I know this might sound silly, but whenever I have ignored my intuition I have often really, really regretted it. Lately, my intuition has been acting up so much that it is almost like a loud voice in my head. I want to be careful, though, because if my intuition is wrong I could end up making a big mistake and making an idiot of myself. For now, I am trying my best to ignore it because I still need more facts before I make my decision. It did make me curious, though, as to the science behind intuition and so I read up on it some...this is one really neat article I discovered:

 http://www.medicaldaily.com/your-gut-feeling-way-more-just-feeling-science-intuition-325338



“We often talk about intuition coming from the body — following our gut instincts and trusting our hearts,” the study’s coauthor Barnaby D. Dunn, of the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, UK, said in a press release. “What happens in our bodies really does appear to influence what goes in our minds. We should be careful about following these gut instincts, however, as sometimes they help and sometimes they hinder our decision making.”

I hope this post is not too much or too inappropriate. It is something that has been on my mind lately and even more so within the past week since the Supreme Court ruled on gay marriage and there has been a lot of reaction (both good and bad) to their decision. 

I have noticed that both anti-gay and gay friendly people can sometimes say the same thing, if not for the same reason. "I don't care what two people do in their bedroom" is often cited by both sides, though often said in completely different tones. Those who support gay rights think they are saying something positive and being an ally, the far right believe they are emphasizing the sexual components. But BOTH (in my mind, at least) sides are trivializing the bigger issue.

The only thing I do in my bedroom is sleep. Of course I am single and not in a relationship and have never been in one involving intimacy of either a romantic or sexual nature. That is too much information to share, I am pretty sure, but I only mention that because the fact that sex and sexuality is so often THE main thing both pro and anti-gay people bring up in discussion saddens me a lot.

When I tried to come out to my family it went horribly, horribly (horribly) wrong. It did not, in fact, go at all and so I tried my best to just be "cured." The few friends I told were pretty accepting, though one person told me they just did not believe me because I gave off no sexuality at all. I did not have to ask him what he meant because I had heard it before during one of the times I was brave enough to go on dates, hoping I would meet Miss Right For Me.

"You're a nice girl and all that, but you just aren't my type" was more or less the message I got whenever I did try to meet someone and it did not take me long to know that was universal speak (for me, specifically) for "I'm just not attracted to you." One woman was even bold enough (which I actually appreciated) to say she just did not think I was someone anyone would want to go to bed with.

After a while I stopped trying. It was all for the best, anyway, considering my parents would never accept who I am and I was feeling very guilty for trying to meet someone special who not only most likely did not exist (for me) but who (if she WAS out there and COULD love me back) would be unfairly dragged into a really bad family situation. So, I stopped dating and have not even thought about it seriously since. I just go about my business, sometimes reading romance novels, sometimes day dreaming, ALWAYS knowing my 'place' (or lack of one) in the world of love.

This is the thing though: I do not care if I give off sexuality or not. Frankly, I do not care that much about sex (I guess it is pretty easy to not miss something you have never known) and I KNOW I am not sexy. I am more childlike than adult, when it comes right down to it. But that does not mean I do not have a heart and that I do not care deeply about someone and that that caring deeply is most likely love, maybe romantic in nature, definitely deep. I am making my peace with a life ahead of being on my own and I (more or less) am okay with that. What I am not so okay with and what just breaks my heart so, so much is how so many people see being gay as being about sex...when that is simply not so. 

It does not matter to my own personal life that this false impression continues to perpetuate itself through both sides of the gay rights and gay marriage debate. But it DOES sadden me very much for the loving gay and lesbian couples out there who have been together for decades (decades!) and have never once cheated or betrayed each other and that there are hateful straight people on their third and fourth marriages pointing their fingers and having mini hissy fits on who should and should not be allowed to marry.

It may be a cliche, but I think it is a true one: the heart wants what the heart wants. The saying does not go the body wants what the body wants, after all. And another thing I wish people knew about celibate gay people: our hearts want they want, too. It is just that we either love someone who does not feel the same way we do or we remain silent because we know, for us, that is just the way it has to be. 

I think in terms of 'survival mode' lately...like getting through the day without wearing your heart on your sleeve...or tamping down how you really feel and promising yourself you'll cry when you get home if you have to, but 'not now.' The catch phrase survival mode actually comforts me because when I try to achieve that it may sound like I am just existing, but I am actually trying my very best to thrive, even if it does not feel that way at the time. I saw this article on the deep-rooted origins of survival mode and I find the link between (long, long ago!) then and now rather fascinating:


The extraordinarily high levels of social isolation found today provide perhaps the most important current example of evolutionary mismatch. When people feel that they lack supportive, loving relationships, when they feel lonely for extended periods, the consequences can be devastating. Social isolation has been shown to have effects on physical health that are comparable to not exercising or even to smoking cigarettes, and loneliness is also a major risk factor for most psychological syndromes, including severe depression.

