Love is not enough.

I came up with this pyramid a very long time ago.  I believe I was 18 years old and I needed to put together a presentation for one of my classes.  When I came up with it and did my presentation the other people in the room looked at me like I had completely lost it.  I was talking about relationships and why I believed people had successful relationships.  I focused more on romantic relationships than anything else, however with the passing of the years I have realized that this pyramid can be applied to any relationship you will ever encounter.

I have not written a post in a while, but this one came to me yesterday as I was speaking to a new client.  In my spiritual line of business I come across many different questions, people want to always make sure they are doing the right thing, but the questions that most frequently get asked are relationship ones.  I have yet to have a relationship question that wouldn't be answered or solved with this one pyramid.  I think someone was trying to point this out to me when I was 18 years young and until a few years ago I thought of it just as a thing I had come up with for a Speech class where no one else really got what I was trying to say (maybe it was that back then I didn't speak English as well as I do know... Who knows?).

Anyhow, my client yesterday reminded me of this very important pyramid and I felt I needed to write and express myself about it again.  You see, with every single relationship you will ever encounter, whether it is a romantic relationship, a friendship, or a business relationship; the basis for each of them is COMMUNICATION.  Yes, I put that word in CAPS because it is the most important part of any relationship.  Without it, you have nothing! Absolutely nothing!  Most of my clients have all these relationship issues and the more I help them, the more I realize none of them are communicating with the person they are having issues with.  It is either because the other person is not listening, or because they are not finding the right words to express themselves and so they end up arguing.

However, most of the people I have spoken to focus on one thing and one thing only: LOVE.  The feeling that you love that person more than anything else and therefore everything else does not matter.  Here is the thing though: Love is not enough, it never is, it never will be.  The reason why love is not enough is because (from a spiritual perspective) we live in a plane of existence that is guided and controlled by logic and love has very little logic attached to it.  In this plane of existence we need trust and respect to build a relationship and those two things do not come without communication.  If someone is not communicating with you, the first thing you are going to logically do is wonder why, the next thing you will logically do is try to find out if they are hiding something.  That is the plane we exist in now.

Look at the pyramid just for a little bit and think about how you came to trust and respect each of the people in your life, no matter who they are.  The first thing was that you were able to communicate with them.  When it comes to your parents, you trusted them because they were able to communicate with you from the time you were a baby and that trust led to the respect you have for them.  Those people with parents who never did that, have very little respect and very little trust for their parents.  Think about your friendships, business and romantic relationships; they all started by talking, by communicating somehow.  Everything else gets build on top of that.

When two people don't communicate and they love each other deeply; the top of that pyramid is too big and too heavy that once that base is gone, when it starts to crack or fall apart everything else crumbles with it.  You lose respect and trust almost immediately.  Think about this as the foundation of a house, the house being love and the rest of the pyramid being the foundation of the house.  Once that foundation starts to crumble (when we stop communicating) what happens to the house? And what happens if the house is a huge house? It crumbles down and gets destroyed.  The pieces will still be there, but the house is no longer useful, it is no longer livable.

So why does this happen? Why do we stop communicating with the people we love? Why do relationships tend to fail at this so often?  In my line of work I have realized that when people are in a romantic relationship they tend to get comfortable with the person they are with.  The level of being comfortable is so big that they forget to take care of the foundation of that relationship.  By the time they realize that something is wrong, usually this is the time when there is one argument after the next, their foundation is so broken that they need to start to rebuild it.  Unfortunately, most people aren't willing to do that.  For many, the easiest thing to do is to build a new house with someone else.  For others, they think the house should still be standing because of the love they have for each other, but at the end of the day they are left leaving in a broken house and with a lot of pain.

Love is not enough, relationships take constant work.  We cannot let ourselves be immersed into our own worlds and forget about the other person.  It does not have to be something where two people come together and become one.  Each person can be their own being, that's actually healthy.  However, we must always acknowledge that the other person wants to share who we are and what we do with us and we should be willing to reciprocate that just a little.  If we could do that, then the foundation of that wonderful house will always be strong and no matter what happens, it will never allow the house to crumble.

