General David Petraeus – An Archetypal Pattern? (continued)

Dec 11
2012

(This is the final half of the blog begun on November 16, 2012.)

While a few men know how to court a woman, far too many men see women as a one time conquest that simply increases their bonding ability and respect from other men. “Score!”

A man can always walk away after satisfying his sexual need. A woman who becomes pregnant never can. She then carries the full responsibility for nurturing the child, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually, and often with an added societal burden of judgment and blame and the consequential internal feelings of guilt, shame, and low self-esteem.

A man who fully respects a woman and wants her to bear his seed and provide him with offspring, makes a commitment to protect and provide for her so that together they can nurture, guide, rear, and protect their children. Without a protector and provider, the woman simply cannot do her own job well. She needs a very safe and physically comfortable nest in which to rear their offspring.

Is it this same almost uncontrollable biological sex drive that drives married men like President Kennedy, President Clinton, and General Petreaus to become sexually involved with women other than their wives? The man sees no harm in what he is doing. He may see it as a one-time fling or simply an affair. My friend commented that every woman with whom he had ever had sex was an angel.

The male involved in an extramarital affair still loves the mother of his children and takes for granted that she will always be there for him – to cook, clean, wash his socks and babysit the children. But his wife knows at a deep gut level about his affair. His involvement with the other woman changes his energy and therefore changes the energy of the marital relationship. His mind is elsewhere. He is less attentive to wife and children. He is less present in the relationship. While the man’s involvement with the other woman may transform and expand him personally, it simultaneously destroys (impurifies, adulterates, ruins) the energy of the original male/female relationship on which the health of the entire family depends.

Once the children have grown up and left home, the woman has lost 25 years of her life that otherwise might have been spent developing financial skills, building assets, and expanding business acumen. Her only skills are cooking, cleaning, gardening, and babysitting. By that time her husband may have developed a fabulous career, be making lots of money, traveling around the world, and associating with many more interesting people. If his sexual drive then pulls him into the arms of a fascinating woman from whose sexual charms and magnetism he cannot release himself, his wife will go through denial, disbelief, emotional anguish, loss of trust, rage, and ultimately, she’ll leave – forever. Then she’ll sue him for as much money as she can get. Faced with the challenge of reconstructing her life, she must make a living in a world where women are financially disadvantaged, heal her feelings of low self-esteem, victimhood, rage, being used, not being respected and appreciated, and her total distrust of men.

If the male and female biological differences are real and the needs very different, how do we consciously reconcile them? Or don’t we?

 

You and Me – Alienation or Collaboration?

Jun 18
2011

Shib Shakti, a long- time spiritual friend from India, wrote:

… we are programmed, in our families, from the very onset of our senses – It’s ‘my’ mom, it’s ‘my’ dad, it’s ‘my house’, that’s ‘your’ pen, that’s ‘your’ toy…. and this way we are programmed to alienate ourselves from ‘others’, though we could be taught instead that everything outside us is also part of ourselves

What a fascinating topic!

You/Me Scarcity Mentality

If I hear Shib correctly, he is speaking about that aspect of you/me mentality that operates from scarcity. There is not enough to go around. I have to protect myself and hoard all the physical resources I can. If you win, I lose. This mentality creates conflict.

There are, however, other aspects of you/me mentality.

You/Me Uniqueness Mentality

Each of us on this planet is unique. Each of us has different genes, different cultural experiences, different parental experiences, different education, different skills. These differences are the gifts we have to give to the planet. It is vital for each of us to respect our own uniqueness in order to be able to grow to our full potential. This requires distinguishing you from me and getting clear on exactly what gifts and skills each of us has to offer.

You/Me Stewardship Mentality

US - Figure/Ground Ambigram by John Langdon, www.johnlangdon.net. Used by permission.

 

A third aspect of you/me mentality, related to Uniqueness Mentality is stewardship.

There are clearly some people who are better qualified to manage certain resources than others. For example, if I want to fly to New Delhi, I am far better served when the plane is piloted by an experienced pilot than a five year old child. If I need food, I am far better served by a farmer than an accountant. If I want joy and curiosity in my life, perhaps I am best served by the five-year old.

Stewardship emanates, not from scarcity thinking, conflict and disrespect, but from abundance thinking, collaboration and mutual respect. It is a you/me relationship that allows you and me to align into us. It allows me to serve you and you to serve me. We all win.

Are there other aspects of you/me mentality? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can comment below.

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Sep 20
2009

Why do bad things happen to good people? There is always a deeper spiritual purpose behind the “bad” things that happen in the physical realm. Time, experience, and hindsight ultimately provide answers.

