Misconception about love

I think the biggest misconception about love 

is that it's something you can lose.

To love yourself... 

...to love your friends... 

...to love your family... 

...to love your environment... 

...to love your body... 

...to love your job... 

...to love your life... 

Is not to look at it and see how badly everything needs fixing, 

or to long for the return of something you may not have again. 

It's not to stretch or contort the truth

into what you wish it would be instead.

It is to look at it exactly as it is, 

embrace it in the moment, 

see the potential for greatness, 

act out of gratitude for it being in your life now 

and let it grow as it will, 

however that may be, 

even if it leaves you, 

even if it's only alive for a moment. 

Feminist lovers

"We are different than you."
"You are mean to us."
"It is US, against THEM."
"Love everyone... Except those guys..."

Most feminists are ignored these days because feminists have become synonymous with men-haters. It's an unfortunate thing really, because in reality feminists just want to be treated equal, but we've done a right ol' job of making it bloody difficult to love us women if we're attacking those we want to accept us.

And that's part of the problem, right there. US and THEM. Since when was "this" human over here with these select differences made out to be somehow better than "that" human over there for their select differences? Since when was it so abnormal for us to be both human and unique? Since when was it OK to try to make everyone the SAME? Being EQUAL does not mean we are the SAME.

I think it's about time we saw ourselves for what we really are: alive. All of us.

And yet that's hard to imagine others loving people that hate them, let alone ourselves acting out of grace and love toward someone who hurts us. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the general motto. "If you do that, I'll do the same." or "If you do this, I'll react to it and show YOU what I think!"

But as Byron Katie says, "Defence is the first act of war."

As soon as we put our boxing gloves on, no matter the intention behind why we put them on, we immediately place ourselves at opposite sides of the ring. Me against you. Us against them. Winner against loser.

Is it so hard to see that when one person is acting out, they are just hurting? I believe in the natural goodness of humanity. I believe we have something worth loving for, not fighting for. I truly believe embracing an enemy in love is a more courageous act than holding a gun to shoot them.

May it be soon that we break out of the HE and SHE mentalities into the WE mentality. May it be soon that we come together and love ourselves for WHO we are.

Let's celebrate life. Let's celebrate differences. <3

Big Difference - Put a song up

I often feel that what I say through music is what I wish I could say through words. If you follow my blog at all, you'll know that I posted something similar to the sentiments of this song not long ago. This came from that same energy.

Recorded it today, hoping I could make sense of a few feelings and thoughts. When it came down to it, this was not the intended song which I wrote - there was another verse and a bunch more repeated but I accidentally turned the chorus around and it fit so well it got me thinking and pondering as you can see at the end of the video, so I kept it as is. I think it means more like this anyway.

Here are the lyrics: 

Big Difference - Sera Peters

There’s a big difference here

Between what you want me to say 

And what you want to hear

And so I close my mouth

And I don’t say a thing

And this way you might be 

Happy - at least that’s what I think. 

Feel the waves and feel the flow

Catch it once and don’t let go

I said what I meant to 

And I meant what I said

But you didn’t ask me

Why is that? 

You didn’t let me 

Finish my words

You couldn’t hear me

You were afraid to get hurt

I couldn’t say it

You’d think it meant more

When really I meant everything

That you didn’t stand for

And so I close my mouth

And I don’t say a thing

And this way you might be 

Happy - at least that’s what I think. 

Feel the waves and feel the flow

Catch it once and don’t let go

You said what you meant to 

And you meant what you said

But I didn’t ask you

Why is that?

Anything solid would be nice

My really close friend passed away last week. He took his own life.

I'm a little stunned that it happened at all, and just got back from being up in the city where he lived at the time. I had hoped to comfort his family and friends and offer help with funeral prep while up there, and although I created a slideshow for the funeral, I'm not sure I did much else.

