowed substantial  resources into the deal, only to find out too late that all the things she’d been adamant didn’t matter really did and always had.  When I ask why she’d led me to believe otherwise when I’d told her what battles we’d have to overcome, she stated, “If I’d told you the truth, you wouldn’t have proceeded with our deal.”  Well, at least in that, she was right.

I’ve read that instead of listening to someone’s words for the truth, you should watch their actions for the truth.  That may be so, if those actions are visible.    The guy who tells me repeatedly that he’s not seriously involved with a particular woman might be believed if I watch his actions—that I know about—and listen for the consistency in his words.  Unfortunately for him, I do have the insight into his actions that he doesn’t know about and his private actions with his too-talkative girlfriend betray his words.  Then again, I shouldn’t have to rely on watching his actions—I want to take him at his word.

Once, when I argued with a new romantic partner that he was not truthful with me, he tried to tell me that I had the wrong idea about our budding relationship.  I reminded him, word for word, of what he’d said that had lured me in.  He became angry then and told me that if he hadn’t said that, I never would have agreed to a second date and that it had been his best interest to lie to me.

“Jeez,” he said as we parted for the last time, “I guess anything I say can and will be used against me!”

I’d not thought of it that way.  It wasn’t that I was using anything “against” him, but rather, merely expecting him to live up to his word as I had.  If his word had been good, then there would have been no need for anything to be held against him.

But then, I’m an idealist, and I expect people to mean what they say or don’t say it at all.  Without having to swear it on a Bible.

The labyrinth at the Florida Pagan Gathering at dusk–a powerful maze for contemplation. The best thing about labyrinths is that you just let your feet follow the path and your mind flies to more spiritual planes.  Photo Copyright by Lorna Tedder; all rights reserved.

From the upcoming book, 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life  with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It

My 17-year-old sprawls across the passenger seat, her injured foot on the dashboard, and she cuddles against her pillow.  Her mood is that of a wounded kitten, and she’s withdrawn rather than her usual outgoing and delightful self.

I don’t understand how I could have manifested this,” she whimpers.

She’s not talking about her foot.

Her foot injury is a simple accident that resulted in a lot of pain, soreness, and blood–and hopefully not a broken toe.  That happened as we were leaving four days of camping and festival-making in the Ocala National Forest.  The throbbing foot was the icing on the cake, a culmination of her frustrations.  Easy to see how that one manifested.

Instead, she’s talking about how much she’d looked forward to this festival–for weeks–only to wind up feeling shut-down by people she’d admired because of a new policy put in effect that felt like a gut-punch rejection.  We’d both been so thrilled about this trip that we were thrown off-kilter by a series of events that left her tearful and me pissed off on her behalf.  Of all the camping trips we’ve been a part of since 2006, this was probably the worst for us–and the only one where we considered leaving a day early  and finally left for home feeling low instead of amped.  Considering that we’ve attended past festivals when my dad was dying and also right after two big heartbreaks, that’s saying something.  What saved the trip for us was being involved with particular circles of friends as well as some great workshops and talks.  The downers were all specific to a policy that affected her, one where she’d followed the rules  100% and the rules were changed on her mid-way.  Not her fault and no way to change minds …which was another reason we took it so hard.  We had no control over a hurtful situation.

As she sleeps and I drive for six hours, I start trying to figure it out for myself.  How exactly did this manifest when we’d left for the trip exuberant about the possibilities?  The present situation, simply, boils down to legalities involving a minor child and her professional photography.  It involves being told she’s misunderstood, it involves feeling coerced into agreeing that what she’s told is okay, and it involves her having to be the bearer of disappointing news.  It involves her being pulled into the politics of adults and, to some extent, being pitted against her mother.   Funny, but that’s incredibly familiar, isn’t it?

Different characters, different setting, but the same elements of plot and theme.  It’s a replay of a situation that has not yet fully resolved.  We’re still repeating that pattern, that “vibration” of six weeks ago, and it’s still an active pattern that we haven’t broken, even though we thought we were done with it.

Six weeks ago, Aislinn was pulled into a situation that left me equally as angry at seeing her put in the middle of what should have been between adults.  The past situation, simply, boiled down to the questionable legality–and definitely the ethics–of involving my minor child and her professional photography talents in someone else’s deceptive activities.   She was told she’d misunderstood (about me), felt she had no choice but to agree and keep quiet, and left to be the bearer of disappointing news that should have been delivered by an adult.  She was put in a predicament where she was pitted against her mother, and Mom was very unhappy about that, enough so to involve authorities.

The past situation of six weeks ago isn’t just in Aislinn’s vibration but it’s still in mine.  I recognized that almost immediately–a month ago at least.  My part of the past situation is more personal than professional, and though I can immediately end a relationship with a long-term liar with multiple girlfriends who don’t know about each other, I cannot immediately change my entire vibration so that I don’t repeat it. How did I recognize my vibration?  Easy–all I had to do was look at what was going on around me.

The first two guys to approach me about dinner dates were already encumbered and lying through their teeth about it.   One was married, according to his social networking site, but “getting a divorce,” according to him.  I didn’t just take his word for it.  I quizzed him about whether she knew they were getting a divorce and golly-gee-whiz, but she’s on a business trip and he’s planned to talk to her about it when she gets home.  The other guy, when pressed for details about the girlfriend shown on his social networking site, became quite cagey.  About 3 hours before we were to meet for dinner, he finally told me that he was on his way to see her to break up with her (he hadn’t already as he’d sworn) and he’d see me afterward at dinner.  Wow, thanks, dude!

I decided not to date anyone new for a little while, until this pattern of lying scumbags had passed.  When I ventured out again, I met a seemingly sweet man who said all the right things–and like the last man in my life, went to great lengths (oooh, I mean the last two men in my life) to keep his girlfriend a secret on his social networking sites and somehow failed to mention her except eventually to refer to her as a “friend.”  Sheesh, isn’t it exhausting to walk such tight ropes?  These guys could probably produce enough electricity to fuel North America if they spent their energy on positive works rather than deception.  The highlight of their lies is that almost every time, their other girlfriends turn into crazy stalker chicks who feel the need to blame me for their men not being truthful with them or with me.  In the end, they end up with their liars and not me–and that’s not a bad thing at all.

So in looking around at the men I’m still meeting, that pattern of liars is still there for me.  And my fix for that is to not date, to not get involved, to just keep things easy and single for a while.  Kinda gives new meaning to the term sucka-free, doesn’t it?

But the pattern is still there for Aislinn, too.  How to fix it?  Maybe she’ll break her pattern by not offering or not being talking into offering her photography skills for free, whether they’re paid for later or not.  Or maybe she’ll just make sure her skills are really wanted and appreciated.  I don’t know.  Given the good heart she has, it would be far harder for me to convince her not to volunteer for the next photography project that arises for a good cause than it is for me to decide to forgo men for a while.

When the current pattern has finished playing itself out, then I think we’ll both be free to be appreciated to our full extent.

I’ve been divorced long enough that few people tell me what to do anymore, or how to do it, or –heaven forbid—how to play the game.  Maybe they grew tired of it.  Or maybe it was the less willing ear I give them now, accompanied by plenty of eye-rolling if I’m nice enough to sit through more than 10 seconds of it.

I’m not a game player.  Most men tell me they don’t want a game-player, yet they’re so focused on game-playing and how it’s always been that they don’t know what to make of me.  They keep asking what the catch is.

There isn’t one.  If I like you, you’ll know it.  I don’t hide my feelings, even if that means you’re uncomfortable enough to run away or create a drama you know will cause me to end the relationship in one fell swoop.  I don’t play games, and I won’t put up with a man who does.

When I was first divorced and dating again at mid-life, I made a lot of mistakes in the first few years.  Most of them were because, after a long marriage,  I lacked the confidence to do what was true to me.  I listened to friends’ advice on dating—friends who’d been married for two decades or longer or hadn’t had a  date in a dozen years.  In general, their advice was all about how to play the game so I could pair up again.  Some would encourage me to make a bold move and then suggest I quickly back off.  Others would suggest I be subtle and calculated.  In any case, I was told that I had to wait, then play it cool, pretend not to care, and let the guy make the next move.

“Ball’s in his court,” my friends would warn.

In hindsight, most of those guys never knew there was a ball, much less a court or that the game was on.  I took my friends’ advice and kept my opinions and my feelings to myself so I didn’t scare anyone away.

And I didn’t scare anyone away.

I did, however, become a lot happier after I ditched my friends and their expectations and rules and relationship games.  I also began to enjoy dating a whole lot more and reached a startling perspective—most of those people weren’t very happy in their own relationships but they could certainly dish advice on how to be.

The only way  it’s ever worked for me is to be unabashedly who I am, and not the least bit worried what a man thinks.

The ball’s not in any man’s court.  The balls are all in my court—crystal balls, snow globes, spinning and sparkly things.  They’re mine to command…though I’m willing to share.

Bullies are everywhere at my office right now.  Bullies and manipulators.  Mean people.

I’m not sure what’s caused this.  Maybe it’s the stress of an upcoming inspection.  I hate these IG inspections because they tend to be made into something more important than any war effort.  Instead of focusing on helping employees and organizations improve their processes, it becomes a point of shame and gotchas.  Stress brings out the best and the worst in people, and in the latter case, it costs respect.

As the Bible verse goes, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”  Stress causes people to make quick and ugly judgments without stopping to think if someone else is hurting or the reason for their actions. Their worst comes out.  They sound and seem mean, unreasonably mean.   Once the judgment is made in a  hurtful way, there’s a flip side.  The judge becomes the judged, and that often changes all future actions.

Here’s what I mean, published originally on 23 October 2007.

—-

A single phrase of judgment can cause destiny to turn on a dime. In less than 10 seconds, a look, a few words, and a tone of voice can be a turning point for both the judge and the judged.

Last week, I saw Shannon sour on one of her favorite college instructors and courses. Though the course hasn’t been easy, she’s been excited about the subject matter and enthusiastic about the instructor–until a moment of being mis-judged. She’s kept a high grade in the class, in spite of back-to-back flu and migraines and taking an exam during a splitting headache, but she was taken aback when the instructor jumped to conclusions and lumped her in with the slackers. Shannon’s enthusiasm for the class and instructor died immediately, and the distaste of being misjudged changed her plans to take more such courses from this instructor.

It’s ironic. The instructor just alienated one of her most enthusiastic students. I wonder how often she’ll lament that her students aren’t as excited about her classes as she is and blame the people around her.

It’s made me think of different times when I changed my course because of a judgment that was passed on me and how I’ve judged that person back as unworthy of my respect or my time or my affection. Probably the one in my career field that made me turn on a dime was back in 1999 when my Colonel sent me to a new job where, he said, I would be a “gift” to The Big Female Boss because I was the out-of-the-box thinker she needed and we’d be able to do great things together. I hit both emotional peaks and valleys there, with the last peak being the first day on the job.

I can still remember the sheer excitement of the first day, which I was to spend settling in. I showed up in a suit with about six boxes of plaques and awards from my previous office and a big smile on my face. My new supervisor, who’d already met me and had seen my previous work space which actually had a door (!), directed me to her old cubicle and told me to make it mine and decorate it any way I wanted. Though I’d left my previous office in spit-shined shape, I spent the first half of my first day on the job on top of the desk and cabinets, in my suit and pantyhose and pumps, scrubbing down half an inch of moldy dust, wiping down sticky concentric circles, and vacuuming up food crumbs and bugs. Gah. Welcome, indeed.

