SEDUCTION

It's easy to lose oneself amidst the cries of others, the delusions of the masses, the ignorance of the selfish and the distractions of the superficial.

It is difficult to listen within to the small quiet voice of instinct, intuition, and internal guidance. It's difficult, but not impossible.

As life continues, the wear and tear intensifies when not maintaining one's own idiosyncratic boundaries. Much like dieting, when one slips up and under peer pressure eats a slice of someone's birthday cake, the indiscriminate sugar can stir up one's own obsession for more. That momentary lack of polite agreement in order not to hurt another person's feelings, can start a roller coaster ride that's not even worth the price of admission.

Yesterday a friend from spinning wanted to accompany me to a yoga class across town. She’s a tiny little twig, weighing no more than a hundred pounds. She’s tight, fit, athletic, and intense, much more a disciplined task master when it comes to the body than I am. I’d put off doing the yoga run with her for a few weeks because I’d noticed she had a tendency to speak and laugh really loudly and I wasn’t open for enduring that much noise.

She picked me up and on the drive across town I listened to her talk about her dating life on the Fitness Singles and Military Singles websites. She recently read a book entitled FEARLESS LOVING and decided to be more open with men and not judge them as harshly. She'd always toppled them after the first date if they didn’t intrigue her. Now she realizes it takes three dates to know for sure if a man was just nervous enough to fumble the first two. She was very confident in how she questioned men and got them to admit their red flags up front. I listened and paid attention to her, while quietly comparing my own b.s. detector and how it fared for me when doing online dating these past four years.

She has an estranged sister who starts chemo and was feeling guilty for being in yoga. Driving back she shared a cut apple and pear. She said, “I’m not hungry but I have to pay attention to my blood sugar level.” We discussed breakfasts and I realized what I’d eaten wasn’t enough to carry me. When she admitted to having a sweet tooth and being unable to keep the stuff around I listened extra hard. “I only allow myself to eat dark chocolate with the real cocoa. I can eat just a tiny bit of that everyday. If I get a little crazy with it, then I cut it out till the obsession subsides.”

She knows more about nutrition than I do, and is rigid in her habits surrounding food. I only know I must keep a bit in my mouth or there is little restraining the wild animal wanting to graze constantly. One bite of chocolate is such a tease to me... often necessitating I pull myself up short before more damage is done. Is the bliss of that one bite worth the drama of the unquenchable longing kicked up as a result?

She felt she missed her calling.... she’d gone early into the corporate structure even though she’d wanted to be a fitness trainer and stand up comedian/actress. Now without a job she wonders what steps she should take next. She saw a therapist for six months until the therapist said, “I can’t take your money anymore.” I'm not sure why she told me that tidbit.

Driving up my street I finally explained with few details of the long nine-year arrangement I'd had and what I gave up to get what I got. She said, “I could never do that. Now that you are changing your outlook, don’t you think you are loving yourself more?” Loving myself more... I hadn't thought of it in those terms.

I did give up my sense of self in order to inhabit those hours of almighty orgasm. I gave my power away, knowing I denied my heart so my loins could rejoice. Seduced, transfixed, under the influence, in those moments-during those years I felt that experience was better than anything else available or offered. When someone told me there are more important things than orgasmic sex I always thought they hadn’t had orgasmic sex...

It is one thing to have a little thrill, but to get to that place within where all is lit up....
It is one thing to listen to hearsay, to believe others regarding their Truth.

Quite another to discover for one's self... to walk the path and reach one's own summit.
Quite another to explore within, follow one's paths even if it leads into pain,
learning the breadth and width of the arena one has chosen to explore.
It doesn't make these moments of loss less painful.

Yet exploring one’s own unique options, making decisions for one’s self, as versus dutifully following the herd mentality, is a worthwhile expenditure of time and energy for the self-knowledge it provides and the sense of accomplishment that one was brave enough to be.