Flowers by Opulent Garden: http://opulentgarden.com.au/

You deserve someone who will:

• Hold your hand in public
• Be interested in your background/culture/past
• Want to share his/her background/culture/past with you
• Walk with you in the rain
• Try a new restaurant with you once in a while
• Spend Sunday mornings going to yoga and then farmer’s markets with you
• Laugh with you but also listen to you whinge once in a while
• Whinge about things to you
• Tell you stories about their childhood and listen to stories from yours
• Cook a meal with you
• Call just to ask how your day is going
• Share stories of their day with you
• Cuddle on the couch with you on a cold day
• Not be afraid to say “I love you”
• Want to travel with you, and even if you don’t go to half the places you speak of, at least you could dream together
• Work hard, work ethically and be responsible in spending money
• Be silly with you once in a while
• Be serious when it counts
• Make an effort with your family, friends and other people who are important to you
• Introduce you to their friends
• Hang out with your friends once in a while
• Sometimes watch a movie or show or concert just because you want to
• Fix things for you
• Be completely faithful
• Get things from upper/lower shelves for you (depending on your height and theirs)
• Understand when you need quiet time to read a book in the bath
• Follow through
• Not take it personally when you’re moody
• Always be ready for hugs
• Forgive
• Have dreams and ambitions
• Include you in those dreams and ambitions
• Realise how great you are and never be ashamed of you, your race/culture/background/height/hair colour/skin colour
• Make you a cup of tea sometimes
• Let you make them a cup of tea sometimes
• Go shopping with you once in a while
• Come home and give you a kiss after a boys’/girls’ night out
• Call when they say they will
• Keep flirting with you even though they know you love them
• Remember things that are important to you
• Be present
• Make you a priority
• Understand and acknowledge that sometimes you are right
• Realise that in some aspects, you do balance them off
• Smile and laugh with you
• Not always make it seem that everything you want them to do with you is such an inconvenience
• Once in a while tell the boys/girls that they would rather have a night in with you
• Speak of the day you met/your anniversary/the first time you said “yes” to going out with them like it was an amazing day
  
• Speak of you like you are a great thing
• Tell you that you look good
• Remind you that you make them smile
• During hard patches, remember how you made them feel those times they winked at you across the room while you were still flirting
• Be responsible
• Take care of you when you are sick
• Care about their health and yours
• Eat generally healthily but will make room for some naughty eating once in a while
• Go to the beach/zoo/park with you
• Sometimes make an effort to plan dinner/a picnic/movie/anniversary/birthday or something just for the heck of it
• Have their own interests so that you get to read a book or update your blog in private sometimes
• Go out and support you if you decide to perform in a show, race a car or enter Masterchef
• Read your blogs even though they find it very girly/manly
• Accept that sometimes, you might not like the same thing
• Be kind and respectful to your family
• Be respectful to their own parents
• Not swear in front of their elders
• Be self assured and secure enough to realise that although you are better at some things, they are better at others and that’s how you balance each other off
• Watch a chick/man flick with you sometimes and make fun of you when you react to some of the scenes
• Not always take themselves too seriously
• Not put you down just because they are feeling down
• Keep promises
• Be fair
• Not pick on you or find reasons to blame you when things are not going right in their life
• Take care of you in some ways and let you take care of them in others
• Accept your love and cherish it
• Take it in their stride if you decide suddenly to go on a romantic picnic/drive/swim/horse ride
• Accept all your quirks
• Realise that they might never understand you, but will still try to know you

You open one of these magazines, and there are step-by-step instructions on how to achieve this “mind blowing” sex.  So much about doing things the right way that you would start questioning your own sex life and wondering if it could get better.  However, I wonder, like our shoes, handbags, clothes, watches and cars, have we been conditioned to think that whatever sex we have is never going to be good enough?

We hope that people would know the difference between good sex and bad sex. However, when we look at the rest of our lives where we keep pursuing things and are then on to the next thing when we get there, is our pursuit of “amazing sex,” becoming just that, an endless pursuit?  At the end of the day, how important is the other person in this equation? Or is the other person just like the dinner in the fancy restaurant where once you’ve been there, you can brag about it then try a new fancy restaurant?

