The Spiritual Journey Ain’t for Sissies

Can I just say that the spiritual journey is not for sissies?  Nor is menopause, but that’s a topic for a different blog!  As I understand it, the spiritual journey is about finding our way back to ourselves.  As humans, we go through this cycle of being authentic (as babies), to learning to please others (as children), to learning to serve others (as adults), to unlearning everything we've learned so that we can be authentic again. 

The Spiritual community calls this sense of personal identity that we learn “the ego”.  Personally, I’m not sure why the ego is a necessary part of our human experience.  I mean if God/Spirit/Universe wants us to experience joy as the main reason for our existence, why the heck did ego ever come into play?  I am open to opinions, so please chime in! 

Ergo, my latest travail on this journey back to authenticity:  I really want a long-term intimate relationship, so I decided to try online dating again.  Only this time, I have a better attitude about it and consequently I am having a lot more fun with it.  VIVA!  I also know that in the last ten years my attempts at finding a long-term relationship have been mostly unsuccessful.  Naturally, I conclude that I must be doing something wrong in dating, since I am not getting the results I want.  Wasn't it Albert Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?” 

Therefore, I decided to read up on some dating advice (mostly from men) to learn how to go about dating differently.  As you no doubt know, we all possess masculine and feminine energy.  The trick is knowing when to turn on our masculine energy and when to turn on our feminine energy.  (This goes for you guys, too!)  I think I tend to express masculine energy more often than feminine energy – could be because I’m a Capricorn, could be because I was raised with brothers, could be because I spent 20+ years in the corporate world – who knows? 

Accordingly, I start presenting more feminine energy (being receptive, passive, accepting) with my recent dates.  While I think it worked for me initially, I still find myself with no long-term relationship, physically and emotionally exhausted, and teetering on depression.  Why you ask?  

Because I was not being authentic.  I was not being true to myself.  You see, being an assertive, sassy, sharp-witted woman on the outside (and a soft, loving, girly-girl on the inside) is just who I am.  And I THRIVE when I am being who I am.  Besides, don’t we all want a partner who wants the authentic us? 

So, I’m back!  No more exhaustion, no more depression.  Lesson learned (albeit the hard way, which seems to be my preferred way J).  You see – you can only SCREAM VIVA! when you are being your authentic self.