PS:  I tried to match the colors which spiritually represent each of the things that are on the pyramid.  If you notice communication and trust share the color blue, while respect and trust share the color gray.  Isn't it interesting that they are all in some way tied together?  You cannot build one without the other and you cannot build any of them without the bottom one.  Blessed Be!

Victim/Survivor's Strength

When having been a victim/survivor of domestic abuse/violence there are too many times when you don't feel you're strong enough.  There are way too many times when the abuser will tell you how weak you are, how you are nothing without them, how you are insane and everything is your fault.  There are times when the abuser will have gained enough power to make you believe everything they say it's true.

If you are lucky enough to leave or think about leaving and ask for help, the majority of people will not believe what you have gone through.  There will be times when people, other than the abuser, will tell you that you are crazy.  There will be times when the abuse you have endured will be belittled because he didn't leave a physical mark but just a psychological one.  There will be times when the abuser will have a new victim or other victims and those victims will take his side.

There will be times when even the people you love will not understand why you have changed so much, why you are afraid to go out, why if it was so bad you didn't leave before or why if it was so bad you went back many times.  If you are so scared for your life then why go anywhere near them? 

All of it will make you feel like you don't matter, that you don't have the strength to keep going.  I'm here to tell you that you're stronger than you think and than anyone else thinks.  You don't have to hurt others to make yourself feel better, that alone shows amazing strength.  You don't blame anyone else for your actions and mistakes, you take responsibility for them.  

Because you have learned that the majority of the time the system is not on your side, that most people do not understand unless they have gone through it themselves and that those who have gone through it like to keep it hidden because there is still so much stigma and victim blaming about it, you go through it on your own.  You deal with the ups and downs and the fear mostly on your own.  

 

I'm here to tell you that you're still here warrior, you are somehow making it on your own.  You keep going somehow, you keep going without having to victimize another person in order to make your case stronger.  You keep going without manipulating others with lies.  You keep going without blaming others for what have happened even when you have all the right to do so.  You are not just a survivor, you are a warrior because you keep fighting and that makes you stronger than you think you are. 

What If...

What if tomorrow every piece of technology would cease to work, every piece of paper would cease to exist, everything created by man to identify each of us would go away and our memories of its existence would go with them?  How would we then know who we are and who our family is? 

What about if we all were to wake up tomorrow and no longer have knowledge of societal rules?  What if we were to wake up and all the rules were gone and we the rights and wrongs of the world no longer had a meaning? 

We would wake up in a world where family is the people you know and love, the people who have been there for you every day supporting you and caring about you.  There wouldn't be a piece of paper tying you to someone you don't identify with but only your memories of the ones you love would dictate who you decide to tie yourself to. 

If we got a clean slate from the definitions of right and wrong as we know them now, maybe we would then stay out of each other's way.  Maybe we would be more tolerant of each other and possibly even love each other.  Maybe it is not human nature that is jealous or hateful, but society coming together like it has.  Maybe it is society as a whole the one that has divided people throughout the years with these pre-conceptions it has formed that take generations to change. 

Maybe if we were to erase the memory of what society is, of what society has told us right and wrong are, of all the records showing us whatever history supposedly says is right and wrong.  If we are only left with the memory of the ones we love, maybe we can have a happier humanity.  One where there is less violence, more tolerance, joy, and love. 

I saw a mouse

I saw a mouse,

It was a brown mouse

And scrutiny was used

Had it been a black mouse

Violence would have been used

Had it been a white mouse

No questions would have been asked 

And the little white mouse would have been let go

I saw a mouse...

I am not human

I am not human,
Humans hurt, kill, lie, and cheat
They don't forgive, they resent
Humans take revenge, they just like to hate.
They don't tolerate, they fight
Humans don't love unconditionally,
They love only if they get love in return.