I spent the second half of my first day on the job decorating my office. In previous offices, I’d had lots of plants, bookshelves, lamps, pictures, curtains–a regular home away from home, since I would spend considerably more time in my office than in my own house. I tried to replicate that in my new, freshly-scrubbed office, including tacking my daughter’s artwork to the bulletin board next to my computer and a not-scantily-clad Xena poster my former office had given me that I put up in a location that could be seen only from inside my cubicle, which was off-limits to people outside my office. I double-checked with three much higher-ranking people in my new organization’s chain of command to make sure I could decorate however I wanted and they all thought my office was wonderfully inviting and were happy to have someone “non-stuffy” in their midst, they said.

At the end of the first day, my supervisor came by to ask if I needed anything (now that everything had been scrubbed) and I asked if there was any problem with anything I’d put up in my office. She laughed and assured me that it was all just fine, though a few days later she mentioned that The Big Female Boss, to whom she was “personally very close,” did not permit personal items in the workspace and that my supervisor herself didn’t keep pictures of her kids at her desk. But at the end of my first day on the new job, I left somewhat sweaty from all the housecleaning work and smelling of Lysol, but I was still quite happy.

About Lorna's other job....

On the morning of my second day on the job, I arrived early and eager. As I walked in the door, The Big Female Boss was stepping into the elevator. She held the door for me and I ran for it, very excited to get a few minutes of time with her and tell her, honestly, how much I was looking forward to working with her. Instead, my official welcome was the elevator ride to the sixth floor, during which I was berated for being unprofessional and lectured on what a “serious ship” that The Big Female Boss ran and that I was to take down anything personal in my new office and obviously I didn’t know what I was doing professionally. Yeah, gift indeed. I’m amazed now that I actually got off the elevator and didn’t just slump to a mute puddle in an elevator car going up and down all day.

The rest of the day was spent cowering in my new cubicle with its now-blank walls as various bosses stopped by to apologize and tell me how much they hoped I would still enjoy my job and how much THEY were looking forward to working with me after the great stuff I’d done in my previous office. Those people were the sole enjoyment I had in that job, for the rest of my time there. That second day was actually not the worst of my tenure, given my supervisor’s petty powerplays that eventually did get her removed, but it was the first day of a job that I hated every minute of.

The irony? Most of the people I worked with nodded and smiled to The Big Female Boss, but privately disagreed with her some or all of her vision for the future. More than anyone else I worked with, I completely bought-in to what she was doing and where she was going with it. I was one of the biggest supporters of her ideas, yet in the first ten seconds of our first meeting, she alienated me and I could never give her the personal support she expected. After that elevator ride, it simply wasn’t in me to give it no matter how much I might have wanted to.

Like with Shannon’s instructor, there were many ways she could have responded to me without the disapproval, the jumping to conclusions, the berating. It’s too bad they don’t teach that to those who lead by position. Sometimes I wonder what turns my career would have made there if, on that elevator ride, she’d said in an even or light or casual tone, “Your supervisor may not have told you yet, but I have certain preferences for how I want my managers’ cubicles to look and I’d like for you to remove anything that isn’t specifically job-related.”

They say that life is lived and decided in moments–that in one moment we will choose to do something or not, that we’re born in a moment and die in a moment, that we marry in a moment and sign divorce papers in a moment, that we are conceived in a moment and conceive our children in a moment. It was in that moment in the elevator that I made particular decisions about my future, and all because of a not-so-well-turned phrase.

Lorna Tedder at 23

From the upcoming book, Passion to the Third Degree.  Originally published in 2007.

I haven’t thought of that boy in years.

I knew him in college, considered him a friend. I never had any romantic inclinations toward him, but I was vaguely aware that he certainly had them for me. I was either mostly oblivious or ignored them—I’m not sure which.

He never did anything to act on his desires though, and I was already involved with the boy I married. Plenty of my friends had the hots for this guy, even though he never had a girlfriend and we couldn’t understand why not.

And there was that one time when he stripped COMPLETELY in front of my roomie and me, one night in my apartment, and asked us as female “friends” what was wrong with him physically that he couldn’t get a girlfriend. Who knows? Maybe he meant me.

My eyes must have been the size of saucers because my roomie and I did a double-take of his full monty, jerked our heads up to see each other’s response, and then both ran laughing maniacally into other rooms. When we finally calmed down and returned, the poor boy was sitting there, devastated by our reaction. It took a while before we were able to (fan, fan, fan) explain that there was NOTHING wrong with him physically. Omigod. Nothing.

Neighhhhhhhhhhhheeheehee.

We all stayed friends, to varying degrees, through college. I graduated a few years ahead of him and left town. Moved around a little but never heard from him again after that. Until….

He called my parents’ home on the day of my wedding. I don’t remember now if it was just before—after I’d gone to the wedding location—or during the wedding. Someone at the house answered the phone and took a message. I didn’t know until much later that he’d called.

He hadn’t known about the wedding, or that his call was so ill-timed. He didn’t leave a number, just a message to say he’d called.

I never heard from him again.

Sometimes I wonder what it was he’d planned to say to me and if it would have made any difference in the path I took with my life.

Astrology is my hobby, and I love learning new things.  I’m a big fan of asteroids and now, thanks to astrologer Eileen Nauman’s articles on the Trans-Neptune Planets, aka the Uranians, I’ve been playing around with my chart and the charts of family and friends to see how the Uranians  show up.  And I’m seeing some interesting connections between the Uranian Hades and the asteriod associate with marriage or marriage needs, Juno.

Hades, from my research, is more about death and sorrow, though there are variations of the meaning.  It’s…unpleasant to say the least.  Probably the best benefit, if there is one, is that it can “prune” away the old stuff, whether we like it or not.  So not to establish any major new concept here, but I thought I’d see what’s happening in my chart so far this year and see what’s going on with Hades.  And maybe even take a look at it with Juno, since my Juno is exceptionally strong this year.

Initially, nothing really stood out so much in the different charts, even progressions and solar returns, though I suspect transiting Hades at the 29th degree in my solar return chart in  2012 will be significant, especially looking at its conjunction with transiting Moon as well as other planets in my natal chart. If you’re mind to look ahead and mark your calendar for around March 2, 2012, it could be a very interesting week for us all.

Where I found something particularly interesting was in the lunar returns (with natal chart), courtesy of the free service at astro.com.  (Please, go look it up and try this on your own–I’m not a professional, you’re not paying me,  and I’m not going to do it for you.)  In the lunar return charts, for specific moon cycles this year, I found some startling correlations in my personal life.

For example:  I looked at the specific lunar month where a romantic relationship ended and there was Juno and Hades in a less than 1-degree conjunction.  Death of a relationship?  Hmmmm.  Definitely the inciting incident that killed the relationship.  In the next lunar month, Hades was conjunct Mercury and Venus.  Definitely the death of any communication and lov…uh…let’s just say I got over it.  He’d completely lost his appeal to me.  The next lunar month?  No Hades aspects…but hey, I sure do like that Juno-Venus conjunction!

My decision to leave that relationship affected several other people, so I checked their charts, too.  One was unaffected, astrologically, and  I have to admit, she’s oblivious to what’s going on.   Another who was deeply emotionally involved had a Juno-Hades conjunction in the lunar month that all hell (pardon the pun) broke loose in her relationship, and the next month had a Hades-Moon-Venus conjunction.

For a man in my life who has recently had his entire world threatened by his past deeds coming to light, Hades was conjunct his Ascendant that lunar month and the next, when ramifications of his past hit at work, Hades was conjunct his Mid-Heaven, showing the damage to his career.

Another friend was served divorce papers a few weeks ago.  His lunar return chart at the time?  Hades conjunct Juno.

I found similar Hades connections in the charts of everyone I know who’s been through a recent breakup.  I found no such connections in the charts of people who weren’t watching a relationship end.

So what if I look back on previous years?  What then?  Going back to my last break-up, Hades isn’t conjunct anything but…it is opposite a Juno-Pluto conjunction.  The guy I was seeing?  Hades was conjunct his Descendant.  When I finally decide to sue my then-husband of two decades for divorce?  North Node conjunct natal Hades and transiting Hades and Venus in conjunction.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but it’s been a fascinating trip through charts thus far.

ADDED, approximately 1 month later:  At the time I tried this exercise, I ran the chart of another person in a committed relationship just as part of my control group and found the Hades-Juno conjunction there as well, in the May lunar cycle for that person.  I didn’t say anything to anyone, but the couple has now split, unexpectedly.

From the upcoming book, 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life  with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It

You wouldn’t let your last boyfriend–the one with all the drama and problems–choose your next boyfriend, would you?  Yet that’s what most of us do without realizing it.

Whenever I’ve been single in my life, particularly after being married, supposedly smarter people than me are great at unsolicited advice like  “Just ask the Universe to bring you the right guy” or “You should pray for God to pick the perfect person for you.”  Well, duh.  These people also tend to have been married to the same person for a couple of decades and just looooooovvvvve telling others how to be as miserable as they are.  Yes, they amuse me.

But their advice isn’t all bad.  It makes perfect sense, yet in recovery from the last break-up, we don’t so much choose to let the next guy to come to us be exactly what we need as we do hope they’re not what we had last time.  In that sense, we look for, seek out, attract to us a guy with key features that are the opposite of what we just endured.  And we try like crazy not to keep attract the same kind of guy as last time while actively seeking something better.   Better equals opposite, you see.    That doesn’t bring us the perfect guy for us–it brings us a guy with a different set of drama than the last one.

For example, after dealing with a romantic partner wasn’t very romantic, wild passion was definitely what I looked for in the next man.   The key factor missing from my  previous relationship instantly narrowed my dating pool to a few teaspoons of men who were the opposite of where I’d been, regardless of their other issues.  I got wildly passionate–and tons of drama and him sobbing in my arms.  So the next time I was open to a romantic partner, I specifically asked the Universe to bring me a guy who was happy and drama-free.

I got that, too.  Of course, he was happy and drama-free (seemingly) because he was leading at least two secret lives and delivering a daily performance that’s just got to be worthy of a suspense thriller in my future as a novelist.

After that, it was easy enough to set my intentions for a new romantic partner who isn’t living a life worthy of a whole week of guest starring on Jerry Springer, but I decided not to.  Instead of looking for people who aren’t anything like the last guy, I reset my intentions.  The next special guy who settles in for some extended good times with me doesn’t have to have the opposite traits of all my past partners.

Nope, he just has to match to me, not to what I didn’t have in the past.

I will believe in honor.

I will not become jaded.

I will not lose my compassion.

I will not be a victim.

I will conduct my relationships with integrity.

I will love myself enough to demand accountability from those who do not behave honorably toward me.

I can look myself in the mirror and not flinch.

Sometimes people disappoint us.  We can make excuses for them or we can acknowledge that they’re human.  We can even forgive them.  That doesn’t mean we have to continue our relationship in the same way, especially when we’ve conducted our side of the relationship with honor and integrity and they’ve done everything but.

There is a tendency, after such a blow, to wall ourselves off, to withdraw.  We think that if this one person we cared for can be so corrupt, then anyone can be…that anyone is…that everyone is.

The lens of life we look through can become tinted a darker shade, one that matches the experience with that one person.  Or even with many other such persons, since feeling keenly such a betrayal brings similar betrayals to us via the Law of Attraction.

But I don’t want to be that way.  My friend Jillian used to tell me I was too idealistic.  I’d learn something awful about a person or two and still give them the benefit of the doubt or be too forgiving, and later get burned.  But I like being idealistic.  I like being compassionate and trusting.  I don’t ever want to become jaded by too many heartbreaks to not be idealistic and compassionate and trusting.

