I think one of the hardest things in breaking out of this good girl upbringing is breaking the rules. All of these constrictive rules that were never meant for our light to shine, And instead create an artificial light. WINNER! SMARTEST! BEST BODY! All of these things, these bullshit goals, awards that have no heart, no soul no love in them. There are no love in these rules, there is only confinement. Standardized testing are you kidding me? Jesus. If that doesn’t suck everyone dry around it. These are the rules that are meant to be broken.
So each day i am telling myself “no rules, screw the rules” and something deep inside me feels more and more free each day. And this really is one of the cycles, the layers I’ve been going through. I don’t want these rules anymore. I thought these rules were the guideposts to be love. Follow these rules, you get loved. So I am letting them go. They do not add shape and structure to my life in a meaningful way. They constrict and dry me out. My pleasure is too vast for these rules. Play and adventure all over the world. Delight, pleasure, freedom, expansion, all over the world.
And with each rule I break, large or small, I feel my true appetite coming back. Just how much MORE I want from this thing called life.
And I’ve broken some pretty big rules:
Leave a good marriage from a great man- breaking the rules
One way ticket to Kathmandu for your pleasure- breaking the rules
Saying no to holidays with the family- breaking the rules
And now, not having a ‘home,’ no car, traveling for my pleasure, to create more communion, intimacy and love in the world. Breaking the rules. (but whose rules is the question I keep coming back to)
I am really getting into this rule breaking thing. Layer by layer, releasing these adaptations, these unconscious agreements with the world, with myself. Saying…NO, that actually does’t feel good to me, or resonate with me at all. No thank you. I am going over here and going to create the life that FEELS rich and juicy to me.
I am so much more comfortable with some parts of my wild being in the world now. The woman who dances on mountaintops and rocky outcrops, who hikes off trail. The wild me who dances at beaches. Takes herself away for her birthday. Walks through NYC at 3am. This is a side of me I’ve come to know, love and trust. And there are other parts of me that are still domesticated. Still adapted.
So every day I am trying to break some rules and to honor my true appetite. To notice where I hesitate and move through it. So yesterday I ‘broke the rules’ by taking three pieces of breakfast cake with me for my bus ride north when the sign at the hotel buffet clearly stated that all food must be consumed in the restaurant. I broke the rules by taking two of the hotels napkins to wrap up these cakes.
My good girl was pretty ecstatic at taking one, then I took two. Then when I was sitting at my table, I realized I wanted more. So I went and got another piece. And it was a bit uncomfortable to have this plate with three pieces of cake on it. I felt piggish. I wondered what others thought, this woman sitting by herself with three pieces of cake. Of course she is going to take some with her, or she couldn’t eat all of that herself. I thought of lies to tell, ‘I’m going to write for a few hours in the lounge.” And at the end, I wrapped them up in the hotel napkins and put them in my purse. Feeling a bit delighted, a bit deviant, a bit piggish.
And as the rules, the constriction dissolves with each new action of truth…with that comes the space for the new, for my true appetite to emerge. For my greed to have a place in this world. And as we heal, as we release the constriction in our hips, our hearts, our head, as we move through this old energy, we bring in the new.
With ease. Without all the work
Another layer. Out with the old, in with the new.
And so I can dive into a deeper wild, I find myself diving into a deeper wild within myself. And I know this is why I am here. To come back to myself with more truth. With more grace. With more softness. With more respect. To give space for this yearning that has been within me to have space to emerge, to be seen in the world, to be met by the world. The beauty of my appetite for love. The truth of my appetite for life.
Because I have an appetite.
A huge appetite. I have an appetite to travel the world- to walk the highlands in Scotland,To taste the most delicious Scotch, to see the heather in full bloom, to dance around the fire at Beltane, to hear celtic music live. To explore the beauty of Iceland, to camp under the stars on a night with no clouds, to walk this wild land. I desire sunrises and sunsets all over the world.
I have an appetite to have lovers all over the world. To have these incredible men supporting me and nourishing me. I have an appetite for beauty: to stay in beauty, to be surrounded in beauty. I have an appetite to be adorned in incredible clothes and jewelry that honor my essence. To be surrounded by the most stunning flowers. I have an appetite to be in nature, to see the deserts, the mountains, the salt flats, the red rocks. I have an appetite to sit around the table with world leaders and flirt with them, to show them the beauty of the feminine, to take their hands into mine, to gaze in their eyes and shower them with love.
