From today’s journal entry …
For context, I was contemplating my particular flavour of how I avoid intimacy.
We all have different strategies, and a few years ago through deep inquiry, real life practice, and adventures in relationship experimentation, I discovered that my particular flavour is a kind of fog.
Keep things vague.
Keep it loose and airy and light.
I would get kind of high on the smoke and mirrors I would create (and in some cases co-create as us fogging types are often attracted to other fogging types).
Fogging is a type of fantasy.
It’s playing between just enough of what’s real and weaving the rest with ether and “spirit”.
It’s not good or bad, however it is a particular strategy to avoid high sensation – the kind of high sensation when our vulnerabilities are exposed, when our deep shame patterns are triggered, when things get a little too hot in the kitchen.
When things get a little too real, we foggers like to pull back, pull up, get astral, baby.
The last few months have been really potent for me in moving from less fogging, and into more grounding.
Earthing.
Clarity.
It’s where I’m moving towards in my natal North Node in Taurus (currently transiting for all you astro geeks out there).
For you non-astro geeks, that means my desire to embody, my desire to fully live out in flesh and blood, my deepest desires is being highlighted.
Like a golden ticket to the Chocolate Factory, I’m all in for this adventure we call life.
So today while writing, contemplating, and digesting the last few months, I am realizing that I am more comfortable with the fog clearing, with letting my desires and truth speak, sometimes less filtered, sometimes unfiltered.
I wrote:
As I get more and more grounded in my embodiment, I realize I’m willing to let the fog clear, get clear, and let that land in my body and my life.
I find myself less and less attached to the how and what of the shape and form. There is an honesty I find myself being more and more true to.
Self betrayal is just no longer more comfortable than the alternative.
Being with people, witnessing others in their own discomfort is something I’m less and less inclined to “fix” or feel like I “need to” interfere with. How I’m perceived by others is less and less important.
In fact it requires energy – energy I’m no longer willing to spend as it is no longer productive to be manipulative.
In recent conversations with friends and strangers, I find myself willing to speak unfiltered.
I’m willing to drop caring how I’m perceived – or at least feel the discomfort in that, and then do or say the thing anyway.
I recently told my friend, a potential love interest, and deeply beautiful connection that while I feel a deep spiritual connection, and am super attracted to him, that I’m not willing to invest in a fantasy distance relationship. I’m not willing to leave my own life that I’ve created nor do I want or expect him to drop his life, dreams and the things he’s been working towards to pursue fantasy fog.
I know that what I want in intimacy and connection is a little different from the “norm”.
I also know that the physical embodiment of partnership is super important to me – uncompromisingly so.
I’m not attached to the outcome.
But I’m getting more and more courageous in the ask.
Because if I can’t ask for what I deeply desire, what I am truly hungry for, I am merely subsiding on the scraps of substitution.
I am not here for crumbs.
I am here for satisfaction.
I am here to live and embody nourishment in all shapes and capacities.
As I wrote in my journal today:
Self betrayal is just no longer more comfortable than the alternative.
Self betrayal is in service until it isn’t.
Putting others desires and projections before your own core being is until it isn’t.
I can remember the conversation I had with my friend last night where I told him “You asked me for something because you felt it was what I owed you, even though you knew I owed you nothing. So when I said no, you weren’t happy with that. But that’s ok. My responsibility was to be honest with myself and give you an honest answer. Your receipt of the answer is your responsibility.”
We may not like our partner’s response, but we are not responsible for it.
We may not like our partner’s response, but we can take responsibility for our feelings.
We may not like our partner’s response, but we can still respect that it is honest and true for them in the moment.
Every moment, every spot in real life, real interactions, in real relationship where I answer and respond honestly, I get clearer and clearer.
The fog lifts.
And the opportunity for deepening in intimacy exponentially grows.