Balance has been the key for me.  Holding a liar accountable.  Pulling back the curtain to show the truth, regardless of how ugly it may be.  Seeking justice to balance an injustice.  Seeking truth to balance a lie.  It helps me to believe that the world is not skewed to favor the dishonorable man.

I still believe that there are good people out there.  I like that I believe it.

When someone I dislike does something to hurt me, especially intentionally, I want to bare my teeth and claws and think nothing of going for the jugular.  If they do something to someone I care about, I’ll shred them without thinking.  When someone I care about does something to hurt me, intentional or not, my natural tendency is to want to withdraw and curl up in a ball until the pain goes away.

Those are my natural inclinations, what goes on inside that most people don’t see.  Showing my injuries is another matter.

In fact, very few people would have any idea at all of how often or deeply I’ve been hurt in my life if it weren’t for my blog and articles, which all started as a form of post-divorce catharsis through what I referred to as my “healing journal”  and ended up being a useful tool for many other women who were starting over in their lives.  That’s because somewhere along the way, I got the idea that you’re just not allowed to show your injuries to others because doing so makes you weak.  Yes, in some cases, it’s like announcing to sharks that you’re wounded and hey-doesn’t-my-blood-smell-good, and the people who did intentional damage will try to move in for the kill…but this is much more than that.

It’s easy to understand that you don’t want your enemies to know you’ve been injured or the extent of those injuries.  That’s just self-protection until you can get back on your feet and fight back.  It’s survival, that.  Showing how strong and invincible you are, even if you feel like a trembling, chilled, drenched puppy inside.

With people you care for, it’s much harder.  Or at least, it is for me.

For me, rather than show my injuries, it’s easiest for me to give off that strong appearance and remain light, open, and involved while I withdraw emotionally and often physically. Often, I will cut people off in an emotional shutdown to keep them from wounding me again.  I certainly responded that way enough throughout a long-term marriage and other relationships.  If I dared to say how I really felt and show my injuries, I knew I’d be accused of being “emotional,” which of course is code–especially among guys–for “weak.”

Yeah?  Well, I’m an emotional girl, I live in my emotions, I enjoy my emotions.  I love feeling wonderful about something or someone or just life, and loving my emotions and what they bring to me does not make me mentally disturbed or weak-minded.  (Thank you so much, Abraham-Hicks, for teaching me that.) I feel everything deeply, and though at times I’ve needed to take the edge off some pain, I don’t want to not feel deeply. My emotions bring a layer of joy and satisfaction to my relationships that nothing physical or intellectual comes close to.  And so I hated being regarded as deficient if I showed my injuries, if I let my spouse know how much lack of support or interest hurt me…or how devastated I was to have a manuscript rejected and dreams dashed…or any number of deep desires that just weren’t coming to fruition for me.

I’ve also been trained not to show my immense joy of being with a particular person because my own emotions were too overwhelming for the other person, even though I thought my emotions were rather subdued.  I once spent a fabulous weekend with a man I was crazy about–we’d been seeing each other for a long time and he’d frequently professed his love–and as he pulled up to drop me at the airport, he crushed my happily quiet mood by saying, “I had a great time, but don’t think this means anything.”   I withdrew into myself, kissed him goodbye at the terminal, and never showed him how badly those words had hurt.  His message was clear that he didn’t want to make a commitment, even though I’d never asked for one and didn’t expect one.  Pushing me away emotionally was a self-protection mechanism for him, but it hurt, and for the rest of the time I saw him, I kept a tight reign on my emotions and never let him see how much he mattered to me, lest insult be added to my injury.  I hated having to tamp down my feelings for fear of how someone else would handle it–which is why I try not to swallow my feelings these days about anything or anyone–but I could no more show my feelings than I could show my injuries.

In my last relationship, I most definitely showed my feelings but none of my injuries.  The reasoning was simple for me:  I didn’t want to add to his stress, didn’t want to try to guilt him into doing something that would have been better for me than for him, and didn’t want to manipulate him by flaunting my injuries.  I’ve noted that some women use their injuries–”I’ll kill myself because you don’t love me enough!”–to get their way, and I never wanted to be confused with one of them.  So my not showing my injuries wasn’t so much about self-protection as protecting him.   Making it easier on him.  Feeling I could not show my own injuries did not make it easier on me.

So where I am now is trying to be completely open and honest whenever I feel hurt.  I try to not withdraw, not close down, not internalize a wound so it can fester and become a physical illness.  I try to be honest.  I try not to manipulate or control a situation by creating a guilt-fest or try to force anyone to deal with emotions that are mine to deal with.  I try to be true to myself.

That’s not easy for other people to see or hear.  It’s easier for others if I pretend I’m not hurt  or that it doesn’t matter or if I do something to take away from the raw intimacy of showing someone else that I’m hurt.  There’s actually power in that, for me,  to show my injuries and know that I’ll be okay, that something happened that hurt and I’ll work through it and figure things out with no expectation of anyone else doing it for me.  That I can be honest in what I show of myself to others without using it as a weapon to get the attention, love, and/or respect that I deserve.

From the upcoming book, 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life  with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It

It’s easy to blame all the lying, cheating, mean bastards out there, but if they’re not bringing us down every chance they get, don’t worry: we’ll do it to ourselves.  There’s a little bit—or a lot—of the Saboteur archetype in all of us.  Few of us can defy our past overnight and shift into a different vibration, or pattern.  That means that old wounds are repeatedly re-opened or new ones formed, thanks to our very own self-sabotage of the great and wonderful things we want to bring into our lives.

Let’s say that we recognize the error of our ways.  We’re tired of the bad stuff.  We want to bring a certain something good into our lives and we set the intention to do so.  We make lots of changes in our lives to get to a better place to bring it to us.  Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try or want, we can’t get into the vibration of that certain  something good.  We really want it, and we really do understand the Law of Attraction and how to get it.  The problem is, we just can’t manage that last step we need to bring that certain something good to us because we’re stuck in the past where a certain something good never came to us or, if it did, turned out to be a certain something not-so-good.    So even though we now adhere to the Law of Attraction, we still can’t make it happen for us I the way we want.  Oh, it happens for us all right—but it’s just a miserable repeat of the past.  We are still vibrating away at the frequency of oh-please-screw-me-over while yearning for sweet princes on white horses.

It’s taken a rather powerful new influence in my life to help me see this, and I’m actively working to change my vibration to one of perpetual buoyancy by focusing on trust.  I’m honestly fascinated with the situation and the lessons I’m learning from it, and I’m determined to correct my course.

I’ve dated over a dozen terrific men in the past year, and a couple who weren’t exactly terrific but, for the most part, didn’t send me scrambling for a window in the Ladies’ Room while at dinner.  Even from the less-than-wonderful, I learned more about what I wanted and didn’t want.  My intention, set back at the Winter Solstice of the previous year, was to enjoy one or more romantic partners who were happy, vibrant, young, drama-free, kind, interesting, sincere, good men.  Oh, yeah, and hot, too.

The Universe certainly delivered!

There’s only one of these men that I continue to see after a year, and I’m rather fascinated by what I’ve learned from him.  Namely, that it took me a solid year to trust him. I’m not sure whether to be surprised that it took so long or that I was ever able to trust again at all.  But I’ll come back to that.

Looking back, I know now that I had a similar situation in my life with platonic friendships.  During and after my divorce, I was terribly hurt by the lack of emotional support from the people I considered my closest friends.  Five years ago this month, I cleared my slate of most of my 50 closest friends and allies because I was making a big change in my life and they represented the negativity and inertia of my past.  Energetically, they felt like a physical anchor dragging me down, trying to control my actions and thoughts, and constantly telling me what to do.  Within the next year, I parted company with the last of my closest friends from my “old” life.

In that year’s time, even though I said goodbye to almost all my former friends, many of whom were really terrible friends to me who lied to me or used me, I didn’t want to become jaded about friendships and relationships.  I wanted to trust again.  I wanted to have friends again—just not the control freaks, users, and liars of my past.  So I made big changes in my life and made a conscious effort to bring new friends into my life.  Too bad I was still vibrating that my friends were control freaks, users, and liars…because that’s exactly what I attracted to me yet again.

I was so used to being disappointed by my old friends that it was an underlying expectation.  It didn’t take long for my new friends to disappoint me in ways that could not be mended.    Within six months,  I was being blamed for the break-up of a long-term marriage because my friend had told her husband she was out partying with me when she met her new boyfriend, even though I was never one to go out clubbing and was intentionally celibate at that time while I healed from my divorce.  She was seldom home, and she usually gave my residence or “Lorna needs me” as her reason for her  extended absence from her home and children.  There were lots of lies told, and I never really got the closure I needed that would have come from defending myself.  As soon as I discovered the truth and refused to cover for her or let her use me, she dropped our friendship.

There were other new friends who disappointed me also, but it was the betrayal of this new best friend that hurt the most and bothered me for years afterward.  By the time my other significant friendships ended, I drew inward for a while to work on myself and make sure that I had changed my vibration enough that, instead of bringing more users into my life as best friends, I would bring in friends who genuinely cared about me and weren’t users by nature.    That transition time was very hard for me, very lonely.  I literally had no friends for  many months while I rebuilt my life to reflect the kinds of friends I wanted.  I built a new social network, brought back a couple of old friends who’d been through changes of their own, and grew lush new friendships.

I needed that downtime to transition from someone whose friends were users to someone whose friends were sharers.  There’s no way I could attract happy, caring friends into my life when I was still stuck in the vibration of what I’d experienced repeatedly in my past.  Even though I took the right actions to find new friends after clearing out the old ones, I still had an underlying belief that I couldn’t trust my friends to back me up when things got rough.  I had to change my own beliefs and vibration, and that took time and some careful deliberation on my part.

Which brings us back to my fascination with a man I’ll call “Bear,” thanks to his stature.

It has taken me a year to trust him.  Not that he’s given me any reason not to trust him, except thanks to the Saboteur we all have in us.  For a year, I have observed his interactions with me, with my daughters, with his child, with his colleagues, with his friends.  All of his actions have been consistent with his words to me.  I have seen things I didn’t quite understand and felt those old pangs of fear that it was evidence of a deception, that it was just history being repeated…and then, before I could even ask or before he knew that I knew, he would offer up that information as well as the reason for it.  No deception.  No using and abusing.  And then, as if the Universe was telling me here was something important to pay attention to, someone unrelated would unwittingly corroborate the information he’d given me.

The fascination I have with this epiphany is that for the past year of not trusting him, it’s not been about anything he’s done or hasn’t done.  It’s been because, while I brought him into my life with solid intentions of spending more time with men who really are good men, I have been vibrating  my belief that good men are too good to be true, that a seemingly good man will eventually be discovered to be either a lying user or a gutless coward…because that’s been a prevalent pattern in my life.  (Pattern equals vibration.)  That has been my true belief about men, and as a result, I’ve attracted men of that type to me again and again.

So my challenge now is to stay in this vibration of being joyful that there are some great guys out there whom I enjoy and who have been good for me…and just continue to enjoy the hell out of my time with him and anyone else like him.

Serene moments in Donalsonville, GA.  Photo copyright by Lorna Tedder.  All rights reserved.

I was somewhat mortified (to put it mildly) when my 17-year-old announced that she was looking up men from my past on Facebook and friending them.  They were all men I’d cared for at one time or another and she had, too, which is why she was concerned about how they’re doing now.  Some of them weren’t doing so well the last time she saw them, and she has a soft heart.