Over all, I'm really confused because there are so many emotions vying for position and I don't know which one to let take the stage. I'd like for just one emotion to settle in so I can just BE... Just feel SOMETHING... Anything solid would be nice. Just something to go off of so I could cry, rage, smile, dance, or crawl into a corner and rock myself to sleep... any one thing would be great. I just want to feel one thing at a time instead of all of them at once, leaving me incapable of anything but confusion and numbness. And damn, it doesn't help at all to have a break up in the midst of it... Just to make the feelings that much more confusing and layered... Shit.

Do I feel absolute love for my friend still? Yes.
Do I feel sad because I know I'm going to miss him? Yes.
Do I feel awkward that I don't know what words to say to others he was close with? Yes.
Do I feel relief that I don't have to pay him back for his small loan now? Yes.
Do I feel responsible for helping others to remember him? Yes.
Do I feel happy about everything else in my life that's going well? Yes.
Do I feel shameful to feel so happy about everything else in my life that's going well? Yes.
Do I feel curious about where his soul might be right now? Yes.
Do I feel grateful he went before me so now it's safer to go wherever he is? Yes.
Do I feel tired of thinking about it altogether? Yes.
Do I feel impatient with others who don't get what's going on yet? Yes.
Do I feel overwhelmed with all these feelings? Yes.

Or maybe I just want to know for myself how I really feel...

Anything solid would be nice.

Rain Dance

I thought I was dancing with you

In the rain

Keeping time to the beat

Apparently there were no drums

None at all

My bad

Guess it was just the rain 

And my heart beating

All by itself

The faster it beat the faster I danced

Thinking you were dancing the same rhythm

I am surprised to learn otherwise

I thought you could hear it too

Through the downpour

Seems you were just following my lead

And maybe I was following yours

I gather that's why we got so confused

And our feet so twisted

Oops

What I wish I could say...

I wish I had the opportunity that they do in romance movies sometimes. You know that part near the end where one of the main characters gets to say the one thing that fixes it all? It's usually just some cheesy line or maybe a sincere apology that lasts one minute or less.

Well I wish I had that chance right now. I wish I had one minute.

But sometimes it's just impossible to tell someone what it is you want to say. I don't know why circumstances don't exist like in the movies (at least not in my life) and it seems really hopeless that they don't. All you want to do is tell the one person that matters to you what's really going on inside and it is impossible to do because the other person just doesn't want to hear it. They just don't. And no amount of begging or texting or facebook messaging is going to change that they simply don't want to talk to you. Still.

And in those moments which you wish you could transform everything from unspoken misunderstandings into explained assurances, you're only left with a wish that things could be different. And oh how I wish I could make it different.

What I wish I could say is...

and

But since I don't have that chance.... Since you won't let me have the chance to explain myself... I have to let go. I have to stop fighting the reality that you just don't want to talk to me. And so I let go. 

I let go because I matter too much to myself to stay here, and I choose to live in love not in fear or regret. I choose to love, and in that loving, I let you go. 

I let go because you matter too much to me to mar the experiences and memories we made with something as trivial and painful as holding on, grasping at what once was, clawing at it to continue. You matter too much to remember anything other than the beauty that we had for the time that we had it. 

And so, with all my love which you never knew I had for you, I let you go.

I can't help it. I'm in love... With all of you.

It took a few seconds my friend... You and I met, in whichever circumstance it was, and though I may have not realized it then... Something happened - and when it did, suddenly everything changed. The truth is...

I love you.

I believe love has the power to break through fear as water has the power to wash away stone.

It may take longer for a person to change through the medication of unconditional love than with the threat of a gun. Fear will change a person's actions temporarily, but love will change a person's heart forever. I believe love is a longer lasting reason to change than any fear can give.

So here is the truth of love: 

I will love you as completely as I love myself. 

I will love you forever - for that is unconditional love.

But know this - love is not the same as trust. 

Though I will not throw my heart beneath your feet to be trampled -

             I will never close off room for you to come inside my heart. 

Though I will not expect you to love or look after me in any way - 

             I will never stop hoping that you may love me the way I am.

