March 29, 2009 @ 7:25am

It's Sunday morning the birds are singing and discussing their desire for warmer tempertures. I want to tell them that it's on the way but I'm not 100% sure myself but I love the sound, the constant interaction of nature going on outside while I struggle to discover who I am on the inside. And I am coming to know myself better and in ways I hadn't quite understood before. I never realize how much of my life has been consumed with things that others want me to do and it's taking me a minute to peel back the layers of external wants and allow my true desires to surface for examination. I keep coming back to several common threads, they're consistent and yet not very well connected or at least I can't figure out how to integrate the elements into something tangible, something sensible and a part of me feels that perhaps sensible is not the answer, perhaps these elements are not meant to combine in some comfortable way.
I'm reading the companion guide to the Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and it expands upon the first book and I'm finding revelation in the kinds of agreements I have with myself and how these agreements keep me on the edge of my true desires. These agreements are not my agreements but socially conditioned agreements, agreements from other people and agreements that don't serve my greater good and yet I hang onto them as if they are really important.
I really feel this calling to write about, create a website and become a sort of expert who talks with black folk about sex, sexuality and sexual orientation issues. In my consxious mind, I'm very interested in helping people discover sexual health and wellness, to become comfortable with their bodies, their sexual organs and their sexual activities and behaviors. And the agreement in my mind centers around me feeling as if people will think that I am weid for doing this but then I go to Tristan Tarantino's website and I say, she does it and she looks as if she's doing just fine and then it dawns on me that I have this agreement in my head about sex and openly talking about sex which is something I do regularly but I am made to feel as if I am odd and the truth is, I am odd for talking about sex openly because no one else does it. The whole purpose of what I want to do is to create space, so that it is no longer odd to talk about it, for it to become as natural as talking about the weather, okay not exactly like the weather but something close. Ruiz talks about the power of the mind to keep us from our callings because of all the agreements we have made with ourselves and words have power. He encourages us to make new agreements and to consciously move into these new agreements, step by step. It's all a process and it's all a journey. And I just looked back up at something I just wrote, the whole weird thing, I've been weird my entire life, why all of a sudden am I worried about it now.
I came up with this somewhat of a science demonstration to explain spiritual growth, the thought excited me yesterday and I wondered what I would ever do with this idea. I wondered if a spiritual teacher can teach people to be sexually healthy as well. I felt the two didn't exactly go together and in this moment, I have decided it does go together. Ruiz says we are welcomed to return to our child like nature, the part of us that is exploring and daring and open to the unimaginable, to play and to know that all of our needs will be met. This is what living is about yet I confine myself to these adult definitions of human restraint and I'm way too expressive for that, this is why I can't be in confining environments, I need light, openness and the ability to move around. More than anything I want to become immune to the words of others, to understand that their need to provide evaluation of me either positively or negatively is just their need to express and I am to simply allow it to be without letting it enter into consideration of my behavior or my personal beliefs about myself. I get what Ruiz is saying about the agreements and their capacity to change my life. I am in the mids of changing my life for the better, I am determined to live my best life and I have everything I need.
Yesterday at the grocery store, I sensed this openness with myself as I experienced the attention of others, particularly this man who seemed to have wanted to chat and just as I stopped to converse with him, he found himself discombobulated or somehow surprised yet unable to continue the dialogue. Maybe he was surprised that I was willing to talk but whatever it was it heightened my awareness of human interaction and the shear courage it takes to speak to someone because no else in the store talked to anyone else. I recognized how completely void the experience of going to the grocery store can be especially when you do self-check out. As I think about it, there are times when I walk into the grocery store, collect my items, check out and never speak to a soul, how strange is that? We have become so disconnected as human beings and this is not how we're suppose to live, I know this is not a part of the evolutionary plan, it makes no sense and I want to change my behavior and bring back human interaction, bring back the days when people spoke to each other. Also, I thought about my t-shirt idea, the one that says on the front, Need A Hug and on the back it will read, I Give Hugs. I want to make the world a better place to live in and I want to connect more, I'm not interested in huddling myself in a corner anymore, being a hermit and too scared of people. I am a person, I know in the heart of hearts that there is more to living and I want the fullest experience I can have.
Ruiz brings up something amazing in his writings, I get that it's not thick skin that we need to have unless we want to but it's an inner knowing that the holy spirit will take care of you, me, us. It is in the space of loving ourselves and truly embracing our perfection, the perfection of God inside of us that will provide the strength, the understanding and the compassion to treat people with decency and respect and love. I'm not looking for protection from people, I'm looking to be grounded in the truth of who and what I am, I am invested in expressing divine infinite intelligence and in that space of knowing, I know that I have everything I need and I know that God is so awesome that there is enough for everyone else, if they so choose. No more crabs in the barrel, no more grasping for crumbs and no more settling for being unGodly, I have higher expectations for myself, I am rising to the occasion, I am stepping into my divinity and allowing spirit, the universal energy that indwells to manifest fully. I'm all right with all that I endeavor to do, either it will come about separately or it will manifest in some combination of perfection, either way I am in it, in my purpose for living and being here on the planet.
I am perfect and I am whole and I am complete. I LOVE ME!