Some have since responded readily and some never will, but that has everything to do with the Law of Attraction and the way things must line up for old lovers and friends to be reunited.

The first thing to look for in such alignments is where you are.  For my daughter and me, we are both in a wonderful place in our lives right now—lots of hard work but plenty of excitement and passion for both the future and right now.  Most of the  people I attract into my life now become fast friends with her as well because we’re on the same wavelength—not an easy feat  with every teenaged child!

So I can’t blame her for—and won’t stop her from—choosing to reconnect with men who’ve been somehow important in her life because they were once important to me.  She has a big heart and a lot of compassion, and that reflects in her connections to others.  I can’t always see this so well in her connections to other people her own age—people I don’t know well because she has so terribly many friends—but I can certainly observe their alignments in our mutual friends.

Because I know where the two of us are in our own frequencies, it’s easy to tell where others are in their interactions with us.  If we’re in alignment with friends from my past or present, that comes through rather clearly in our initial re-introductions—or lack thereof.  Only the people in alignment with us come back into our lives in a stable way.

It’s an interesting lesson:  some happy, vibrant people keep coming back into our lives over and over, and we have such great times with them.  They never stay away for long, and if they are away, it’s mainly because they are as busy as we are. Some people, who are not “in a good place,” show up only intermittently…if at all.

We may wish for those we love who are unhappy and miserable to be back with us, but the Law of Attraction does us a huge favor by matching us up with people who are more in the mindset and good mood that we are.  It’s a blessing in disguise, though most people don’t realize it when they’re agonizing over a missing lover.  It would be much more difficult to stay upbeat and serene if we spent all our time and effort on friends and lovers who are negative, angry, and bitter.

Right now, with the people we attract into our lives and the people we attract back into our lives, it’s easy to be happy.

I’m stunned that I forgot to set goals.  That’s so unlike me.  Goals are the guideposts to the future and without them, I tend to amble off the path.

One of the benefits of monthly sessions with a  life coach is that they keep me on-track in my busy life and help me to fine-tune new things I want.  It’s therapy, in a way, and it’s a nice objective sounding board for me—one that doesn’t judge  in the way a close friend or colleague with an agenda might.  My coach simply helps me to talk through worries and come up with a game plan.

In this month’s session, my coach asked about a certain project.  I had mentioned to her how well it was going, and her resulting question was, “So what goals have you set for this project?”

Huh?  The question really caught me off-guard, and it shouldn’t have.  I stuttered a bit and had to admit that I’m not sure of my goals for this project.

I had goals for it, over a year ago when I first started it.  They were very specific goals, and the project has met those expectations and more.  Way more.  But I realized when she asked the question that it’s not meeting my goals so much now.  I don’t really know anymore where this project is going.

Somewhere along the way, my original goals were met and I began looking for something more, even though I hadn’t set goals or intentions for something more.  I’ve been wondering what more might come of this project and wanting more from it, but what exactly I want now, I can’t say.

See, I met the goals for that project but since the project is on-going and pleasurably so, I never re-set those goals.   And I have no idea where the project’s going.  It’s just sorta fun and undefined right now.  What I needed it for originally is based on my emotional needs over a year ago and not on my emotional needs now.

That’s my assignment for the next few days:  figure out exactly what I want out of this project now.  I certainly honor that it met my intentions joyfully and has been a sweet addition to my life,  but what exactly are the needs I want it to fulfill now?  Once I figure that out, I can set new goals for it.  I can put my intentions out there…and I can take a path to new heights.

Reaching a goal is not always the end result.  Sometimes, for anything ongoing, you need to revisit your original intentions and see what needs to be update in the goal department.

What projects, relationships, or dreams do you have that have met your goals and need a new and improved set of goals?

It’s said that, if you have children, you get to see the world through their eyes.  But it’s not so much a different perspective as a huge opportunity to rewrite your own childhood.  Most people I know had terrible childhoods.  It’s rare to find someone who had two loving parents–whether married or not–and made it through childhood and adolescence unscathed by molesting uncles,  parental negligence, or a whole variety of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.  The last woman I know to confess that she had a great childhood told me that she had problems finding the right relationship because no matter how good things were with a new guy, it just never measured up to what her parents had together.

While it’s not a fresh set of eyes through which to see the world, it’s definitely a fresh reminder of the world during that phase of our lives.  We remember things long forgotten and old wounds are re-opened.  In every case, it’s an opportunity.

Do we react by perpetuating the ills of our own childhood?  Or do we find a way to undo  those ills by doing the opposite with our children?

I still remember raising a hand for the first time to my 15-month-old, for something very minor, and stopping my hand in mid-air.  I turned it into a fist instead, and I swore I would never beat my children then and there and that I would change that legacy.  It wasn’t necessary to keep my girls in line through childhood or their teen years.

I’ve tried to make sure my kids always knew that they were special, worthwhile, wonderful, both in word in action.  It’s a self-correcting course, a way to reclaim some of what we parents lost as children.  It’s our own best medicine for old wounds that have never healed.

Two months ago, I participated in some “spiritual work” with some trusted spiritual leaders who always have an interesting point of view.  I very much enjoy these sessions where I am a student rather than a teacher and where I am challenged to see things in a new way.   I’m a big believer in continued learning, no matter how much of an expert you are or how much you think you know.  There’s always more.

I’ve had terrible arguments in the past with spiritual people who considered themselves experts because of how long they’d been a member of a particular church, circle, or group.  When I challenged them to learn something new–just investigate it to see how it fit with their beliefs–I was quickly slapped down.  They seemed very comfortable in the little niche they’d carved out and not at all interested in any type of spiritual “continuing education.”

It’s because I like to learn that I’ve investigated other religions, attended Voodoo ceremonies, sat through lectures on aliens and other dimensions,  watched for orbs in cemeteries, studied as much as possible for the layman about zero field theory, listened as a didgeridoo was aimed at my second chakra, talked to people who talk to the dead, and oh, so much more.  I never really reject any of it–but I assimilate it in different ways, turning it over in my head and figuring out what it means to me.

During the January session, one of the women was trying to help me work through a relationship question.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about a particular friendship.  I had not shared this with the group, but I was on one hand intrigued by the uniqueness of the person in my life and on the other, well, a little nervous because it was most definitely new territory for me.  The woman helping me talk through the situation began describing to me the relationship as she saw it:  a platypus dawn.

I had not heard even the word platypus in months or years when she said it, though in the two months since, I heard it frequently.  That’s more than just selective filtering–I really am hearing it quite often.

I don’t want to say that the platypus is my new totem animal, though to some degree, that would make sense.  A platypus totem is rather powerful and reflects the need to work with the energy of the truly unique and be able to flow and change direction as need be.  Not a bad meaning at all, especially after working with the wolf totem for so long and then the bear.  It does seem to be a good representative of this particular friendship.

What this woman described to me was a new dawn, a new era in my life.  She described the pink skies of dawn and the platypus coming up out of the water.  She told me that it was the uniqueness that was the key.

That platypus has been the problem.   I really adore men who are “different.”  They don’t have to be openly different, but in their private lives, there tends to be something unusual that no one would ever guess.    Sometimes that “difference” can be very new territory for me, such that I’m not just acknowledging the uniqueness but a part of it.  (I’m being general here, not cryptic.)

So I’ve had my doubts about my platypus relationship with its double-edged sword of uniqueness.  I think the bottom line has been how far is too far when it comes to different ways of thinking.  I’m not so used to being “out-platypus’ed” in a relationship, so this could be interesting indeed.  Especially if what I’ve seen so far is just the dawn of it.

Photo Credit by pdjs-photos; creative commons license

Keeping secrets can be dangerous. It’s not that they can’t be kept, but if they’re kept at a price, then that price tends to manifest into something harmful.

Though I’m fairly open myself and have very few secrets, I still know and keep many secrets that aren’t harmful to me, but there’s a difference in the nature of those secrets. Those are the secrets told to me by someone I’ve counseled. The secrets are shared with me, but they don’t involve me directly. The same is true of secrets that friends have told me over the years. Some have been truly awful secrets that they felt they had to share with someone and I was it. I never asked to be their confessor but I treat those secrets–ones that never had anything to do with me–as their private information that stays private. I was specifically asked to keep it secret and, since I’m not culpable in these cases, I have. I’m sure that there are former friends of mine out there who worry that I’ll write about some terrible secret that happened 20 years ago that had nothing to do with me, but they need not worry: I’ve never disclosed their confessions.

In all of these cases, I did not take on the burden of the secret myself. It was confessed to me, but the burden was not shifted entirely to my shoulders. And that’s the difference between a secret I’ll keep and one I won’t.

In both my personal and professional lives, every time I’ve let someone shift a secret to me instead of bearing it themselves, I’ve gotten burned–both personally in my health and professionally in my reputation. For example, in 2003, a colleague came to me with a secret. She alleged fraud, and by telling me in the position I worked in then, I had no choice but to take responsibility for what I’d been told and follow-up on it. She shed her ownership of the burden of what she knew by telling me, and put me in a precarious situation of having to report it to my boss, even though she was the eyewitness to it. Three other people followed her lead and made the same allegations, all of them turning the secret burning in their chests over to me and to the people in my office. They all gave evidence but only if it was anonymous. The whole thing blew up in our faces before we’d gotten more than a couple of days into our investigation, with the person we were investigating calling for us to be fired for even thinking there might be fraud. The identity of one of the four–the first and most senior one–was discovered through someone else and when asked by a council to explain her allegations, she recanted, later apologizing to me because she was afraid she wouldn’t get promoted if anyone knew she was the one who’d come to my office for help, afraid that the person she’d turned in would retaliate. The other three were terrified of being found out and remained silent out of fear of retaliation and because the most senior of them had hung her head and said it was all a misunderstanding. Meanwhile, my office was left looking very foolish and vindictive because I was ethically unable to divulge any identities.

That will never happen again.

In my personal life, there have been a few occasions where I’ve carried other people’s secrets. I didn’t mean to be the sole one bearing that burden but in each case, the other person unloaded the secret entirely on me, somehow made me responsible for keeping it, lied through their teeth to save their own skin (much like my colleague who desperately wanted a promotion), and then walked away to breathe easily because they’d dodged the bullet.

And I caught it. Between my teeth.

I let that happen. I felt I was the stronger in each of those cases, that I could take it on until they could better bear their circumstances. They never reclaimed it though. They became content to let me bear it. A few have come back into my life to tell me how ashamed they are that they dumped it on me and ran away. Most avoid me now out of fear that I won’t be responsible for their secrets any longer. That’s probably a good idea.

Because in all those cases where I was keeping someone else’s secret while the person who committed whatever act pretended to know nothing–even in some cases pretending not to know me–I let myself bear the emotional and sometimes physical strain of it. I let myself stay up nights worrying, while the real owner of the secret was quite happy not to stay up worrying.

There’s a fine line between keeping mum about someone else’s secrets while that person works through his issues–and agreeing to keep someone else’s secrets so that he doesn’t have to own up to his own problems.  Sometimes the other person, the one whose secret it is, has to man-up. Other people will not grow if I take on their secrets as my own…and neither will I.

Originally published in Third Degree and Rising, 2007.

This is important for reasons I cannot yet fathom, except that I’m looking for what is real.

We’re so sure of what reality is. We gaze at the night sky, at what’s not visible in the glare of harsh light, and congratulate ourselves on seeing the reality that those stars are there, both night and day.

