How Many VIPs in your Life?

One mistake you can make in your relationships is what I call VIP-thinking. You have VIP-thinking when some people in your life are very important in your eyes: romantic partner(s), parents and children, friends, clients maybe. And then, "the others". These others usually are not considered important. They are often treated with indifference, distance,  coldness or even contempt, whereas the "loved ones" and "important" people get consideration, attention and love.

People prone to VIP-thinking often long for deep connections and loving relationships. They do want to have friends and lovers. They just draw clear boundaries between the VIPs, that they are willing to love,  and the rest of humanity, that they are not willing to love.

VIP-thinking leads to poor results.

If you sow indifference, contempt, distance, coldness and separation, how could you reap unity, warmth, love, deep connections, closeness or respect? These are not a match for each other.

How about this? Love everybody. Give attention, love and respect to everybody. Connect with everybody from your heart and core. Cast love at others and express appreciation for them, no matter who they are.

If you are only willing to love and open up to some people and treat all others like extras, you are not doing yourself a favor. You can only feel fully loved if you vibrate with love  yourself. When you close your heart, look away, build walls, put people in different boxes, or apply conditionality to your feelings, you are not vibrating with love.

There are no VIPs. Everybody is a very important person. Make the whole world your loved ones. You'll feel the same love being reflected at you from all sides.

You Have Millions of Next-Door Neighbors

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday. My grandmother asked me to find one of those old-fashioned, non-electric tea kettles for her, so I went on a shopping expedition today - which I only did because I love my mother and grandmother dearly, 'cause I hate shopping. When I came back, victorious, with an authentic old-fashioned, non-electric tea kettle in stainless steel under my arm, I met two enormous, ferocious looking dogs on the street.

I was happy to see them, I love dogs and they generally like me too. Those two came and greeted me in a very friendly way, and I went all "You're one cute doggie!!!". They had three humans with them, a female and two males. The female asked me if I'm not scared. I replied that no, I'm not scared of dogs. She said something about being new in the neighborhood and everybody being scared of the dogs, so I welcomed her in her new environment, and we talked for a few minutes about how she's just moving in on the fourth floor, that I live a few streets from there, that the neighborhood is very quiet and nice and where to take the dogs for a walk.

After a few minutes of nice conversation I wished everybody a nice day and left. The humans seemed a bit surprised about my friendliness. I don't understand that. I don't get why people are surprised when other people are friendly to them. Friendliness is default! Being friendly is like being happy: you need no specific reason for that.

This incident reminded me of another one that happened in summer. Víkþórr came to visit, and after we had been outside together a few times he once said to me: "You talk with everybody as if they were your next-door neighbors". This sentence still continues to stupefy me. Because, well... they are! Duh.

Even when someone lives a few streets away, or in another city, or in another country, they still are my next-door neighbors! Ever heard of quantum teleportation or psychic abilities? Distance isn't relevant. We are all connected, whether we are one meter or five thousand kilometers away from each other. Why would person A be more worthy of my friendliness than person B, just because A happens to live closer to me than B?

You have millions and millions of next-door neighbors. Isn't that wonderful? :-)

From having no friends to loving everybody

Until my early twenties I was the shyest person on Earth. As a kid I thought other kids were strange and cruel little monsters. Later I still saw others as dangerous. When someone talked to me I got very nervous and tried to hide it. I thought I needed to protect myself from them. After all, I was getting mobbed a lot, so I thought if I let them know me or see my weaknesses, then they'd use the opportunity to hurt me. I was terribly scared of others, and socially isolated.

I was asked how I transitioned from having such social anxiety to my current mindset, which is basically that nobody can hurt me and that I love everybody. (See How to Connect with Strangers and Do you Love Killers? ) Such a fearless mindset makes it very easy for me to build connections and to have lots of lovely people in my life. But how did my beliefs change?

So here is the story. Please keep in mind that this post is not a how-to, it's just my personal story. I don't necessarily recommend to do the same. There are better ways to reach the same goal.

Courage

I remember the first steps very well, because I made a conscious decision to improve my social skills and I remember how I chose to do so. First, I decided to get rid of my fear of rejection. To do so, I grabbed a banknote. I chose a street with many shops in the city center, and in each of these shops I asked one of the salesclerks to change my note. Of course most of them said no. Every time, I replied "Thank you", smiled and left. This was a great exercise in hearing no! I knew it wouldn't hurt me in any way, it was just a game. But this way I got used to having plenty of people say no to me, and it made me realize that a no doesn't hurt.

