Blog Posts

Rewiring My Brain and Standing On My Business

*Cue “You Can Have It All” by George McCrae*

“The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control.”
bell hooks

I know that love is a risk, with the chance of outside forces possibly acting upon us. Though if the forces brought me here, then I’ll continue to trust myself, where I’m going, and those coming alongside me. That all includes leaving behind people who simply are not my people!!! A lesson I had to learn the hard way because I’m stubborn. Though I’m grateful that I’ve loved myself enough to let go of lovers not meant for me.

I wanted to believe wholeheartedly that these not so amazing lovers stayed in my life (even after I had originally cut them out) because they loved me enough to be who I deserved. But really they stayed (and I entertained them) because the emotional dramatics that came from the faulty foundation we created gave us idk, life experience. We met some type of need for affection and desire. And for me as a writer, life experience is fuel for writing. I suppose I gravitated towards this pattern of “what are we?” uncertainty because I wasn’t confident in who I was. I thought by (not standing by my word the first time I ended things with them) allowing myself to stay in such connections we would somehow alchemize into a healthy thriving partnership. LOL. I was afraid to admit that we were never meant to be life long companions, just companions for a season. A season that kept repeating itself until I finally accepted that I deserve what I want!

I deserved to be healed too, not just being the one healing the other person. I was afraid to admit that these connections were NOT actually fulfilling for me. I continued to pour into them because I thought it was the “right” thing to do since life is short and not everyone has experienced love in their life. I’ve continued to learn that I am not obligated to give anyone my energy. It’s my magical gift to whom I choose to share with. I am no longer afraid to say out loud that I deserve so much more. Because I’m all that and a bag of chips!

“One pattern that made the practice of love especially difficult was my constantly choosing to be with men who were emotionally wounded, who were not that interested in being loving even though they desired to be loved.”
bell hooks

Excerpt from August 16, 2022 journal entry:

I don’t want to be with someone who can’t make me a priority
I don’t want a partner who goes on their phone as a soon as we are done having intercourse. Wild.
I don’t want a partner who goes more than a day without talking to me
I don’t want to be taken for granted or ignored
I don’t want a partner who can’t accept me for me: Alexis! Sexually liberated, vulnerable, funny, knowledgeable, wise, creative, open, confident, optimistic, hopeful, gentle, etc.
I don’t want a partner that I have to convince to be in my life through the very normal humans ups and downs

It’s been a hard lesson in learning that I deserve someone who can give me what I want. That it’s okay to let go of people who can’t give me what I want and go our separate ways. I’ve got to give myself the chance to be the best Alexis I can be. And that includes letting new healthy people into my life.

My values:

Being understood. Action. Courage. Freedom. Autonomy. Independent thinking. Genuineness. Authenticity. Gratitude. Knowledge. Truth. Integrity. Inclusion. Empathy. Kindness. Justice. Reliability. Trust. Depth. Awareness. Respect. Communication. Curiosity. Dignity. Consistency. Radical acceptance. Commitment. Confidence. Determination. Balance. Family. Faith in one another. Conflict management. Humor (especially a dry sense of humor 😆).

Love is…

Intimacy WITH risk. Pleasure WITH significant emotional investment. A transformative force. Falling in love with the consciousness and building a beautiful life with a healthy person. Being a good person.

“As a society we are embarrassed by love. We treat it as if it were an obscenity. We reluctantly admit to it. Even saying the word makes us stumble and blush… Love is the most important thing in our lives, a passion for which we would fight or die, and yet we’re reluctant to linger over its names. Without a supple vocabulary, we can’t talk or think about it directly.”
Diance Ackerman

A definition of love by M. Scott Peck, “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth… Love is as love does. Love is an act of will — namely, both an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love.”