But is that reality? Some of the stars that we perceive as real burned out many generations before we were born. We may see the remaining light of long-dead stars that are no longer there. Or perhaps there are new stars there but their light has not yet reached us. And still other stars are too distant to be seen but burn the brightest.

But what is visible to us and to the rest of the world is not what’s real.

Here on this planet, we look up from its different corners at bears, hunters, dogs, and seven sisters in the sky and clearly see their fixed design as both our lovers and those who passed centuries before us have seen their fixed design in the sky. But the permanence of those designs depends on where you are in the Universe. The stars within those constellations are not clustered in animal and human shapes but rather, we have aligned them in our own points of view to make sense of them.

From Aldebaran, perhaps the Big Dipper appears as the Big Palm Tree. And from Antares, maybe those same stars line up in a different perspective as the Big Waffle Iron. Yet here on Earth, every inhabitant sees the pattern from where we stand.

Reality is not fixed. The patterns we’re accustomed to are not permanent. Some things look a particular way from where we are right now, both where we are in time and where we are in space. That doesn’t mean that it’s real.

These thoughts are important, but I don’t yet know why. They’re important in regard somehow to my ability to love again.

Once upon a time, I was determined not to let past wounds stop me from trusting again and loving again with an unguarded heart, and I put my heart on the line in multiple friendships and more and it was not reciprocated. I let myself get wounded again, and so I’m less inclined now to open my heart to the possibility of being loved as I am than I was a few years ago. My guard is up these days. I really do not like that it is, but it is, and that’s honest. That’s not saying that I’ve closed my heart, but just that I’m a bit more protective of it now.

Now I’m the one who needs the healing touch instead of soothing others’ pain while I leave my own heart wide open. Now I’m the one with the little birdcage bars around my heart.

Because I’m not sure which stars are there and which have burned out and which new ones have been born into a reality I don’t see right now. And I’m not certain yet of how to cluster those stars into a pattern I can recognize.

But I do have faith that it will happen.

Photo credit by PierrickBlons; creative commons license.

Little things can be so compelling.  Sometimes they’re red flags that end a relationship.  Other times, they’re white flags of surrender.  Most of the time, they’re signs all their own, which–put together–can tell a story that lifts or break our hearts.

I enjoy observing human dynamics, how people interact with each other, what drives a person.  I love it when I witness some small compelling thing that elicits an “Awwwwwwww” of awe from me.  I hate it when I learn something that’s a deal-breaker in a relationship, not from gossip but from comments posted by that person on a social network like Facebook, MySpace, Buzz, Wave, or Twitter.

A man can be very sweet and open-minded when he’s trying to get a date, say all the right things, do all the right things, and yet a pattern of Facebook updates spotlights a man who is extremely judgmental of appearance, skin color, and age.  An “upstanding Christian” at work can break half the Commandments in the privacy of a friends-only forum, leaving you to wonder if you ever knew this person at all.

A man I was somewhat interested in recently friended me on a social network.  My heart sank a few days later when the “real” man began to show up in his statuses.   It wasn’t his crazy photos or any self-deprecating humor, as some people do.  What saddened me was the photos he’d secretly taken of strangers and the cruel and hateful things he had to say about them.  It didn’t matter to me that those people would never know their photos had been ridiculed and passed around or that he’d done this in a private but extremely large forum.  What mattered to me was the grand lack of compassion I saw in him that I had not seen in my personal interactions with him.

I guess status updates on social networks are just another way to get a glimpse into the real person, a tool that wasn’t there a few years ago.  Yes, we’ve given away our own privacy.  Not just those of us who are writers or teachers and actively share through the written word, but everyone who shares of themselves on a social network.  Every action creates another window into who we really are.   Before, we could keep our racist, sexist, ageist, and other prejudicial thoughts quieter and less known.  Now,  the way we think and the way we treat other people are all right there, announced loudly, clearly, by our own selves.

That’s not all bad, though.  One man whose company I enjoy touched me deeply a few months ago when he posted a simple status update.  It wasn’t meant to impress me or anyone else, and many people would never have said it out loud or stated it publicly, but it was a comment from his heart that really stirred my own.  He’d had something remarkable happen, a dream come true.  It was the result of someone else’s misfortune that he had nothing to do with and he stepped up to the task readily.  He’d been downright giddy about the upcoming event for months, that he’d get a chance to help, to make a difference.  I’d thought his happiness about this dream-come-true was endearing, and he’d gone out of his way  to make things easier on the people who were on the losing end.  The day before the Big Day, he posted about how much his heart ached for the people who were hurting even though the torch being passed to him temporarily meant the world to him.  His compassion for others was so clear in his words.  He could have been dancing and singing “Nanny-nanny-boo-boo” to others, but instead, he let kindheartedness show through.

If what we say online betrays who we are, then let it betray compassion, kindness, and treating each other well.

When I was first looking for a like-minded spiritual group in Northwest Florida, I found several existing circles rather easily.  These were people who were either pagan or pagan-friendly, with anything from a nice mix of different religious beliefs to a finely honed circle with a specific focus.  I contacted each of them and, without their knowing anything at all about me, they all told me that they were currently closed to new members. I felt a little miffed and rejected at the time–weren’t they even willing to meet me and give me a chance?–but now I understand.  A few did offer an explanation  about energetic harmony but having not had my own group before then, I didn’t understand the precariousness of the balance of energy among a small spiritual group, circle, or coven.

Last year, I closed my own group, my fourth, to the public.  Why?  To maintain the “good energy” we’d achieved.  I didn’t want to close it completely and I did want to be able to grow it here and there as members deployed or moved away, so I made to closed to strangers but current members could bring a guest or two occasionally if they thought it would be a good fit.  And, of course, I could bring in other people whenever I wanted, given that it was my group and I was the High Priestess-slash-Facilitator of it.

Wow, have there been lessons!

1. If you’re starting the group, set the rules to suit you. I’d had several small circles between 2003 and 2006, but internal politics always played a role.  Some members wanted to host at their homes, and that just didn’t work.  For the circle I started in March 2008, I decided that the meetings would be at my house every single time.  No exceptions. I enjoy having friends in my home, but I also didn’t want to go back to the problems my second group had where I was often making my way home at 2 AM from a healing circle I’d been misled to think was 40 minutes away instead of 2 hours away.  I wanted the control of when the meetings would be, how often, and without having to worry about babysitters or, more importantly since I was having some problems with my night vision, I didn’t have to drive after dark.

So, in exchange for that control, I set it up so that I provide dinner–usually something simple and buffet-ish, we socialize and discuss the previous gathering’s lessons for the first hour while enjoying dinner, and then I teach an hour-long class or workshop that ends in a free-for-all of questions.  That’s the way I wanted it, and the energy in my house is usually pleasant and steady.  This is a far cry from driving an hour at night to have dinner that won’t be ready until 9PM, teach a class, and have to break every few minutes because the hostess allows her unruly kids to interrupt almost as often as she and her husband yell at each other.  Hey, I don’t think that makes me a control freak…but if I’m making the effort to start a group and teach it, then I make the rules to suit myself.  The people whose energy is congruous with mine will show up.

2.  Be aware of the strangers you allow into your house because they can be the best and worst things to happen to your circle. You never know where that energy’s been! My previous circles had been crafted from friends, best friends, and friends of friends–often with their own agenda.  Circle #2 came to a screeching halt after a married member of the group began inviting her newfound married lover to our meetings so they could meet in a safe place…not to mention sneaking off during my workshops to have loud sex in my bathroom.

When I started my current group, it was after looking around and meeting one-on-one with potential candidates for over a year.  I finally decided to just see who was out there and started the original Wiccan Concepts group in Niceville on Meetup.  I paid all the fees myself, didn’t charge admission, provided dinner and class, and still had at least 75% of every RSVP list turn into a no-show.  That’s a frequent problem on Meetup, yes, but in spite of that, I met my core group through that service.  The first three people to show up  on the first night are still tried and true members after two years, and one of the three chose to pursue Wicca as an Initiate.  Other core members joined within the year, and we had a really nice energy together with true caring among the members.  That kind of balance of energy is what you want to aim for because if the participants are in harmony, then you’re working together with that energy instead of using it to pull in different directions.

Just a side note here:  Though I didn’t originally intend it, my home is a sanctuary for members of my circle.  It’s the one place that some feel they can come to get away from stress and drudgery and luxuriate in an evening of magic and friendship.

Of course, if you’re inviting the general public into your home, you really don’t know what you’re getting.  I got wonderful and I got…problem children.  Normally someone whose energy didn’t mesh with the group would show up once, insist everything be his or her way, and then stomp off in a huff.  I didn’t cry over it.  Occasionally, someone with their own set of problems would show up and spend the evening putting me down or being disrespectful of what I was teaching–I still cannot abide people talking on their cell phones or via sign language while I’m trying to hold a class.  Some would show up and really mesh well with the group but had too many issues with parents or family not wanting them to attend and soon they faded away.

The final straw that caused me to close down my Meetup group and move it to a private, invitation-only basis was  when my daughter caught one of the first-timers going through her things in a cabinet, and later we realized that some of my daughter’s cherished possessions were gone.  Okay, big hot button:  you don’t steal from me.  The Wiccan Concepts group is still on Meetup but–little did I know when I canceled the group–MeetUp allows other people to take over a canceled group and claim it as their own if the moderator steps down.  Otherwise, it’s a good option for meeting candidates for your group whom you’d never meet.

3.  If someone doesn’t show after several invitations, drop it. I’ve had several cases where someone begged me for an invitation, then never showed–usually after I’d cooked for them and made sure enough parking was available so as not to upset my neighbors.  On one hand, I’ve not really understood.  How can you beg to be invited because you’re sure I can show you the one thing you’re looking for and then stand me up several times?  The irony is that the thing they’re looking for is almost always at my house and available to them.  Perhaps the thing I have to offer them is something they shouldn’t really have?  I don’t know, but my rule is, if you turn down my invitation three times, you don’t get invited back.  If you ask to come repeatedly and yet never show, you don’t get invited back because I don’t think you’re serious.

4. Beware of inviting people you’re romantically involved with. I’ve done this several times and have had great and terrible luck, depending on the guy.  In an earlier group, my date was welcomed with open arms and enjoyed the evening, with lots of good input; however, the other women really wanted his attention, and not spiritually.  In my current group, my sweetie quickly became part the group and was adored for himself and for his Tarot talents.  He attended multiple meetings  and was very much a part of the group harmony.  The energy was powerful and balanced.  More recently, I’ve invited three different guys I’ve been involved with.  They’ve all either turned me down instantly because they weren’t comfortable with subject matter or simply didn’t show.  The difference is that the first two men were held similar spiritual interests while the other men in my life haven’t been interested in either attending a gathering or becoming part of the group because their relationships with me lacked the spiritual element.

5.  Other than the lack of consideration, don’t worry about the no-shows. Not long before I decided to pursue formal training in Wicca, I learned a valuable lesson from Maggie Shayne, who created a special open circle with Evelyn Vaughn and me at a Romance Writer’s of America conference in Washington, D.C.   Someone on the way to the open circle, which we led out in a park-like area, had twisted her ankle and couldn’t participate.  Maggie passed on to me that sometimes people aren’t part of the ritual because of reasons we aren’t meant to know.  If they’re supposed to be there, they will be.  I’ve seen people come to rituals and celebrations with anger and jealousy that disturbed the balance of energy, so I no longer question that…though I will question why someone can’t pick up the phone and let me know not to plan for them.

