Elite Daily: Does Abstaining From Sex Create A Stronger Emotional Connection? An Expert Say Yes. https://www.elitedaily.com/p/does-abstaining-from-sex-create-a-stronger-emotional-connection-expert-say-yes-22795649
Calculated Silence
It was the 89th day of 2020 and two sent texts: SC & GA.
My heart was racing to receive a response: a call or even a text reply. But nothing! I sat on the edge of my seat all day long. Hoping. Yearning. Wishing. Praying.
Not even an acknowledgement! Did he know? Did he remember? For goodness sake – it was his birthday! 67. But nothing!
The pedestal once given to her has lost all value. This is the “Final Straw…”
Ahem – practicing the epitome of Parental Alienation. Her voice was so loud amidst the silence, but it wasn’t until midnight that we realized the intentional communication.
Photo by Zino Bang on Pexels.com
Too often
Too often we are afraid of not being that exact ‘fitted’ piece of the puzzle that remains glued in the fabric of relations
Too often we speak the wrong things in our head and grow angry with our heart because our emotions don’t align with our thinking
Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another steppingstone to greatness.
– Oprah Winfrey
Too often we pace back and forth, wondering if we can fit in where we get in
Too often we inhale on numerous occasions, wondering why the heart is palpitating when we forgot to exhale and let go
Too often the thoughts of yesteryear will overpower us until we decide that risking the practice of vulnerability is probably worth it
Too often we choose to live and exist in solitude, not because we want to but because we choose it
Too often we confuse dusk for night because our mind has wandered so far in the past until today passed us by
Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.
– Iyanla Vanzant
Too often we’re concerned about what he or she may say or think but we fail to know that he or she lives in our head, rent free, because no one really knows our masquerade
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.
– Oprah Winfrey
Too often our stomach aches, not of hunger, but from our inability to release the panic button that controlled us for many years
Too often we want to manage, monitor or control a situation, forgetting that a second becomes a minute that grows into an hour, turned days into months and years of missed opportunities because our ‘self’ was important for way too much
Never Claim a Cardiac Arrest in place of a Heart Attack
So often we treat the experiences of our severed relationships like a ‘cardiac arrest’ when the result is a heart attack – neither of which we want. Remember your heart hasn’t stopped (cardiac arrest)! It is the attack on your emotions that need acute care and proper healing.
We must take time to make time like we can take time to treat, both of which may require a paradigm shift in our inner circles. And although this self-investment may appear too daunting of a task, the days that turn into weeks and months forward will have you wishing you did the inner work beforehand. Now some may say the fault belongs to someone else because of child-rearing circumstances or mental health reasons, which may weigh heavily on the side of accuracy. However, in the HERE and NOW of where we are today, the onus and accountability rest with us and our capability to acknowledge, seek, ask and submit for improvement.
Besides, your relationship with self is where the focus should shift because “If you are holding anyone else accountable for your happiness you’re wasting your time,” quotes Oprah Winfrey. –What I know For Sure
I digress with this: We must sow a personal seed for inner growth.
Three Little Black Girls
I wish to friend, understand and play with the little girls who came before me. I want to know what they dreamed of when they didn’t have to concern themselves with anything except to play, laugh and love without expectations and instructions. What were the secrets in their hearts? Were they happy or unhappy, and how so? Did each of these little girls have someone who often hugged them, reassuring that ‘All would be okay?’ Did they feel beautiful or empty inside? Did they feel alone or cold, particularly in the company of others? Were they permitted to speak without being accused of ‘talking back,’ or were they told to ‘hush’ because they did not have the permission to voice their emotions?
The aforesaid questions are sketched in my heart and although my maternal grandmother’s story remains untold, the remaining two girls, i.e. me and my mommy still have a chance to accept each other just where we are in life – fully flawed – and to possibly understand the heart of both girls whose first-male love (their fathers) were distant. Mom, the youngest of three, was brought up as a lone-spoiled child who was parented by a mother that regularly overcompensated because working full-time came first. Hence, mom gained materially but lacked proper nurturing such as the time when adamantly told to never return home with kids in tow with no husband but never explained what, how and why that was important.