I trained myself this way for a while. For example I picked a very crowded street on a Saturday afternoon and played being a beggar, asking everybody for some change, politely and nicely. The goal was the same as before: hear no and be fine. Later I switched to exercises with a more uncertain outcome. For example I smiled to every person I met. Then I said hello to every person I met. Then I started small conversations with random strangers. Etc.

Of course I got rejected a lot. Many people looked at me with an incredible disdain on their face when they thought I was a beggar. Many didn't return my greeting when I said hello to them, some said ugly things to me, and so on. But that was the goal. It taught me that no matter how bad others treat me, it doesn't affect me as long as I don't think bad of myself. I didn't think bad of myself, because I knew I wasn't really a beggar, I knew it was just for training purposes. And so they couldn't hurt me. I knew their disdain changed nothing about me. I got used to being rejected and not give a damm about it. My mindset went from "Others are dangerous and I need to protect myself from them" to "Others are potentially dangerous, but I'm strong enough to take it!".

For months and years after that I kept building courage, approaching strangers, talking to people, putting myself in exactly those situations I feared most.

Responsibility

These experiences proved to me that my own mind and nothing else has the power to hurt me. This was the next step. I found a book in a library which opened my eyes about this. It was a book about behavioral therapy. The author explained that not the situation itself but our judgment on the situation causes the feelings we have about that situation. What a big insight that was for me! I realized it was true. So I began paying attention to what I was thinking about the situations I was feeling bad in.

For each social situation that made me feel bad, I wrote down what I was thinking in that moment. This wasn't easy, for most of my thoughts were subconscious. But with time and practice I got used to become aware of them. So I wrote them down. Then I wrote down what I would like to think instead. More positive and empowering thoughts, which would make me feel better. My negative thoughts often sounded like those of a little child. For example in the beginning I wrote things like "Others are dangerous. They're evil. They want to hurt me." I replaced it with "Everybody is my friend. They're all friendly and mean well." Every time I caught myself thinking one of the "bad" thoughts, I consciously repeated the "good" thoughts. I also repeated the positive affirmations every single day ten times in front of the mirror.

From that moment on I decided to take responsibility for my feelings. For many months I spent countless hours working on my thoughts, and covered several big exercise books with old (in red) and new (in green) beliefs. Over time I addressed many of my issues this way, and solved many of my problems. Of course this wasn't enough to stop hurting altogether. I knew it was possible, in theory, not to get hurt if I didn't allow it, but I still lacked the power to deal with my emotions appropriately. However, alone this theoretical knowledge helped a lot. I just knew it was up to me. My mindset changed to "Others aren't dangerous. Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them! It all depends on me."

Self-Love

When I started working on my social skills, I had very low self-esteem and used to hate myself. So I worked on learning to love myself. I struggled a lot with this one. I said to myself in the mirror "Rosine, I love you very much exactly the way you are" - ten times a day as well. At first I felt totally stupid doing this! And I felt I was lying. But with time it became more and more true... I also progressively took better care of myself and did more nice things for myself. I believe self-love is extremely important. If you don't really love yourself, you cannot really love others.

Learning self-love gave me a lot of strength in dealing with others. When you know you always have yourself to love you, it's like you're never alone in front of others: you always have an invisible friend at your side. Others also respond much better to you when you love yourself. They mirror your self-love back to you. Their esteem for you generally is proportional to your self-esteem.

When I got a bit better at loving myself, I started getting friendlier feedback, making friends more quickly. Talking to others became much easier. I wasn't so nervous anymore. Loving myself more, I was better able to accept that others might love me, too. My mindset changed to "Others are friendly" and also to "How I feel depends on me, but no matter what happens, I always have myself in my corner!"

Taking off

At this point, I don't remember exactly what happened, how and in which order. My progress was exponential: at first it took a lot of practice and conscious effort. I had many setbacks and sometimes thought I'd never succeed. But my willingness to learn self-love was the catalyst. I didn't learn it overnight(!), but alone wanting to learn it changed everything. Things began moving faster and faster, and at some point everything just happened to me and I had to let go of control.