6.  Just because a person is your best friend (or even your spouse) doesn’t mean she should be part of your circle. I brought my open-minded, pagan-friendly, New-Age-Christian, bestest-friend-in-the-world into the periphery of my first circle and more heavily into my second and third.  It wasn’t smooth.  We both wanted it to work but it just didn’t. She was used to being a teacher whenever she was in a crowd and those natural instincts always took over.  No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t be a student.   She struggled with being in “learn” mode vs “teach” mode, and  only occasionally was the energy nicely balanced, usually when we were working together to help someone else.

7.  Just because a person is harmonious with you doesn’t mean he’ll be harmonious with the group. I have had people I adore shock me. I have had friendly, balanced relationships with individuals who shared many of my beliefs and were open to learning and I’ve excitedly invited them to attend a couple of meetings, only to drop them from the invitations later.  I couldn’t believe how different they were in a group–patronizing, negative, disruptive.  It was as if they suddenly forgot they were guests or students in a class, or that the other attendees were  not there for a newcomer’s advice but rather, for what I had to teach them.

8. When inviting new people, try to meet them one-on-one before considering bringing them into the group. There are people I’ve lunched with and never looked back at.  There are others whom I lunch with regularly, but will never invite them to a group function or a workshop.   The energy just isn’t right for the whole group.

9.  When inviting new people to join the group, start on a trial basis. They don’t have to know it’s a trial.  After attending once or twice, you’ll have a feel for whether they contribute to the group energy or detract from it.  You don’t want to commit yourself and then have to end a friendship because the rest of the group can’t bear to have them in the same room.

10.  Consider having long distance or deployed members join the meetings by Skype or speaker phone. I’ve done this with members of different circles, and while it wasn’t the ideal of having them physically present, it does allow for some interaction we’d all be sadder without.  It’s still very possible to “attend” a class by webcam or phone, and even to allow different members of the group to pair off with the phone or webcam for a Tarot reading or detailed discussion.

For me, the hardest part of having a successful group is in maintaining the balance of energy.  I’m now enlisting my daughter to help more with hostessing and sergeant-at-arms duties, mainly because I feel I need to give some attention to newcomers while not forgetting about my tried and true core group.  Sometimes newcomers demand a lot of attention–which has more of a “take” feel that pulls on the group energy, and those people don’t tend to be a good fit for the group.  But every now and then, someone new attends who is respectful and willing to share and just fits in from Day One.  Those people don’t drain and lower the group energy:  they amplify it.  It’s a delicate balance but well worth it if you can achieve it.

Photo credit by -RobW-; creative commons license

From the upcoming book, 23 Ways I Screwed Up My Life  with the Law of Attraction—and How I Fixed It

I had a date with a  man I can’t get out of my head.  Normally, that would be a wonderful thing because—normally–there would be something pleasantly fascinating about the man.  In this case, I’ve had problems figuring out how I ever attracted him into my life in the first place.

As my readers know, when I talk about such scenarios, I use composites or describe the guy in such a way that none but my closest friends have any idea who I’m talking about.  The man in this case was someone I’d met through a website, sight unseen.  He’d posted something interesting on a forum and I responded, and in turn he asked me to dinner.  He was older than most of the men I usually date but was open-minded and willing to take a risk.  The worst that could happen?  We’d continue a great conversation started online, with a focus on our professions and what they have in common.  He swore he was more adventurous than his age might lead me to believe, and I had a great attitude as I dressed for our date.

As most guys over 40 do, this man had quite a few “requirements” for the women he dated, most of them laughable.  He had quite the fantasy woman in mind.  But the thing that struck me as really…I don’t know–I couldn’t put my finger on it…was something in his attitude that bothered me.  Though I’ve had men in the past demand to see a driver’s license to prove my identity, this one wasn’t quite so obvious.  At least, not at first.  I guess the thing that bothered me was that he was suspicious. Of who I was.  Of my motives.  Of…everything.  I barely noticed at first, because given our day jobs, we’re required to have a little bit of paranoia about meeting new people. (They might be spies, you know.)  But he also had a habit, which he later admitted, of asking misleading questions to try to catch a date in a lie.  Which explains some of the oddball stuff he asked me that didn’t make sense.

After a good 30 minutes of telling me about women who’d used fake identities to get to know him online, who had stolen pictures off Facebook to “prove” they were whom they said, who had lied about their attributes for months while dodging face-to-face meetings, I was seeing a strong pattern here.  Every woman who turned out to be “real,” didn’t measure up to his requirements.  Every one who did, turned out not to be real but a scam artist.  He even questioned how I could be authentic if I didn’t have the same fears he did, to which I answered, “I prefer to stay positive and assume that you’re as real as I am.”

After another couple of minutes of his thinly-veiled paranoia about how all women are liars, I snapped my official ID down on the table and joked about it, hoping to lighten the tension I was starting to feel.

His response?  “That just proves you do the job you say you do.  That doesn’t prove you really are who you say you are.”

Ooooooh-kaaaaaaay.  Somehow, I’d thought that by showing up for the date, I had taken a big step in proving who I was.  I didn’t realize I should’ve brought my portable polygraph with me.  Nor had I done anything to deserve the assumption of being a fraud. If anything, he seemed a little disappointed that he didn’t catch me in a pack of lies so he could tell me off, as he said he’d done to countless other women.

We had a nice date, and then it sorta fizzled out over the paranoia display.  When it fizzled, it was okay with me and I was ready to go home and relax.  Relieved to be leaving his presence, even.  Only, I couldn’t relax.  This man’s quiet paranoia (and subsequent witch-hunt) kept tugging at me for days.  He was NOT the usual kind of date for me.  The previous few men I’d dated were happy, relaxed, fun, carefree but caring.  In other words, the men I’d been attracting to me and back to me were a good reflection of how I myself felt about life in general.  So why the sudden ick?

That’s when my analytical side took over.  I don’t want to be around a date, romantic partner, or even a stranger like that, so how could he have shown up in the middle of sweet and easy-going men who are usually my company?  I went back to the moment he appeared in my life and back-tracked.

That night, I’d checked out a forum I’d been to no more than two times in the past year.  I was in a little bit of a funk when I did, but I saw his intelligent post and wanted to discuss it with him.  My spirits picked up after that and I actually ended up talking to someone far more interesting a couple of hours later who is more in line with my usual upbeat mood–and perhaps I’ll be seeing him soon.

Taking it a step backward to before I checked out the forum where I found the topic of discussion, I’d spent the previous couple of hours feeling a little not-so-happy.  I’d received an annoying email from a man who–ironically, now that I think back on it–had the same first name as my date.    That had come in the middle of feeling a little perturbed that a man I see occasionally hadn’t responded to a text  message I’d sent him, which had conjured up old fears that he was ignoring me or lying to me or….well, basic unfounded paranoia rather than the fact that he was dealing with something harsh he didn’t want to share with me because he was worried it would bring me down.  And right before that, I was laughingly telling a friend that I had an intention for the weekend of at least one date.

It’s amusing now, looking back at how I went from being joyous and feeling good and great friends to letting myself slip out of that serenity just long enough to worry about something totally unnecessary and unreasonable.  I got it back together a little later, yes, but that window of blooper-tunity was wide open just long enough for my weekend date to show up.  And as much as I hate to admit it, he was a very apt reflection of my angst for the 2 hours before he manifested on the forum I was visiting–his first ever visit.

Once you figure out how to manifest what you want, it becomes especially important to stay aligned and not let yourself slip out of those good feelings–especially over something ridiculous.  The rewards for getting to the point of fast manifestation are exquisite, but if you drop out of alignment, it can be a cold slap in the face.

In the summer of 2003, I took Shannon with me on a road trip, just the two of us. She was at an important age, going into the eighth grade, which in my own history was the threshold for beginning to understand things as an adult. Too many “grown-ups” don’t seem to remember their youth, and that’s unfortunate for both their children and themselves. Too many of my colleagues tell me they can’t/don’t/won’t talk with their kids because, well, they’re teenagers, as if being in different phases of life excuses their lack of interest in their kids’ minds and emotions. I was determined not to be the distant parent.

I had recently received my Second Degree Elevation within my church organization and was driving “up North” to attend their annual spiritual retreat. This gave me a chance to bond with my new teen and to explore the rural lowlands of North Carolina in the hopes of finding answers to a particular genealogical mystery.

Our trip lasted ten days, with the second half spent camping in the woods with Mom’s very cool friends with tattoos, pentacles, and Goth skirts, and then driving straight home for 19 hours, with a brief stop in Carrollton, Georgia, to get directions from an angel—but that’s another story. By the time we reached home, my daughter had a much better understanding of Mom and vice-versa, and I wouldn’t trade that time together for anything.

The first half of the trip was a little more awkward. We left on a Sunday afternoon, simply because we couldn’t get everything together quickly enough and my ex wasn’t terribly happy about my taking a trip without him. I’d considered inviting him, except that he had only disdain for my spirituality and also I needed to know that I could made a road trip on my own. I needed that burst of self-confidence that comes with a cross-country adventure where you know you’ll find your way if you get lost and that you can take care of yourself. We did.

The first day, I drove for nine hours or more—a grand feat for someone who feared her ancient back injury would make the road hard, but after the first day, the stresses of home and the work world lifted and so did my soreness. My daughter and I discussed every shallow subject we could think of, and we were starting to get into deeper waters.

By the time we’d crossed parts of Alabama and then every detour in the bowels of Middle Georgia, it was well into darkness and dreary weather and we were on the outskirts of Augusta, Georgia. I was exhausted and wanted the first hotel we could find. Unfortunately, we could find only a few hotels along the road. The next morning, we discovered that our road merged with a new highway lined with beautiful, clean, sparkling hotels…about a mile from where we ended up.

When my ex and the kids and I had traveled on vacations and business trips, we’d always stayed in “nice” hotels. Even though the hotel was a well-known chain where I’d had good luck before, that first night of our trip was a new experience for my daughter.

I paid the bill through a mouse-hole in a glass-and-barred window, and the disgruntled woman on the other side slid me a bent key. Our room was on the second floor, for which I was grateful, considering the shadows lurking in the parking lot. Our room had a door that closed all the way but was a little lopsided. I pushed a chair underneath the door knob and braced it with other furniture and suitcases.

The phone in the room didn’t work. Well, actually it did, but you had to wait for the other hotel guests to hang up first. The sign outside the hotel boasted microwaves and refrigerators in the suites, but the ones in our room had been torn out, with the wires still dangling. To top it off, the room was infested with roaches. I considered sleeping the car, but I was too afraid of the crazy old white dude hanging out in the parking lot.

We went to bed early and got up at the crack of dawn and left as quickly as possible, laughing about it after we reached a safe distance away. Then our conversations took a deeper tone and we really got to know each other.

We crossed South Carolina in a few hours, faster than we’d planned for, and by noon, we’d reached our ancestral lands in North Carolina. We spent most of the day comparing modern roads with maps from 1810 and digging through courthouse records. Along the way, we saw a beautiful bed-and-breakfast inn that called to us. We’d purposely not made hotel accommodations for the trip so that we could set our own schedule and stay where we wanted…and this place, we wanted—badly.

Several times during the day, we stopped by to see if we could get a room for the night, but no one answered the door. We called the number on the sign, but all we got was a message to leave our name and number. Since my cell phone had just died, we had to make our calls from a phone booth.

About an hour from dark, we tried one last time. We so wanted to spend the night there. We’d read their pamphlet’s description of the rooms for rent, we’d walked around the grounds, we’d admired the shade trees and gardens. We had our hearts set on spending the night there. But when darkness was coming and we still couldn’t get an answer, we gave up. There weren’t other lodgings in town, so we left, dejected. We would have to drive an hour out of our way to find a place to sleep.