Grant it, the desire of most parents is for their offspring to marry before having kids, however, the communication of these critical messages is more effective with explanations instead of demands so to teach healthy discussions instead of negative reactions. Just imagine how the curious mind of a teenager processes what not to do instead of what because of feared energy. We’ve all been there when asked not to do this or that but still questioning why not. If parents could only be mindful about how “the hurried pace of today’s society can be an obstacle to effective discipline” we’d invite more personalized ways of parenting for the betterment of child development for our family.
Now think of questions that are never asked of a daughter, or a child, to their mother because fright exist. When this happens the learn to understand or the ask to become empowered is suppressed unless there is an invite to share personal thoughts in a safe place. Hence, our homes must be that safe-haven, the place where intimate thoughts can be exchanged in a healthy way that promotes awareness, careful deliverance, love and affection so that conversations with our kids aren’t viewed as directives but rather advice about how to handle certain situations.
Parenting from a place of fear delivers fear. Loving from a place of hurt delivers hurt. And communicating from a place of anger results in one’s inability to handle discourse in a positive way because rarely does anything happen from a place of hurt or harm, unless there is healing. Explained a different way means if a hurt person wants to truly bless another without constraint s/he will give, but with reservation because subconsciously and hesitantly, their instincts about what negatively affected them has a more lasting impact than any positive incident.
Need more convincing? Take a moment to think about a personal situation that impacted you so greatly that you now flinch at the sight of either seeing, smelling or talking about it. It could be anything from witnessing a robbery gone bad or the attack on the World Trade Center. Okay, now think about the person you were before these events occurred! My point exactly. Unquestionably, your disposition before these events are altered by the negative-emotional load you now carry today. Hence, the robbery, albeit, or the 911 attack is forever sketched as a recall about how to prevent or react should anything similarly revisit.
Hence, there is a lesson to be learned about styles of parenting. Parents will either take on the same patterns of how we were parented, or we will unlearn to relearn other techniques for a different outcome. Nonetheless, my mission is to better know the little girl given to me before she was labeled mom so that shared fears of the little girl who lives in me sees her as a friend who desires to be understood, loved and embraced as the imperfect person who did the best she could to parent with the deposits of maternal love passed forward, despite its monetary value.
Black Women Need Their Mothers More Than Realized! – Sunshine
No Favorite Person, Just Selected Conversations
A life of age-appropriate events ended way too early for me. When I parent my daughter, while reflecting on my own life, I realize the things once shared with me when I was her age are way too mature for her to process in her tween years. But then I realize questions she asks are warranted to validate certain behaviors about why me and her grandmother aren’t as close as she and I. It’s one of the hardest things I do as a parent, aside from explaining what good can become of severed affairs like the one between me and her father.
If, in my younger years, I had a glimpse of how my future looked without an involved father I would have made a conscious effort to communicate my misgivings to mom about their divorce in hopes of some change. I further wish the time I spent keeping silent and finding support elsewhere was instead spent with my dad, sharing my most fearful thoughts about when I grew too close to men without suitable preparation. I regularly tell my tween that students learn from teachers they connect with. The same is also true about customers who buy from salespeople they like.
Likewise, you wouldn’t talk negative about your work to your boss and risk being fired, but rather speak with your close friend who can help you manage your emotions on the job. Hence, children and adults aren’t any different! My most intimate thoughts, as a child and now as an adult, are shared with people I trust[ed] with my emotions. I’d like to think I am not alone in this belief. Yet there are potential disturbances when you are closer to one parent than the other, particularly when your parents have moved on with their separate lives.