Though I will not let you close enough to hit twice; once and trust is broken - 

             I will never believe you incapable of winning your dignity back.

Though I will never abandon myself to the fearful nature inside you - 

             I will never see you as anything less than a friend who needs love. 

Though I will never let you cross a boundary for the sake of "love" -

             If you do, you will not lose my belief in your value as a person.

I will love you though you may hate me. 

I will forgive you though you may blame me. 

I will see your heart for the entirety and beauty it is.

I will look beyond the pain you feel to see the child inside. 

I will love you; completely, insights, charisma and imperfections. 

I will love you as completely as I love myself. 

I will love you forever - for that is unconditional love. 

What are you throwing away?

You know... Things like...

• The world is a scary place
• I have to fight for my right to live
• Everything in life is hard
• There is one RIGHT religion
• I'm never going to be good enough
• If other people are upset, I caused it
• When I get enough money, then I'll be happy
• Believing I had to be happy all the time (I'd rather be at peace, thank you)

I just don't need them anymore.

Giving Up vs Trying Harder

I'm at a stand still. I have a choice to make about a relationship I'm in. This happens to many of us when we don't know whether to give up or try harder. Where's the line? What do we look out for? How do we know which direction to pick?

I did some thinking about this and came up with the following idea...

When you feel unhappy about some situation in your life, you have three choices. You can:

1. Give up (Change everything)
2. Endure (Change nothing)
3. Try Harder (Change something)

If you choose to give up (change everything), you're looking at an overhaul and a lot of emotional grief as you let go of different aspects of the situation. Giving up isn't always wrong as we've been lead to believe. Giving up is actually often quite right - in fact we must give up on almost EVERYTHING ELSE we do in order to do ANY ONE THING. If we choose to do the dishes, we choose NOT to go to the store, go out dancing, write a book etc etc... Everything else, other than the one thing we want to do must be given up on for the time being, because we can ONLY do one thing at a time. So giving up isn't wrong, it just comes with consequences - be prepared for the emotional, spiritual, economical, and physical consequences.

Enduring is probably the most painful because it requires us to wait on someone or something else outside of ourselves to make the change for us. This may or may not ever happen, and that's just a fact. If we choose not to change anything, we have to be willing to go with what ever happens, in the order that it happens, when ever that happens. It can catch us off guard when something changes and have us feeling like a victim, like it's happening TO us simply because we have chosen not to act. The grief can often feel more intense when we are not choosing our own actions, because it catches us unaware not on our terms. Enduring isn't wrong, just don't expect the desired outcome to ever actually happen without some action on your part. 

So let's get one thing straight about trying harder. Is "trying harder" going to give you the results you want if you just do the same thing over and over expecting different results? No. That's what enduring is. If you insist on doing the SAME THING over and over, without being OPEN to any input, change or evolution, you are NOT GOING TO CHANGE ANYTHING, and are therefore just enduring. So what is trying harder? Trying harder is two things - 1. A constant search for a new tool, habit, system or idea which might solve the situation (outside input) 2. Actually implementing those new tools, habits, systems or ideas. Keep trying new things and being open to feedback, input and education - you'll find something that works eventually. 

Questions:
When is it ok to Give Up? 

When is it ok to Endure? 

When is it ok to Try Harder? 

Food = People

I need to confess. For as long as I can remember, I've been afraid of people. Like, not just strangers, but I mean EVERYONE. It suddenly occurred to me the other day that I was afraid of people for no reason and this analogy helped me understand the realization:

In the same way that they say you are what you eat, you are also who you surround yourself with.

In essence, if I could compare people to food, I had gone through life believing that ALL "FOOD" (ie: people) was poison, and eating (ie: interacting with) very little. But the truth is the same for food or people in that just as poison is RARE, dangerous toxic people are also rare. At home, the food (or the people) is safer to eat (or interact with) than in situations out of my control. The poisonous foods are more commonly found IN THE WILD, just as the more toxic people are more commonly found in chaotic environments.