Many “bad” physical things have happened to me: my divorce from my first husband,  struggles caring for a family member hooked on drugs, the sudden death of  my second husband, a landlord who evicted me because he thought he could get more money from someone else. At least, they felt bad, unjustified, and unexplainable at the time.

Is this Higher Power’s way of strengthening me with courage, deepening me with compassion, clarifying my values, and moving me along the path I am intended to go? Not my will, but Thine?

I never thought I would divorce my husband. I believe in commitment and accountability. Yet when he became involved with another woman and refused to end the relationship, I found myself sitting in a spiritual limbo. I felt degraded to nothing more than a baby sitter, cook, and housekeeper. I had lost my partner. Perhaps I never had one. We were simply on different spiritual paths.

I agonized for months over whether to stay or whether to leave. After all, we had three children, all of whom I loved dearly. I struggled with anger, guilt, and fear. Ultimately I left the marriage and applied to law school.

I had never considered being a lawyer. The divorce radically shifted my path. After almost twenty years of staying home to care for husband, home, and children, I had to find a way to support myself financially on the physical plane. On the spiritual plane, I  felt compelled to find a way to speak about the mystical experience I had had years ago. Law school could teach me to think and speak with more clarity. None of this was easy.

Would I have become a lawyer had I remained married? Probably not.

My struggles in a relationship where a family member was addicted to cocaine propelled me into Naranon, a twelve step support group for families and friends of addicts. Would I ever have become aware of my own addictions to people and relationships, but for that experience? Would I ever have realized the value of setting boundaries and tough love? Would I ever have learned to focus on my own issues and stop trying to change others? Would I ever have learned the value of using first person singular language when speaking? The words then become simply my own thoughts. They are no longer ideas I am forcing on others, but, at the same time, I am free to express what I truly think and feel.

When my second husband Don died suddenly of a heart attack on Roatan, Honduras, it was, of course, a terrible shock. My life immediately afterwards was not easy. His death changed my life direction drastically. Among other things, I no longer had a home in the States.

Don was 14 years older than I. He had heart problems and had begun to lose his balance and fall a lot of the time. His mind was not as sharp as it used to be. It was becoming a full time job to care for him.

When I look at his death from hindsight, I can’t help but wonder if the timing and manner were exactly right. Have you heard of people making agreements before they enter this physical life to relate to one another in a particular way? I can’t help but wonder if Don and I did that.

After Don’s death, I simply holed up in the house in Roatan and wrote Shift, the book I’ve known for 35 years I had to write. Would I have had the time and focus to write a book had Don wasted away for years? Probably not.

When my landlord in a foreign country evicted me because he thought he’d found another tenant who would pay him more money and give him a longer term lease, I was furious. The anger again made me aware of how important commitment , accountability, and trust were to me. I struggled to find ways to enforce those values in a country that had little respect them. On the physical plane, it was not a struggle I could win. Even though my landlord had violated our agreement, I soon discovered I had no legal right to stay. On the spiritual plane, I had help in ways I could never have imagined.

I left as quickly as I could. With the breach of trust and lack of accountability, I didn’t want to pay this man any more money than necessary. I had to let go and trust Universal Energy to take care of the “bad” physical things. I was not disappointed.

Shortly after I left, my landlord’s wonderful new tenant breached his lease with the landlord. He hasn’t rented the house since.

An astute, spiritual friend said to me eighteen months ago when I was first having challenges with the builder of my home, “Haven’t you figured out yet that you aren’t supposed to live there?” No, I hadn’t. I’m stubborn. I will exhaust every viable avenue I can think of to resolve a situation or relationship issue before I’ll walk away. However, when Higher Power doesn’t want me to stay where I am, She just keeps slapping me harder and harder and putting more and more roadblocks in my way until I have no choice but to move in a new direction. From hindsight, the new direction is invariably the one my spiritual path is intended to take.

Searching for Healing? Pay Attention to Your Words

Aug 30
2009

Did you know that you shape the world in which you live by the words and emotions you allow into your mind and heart? If you need to heal, put healing words and emotions into your life.

Forty years ago, I would have been skeptical of that message. The way I viewed the world then led me to believe that the problems I experienced were caused by others. After all, I was doing the best I could and yet awful things were happening. 

Now, I know differently. Forty years ago, I was simply giving my power away to people who didn’t deserve it. I didn’t have to do that. Because I was unaware, I unconsciously allowed it to happen. I permitted dysfunctional people to have free rent in my head all the time. 

What changed? As a young mother, I unexpectedly had a mystical experience. That experience started me on a long journey through the world of perception, thoughts, words, pain, despair, paradox, anger, fear, terror, joy, peace, skepticism, faith, humility, gratitude, self-esteem, and personal power. 

