Honesty is the Best Policy

I used to think that it was bad to acknowledge that I wanted something so bad in my life. It would make me look desperate.

That is a huge pressure on women in society. "Make sure you have goals and you want things cause you are a strong independent woman, and that is attractive. But when it comes to love, don't want it too much. No one wants to be with a desperate woman. So please, do not come off that way. For your own good, honey. Just push it down. Act like you could take it or leave it. Like it doesn't really matter to you. But if it happens then great! That's the kind of woman that is so enticing."

Ok, so a woman that puts on a front? A woman who ignores her desires? A woman who doesn't want love until it finds her? "Be unattached. But be able to turn it on the moment it finds you. But still play it cool."

WHAT ON EARTH.

Are we trying to drive women insane? This sort of implication will certainly do that.

I was talking to a dear soul friend recently, and in that conversation I was telling her my completely honest desire that I had. But of course quickly tried to brush it off and felt a little stupid. A reflex I am learning to let go of.

You see, in a very candid and stripped conversation I had with my sister a few weeks back, she had challenged me to stop trying to change or control or ignore my emotions. I have a tendency to do that. When I feel stupid, or when I simply don't want to deal with it, I go into a mode that I have developed over the years. It's my coping and survival fall back. Blow it off. Push it down. Don't think about it. Eventually you'll move on and forget.

Over the phone, she stopped me in the middle of my ongoing, rambling processing that I do and said to me, "Cal, stop. It is ok to simply be honest with yourself. I want to challenge you to allow yourself to simply feel whatever it is you are feeling. Don't try to change it or manipulate it. Don't analyze it to death. Be ok with simply sitting in the truth of your heart. There is no right or wrong way to feel. So just embrace it. That's my challenge for you."

Well good. Leave it to my sister to hit me right where I needed it.

What a truly challenging call. Actually, being told that it was ok to give myself the permission to do that was exactly what I needed. My shoulders began to relax. My shame and urge to control went away.

I found myself more in tune with my heart than I had been before. I gave myself that space. And the peace I received was a new, complex, and layered one. I stopped judging myself. Instead, I walked into my heart and sat down.

As I embraced my own personal truth, I realized how much I had let others and society inform me of how I should be feeling. I was trying to fit that mold I mentioned above. Which is honestly a recipe to drive someone insane.

When we truly listen to the desires of our heart, and give them the space they need in order to truly be felt, it's amazing what else you begin to notice about your heart.

Allowing myself to sit in the emotions of that particular circumstance led me to a deeper truth that I was finally noticing. I want to share this life. I truly desire to be able to walk alongside someone.

As I was telling my dear friend earlier this deep longing that I had come to realize over the past week or so, I immediately began to feel stupid and tell her how I hated that I felt this way cause I don't want to come off as desperate. That's not what it is. It's not some superficial desire for status or self-fulfillment........

Knowing my heart so well, she interjected and said, "Calli, I totally understand. That's wonderful that you are realizing and embracing that."

With hopeful skepticism, I responded, "It is......?"

"Yes. When we acknowledge and admit that we want something, that there is a space that hasn't been filled, then we open ourselves up to the opportunity of allowing someone or something to fill it. Without that honesty, how to do you ever expect to find it?"

Damn. This is why I have friends who are smarter than me.

I was still under this stupid impression that I had been told by people and society and myself that once you stopped caring and stopped looking, then whatever it was would find you. Detach yourself and then it will fall in your lap. Cause then you deserve it?

I don't entirely understand the logic I had behind that one, but it had burrowed itself so deep in my bones that I never questioned it. That's how it should be, I thought.

No.

There is a peace in knowing that your soul longs for something.

It doesn't have to mean that you are desperate and anxious for the first thing that comes along to fill it.

It simply means that you are now aware and desire the possibility of it.

I don't know about you, but I would much rather be intentional in moving forward with my eyes open.

I'm done playing games. Hoping that things will find me if I keep my eyes closed and my back turned on my desires.

I choose to be honest and open as I move forward into the desires of my heart.

I know what I want. And that doesn't happen very often.

Game. Over.