...

But the catch is that in modern life, being alone more than one might like is rarely a serious survival threat. It may not feel good to consistently have nothing to do on a Saturday night, but that on its own is almost never a sign that your life is at serious risk. Because of our hunter-gatherer past, however, being alone too much often triggers a survival-mode state in us that, like all survival-mode states, creates stress and releases stress hormones throughout our bodies and brains. And chronically high stress levels seem to be largely responsible for the physical and psychological health issues that lonely people are at higher risk for. So the cruel irony is that, although being socially isolated is rarely an actual survival threat in modern, industrialized cultures, the state of being lonely does trigger stress and survival-mode states because of our hunter-gatherer past, and so being socially isolated does often end up creating a survival risk – but mainly because of chronically elevated stress levels driven by unnecessary and inappropriate survival-mode states. The brain is, in effect, tricked – typically unconsciously – into unnecessary states of survival mode, such as fear of abandonment, not because of actual survival-threatening circumstances, but because our brains confuse our evolutionary past with our modern circumstances. Every modern life is lived in the teeth of massive evolutionary mismatch, and the typical result is that we have far, far more survival mode in our lives than is healthy for us.

You can read more here:

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-embodied-mind/201212/survival-mode-and-evolutionary-mismatch

...the false illusion of true love

I can feel it sometimes, like a vision from a far away parallel universe. A vision of someone to love who loves me back. It feels so real sometimes, but I know better. It's just something I could do when I was younger and would go to my happy place, something I've never completely been able to shake off altogether...an ability to almost be somewhere unreal and feel like it is true. This morning, after having finally fallen asleep not too long before, I had the most intense dream and it was also very pure so though I knew I shouldn't be having it I didn't feel too guilty because of its genuinely sweet and spiritual aura. I dreamed I could be loved (in return!) and when I woke I was so very sad. I can still feel the sadness and, most of all, the heated resentment towards my alarm clock.

as seen on Pinterest

Speaking of alarm clocks...another reason I do not like them is because of how much they can startle you...sometimes so badly and unexpectedly (even if you did set it yourself the night before) you can fall out of bed. Certainly they are not very good for our health...I wondered about this and found this online:



"Although most Americans don’t equate the traditional alarm clock with being a threat to anything other than a chipper morning disposition, the facts tell us otherwise.  Conventional wisdom suggests that most attacks would follow an intense workout or stressful workday, but cardiovascular incidents of all types and degrees of severity happen in the morning – especially, right after waking."


 http://mhealthwatch.com/could-your-alarm-clock-trigger-a-heart-attack-21430/

 

Seeing this today via Huffington Post really helped. Since my own family and some people I know in other parts of my life are very, very anti-gay and often even hateful about it...well, I found reading this helped me feel better. It does not take the pain away of hearing what my own parents have to say about today's historical and heartening ruling, but it does help. I am so happy for the couples out there who can now legally get married!


  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-cheshire/supreme-court-ruling-and-_b_7673010.html

the article follows here:

Your religion is not being attacked. In fact, this ruling actually reinforces our countries commitment to let people live, grow, and even worship as they believe.

This ruling doesn't ask you to change any of Jesus' message.

We can still love.

We can still show kindness and understanding.

We can still show everyone they really do matter to God.

We can still marry the opposite sex, as well.

We can still feed the hungry and clothe the poor.

We can still worship God the way we believe we should. Even this Sunday, you can attend a church. Nothing has changed.

Maybe now that we are not trying to stop others from getting married, we can finally take the time to figure out why our own marriages are failing; because, the argument that a gay-marriage is somehow soiling the sanctity of our third marriage, is as ridiculous as it sounds.

We can now focus on bigger issues that actually matter and impact humanity for the good.

We can still (and should) be accepting to the entire LGBT community no matter what differences we may or may not have with them, (FYI- we should have been doing this all along guys).

You know, I have always found it interesting how our religion, based so deeply in love, acceptance, and kindness, gets easily hijacked into political hatred and social judgments. We need to stop trying to legislate our own morality and ethics onto those who don't believe the same way. Jesus never did this. And in truth, most of us "Christians" disagree greatly on the tenants of what are "moral issues" within our own faith. In many ways, we are a herd of cats trying to steer the world. And, it's not working people.

And to my many friends in the LGBT community...Congratulations, my friends! I am happy for you all. As a proud member of the American community, I believe that you should have the same rights as everyone else. It's one of the things that makes our country such a great place to live.

Now my Christian brothers and sisters, you are free to carry on with your outrage, anger, and venting...

But, when you're done could you give the rest of us a hand?! Jesus' love is a pretty heavy thing to carry all the way to the rest world and we could use the help.