Sex is discussed a lot, and very openly in our society, especially in the media.  Just like relationships, we have been brainwashed to believe that there are certain “ideals.” The thing is, if we are always focusing on these ideals in the media, how would we even be present enough in the moment to know it when it’s right there? Like everything else, a balance needs to be struck.  Of course it would be great to be well informed. However, how well informed is too well informed that we start questioning the things that made us happy before we became so well informed?

So, what really does differentiate just sex and great sex?  Is it technique or is it completely enjoying the person you are with? When do we throw out the sex “to do list” and just be?  At what point do we stop thinking about “mind blowing sex” and focus on making love instead?  Maybe it’s time to just throw out the checklists anyway.  For now, just enjoy the person you’re with in every other way.  Maybe instead of making sex into love, maybe it’s about making love in other ways, and the sex will just come when it comes.

Some of the things I have to do as a recipient of this award are:

1. Share something about me that no one (in the blogging community) knows…
2. Link up to 7 posts of mine that I feel worthy: 
3. Nominate 7 bloggers for this award and inform them (with pleasure):

Something about me that no one (in the blogging community) know:

There have obviously been trying times in life, but still I believe in everyday miracles.  Sometimes we think that it needs to be something big, but it really doesn’t.  Something really simple can lift your heart and make it sing.

Among the things I consider every day miracles include:

• The view of Sydney from the train as we cross the bridge from North Sydney.  I see it every day on my way to work, but rain or shine, it never fails to lift me up
• 
• The people from St. Vincent de Paul who have a little breakfast barbeque stand at Alfred’s Park every Saturday morning to feed the homeless
• Buskers – no matter the instrument, no matter the sound
• The sea
• The smell of freshly cut grass
• Driving down a highway and being able to see animals grazing on farmland
• Cats laying down in the sun
• The flowers one of my colleagues received after her first date with a new young man
• Hugs from friends
• When a friend calls just to say “hi”
• Just listening to the rain fall outside either before I go to sleep or when I get up in the morning
• Dinner with good friends
• Going for or just sitting outside with a friend, taking it easy

I could probably list down many more, but  you could always start looking for your version of an everyday miracle.

Seven posts of mine that I feel are worthy of revisiting:

Coffee Shops and Relationships

Citizens of the World

Standing Naked in Front of the Mirror

Moving Spaces

Learning How to Cry

Journey Through the Past – Legacy from the Black Sea

Dancing in the Dark, Landing in the Light

Seven bloggers I would like to nominate for the 7 x 7 award:

Commander in Chic

Yoga with Nadine

You’ve Been Hooked

Savasana Addict

The Curvy Spine

Rising from the Ashes

MadSilence

So there it is…

Thank you. Namaste and Assalamualaikum.

The question is though, when did we start accumulating this baggage?  The Baby Boomer generation (our parents generation) is much applauded for significantly increasing divorce rates globally and if you are in your thirties or younger, there is more a chance you are from a broken home than not.  Since much of our opinion is based on learned behaviour, it’s highly likely that our views on relationships are very much shaped by what we see from our parents, relatives and older siblings.  Does this mean that even before we have our own first relationship, we are already carrying baggage from our parents’ relationship?

Then there are the things that we go through ourselves.  While some people might have minimal baggage, the majority, would have a few heartbreaks along the way, including that big love that overshadows all others.  Ah, the big love.  The one you carry with you all through your life, or at least until the next big love.  It’s the suitcase that you think takes so much space in your attic until you accumulate the next, bigger suitcase.  And as we get older, the suitcases just get bigger don’t they?

How do you deal with baggage?  How do you deal with someone else’s baggage?  You might think that it’s unfair that you have to, but more often than not, it just comes with the package.  How much baggage is too much?  The thing is, what you see during the honeymoon period is often just the tip of the iceberg.  If you think a person is screwed up then, it usually does not get better.

The thing is if our baggage can indeed be likened to suitcases in the attic, then more often than not, what we keep is unnecessary.  Obviously there are things that are big – your dad’s affair, your first real long-term relationship or any relationship that endured a significant amount of time and energy.  However, that three month fling or that single one night stand you had five years ago – are they really baggage?  They are things that happen, but should they really be taking up the space that they do?  You can only store so much before it all overflows.