I have an appetite
At times I have settled for wonder bread when the world wants me to be eating german brown bread, in Germany. Because I have gone to some of these places and yet I have not been fully present with my appetite. My good girl feeling guilty to be so blessed to travel and have the freedoms I do, that she thought this is enough. And it isn’t. It is a blessing, yes, and yet it is not my deepest truth, my true desires. Rent a bike in Amsterdam. Go to bellydancing class. Flirt with that sexy man at the park. Be greedy.
So another layer- no need for guilt and shame of my appetite. I am doing my best to stop denying my appetite or believing it is wrong in any way (that is domestication). Because I am not making up this appetite, it was gifted to me by the divine. So if I deny this. If I deny myself the make out with the hot Argentinian, the sunrise, the salsa dance, the chocolate…I am denying myself a gift brought to me by the divine in the name of some unconscious code to have my father love me. To have my family approve. To have my neighbors and strangers think I am good.
And I am good. And I have an appetite.
This appetite is finding its place in the world. It has been for years, one layer at a time, more and more of my appetite being out in the world.
Thank you more please.
Because I have the most beautiful appetite.
And the denial of this keeps me small, it does not get me the love I truly desire.
And so this morning, I visualized myself ending all the unconscious agreements I’ve made to stay a good girl to be loved. I called in every greedy thought, every greedy desire that came my way…and I can’t wait for more because
I am falling in love with my greed, with my appetite.
Because my appetite is LOVE.
Because me pretending I am happy with crumbs, with wonder bread actually SERVES no one.
And yet we believe it does, I thought it did. I thought it served my family and my culture for me to go to college, to get degrees, to think I had to be people’s therapists, their savior, that had to throw the baby showers, that is what I do as a woman. And I pretended to like it. I pretended it was enough. When it never was, when it wasn’t even close. Because that was giving love as I had been taught by my culture…holidays cards, birthday presents, a fake smile…it wasn’t about me receiving and creating the love and life I needed to be fully engaged. To be out dancing in nature, to sleep on the rim of the grand canyon, to hike into the grand canyon and dance on a bridge under the moon. This makes me joyful. This connects me to my appetite.
I’ve spent years excavating my appetite and not writing about it because of the shame I felt. How could I want more? Who was I to want more?
And here’s the thing. I want so much more. I want more touch, communion, sensual and sexual expression that I can even begin to imagine. I want to fall in love every day. I want chocolate fed to me, my feet rubbed, my forehead and hair caressed. I want to stay in the most stunningly beautiful places in the world. In tree houses, eco lodges, in tents. I want to be serenaded, courted, and supported.
I want my appetite to be met..but first I have to admit I have one. And I have to evolve it from what I thought it was. When I was younger it was a night in with Falcon Crest and ice cream, this evolved to 90201 and Melrose Place with wine and girlfriends, and then a DVR with my husband and lots of popcorn and an abundance of Oprah magazines. And yes I am simplifying things- there was much magic during this time too..but the thing is. So much of what I thought I enjoyed. I didn’t.
I would have rather been out cross country skiing at night on the streets of Boulder than a frat party, but I wanted to fit in. I wanted a boy to like me. I wanted to be kissed. And this is what I saw as the way.
So it is this part of me that is growing up. That is no longer running the show.
I am greedy for true love, for love my way. I am greedy to meet the people who believe the same and want to create this with me. I am greedy for heart intimacy, body intimacy. I am greedy to be worshipped, revered. I am greedy for this young part of me to know her absolute genius in her desires and her power, and her magic and her incredible astounding beauty just as she is.
And I am greedy, so damn greedy, for all of us to know this and honor this Because can you IMAGINE what we can create when we own our appetite for true love? For true intimacy and communion? Can you imagine what our families, our schools, our systems would look like then? It is the change that is happening this search for true love. I see and feel it and experience it everyday. Whether in Seattle, on a bus in Argentina. I FEEL IT.
We are starving for our true appetites to be met. We can be so undernourished in the ways that most count.
And so here in Argentina, I am in this wild nature, I am dancing at weddings, helping at barbecues, I am skinny dipping, swimming in lakes, tasting the dark bread, savoring the lamb, the sunrises, the rainbows. Because I am owning my appetite and my greed and not letting the good girl take the lead. I am teaching her, her truth is far more beautiful than anything she was taught.
And the cake from the hotel?
When I got on the bus, sitting by me were a mother and daughter from Holland, hosteling their way through this trip, speaking of the expense here. And the daughter wanted some food. So I took it out: this apple and seed cake wrapped in a lovely linen cloth and handed it to her. This gift of love for me and them. They gratefully savored it…I gifted another piece to a friend from the glacier outing yesterday. And I savored the other. Because I realize I get to have my cake and eat it too and there is nothing wrong with this. I don’t have to give it all away.
Because I have an appetite.