The mystical experience was not one I was seeking. It just happened. I couldn’t find the words to describe it. My religious training offered me no ready-made vocabulary. Yet the experience was so magnificently transforming I needed to find some way to communicate it. I desperately wanted to understand it. My search for the ‘right’ words turned into a forty-year quest that ultimately left me acutely aware of how many different ways I could perceive the world and how the ways I perceived it affected how I felt. 

I’m not going to go into detail here about the mystical experience. Those who want to read more can go to my website at http://wordsculptures.com/experience.htm or read the first chapter of my book Shift: Change Your Words, Change Your World. 

As a child I’d been fascinated with optical illusions. The famous one of the old hag and the young woman is a good example:

Old Hag - Young Woman

Old Hag - Young Woman

The lines on the paper don’t change. What changes is the way our minds shape those lines and the meaning each of us gives to them. Depending on what we see, we use different words. We either use words like, young, beautiful, vibrant, charming, gentle or we use words like big nose, toothless, hag, jutting chin, drooping eyelids. Depending on what we see and the words we use, our emotions and energy levels change. Most of us feel better about the words young, beautiful, charming and vibrant than we do about the words drooping eyelids, big nose and toothless. 

Our real world is just like an optical illusion. We have a choice as to what we see, the words we use, the emotions we feel, and the actions we take. Perception, words, emotions, and actions are all interrelated. 

Eastern religions speak about piercing the veil of illusion. This is exactly what they are talking about. Christians talk about salvation. Same thing. Both are simply talking about consciousness-shifting experiences that suddenly allow us to view our world in a new, more harmonious, and creative way. 

How does shifting our consciousness allow us to heal? 

When we accept the fact that the influx of sensory data is what it is and that each of us is in a dance of consciousness with that sensory data, we suddenly realize that we have the power to change that dance by choosing our own perceptions, words, emotions, and actions. If our partner wants to tango and we want to waltz, we simply stop doing the tango. Either our partner will waltz with us or we will find a new partner who loves to waltz as much as we do. 

In short, by becoming acutely aware of the choices we have every minute of every day, we can seek out those people and experiences that enhance our energy and well-being and blithely dance away from those that do not.

Warm regards,

Janet

Janet Smith Warfield
Ordinary words, extraordinary insights
Author of Shift: Change Your Words, Change Your World
AMAZON BEST SELLER
WINNER: 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Best New Age Non-Fiction

http://word-sculptures.com
WINNER: 2008 COVR Best Website Award

Spiritual Disparity and Lack of Communication

Aug 09
2009

Can a relationship work when there is spiritual disparity in understanding and no communication?

That is such a tough question. It has many ramifications. Let’s see if we can break it down. 

At what level do you want your relationships to “work”?

A car with a bad muffler “works” in the sense that it runs, but it doesn’t “work” as well as a car with a good muffler.

A relationship with spiritual disparity may “work” on some levels.

For example, perhaps the partners have children together. Both love their children and are working together to support them. The man earns money to pay the mortgage and buy food. The woman cooks, cleans, washes dirty diapers, and educates the children. Neither is abusive, so on the physical level, the relationship “works.” This is a “working” that is not to be discounted.

However, on other levels, the relationship isn’t working. In the sexual area, the man wants an orgasm. The woman is frigid because her needs for mental and emotional communication aren’t met. The man spends his free time with male friends, bragging about how many orgasms he had in a single night. The woman feels deserted and relegated to the role of a convenient babysitter, cook, and cleaning lady.

Perhaps the woman tries to express her feelings and needs to the man. He never learned how to deal with emotions so he doesn’t know what to do with them. After all, he’s been taught that real men don’t cry, right? God forbid that his buddies should find out he’s a weakling. Better to avoid the subject altogether, crack a joke, and move on to an area where he’s comfortable and doesn’t have to look at what he doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to deal with. 

So what does the partner with the more expanded spiritual consciousness do? Not an easy choice. The answer is entirely individual. I can promise it means you have to change.

The change you make in yourself will affect both your partner and your relationship. Will the relationship hold together? I don’t know. It will either become stronger and more satisfactory to both partners or there will be too much of a disparity and the partners will go separate ways.

Regardless of what happens to the relationship, I can promise that you will become stronger and wiser in the process and will expand your own spiritual consciousness.

Conflict

Jun 21
2009

There are times when conflict has value. Not conflict in the sense of physical warfare, but conflict in the sense of standing firm in one’s own integrity and spiritual centeredness when confronted with another person’s angry, judgmental, and self-righteous denunciations. To stand firm may create conflict, but it is like the conflict of the river that thinks it can push the rock out of its way. I can actually be a catalyst to an angry person’s spiritual growth by saying ‘no’ and allowing them to realize that their anger belongs to them. It has nothing to do with me.

© 2009 Janet Smith Warfield All rights reserved