I am not human,
I love and give without expectations,
I can't hurt another person on purpose,
I have a hard time taking revenge,
I love unconditionally and wish everyone the best.

Humans are full of jealousy,
They are never content and always want more,
Humans like when someone else gets hurt,
They don't have compassion for each other,
Humans think they have the answer to everything,
When they know absolutely nothing at all.

I am not human,
I can't be jealous,
I am grateful for the simplicity of life,
I am hurt when others hurt,
I know that I know nothing,
I am not human, but I live in a human world.

Police vs. Citizens

There has been so much violence reported in the past week.  We have people killing each other left and right it seems.  We have divided people into groups and then somehow we have put each group against one another.  It would seem that this is a new thing, we get surprised every time we hear someone has killed someone else.  Like it is an unbelievable thing for a human being to do, because why would a human intentionally hurt someone else?

In the past few years I have gone through what I like to call an enlightenment period.  I have begun to see the realities of life while also keeping faith that things are not all that bad all the time.  I have come to learn that the term humane needs a different meaning, that violence sells books, TV shows, and even the news.  The word humane means to have compassion towards another person or being, but there is very little compassion shown between human beings.

We are the one species that is capable of killing just for the sake of killing.  We have been doing it for years.  I was thinking about the animal kingdom and I have yet to see an animal kill another animal just because they could.  Animals kill each other to eat and survive, not because one of them was in the way.  Animals do not try to control each other, they just stay out of each other's way.  Humans could use a little lesson on that.  People kill each other out of jealousy, differences of opinion, or just as a form of control.

Even with rational minds, in the animal kingdom it seems we should be at the bottom of the list.  We can't accept each other, have healthy debates without someone insulting another person.  We can't have a different opinion because someone might get shot for it.  We can't have a different religion because someone might not like it.  We are so intolerant of one another that we divide ourselves in groups.  We become biased and take sides and then we wonder why there is such a thing.

Lately we have our attention between police officers and citizens, more specific African American citizens and the police.  A minority vs. a majority.  We are all in shock that this is happening and I wonder why we are in shock, this has been happening for years.  It is not just the police department, it is the justice system, the people who are supposed to protect others, politicians who are supposed to create the laws that supposedly keep people safe.  Instead of tolerating each other and talking about different ideas to make this country greater, we have been creating a separation between everyone.  One side thinks and feels they are better than the other and the other side feels oppressed by the side that feels they are better.

Then the side who feels is better gets hurt somehow because the oppressed side is able to get something change, so whenever possible the other side will punish the oppressed side harder.  This goes on and on in circles and it is never ending.  It won't end until we all realize that each of us needs to be more tolerant of each other.  It won't end until we leave the feelings of greatness and the feelings of oppression to the side and realize that under our skins we all look very much alike.  That each of our bodies will rot inside a hole in the ground.  It won't end until we stop diving people and realize that there are bad humans of every color, every ethnicity, and religion.  It won't end until we all accept that humans are the one animal capable of anything, that they can reason themselves to think that hurting someone else is a good thing.  History has shown us that and it seems that we still have not learned.

I gave in and watched God's Not Dead

Just finished watching the movie God's Not Dead.  I have to admit the only reason I watched it was because Jesse Metcalfe is starring on the second one and he is so handsome that I just want to go see it.  I thought the first movie gave some premise to the second one so I should watch it.  In other words: his handsomeness made me do it...

For the purpose of this blog, I will just refer to the deity as God.  The concept of God can have many different meanings and God to you can be female rather than male.  For others it is a supreme being with both qualities, others like to think that their is not just one deity but many.  Then there are those who don't want to refer to the deity as God but refer to it as Spirit, others call it the universe.  All of which are perfectly fine because faith is a personal thing.  You give meaning to whatever it is that you believe in.  Unless we are going to discuss in order to learn more rather than try to convince the other person that they are wrong, then there is absolutely no reason why we should argue over belief systems.  In this argument, neither point is right or wrong.  
The movie started being pretty interesting; college students being told by a philosophy professor that God is dead and if everyone agrees to that then the semester will be pretty easy and time will not be spent arguing over a "fairy tale."  Philosophy is the love of wisdom and it would be very hypocritical for a good Philosophy professor to not want to hear the arguments his/her students have over such controversial topic, but I get it.