Also, just because you once found something from the grocery store that is bad, that doesn't mean you should never go to the grocery store again. Just because you find one distasteful experience with a person doesn't mean you should never talk to someone with those qualities again. But that's what I was in essence doing, and I just didn't know it.

Now I see that the majority of people are SAFE, and that I am safe to be around virtually all of them. There is the rare one or two that are NOT safe, and that shouldn't prevent me from surrounding myself with everyone else. :)

Love love forever,
Sarah

Mormons, Muslims, Worship and God

It has been a long time since I've written and I want to start this blog up again.

I have some thoughts on religion I want to share today, and lately so much has been changing for me, that I have barely been able to recall my past self. I'm going to go over some thoughts here because I just can't keep them straight anymore.

If you don't already know, I'm Mormon. Born and raised in a family of Mormons (LDS). My family members over the years have decided one by one to go their own ways from religion and I was the last of my sibling left hanging on to Mormonism. I thought I was right, and I fought to the end of every conversation. And now I surprise myself by no longer considering myself Mormon.

I can not go over all the massive shifts in my life lately so this is not an "update of my life" blog post, but I do want to go over this one about religion because it brings out the topic which I was studying on today. The main thing you'll need to know about my life right now is that I'm dating a Muslim (Islamic faith) and have been asked by him to simply look into the faith of Islam and to make my own mind up. Which is what I'm doing.

Today at the book store while browsing for different book I couldn't find, a small, thin, green book stood out to me. It's title reads, "Islam Is..." It's an introduction to Islam and it's principles. I purchased it and brought it home. Once I got home, I began to read it and something stood out to me that I need to materialize into words because I can not make sense of it in ANY religion, never mind my boyfriend's (new to me) faith.

The concept is of Monotheism which often (and in the case of this book specifically) states is "devotion of all worship to the One God alone."

I wish I could understand this religious reasoning why God would need worshiping at all. It doesn't make sense to me. I have two issues with it that I can not see a way out of for the life of me. If you have any thoughts, feel free to share. I'm open and interested in others opinions.

First, the statement implies there either exists more than one God, or that we are capable of worshiping more than one God at a time. Since we are assuming there is only one God according to the Christian, Muslim, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism faiths (among many others), the real question is this: what is worship? How do we know if we are worshiping something other than the one God?

And secondly, I don't know why we need to worship God at all. I know this may seem to any believer to be total heresy, which I can understand because believe me, I've been there. I was a believer, not long ago.

What is the purpose of believing that God needs worship? In order to worship God, we'd have to know God existed and to whom we were giving of our worship. And yes, with the assumption that God created all things, there is reason enough to worship Him, but what does worship mean? And why does He need it? In order to relate to it, I can only draw from my own experiences, and my experience has been that I don't need praise or worship when I create a work of art or a science project. It's enough for me to admire my own work or share with others if I like. Why would God need worship? Isn't He perfect? Isn't He whole enough? Because He commands it? Why? Why does God need simplistic mortals to worship Him? Doesn't He have angels who do that? Doesn't He have enough self esteem that He doesn't need it?

So, if God doesn't need US to worship HIM, maybe the instruction exists for OUR sake. Maybe worshiping God somehow benefits us? If so, how? It begs the question as to what worship IS. Is worshiping simply acknowledging the existence of someone or something else? Is worshiping an act of singing, praying or dancing? Is worship an emotion, a state of being, a mindset? What is it? Is worship the act of giving gratitude? If so, I can see why we would worship, because having gratitude is scientifically proven to be amazingly beneficial for us, so why call it worship? Why not say only, "Give thanks to God"? That one makes sense. I don't think God needs us to worship Him. If we did not exist, God would not suddenly DIE because there was no one to worship Him.

So what is worship, and why is it such a BIG deal to worship only God? Is worship all consuming? If so, isn't that excessive and off balance? Isn't everything that is off balance also strictly forbidden in these religions? I thought the point of religion was to provide instructions for balance. So how is worship balance? Isn't the connotation one of obsession?

Totally open to thoughts.