Of someone else’s baggage? Sometimes that big looming suitcase full of skeletons is just an illusion of light.  One day there will come a time when your attic will need to move into the same space.  When that time comes, light will be shed whether you like it or not. It might help to remember that every suitcase in that attic is part of the journey that has led you to where you are today, and the suitcases in their attic are what made them this amazing crazy person that you adore. If however, the suitcases are taking too much space, you can always shut the door and walk away. It is up to you to decide if this person is worth the baggage they come with or not.

Flowers by Opulent Garden - http://opulentgarden.com.au/

You close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and slowly, the world just melts away.  There might be music in the background and the sound of his or her voice. This space is yours.  Starting from silence, you begin to move, slowly at first, tentatively, but as you learn to trust your body your movements expand.  Without going anywhere at all, every breath takes you to a new place.

Every inhale is an exploration, taking more in, and with every exhale you are letting go of your hesitation.  Your body speaks and you listen, and you obey.  Thoughts are silenced so that you can just feel.  Feeling the sweat drip down your arms, your belly, the small of your back.  You feel the rise and fall of your chest with every breath.  First you fight, then you surrender and in the surrender, you find freedom.  Just fall under the spell of your own movement.  It doesn’t matter how you look.  All that matters are the sensations of this dance.  No rush. No hurry.  This is the place where you can just be.

Then the external dance ends and there you are in stillness yet again, savouring the dance that goes on inside you.  A long exhalation and you just let go.  You close your eyes and just feel the beating of your heart.  For the first time in a long time you are just aware of how your body feels. Aware of where cloth touches skin and skin touches floor.  Aware of the air against your skin.  And your body, ready to ignite and take flight.  Knowing that at this moment, you have everything that you need.  You were dancing in the dark, and now you have landed in the light.

This is love.  This is peace. This is where I come when I am lost so that I can be found.  This is why I come back to my yoga mat time and time again.  Come dance with me.

In your twenties, there’s that unspoken target where you want to be settled by 30, and having passed that, it almost feels like there is the opportunity of really slowing down now. It is almost like as you get older, you’re willing to take more time.  The friendship bit has become as important as the flaming passion – especially if you’ve been in at least one relationship where the “flaming passion” caused a few broken plates and almost blew the roof off the house.

A workmate said that he’s become less picky as he got older.  Other friends and I agree though that after the misdemeanors and disasters we went through in our twenties, we have become much pickier.  For a self sufficient 30 something year old woman, a relationship is not about getting out of the family home (hopefully) or financial gain. By this time, you’ve either developed a relationship with family that works or you’ve just disowned them altogether.  If you’re not making a truck load of money, then you’ve learned to live with what money you do make.

The questions remain as to how you do it.  How do you fall in love again now after everything? Where do you get the courage to do it and believe that you won’t be picking yourself up off the floor again in a year or five or fifteen? Do you still have it in you to just walk into the flame as you did ten years ago with utter abandon?  Does this other person, who has probably been through as much as you have, have it in him to do it with you?  Can all the meditation and chakra healing work ensure that you are not just acting on your 2^nd chakra? (After all, it has been a while)

Flowers by Opulent Garden: http://opulentgarden.com.au/

Ah love, life – the beautifully complicated complications.  If I’ve learned anything on my yoga mat in the past few years, it is this – enjoy the journey.  Take it slow, sensuous.  So take your time.  Enjoy the early flirtations, hanging out, long conversations, getting to know each other.  When it reaches the next level, enjoy being in a bubble that is just the two of you for a while before expanding the bubble to include friends and family.  Just like you can’t start a pose mid-way, you can’t start a relationship where the last one left off.  This is a whole new pose, a whole new vinyasa even, so ground down and don’t forget to breathe because this could be the vinyasa of your life.

Today, I read an article about who gets custody of the favourite café once a couple breaks up, and to be honest, it has made me a bit sad.  Are our relationships with our local cafes more likely to outlive our relationships with our significant others?  In a way, I suppose it’s empowering to know that we can walk out when something is not working out.  On the other hand, I wonder if our society is taking relationships too lightly in that we walk out whenever something is not going right.