I’ve heard and am witness to the pathological cycle you can become a part of if old baggage isn’t handled in a timely manner. I am further convinced there is delicate balance I must keep between both parents, limiting my conversations with each about what the other one is doing. This is currently being practiced between me and my father but the to-do list is partly unaddressed with mother who is beginning to understand. So, what does this reveal, if anything? I don’t pretend to know, but I suspect the answers are more than surface deep. Breakups are handled differently between men and women, chiefly if there is no closure after a breakup.
An article I read the other day asserts that sex is 90% emotional and 10% physical for women. If accurate, this finding tells us two main things about females, i.e. we feel mostly everything, and we are overly troubled and mainly unhappy if we cannot fully express our senses with transparency to our mate. Therefore, if an emotional seed is interrupted and complete closure is never received, we can grow uneasy, overwhelmed and inundated about how to handle our anxieties, which could thereby lead to frustration or resentment, at worst.
I know this mindset all too well because when my emotions were mishandled at a young age I later grew guarded and defensive towards males. Consequently, my inability to cope with hardships led to many years of angst and regrets that continues to affect me and my loved ones today. It’s called “Sharing My Personal Scar!” I regularly reference “Sharing My Personal Scar” because the voice to the story saved me from self-hate, self-infliction, self-judgment and psychological warfare. Moreover, the negative energy and shame I once harbored are no longer because I realize my teen mind was manipulated by careless-adult men with a single agenda. However, going forward I am willing to love, give love and receive it when the occasion is mutual.
Now entering this ‘single-woman journey,’ I give more credence to whom I share my heart and mind. Questions like ‘has he earned an opportunity of total trust; does he understand the importance of contingencies; is his patience short-lived and the list continues?’ are important so that I may forecast my emotional investment. So in the context of No Favorite Person, Just Selected Conversations – the heart must feel safe for love to be expressed, exchanged and reciprocated. Otherwise the union or setting will resemble an exchange of thoughts for personal gain with an abrupt outcome.
Hire ‘You’ as the Project.
We undervalue our worth as women! Why? It’s not because we don’t know our worth, which may be partly true, but it is largely attributed to the lack of knowledge we have about why men do what they do when they do it and how often. Worded another way, women are strategically sought after for our complementary traits, aside from any other quality. What does this mean and how does this look?
For men, our physique is a plus and our conversations are a bonus but neither carries more earnest than the power a man feels when he is with a confident women because exuded strength will transfer strength; hence, a man will not gravitate to a woman that he cannot draw power from. Conversely, a man who is unsure of himself will disclose his shortcomings through his sole actions, which usually occurs – depending on the severity of his wounds – during the friendship and this takes form in overzealous conducts, such as excessive calls (day in day out, all the time), inappropriate rants or worse, an advancement to becoming his lifelong partner minus the serious discussion about personal collaboration. Likewise, a man who yearns confidence will also gravitate to women who possess this belief.
Consequently, this seek to find pursuit is admirable when (and only when) there is reciprocity about forward steps of mutual encouragement because anything aside from interdependence could swiftly result in a flat-lined relationship before opportunities to learn about each other are exercised. Thus, a discussion about how to amiably sever ties should be incorporated because when the strength of a partner is challenged, there are one or two outcomes: one will revert to preservation for future self-care, thereby withdraw from mutual engagement or each will succumb to self-blame and depart the relationship scarred about the experience.
On July 25, 2019 I chose the former and reading an article today, titled “How to Recover From a Breakup the Healthy Way,” will further aid me on self care because the content is relevant to who I am and why I do what I do when I do it that I had to write about my takeaway. The author was not only intimate about her own experience, but I began to distinctly see the pathology in my personal life that has hindered my personal growth and thus fueled my stagnation as a person. Thus, my inabilities to overcome obstacles because of my own unawareness of inner-strength has always been challenged until now.
Therefore, I want to encourage each woman to reach within and nurture your inner-being because you owe it to yourself. I further challenge you to welcome silence in your everyday practice because a crowded, cluttered, chaotic environment can never fully thrive unless there is a gap between planning and action. And lastly, ask the question: Why is he so overzealous and aggressive in pursuing me? Is there a lack thereof on his part because and remember, there is rarely any added work to be done with completed projects.