On a road “less traveled,” a road in the middle of the proverbial nowhere, we saw a sign for an “old inn” and stopped at an unusual Tudor-style building. We found a sign on the door that said to come next door to the restaurant if we wanted a room, so we parked the car and followed a stone path through a courtyard to a second building. When we walked inside, our eyes had to adjust to the dimness of a room with a huge wooden chandelier, candles, and enough Medieval-style décor to make my heart jump!

Because we hadn’t stayed at the pretty little inn in town, we’d happened onto a Medieval-style restaurant and inn that normally catered to bus tours from the coast but opened on certain week nights for the locals. We had a wonderful time there that night and, over candlelight, we kept marveling about what an incredible find we’d stumbled upon. If we’d settled for what we thought we wanted, we never would have had our heart’s desire.

I’ve seen the lesson of that evening applied many times since, but most recently in regard to relationships with men. Sometimes you can find one in a well-known area with a well-known name and discover he’s infested inside and flanked by shadows. And sometimes, you can find one who’s attractive, interesting, and seems to be everything you could want, but you just can’t get inside.

And sometimes, the real prize is off the beaten path—unusual and different, relishing being unique, a perfect match you didn’t dream existed. And one you never would have found if you’d made your home elsewhere.

Yeah, that’s where I want to sleep.

Article originally published in Life in the Third Degree, available for download now.

Photo credit by eyesore9; creative commons license

First dates are perhaps the best example ever of energy bubbles and making those first important energetic connections with someone else.  That’s because there are few other situations where we are thrust into an environment with a new person and expected to stay and hold our own for at least 20 to 30 minutes before deciding if we want more.  Wouldn’t it be fun is we could see the energy bubble around us in living color?

I write a lot about energy, a rather nebulous term for people who’ve never been around healing circles or bonfire drumming.  As an empath, my awareness of energy has grown to the point where, even though energy is invisible, its effects are not.  I feel it much as I feel the wind.  I can’t see it but I can see it bend the trees, and I can hear it howl or sing sometimes, and I can feel it.   I think we can all feel it if we’re aware of it and use it to diagnose how well a first date or first meeting is going.

A typical first date–even if you’ve been talking to the other person online, via email, via text, and on the phone or even webcam for months–is fertile ground for studying how energetic connections form, or don’t.  Like most people, I tend to have an upsurge of energy and excitement just before my date shows up.  It’s anticipation, wonder, curiosity.  I’ve had some people walk through my front door and felt as if I’d known them all my life, and the energy between us has been gentle, passionate, flowing, caring, happy.  I’ve had low-key DVD/wine/cheese/sitting on the floor dates in my family room that were just one big colorful energetic bubble and floating blissfully skyward as he exited my home and then allowed me to sigh my way off to bed and sweet dreams.  These are the ones I’m dancing around the house over and can’t wait to talk to him the next day.  That’s the kind of date I want, every time.  Who doesn’t?

The horrible first dates aren’t as easy to feel the bubble, possibly because it bursts at first glance or so soon after that you’re not even aware of it.  It’s just a huge disappointment that hits you so early that you don’t hang around to watch that energy bubble float between you.   But who cares about those dates?

The best use of the bubble to diagnose a first date is when you’re not sure how the date is going.  Those…mediocre dates…that sort of fizzle at some point.  A great date is the kind where you lose track of time because you’re so caught up in each other’s energy and that bubble just gets bigger and brighter and before you know it, you’ve been locked in deep conversation for three hours  and spend the next five making out because you can’t bear to tear yourselves apart.  You are both in that bubble and floating away, spinning, with it.  A mediocre date is the kind where the…pacing, if we were watching a movie…begins to lag.  If the pace picks back up, the energy bubble is stable.  If not, it either fizzles or pops.

For myself, about the longest I can sustain the energy of a mediocre date is 30 minutes, though most of the time, it pops at about 20.  (Yes, I date a lot, and most of my dates are great these days…though every so often, one will surprise me.)

That’s the point where suddenly the energy falters.  It doesn’t matter how good-looking the guy is, how nice he is, how entertaining he is.  I know at that instant that the date is over, usually for both of us.  It’s rarely something we don’t both seem to know at the same instant, with the exception (for me) of the rich guy who reverted to his good ol’ boy loud-obnoxious-racist roots in a ritzy restaurant after he’d had a few drinks with dinner.  He was too inebriated to be aware of the change in energy between us.  Most of the time, however, you both can feel the drop in energy.

This happened recently on a really lovely date with a really lovely gentleman.  Sweet guy, and on the surface, we had a lot in common.  About 30 minutes into our date, though, we’d hit most of the most obvious subjects that we had in common and we started getting into more of the subject matter akin to whom we are under the surface.  That’s when little things about our differing value systems popped up and I felt the quivers in the bubble as it began to deflate.  This bubble didn’t pop, it just fizzled, rather suddenly.  It wasn’t one particular question but a short series–how was it I could be happy now when I’d been through a divorce and why wasn’t I still devastated,  what was my most bizarre date since being single and how could I ever have considered dating a potential cross-dresser?  Nothing wrong with his belief system–just much more rigid than my open-to-almost-anything way of thinking.  I saw in his eyes that he could not fathom what I consider “openness,” and I knew that I could enjoy dinner with this man, but that I’d never be able to be myself around him…and him hang around.  It was a little sad to feel that bubble pop, right on time, but rather than drag things out and try to revive the bubble (that never works, ever), I called it a night much like an ER physician calls a death.

Most of the time, the bubble doesn’t fizzle and deflate to nothingness.  It pops after one particular question, whether you acknowledge it or not.  That question varies from man to man, but at some point, a hot button comes up in conversation.  Ylike ou never know until the question is out there and maybe not until after it’s answered if that was the magic question that ended the date.  It’s anything from “What do you think of Sarah Palin?” to “Do you think Nietzsche was insane?”  to “What’s wrong with these wontons?”  The most WTF moment I’ve ever had in a date was 20 minutes into appetizers–after weeks of talking on the phone–when he asked a simple question about what I’d done the night before, I told him, and he lost it with a diatribe on how educated people like me think we’re more important than people like him.  Huh?  I’d never mentioned my literary aspirations before then…just never came up…but in explaining that I had been researching Medieval history for a new novel I was working on, something touched off his hot button and he exploded.   I never had a clue as to what exactly happened back then but I understand better now.  Even though we tried to pull the date back together–we’d met half way and had driven way too far to walk out after 20 minutes–the energy bubble had burst and it was definitely over.

Watching the energy level and letting it act as a gauge in first dates has become something of a game now, not as much fun as great dates but fascinating enough to make mediocre dates more enjoyable.  By the way, first dates never start out as mediocre.  It’s just one of the directions they can take when it fizzles or pops. If that bubble expands, you never want it to end.

Intuition is a funny thing.  Most people never trust theirs.  Sure, later–after they’ve been mugged–they talk about the icky feeling they ignored because they didn’t want anyone to think they were silly or illogical. I’ve heard the same sooooooo many times from women who were certain their spouses were cheating, but they convinced themselves they were being crazy or paranoid or insecure–only to discover after they were alone with no money and a couple of kids that their intuition was a lot more trustworthy than a ton of charming reassurances from the hubby.   I rarely see anyone under 40 follow his or her intuition without fail–even famous spiritual teachers I consider to be extremely wise–and not exactly crowds of people over 40 who do either, though the numbers are still significantly more. Maybe that’s because most people need decades of data to know to follow their own internal guidance.

If there’s but one good thing I hope to pass on to my children, it’s to trust their intuition, regardless.  If you have a bad feeling about a date, don’t go.  If you have a bad feeling about your mate, know something’s amiss.  If you have a bad feeling about walking through a dark parking garage, make other arrangements.  As I was told once, your intuition isn’t a crazy little voice in your head talking to you–it’s God talking to you.  Every time I have ignored my intuition, I’ve been burned, whether in my professional or personal life.

I went through years of not trusting my intuition.  After my divorce, I didn’t feel I could trust it because I felt I’d been fooled so badly.  But as my teenage daughter pointed out to me then, it wasn’t that my intuition was bad; I just refused to listen to it and follow it.

I’ve had several recent opportunities to see the matter of trusting intuition from the other side of the story, and I’m seeing my own past a little differently.  I have walked away from a couple of situations where there is nothing I can say.  Nothing.  I’ve been asked repeatedly for the truth, and I’ve given it repeatedly, but not what they want to hear and certainly not what they want to believe.  Deep down, I know that deep down they know the truth. Otherwise, they wouldn’t keep asking.  They keep hoping my answer will be different, but it doesn’t change facts.  So I’ve stopped answering the questions.  At some point, they’ll come to terms with the truth, and when that happens, I’ll probably be the last person to know it.

I’ve been there myself, most notably with a woman who kept telling me the truth as she perceived it.  Deep down, I knew she was right but I didn’t want to admit it.  I argued with her about it all the time.  My own intuition told me she was right but it was easier to dislike her than to admit that not only was she right but so was the intuition I was ignoring.  I was furious at her because she just wouldn’t shut up about it, and it made me feel that I had to defend my decision to believe something I really didn’t believe.  My whole focus on proving that she was wrong took me away from dealing with the hurt over a situation that had nothing to do with her, and it took me much longer to work through it and ditch a bad situation that was causing me grief.   I wasn’t able to see that and work through it until she and I stopped associating with each other.  Our break was largely because of her comments on her own intuition on  my situation, which provided me with a good excuse to get her far away from me.  In hindsight, there were many other valid reasons not to have this person around me, but years and years later, I can see clearly that our semi-friendship came to a head over my unwillingness to trust my own intuition and she just happened to be the mouthpiece for it every time I squelched what my gut said.

It’s my core belief that the truth always comes out.  Even and especially the ugly truth, and regardless of how long you delude yourself.

Photo credit by Johnathaneric; creative commons license

WARNING:  SPOILERS BELOW.  Aw, but watch it anyway online to see how the Law of Attraction plays out.  That’s even more fun than the show.

For someone who watches less that 2 hours of TV per week, including news and weather, I used up this week’s quota on the premiere of Survivor 20, aka “Heroes vs Villains. ” I turned on the TV to check for local school closings with the wacky winter snowstorm promised here in Florida and got hooked immediately on the premise.  It’s one of the few reality TV shows I’ve ever been a fan of, a few seasons here and there, because I enjoy the psychological aspects of the human interaction.  The idea of teaming up past heroes and past villains, or people who acted like that in the past, holds a lot of possibility for the education of how teams and organizations structure themselves and how people react under pressure.  Their attitudes have a lot to do with how they play the game and how they deal with the mental and physical stress, and it’ll be interesting to see which team disintegrates first or goes against their category of villain or hero. Some of the heroes have admitted they’re willing to play dirty–maybe–this time and then Boston Rob, on the villain team, pleasantly surprised me by stepping up and making fire.  Of course, he also admitted that since his villain days, he’s married and had a child, and he’s matured somewhat.  Yes, it’ll be an interesting season.

Though one of my favorite moments was when the entire villain tribe first set up camp and no one wanted to do more than 10 minutes’ of work (whereas the heroes were all chipping in and feeling the positive energy), something I noticed right away was how the Law of Attraction was in full play–and gave hints quickly as to what was to come. I love the way the like-attracts-like showed up right away, not just in how the players were separated but how they interacted within the teams.

Coach and Jerri Manthey?  Bwahahahahahahaha.

The way the heroes pitched in and worked together?  Nice.  Very cohesive, at least initially.