A friend and I were having this discussion a few months ago, and we realized that while we thought of marriage as the “end of it all” commitment, a long term relationship where you share so much and know each other so well is almost like a marriage.  The only difference is that no contract was signed.  A breakup can be just as complicated and messy.  There are the things to return, the families to tell which often includes the crying mother, the friends who have to go through an awkward time, dividing common areas and who can go where when, going out and being worried about bumping into the other, and a myriad of other different complications.  The only mess avoided is the legal mess and alimony.  By that logic, why is saying “never married” less of a stigma than saying “divorced” then?  You do have about the same amount of baggage, and in our society, sometimes even children.

Twenty years ago, the average number of relationships a person had before settling down would have been much lower, but of a longer duration.  Nowadays the number of relationships we have are larger, but the duration of each relationship is shorter.  Like cutlery and diapers, have our relationships become disposable? Does our coffee guy mean more to us than our guy?  Should we just start dating our coffee guy then?  The only problem with dating our coffee guy or our best friend is that we have the potential of losing them.

Isn’t it slightly dysfunctional that if we meet someone we actually like, we wouldn’t date them for fear of losing them? And if we are with someone who really is great, we do something to mess it up before they leave us.  It’s probably time to stop, reflect, and really think about this, because honestly, is we are more attached to a coffee shop than a partner, then something seems a bit off balance.

What is the right person? Is it someone who shares the same background, or someone who shares the same interests?  Is it someone who snores at exactly the right frequency that you can sleep through it?  Is it someone who is different from you and you complement each other or is it someone who shares the same hobbies, habits and personalities as you?  And when someone says “you’ll know when it’s right.”  How do you know? From what I have seen, a commitment is a leap of faith from both parties.  It’s not limited to commitment though.  Our knowledge of things change as we know more about them, and there is no way to know something is going to be true in 50 years until you are there, 50 years in the future.  Everything else is based on your effort and commitment.

The thing with putting the entire fate of the relationship on this so called right person is that you stop taking ownership of things.  In extremity, the right person would accept you leaving your socks all over the place, eating out of a dirty dish, lying about your age, lying in general, your tendency to become a bully when you’re upset and many other ridiculous habits.  So in waiting for this right person, there is a chance that you go from relationship to relationship thinking that the next one will be the one that fixes you or you just sit around doing nothing because the right person will find you anyway.

In saying all this, I must admit that I still am a romantic and I do believe that the right person does exist.  However, there is this other side of the equation – if your right person is a reflection of you, then maybe instead of concentrating outwards for the right person, perhaps it’s time to focus inwards and become the right you.  From there, this right person might just wander on into your life, at the right time, in the right place, and this time, he will be the right kind of right.  And if that doesn’t happen? Well, then you’ll be alright on your own.

Recently I read an article about the decline of the Western world http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/society-is-past-its-use-by-date-20111202-1oajg.html#ixzz1fcM9aYve.  Being from a country that was once colonised by the British, we were in a way brought up to believe that the Western culture had the answers to all the questions.   But the world is changing, and in 20 years, we don’t know which country is going to be the super power.  Somehow this current situation has made me think of the term “survival of the fittest”.  Modern medicine has made it possible for the sickliest of children to survive.  Could it be that to be one of the “fittest” in the future means something else completely?

Closer to home, what does this mean for us? Professionally, we know that if we are not able to communicate and work with people from different backgrounds, then our days are numbered.  I almost wonder if having a partner from a different background gives you an edge nowadays.  But life is not just in the office.  When you look around now at areas that were once predominantly made up of people from a certain racial background, you will realise that in the last 20 years, the community has changed.  Your neighbour, who was once your grandmother’s best friend and spoke the same language as her could now be someone from a completely different background.  The smell of grilled meats coming from their house could now be replaced with the smell of incense.