Hence, I urge you to Hire ‘You’ as the Project. Dare to become whole again. Define your strength and take charge by reclaiming self.
The Stakes Are Too High
The Summer of 2019 arrived and I was set on sending my manuscript to the publisher, but I found myself full of doubt about what would become of her image, his image, our image to those of whom we knew personally. Did I cultivate enough, did I give opportunities for told truths, was I acting in haste because we are so differently made? Further questions about rushing to become an author at the risk of losing all that matters consumed me. I recall thinking that recanting printed thoughts from the reader’s point of view would be unapologetic and callous; hence, I clearly knew the stakes were too high to publish a book at the risk of possibly condemning loved ones.
Expecting precise facts at certain times in particular places of my life was a tall order to request from the woman who was marketing my book to the community without clear knowledge of her own practices. That was the epitome of my decision to no longer author, yet continue to blog. I finally understood how her inability to connect with me correlates with our inability to connect with one another because of the systemic practices from our fore-mothers.
Further, it was over a chat in the chair when we both wondered about our lives in between the dashes when the second confirmation arrived. That one glance when he turned his face and looked me in the eye changed the course of events. It wasn’t what he said, but rather what he didn’t say – his whole demeanor changed insomuch I felt a sense of peace about what is now. The cadence of language consumed our space and gave me the peace I had been seeking for several years, which is to share space with them both wherever they are, however they are and whenever I can.
The trivial things I once gave focus will no longer consume me.
So, will I eventually become an author of a book you ask? I will continue to write and tell a collection of my stories, but only when guided by my heart and mind to make a difference to all I am loved by and to whom I love. Thank you for your unwavering support and regular encouragement. Good Vibes Only!
Xo – Blossom,
Book Title Revealed!
‘Parenting from Pain,’ will be released in bookstores Summer 2019.
You’re the only woman…
The risk I took at 23 is a different risk today at 47. Times have changed. I’ve changed. I see life differently and my physical abilities aren’t as good today like years ago. Okay, these are a few of my excuses for a long-time engagement with a slow crawl to the alter. Yet, I can clearly recall what she said to me about a year ago, ‘Felita, you’re probably the only woman I know who would be engaged this long without getting married [paraphrased].’
My immediate response was silence, and then I thought to myself, “She might be correct about that statement.” Yet, just the other day I reminded myself of how listening to that and giving it weight is the sentiment she carries, and not that of my own. Albeit a disagreement or an indifference, we have independent decisions to make for particular reasons. Hence, my decision to remain engaged- with a brief hiatus- is a mutual agreement in my relationship.
Truth be told! There’s a hesitancy between us with approximately 34-years of past luggage we both are still unpacking. He, formally married for 18 years and I for 16.5. Our wounds of past agony are slow to heal, and we can now finally see progress with our communication skills where, formally, we spoke at one another. Today we now talk to and are empathetic towards each other. We further understand our beginning was in haste; hence, perspectives are realized. Nonetheless, reaching this stage has been an uphill battle but neither he nor I would have it any other way.
Conversely, we are now beginning to apply helpful tips to strengthen our relationship, such as ‘working on our whole self’ and bringing that person to the table. Though remedial to a few, these relationship nuggets are useful reminders of how the slightest misunderstanding of words can potentially lead to a large ordeal that, if mishandled, can take days or months to heal. We’ve gracefully been through that also.
With that said, me and my fiancé are going on 6-years strong with no plans of turning back. So today I will say this: Yes, you’re correct about the ‘very few women‘ who will hang this long. However, my urgency to marry is different than the next (it’s not an urgency at all)! Grant it – your and my decisions are independent but our positions are the same – direction, forward. So, I wish you well at your pace that will officially occur in a few months with one simple request … I pray you will also appreciate my walk to the alter – regardless of how slow of a pace I take.
Congrats 🎉 Mrs.!
His Child, Not Hers 