The sudden panic of “We’re going to lose our lead!” or “We’re not going to get this puzzle put together in time!” seemed to be self-fulfilling prophecies.  Nothing like competitive pressure to bring out insecurities, magnify them, and turn them into game-breakers.  Wow, did those manifest almost instantaneously!

My all-time favorite character to watch–and I always watch the episodes that have him featured–is tie-dye-wearing Rupert Boneham. I think a big part of his popularity is because he seems to think about life the way most people do.  He’s an underdog, a hard worker, someone who believes that good will prevail…if you struggle enough and that it’s going to be hard and you’ll have all sorts of obstacles to overcome.   He’s a classic co-dependent, out there martyring himself to make fire and struggling with it, seeming to feel that it has to be him, that he’s got to be the good guy and take care of everyone else, even though they’re all well-proven.

The big thing I noticed about Rupert this time was how quickly his fears and worries manifested.  With two injuries in the game on the first show, of course the broken bone would be Rupert’s.  This is something to make his struggle just that much harder.

So this season, I’ll definitely be watching.  Not so much for the human interaction (which I can always find at my day job if I’m really craving watching people stab each other in the back, create alliances, and fall in love unexpectedly), but mainly to see how the Law of Attraction plays out in a one-hour edited show.  Should be lots of great examples that we can see in one easy sitting per week, and that’s a lesson we can take with us throughout the week–seeing how they manifest those fears and hopes and making sure we manifest more of our hopes than our fears.

In every dysfunctional family, there’s at least one do-goodin’ peacemaker who is either a blood relative, an in-law, or a “concerned family friend.”  Ironically, it’s usually not so much about making peace among hostile relatives but about being a hero—even through manipulative tactics designed to force everyone to make nice that really achieves nothing below the surface.  At least, that’s how it has been in my family…over and over and over again. So how do you bring peace into families where there’s never been peace and bring families back together when they’d just as soon each other disappear from the planet?

I grew up in a dysfunctional family.  To the core.  Not only was my immediate family dysfunctional, but my extended family all the way to fifth cousins was dysfunctional in ways that you normally find only in fiction or on Jerry Springer.  My extended family made the Dukes of Hazzard look like the intelligentsia of the South.  Too bad we couldn’t have had reality TV cameras following the various family branches around or we would  have been one of the longest running shows around because there was always DRAMA. DRAMA in all caps. No editing needed for maximum dramatic impact. Not the occasional tiffs that most families have every few years because the wrong sister was the Maid of Honor in a cousin’s wedding or somebody named a baby after Grandpa first, but near-daily DRAMA.

When I was a kid, I seriously never knew when I came home from school each day which relative outside my immediate household was going to be big news—who was going to be in jail, who’d hit somebody with a pipe,  who was avoiding the repo man, who’d tried to run my car off the road, whose window was shot out during the five minutes they weren’t sitting in front of it, who’d unplugged whose freezer on the back porch and spoiled all the food but left their distinctive shoeprints in the dirt, who’d destroyed an expensive piece of machinery in my dad’s barn after taking it without asking,  who’d just reneged on a debt that made half the local stores refuse checks with my surname on them, or who was covering up an affair with a little extra religiosity.  My extended family thrived on conflict—some still do—back before conflict was popularly rephrased as DRAMA.

They say blood is thicker than water, but in my family, so is toothpaste. I love my mom and brothers dearly, but I have plenty of relatives I don’t care to ever see again or expose my children to, and I don’t appreciate outsiders or self-appointed peacemakers telling me what I “need” to do “for the family.”  Usually those people have no idea of the constant turmoil I saw when I was growing up…or the more  recent threats to “beat [me] up” for talking openly about my relationship with a grandparent who never showed any affection to me,  the frequent cyber-stalking and bad-mouthing by cousins I haven’t seen since I was 5 years old, and the busy-body who refuses to speak to me (thank Gods!) for blogging honestly about how I dealt with my father’s death. Outsiders and family peacemakers usually have an ideal in mind that I have personally not known with my family in Georgia, though I do know it with my own children—and that’s why I’m one of those people with no desire whatsoever to bring certain long-lost relatives back into my fold or have a big family reunion with them

My life now is 180-degrees from how I grew up.  I have a wonderful relationship with both my daughters and our home life is peaceful.  At this very moment, there’s excitement over my 17-year-old’s  trip to Harvard to compete in a national forensics competition, the multiple weddings she’s been asked to shoot, and the prestigious summer camp she’s paying for herself out of her photography business—and I’m equally thrilled over my 19-year-old  college senior and the sudden unfolding of opportunities for summer internships either with a well-respected university or a lengthier internship with a counseling clinic or the out-of-state symposium she’ll be presenting at as an undergrad or the potential special research project she’ll spearhead herself that’ll look great on her resume’ for grad school. My family is happy and prosperous and loving and just…amazing.  Why would I ever want to muck that up with people from the past who constantly stir up DRAMA and drop problems on my doorstep?  There is nothing hostile relatives have to offer my happy little family and far too much to endanger the serenity we have.  We are thriving and blessed just as we are, and I refuse to let anyone guilt-trip me with her fantasies about what “family” should be into doing something that goes against my intuition.  My family already is what it should be.

Yet, every so often, someone wants to step in and “set things right.”   Sometimes the person is young and idealistic, with no idea of the past familial patterns.  Usually, it’s a church-inspired ego trip that’s still not going to get anyone into heaven by successful good works, often by women who have not acted ethically in the past.  I have witnessed these over the years where someone new to the extended family decided to ensure discreetly that various hostile parties were in the same room at the same time, thinking proximity would dissolve years of back-biting and they’d be praised for being a hero.  It has not worked and it will never work—and as an added bonus, at least some of the people who felt tricked and manipulated will never trust them again.

That’s not to say that families can’t be reunited or that re-discovering long-lost cousins can’t be wondrous.  I have cousins on my mom’s side of my family whom I knew as children, and in the past few years—with no help from anyone trying to intercede—we’ve found each other as adults.  I happen to think they’re some of the coolest people on the planet.  I don’t know them as adults as well as I’d like to, but I enjoy the conversations we have and look forward to building happy relationships with them in the coming years.  I’ve introduced them to my children because they augment my idea of family rather than merely extending it. It’s peaceful in ways that my other extended family relationships aren’t.

So how do you, if you want to see a family “get back together,” go about the task of bringing peace to a Hatfield/McCoy relationship?

1.        First, ask yourself why you’re getting involved. Really, is this any of your business?  Are you trying to look good to your church, to Grandma of the clan, to your sweetie?   Do you dream of what everyone will say when you’re done?  “Oooh, isn’t she wonderful because she brought the family back together single-handedly after a whopping four generations of bad blood?  Aren’t we so lucky to have her!”  Because if it’s in any way about YOU or what YOU get out of it or how people will think of YOU, back away now.  Even if “I just lovvvvvvve helping people” or “I feel good bringing fighting families together” is your motivation, that’s still about YOU.  It’s YOUR emotional reward.  Instead…

2.       Work on yourself. If your motives are honest and you really just want the family to stop fighting so there’ll be more peace in your life, then work on making yourself a more peaceful person.  You cannot change other people.  You cannot make Cousin Emmie Sue turn into Aunt Bessie Mae’s best friend overnight.  You can’t change Cousin Emma Sue’s penchant for kleptomania or Aunt Bessie Mae’s paranoia that everyone, including the Government and aliens, are stealing from her.  But you can change yourself into someone who is accepting of all family members.  Which is why you….

3.       Don’t admonish family members for things you think they’ve done or haven’t done to improve a dysfunctional relationship. Don’t write letters or make phone calls or send emails flaming them for what you haven’t even witnessed for yourself but heard about from another family member with his or her own agenda.  You may not know that Cousin Billy Bob doesn’t speak to Uncle Jimmy Chuck  because Billy Bob spent the entire fifth grade trying to keep Uncle Jimmy Chuck’s hands out of his pants.  And if you did know that about Jimmy Chuck’s pedophilia, you absolutely have no business lecturing  now-grown-up Billy Bob on forgiveness when you did nothing to stop Jimmy Chuck.  That’s because…

4.       People will let go of their animosity and forgive each other when they’re good and ready to, and not before. There is nothing you can do to fix it for them.  When they are ready, they will release what’s kept them apart and begin to mend what was broken or create something new.  Some will probably never be ready—do you think my brother will ever look kindly on the relative who sic’d growling dogs on him when he was showing off his baby daughter for the first time to her great-grandmother and he had to outrun them with a baby in his arms?   But if you really want family peace, there are some things you can do, one in particular….

5.       Be a good friend to all. Keep an open mind, stop gossiping, stop listening to gossip, and befriend every member of the family.  Not just the ones you like or the ones who’ve convinced you they’re right and everyone else is wrong.  Listen with your heart and keep your mouth shut.  Don’t contribute to the bad blood with imaginary scenarios that never happened in the past and aren’t true now.  Don’t speculate on what someone really meant or why they felt a certain way about a family member when you never even saw the interactions between them.  Ask, if you must, but don’t invent answers.   If you can be open-minded and a friend to everyone, you’re more likely to….

6.       Take notice of when a family member is ready to let go of old hatred and make peace—and actually be able to facilitate a feel-good reunion for all. This is NOT when YOU decide that it’s time for them to get back together because “Oh, wouldn’t this be nice if they got along?” or “They’re not getting any younger so they better hurry up so they can be right with God when they die.”  No, this is when Uncle Jimmy Chuck pulls you aside in a tearful confession and tells you what terrible things he did to all the boys in the family twenty years ago and how sorry he is and if he only knew how to ask for forgiveness, he would AND Cousin Billy Bob mentions privately over a beer  on the tailgate that he’s been struggling with forgiveness like his preacher talks about but can’t quite manage it because he feels that Uncle Jimmy Chuck has no idea of the consequences of his actions.  Notice that I said AND, not OR. If Jimmy Chuck wants to make amends for what he’s done, it is not your place to go to Billy Bob and open old wounds and try to force a reconciliation when Billy Bob isn’t ready to talk about the past.  Only when both are ready should you get involved.  “Both” equals “Invitation.”  “One” or “Neither” equals “Mind your own business.”  If Cousin Emmie Sue tells you she is still angry that Aunt Bessie Mae accused her stealing that jade ring that’s been in the family for years and Aunt Bessie Mae is still telling you how terrible Emmie Sue is for stealing it, leave it alone. You’re not going to convince either because they’re not ready.  If Aunt Bessie Mae confesses she found the ring in a drawer two years after it disappeared and is too embarrassed by her false accusations to say anything, then you’ve got an open door to suggest that an apology may set things right—but it’s Bessie Mae’s responsibility to go to Emmie Sue and fix the relationship, not yours.   And that’s why…

7.       You continue to focus instead on being the best person you can be—positive, compassionate, loving, understanding, open-minded, and serene. If you are all those things, then that’s the kind of atmosphere that will be around you and you won’t be dealing with fighting families.   Really…their crap won’t matter to you.  This can take a little while to transition through but it’s very worthwhile when you get there.  If it’s far more fun for you to spend your energy on fixing a family full of dysfunctional people, you’re missing out on fixing your own dysfunctions that stay so well hidden because you camouflage them with other people’s DRAMA.  As for me….

8.       It’s become a game, a splendid revelation of secrets, and it has not been wrong yet.  People who get all up in my business always have something of their own to hide, to divert attention from. The surest way I know that all is not well in their world and with their self-esteem is when they come out of the woodwork with their focus on how to fix ME.