Sometimes it seems like these changes in the world have pushed people to act out in confusion.  I am not intending any disrespect, but merely commenting from my observations.  When I look around at my friends, there is a distinct difference based on who their closest circle are made of.  Those whose close circle of friends are made of many different cultures and backgrounds are often more “worldly” and open to new experiences.  They are often very interested in different ideas and get comfortable in situations easily.  These people often find it easy to assimilate but are generally non-conformists. On the other hand, the ones who have stuck with a group of friends made up of the same race and religion often find in difficult to accept new ideas, and are often bound by racial stereotypes and what they should be or do to fit in, but only with people from the same culture.  Thrown out of their comfort zone, they often find it hard to adjust.  Sadly though, although they blindly follow the traditions of their forefathers, they do so out of habit and often know nothing about the myriads of different colourful traditions in the world.

The article above notes that Westerners have lost their old beliefs and not found new ones to replace them, thus causing them to be confused, and to bring confused children into the world. I don’t think this is limited to Westerners as we are all being touched by globalisation in some way shape or form.  However, when you look at food markets, department stores and books it seems like globalisation has opened things up so that we can experience all sorts of different cultures.  Traditions, cultures and religions are rich and beautiful, and the only reason they could be lost is if we let them be lost.  Perhaps the key to a richer experience in life is to not be “typical” anything, but to be open to everything, to absorb and learn about different cultures and to be able to see the beauty in it all.  Personally, being a Muslim, September 11 and all the propaganda in the media has made it difficult and sometimes, if you are a first generation immigrant it’s almost like you’re a second class citizen, but when I think about it, I am so much luckier than a lot of people.  Being open to different cultures from Hinduism, to Buddhism, to Christianity has made my world so much more colourful.

The future will be such a different place.  While the Occupy movement is making itself heard in a lot of places, the people we once looked at as “hippies” or “alternative types” are making themselves heard in other places.  Are we heading towards another Renaissance-ish change? Or perhaps a reverse Renaissance? Maybe it doesn’t matter, but if you are looking to become a parent in the near future it probably should.  If survival of the fittest no longer means being physically fit but being mentally and emotionally able to cope with alternative ideas and deal with change, what will your children be? Will they be racial stereotypes stuck in a comfort zone, or will they become citizens of the world?  It all depends on what you are and how you choose to bring them up.

How you make it work in a world where everything is out there on display via Facebook, Twitter and what have you?  And how does it work when you are one half of the couple that broke up? Depending on the breakup, your ex might or might not still be on your social media page.  In a scenario such as the one between my parents, they probably would not be. Then, you have the family. Do you stay friends with them or delete them? What if you truly like them? In my parents’ case, at the insistence of my lovely grandfather (and in accordance with Islamic law), my mother remained their daughter-in-law until the day they died.

After the family, there are the mutual friends to consider.  Even if you meet these people as someone’s partner, in time, hopefully, you would have built a friendship on your own merit.  At some point, one partner or another moves on and the new partner is introduced to the friends.  If it was a clean and peaceful breakup where the couple had become friends, this scenario would not be much of a problem.  The problem arises when there is a scenario like the one between my parents, and of course it depends on what the other person is like.  What if the new person who started seeing your ex before you ended was marking his or her territory all over social media pages of mutual friends?   What do you do then?  Are you meant to delete the mutual friends that you have?

Then, there are the photos.  Are you meant to delete the photos from the past? Yes, it’s all over and done with, but although this person might have hurt you, this is part of the past that has made you who you are today.  At some point in time, this person was a big part of your life.  In my case, I think if it was over for more than three months, it would be fine.  Worse still are the photos you will see of your ex with the new person.  Again I think this would depend on time.  Three months is acceptable.  If there was an overlap, it would probably be like rubbing salt to an open wound when you look at photos of parties that you can’t attend because your ex did and there are the photos of him or her with the new flame.

Social media was meant to make it easier but in a way, it has made it just a bit more complicated.  Apart from etiquette, there are always feelings to consider.  There are the feelings of the parties involved, the families involved, and the friends involved.  It depends on where you are looking at it from.  Sometimes you have built enough of a foundation based on mutual interests to keep your friendship going.  No matter how you met, sometimes, a friendship built over years is worth more than one person’s indiscretion.  What do you think?