The argument over the existence of God has been going on for centuries, neither side has been able to prove whether or not he exists.  The arguments often used are either that he exists because this book says he does or that he does not exist because you cannot prove his existence.

I should not be surprised at the turn the movie took after a few minutes, I mean it is a "Christian" movie after all.  However, if the intent of the movie was to convince people who are at the fence of either believing or not in God that God is really not dead, then they did a poor job.   Using the Bible as an argument against some of the very weak arguments against the existence of God, does not really make your argument very effective.

As the movie went on, the more the Bible was used the more the movie was a turn off.  All I kept thinking is that there are so many strong arguments for the existence of God, so many good philosophers who have argued that God does exist, that we don't just need the Bible to justify it.  At some point in the movie a Muslim girl is introduced, she believes in the God of Christianity rather than Allah.  Both of which can be compared to be the same deity but just using a different name.  This girl's faith is found out by her father and she is thrown out of the house.  I realized that the movie was not about whether God is dead or not dead,  the movie is about whether or not Christianity is dead or not.

Is Christianity dead?  We don't need Christianity to believe in God, that is for sure.  However, Christianity is slowly dying.  The Bible is not good enough to prove to people that God exists and that therefore we must follow a set of rules, or else we will find damnation.  Christians argue that Jesus died in a cross for our sins so that we would be saved.  But then they also say that if we don't follow what the Bible says we will be damned.  Which one is it?  Can we have it both ways?  Can it be that we were saved but we also have to follow a set of rules in order to ensure that we are not damned once we die?  It seems to me that and all knowing God would know that humans would have continued to commit sins, therefore asking us to follow the rules after sending his son to save us from damnation seems a little stupid, for someone who knows it all.

Maybe we are reading the Bible wrong, maybe it is not Jesus who saved us from damnation by dying on the cross but rather that we as people killed Jesus by committing acts of violence and betrayal, otherwise known as sins.  So he died not for our sins but because of them.  The story of how Jesus died just shows us how terrible mankind can be, and the way mankind is right now just show us that we have made very little progress to change and grow.  Based on the story, why did Jesus die?  He died because he thought different, he died because mankind did not have the courage to open their minds and think for themselves.

It is sad that society has still not changed.  The movie was another way of trying to bring people into the Christian faith, not into the faith of God.  It is another plot to say this way is right and your way is wrong, when the reality is that none of us really know the right way.  Faith is just that, faith.   Some people will have faith in scientific studies, while others will have faith in a supreme being with no name.  Then others will have faith in the fact that they really don't know what the truth is and that is fine with them, while others will put all their faith into the teachings of the Bible.  Are any of them right or wrong?  The truth is none of them are either right or wrong.

This movie would have been a lot more powerful, had it used more than scripture to argue God's existence.  It would have been more powerful, had it not just picked one religion over another.  The movie would have been way more powerful to convince people to look into the existence of God had it not subtly tried to show that Christianity was the only way to find God.  The movie would have been a lot more powerful had it focus on what the name of the movie is trying to convey, that God is not dead and not that Christianity is the way to God.

So is God dead?  That depends on how you see what it means to be alive and what it means to be dead.  One thing is for sure though, God must have been alive at one point, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about God so much right now.  God has been causing controversy even before the Bible was written and I don't think a dead being that never existed could cause so much controversy.  In my opinion, even if you don't believe in God, the mere thought of not being able to imagine that being exists gives life to that being.  Being able to talk about God is enough for me to say God exists and that God is not dead, but that is just me.  I don't think I am right for believing in God and you wrong for not believing in God; I think neither of us can prove the other one wrong, and that is perfectly fine and perfectly acceptable.