Secret to getting it all--make someone else do it! :)

Yesterday I finished my client deliverable and took a break. But you know how it goes for most of us. Once we take that break we realize all those things we had been avoiding. The cleaning, the tidying up, the wired mangle running across the living room... And there goes the break as we then start the cleaning, the tidying, the separating of the mangled wires in the room.

There are some people who are quite comfortable with making living their work vision a priority. But making living your work vision a reality a priority often does not mean you want to give up having a beautiful organized space and you probably want to keep all the other wheels of the process turning. You want those new business cards followed up with. You want that email cleared. And gosh even the tidying up needs some logic which a cleaning service may not always put in.

We may say its brainless, its meditative. But there is nothing like having all these things done and being open to a few hours of serendipity. Here's the trick--we don't have to do it ourselves. I recently hired an assistant who takes pride in organizing my life even though her own can sometimes get very chaotic. I guess its just easier to see what helps someone else's life than your own. Also most of us pride ourselves in a job done to our internal satisfaction. Her internal satisfaction in seeing my life organized is so huge that she makes sure that the ball is never dropped (overall) . I love it!

I have an organized living room, work space, closet. And soon all the furniture to keep it that way without spending the countless brainless hours taking care of these things. If I were at this alone all this probably would not have happened or taken many months if not a year to get there.

Thank you Nora from the bottom of my heart!

Sharing where you are going

There is something sooo powerful and expanding about sharing where you are going in life with different people. This is true regardless of whether you just met them or have known them for years. The experience is one of personal expansion and growth at its best.

Believing in oneself

Each time we are overtaken by fears, by our sense of another's judgment, by pressure to change who we are and what we believe we are struggling with. We are struggling between what we or others see versus what we want and believe to be true. Many times we get disheartened at this. But really we should simply believe in ourselves and our vision. If we do so even if we fail, though there is not such thing as failure, we will move from this life knowing that we tried. And in that trying we grew. Oh and how delicious that growth is.

Polygamy in Islam

My current boyfriend is passionately pro-polygamy and wants me to agree to him engaging in it post marriage. In recent months this topic has led to lots of emotional and mental salsa—one step forward, one step back. It goes like this: I share that monogamy is non-negotiable factor for me and that something otherwise take me away from the vision of life that I want to create for myself. At times when he sees my pain at the thought of having to leave him for his polygamous views, he says he has given the idea up. But at other times he returns to his original viewpoint and tries to convince me of the many ways in which polygamy will add to his life and mine.

Key to his viewpoint is the belief that polygamy is permitted in Islam. He says that as a progressive Muslim I must accept polygamy as valid. To him progressive Muslims should accept polygamy for we say we live by the following principal:

“We recognize the full diversity of Islamic traditions and the free participation therein as a sincere expression of faith.”

To me this argument is a gross misjudgment of what it means to be a progressive Muslim for another principle of progressive Islam is:

“We recognize critical reasoning and dynamic engagement with Islamic scripture and prevailing Islamic practices as an expression of devotion to, and esteem for, Islam and humanity.”

But even before we consider a cerebral argument regarding which values one adopts by affiliating with a religion or a progressive stream within a religion we should consider our inner emotional and mental clarity. We should ask ourselves: What values and decisions make me feel good? Make me feel empowered, loved, and justly dealt with? If values, words, thoughts, or behaviors feel oppressive or preventative of our free will we are keeping ourselves away from self-realization by giving them credence.

Hard decisions--what kind of love is enough

I am a believer that my emotions in any area of my life are a strong indicator for learning that something isn't working in my life. They are also an opportunity to make a change that would bring my actions more in line with my desires and goals.

All that being said this realization and change is not always easy.

Today I told the man I am seeing that I will be taking some space over the next few days to decide what I would like to do about the concerns I have over my involvement with him. This has taken a lot of courage. I am at a point in my life where I have to decide if what is beautiful lovely and works in our relationship makes up for what is lacking and what all my visions of the future include.

Do the liberal open and nonjudgmental aspects of his persona make up for the distance. The geographic distance across states. The emotional distance I feel due to his lack of effort to "be there" for me or check up on me. In the past I have requested that we speak on the phone and connect more, only to be faced with strong resistance. His reasons are a dislike for phone/email in long distance relationships due to prior baggage related to this. I don't really understand his reasons but am more amazed at the resistance. This seems like a fairly small issue at the surface, what is bigger is his lack of desire at working with me when I am having difficulty with something. What kind of future will we have if he chooses not to be there for me in the future?

Will the love and respect make up for the distance and choosing not to engage? Will this choice to not engage even exist when we are geographically close? What makes me think that this will change and not me an issue in the future? If talking about what isn't working in the relationship brings up fear and anxiety for me now, if it happens in the future what will I be teaching my children about ways to deal with interpersonal issues?

Grant me Allah the inner strength to make these concerns clear to my partner. Help me communicate such that we decide to work together to change this relationship dynamic. And if that is not what we are able to do, grant me the wisdom to realize this early and the strength to leave him and be open to the next relationship or period of time with myself, which ever is better for my growth. I love you God. Please love and sustain me through this.