Emotional Mastery

At some point I met a fabulous energy-psychotherapist, a wonderful woman who taught me EFT. EFT helped me a lot in dealing with particularly negative or strong emotions. It also helped me get rid of some deeply rooted negative beliefs about people. I wouldn't recommend to you the method I used with my notebooks alone. Such a purely intellectual, psychological approach is a big waste of time. The idea definitely is good, but it's way more efficient to combine this technique with EFT and with visualizations. But I'm digressing, I just want to relate my story here.

So this lady taught me EFT. She also helped me understand, accept and love myself more. She taught me how to get better at dealing with my emotions. This gave me much more Power. It especially helped me not to get hurt so much anymore. I got a feeling that "I'm safe".

Connection

I have always been highly sensitive and empathetic, but my fear had prevented me from opening up enough to other humans. All those walls I had built around myself out of fear made me feel lonely and disconnected. After working so much on myself, my thoughts and my emotions, I got way less scared. I knew I would be able to deal with it, should I get hurt. Once the fear didn't force me to shut down anymore, I became able to feel other people's emotions very strongly just by being near them, and to deeply connect with them emotionally.

Later this applied as well to people who were not even around physically. For example I could physically feel what someone who was thousands of miles away and whom I was chatting with was feeling. Or I knew how someone felt that I was thinking of without even seeing them or talking with them. This showed me that we are all connected in some way. I didn't know how this communication took place, but I added to my mindset the belief "We are all connected".

Oneness

With the therapist I mentioned above, I talked about this amazing experience I had when I was a little kid, where I felt that I was being the whole Universe.

I had never forgotten about this feeling, but when I talked about it with her, it suddenly really made sense to me, for the first time in my life. I realized that we are not only all connected, but all one. I am everything that is, which means that what I call "I" is much, much more than just the little physical person called Rose.

This insight felt more like a big spiritual breakthrough than like an improvement of my social skills... but it made me much better at socializing! I was already able to connect deeply before, however my mindset still had been that we are separate persons. My default state was to be disconnected. After this breakthough, it was the other way around: I was still losing the connection very often, but my default state was to feel connected and one with everybody.

Another difference is that before this breakthrough, the connection I had with others was essentially emotional. Now, it's not only an emotional connection anymore. It feels more like a deep emotional and spiritual connection. We're not just two separate beings incidentally feeling the same. I really feel that this other person or animal or object in front of me IS me, that I AM the whole world. New belief for my mindset: "We are all one Consciousness."

Love, Love, Love

To sum it up, the beliefs I adopted in the last years are:

Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them. I'm safe.
How I feel depends only on me. I'm responsible for my own feelings.
Others are friendly
I love myself and always have myself in my corner
We are all connected
We are all one
I love everybody

Now please don't get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that I totally master all this. I still lack Courage sometimes. Sometimes I still blame others and don't take responsibility for my feelings. There are still aspects of myself that I don't love unconditionally. I still have issues with some emotions, especially with Anger. I can get quite choleric and violent! It still happens to me that I disconnect from others, that I'm scared or that I forget how we're all one. I'm far away from being perfect at all this! It took years for me to learn it and I'm still not done with it.

However, since I got so much into Personal Development and am progressively getting better at loving and accepting myself, at staying in the here & now, at making conscious and deliberate choices, etc, this mindset is becoming more and more true in my life. I feel more and more safe, connected and in love.

I feel very much in Love with the whole planet now. I feel very much in love with you :-)

I still have no friends!

As you can imagine, I have no social anxiety anymore. I don't think others are dangerous anymore, I don't think I need to protect myself in any way. I'm not scared anymore. I can talk to any stranger, have no problem opening up, and I can connect with others easily. I never feel lonely.

I'm saying that I have no friends because for me now, a friend is not something one can "have" in the first place. There are many adorable friends in my life, but having friends is not something I explicitely want or do intentionally. I don't consider socializing to be an action anymore. It's a way of being. The friendships in my life are simply an external manifestation of my inner state of mind, they're an expression of who I am.

As a consequence, I don't fear to lose my friends. No matter how many people disappear from my life, the Love and Connection I feel inside will always manifest as loving and interesting people to connect and have fun with.

People like you. I love you. <3

Being the Whole Universe

I had the most important spiritual experience of my life so far at some point between the age of one and four. I'd like to share the story with you.

That day, I was outside, surrounded with very high grass. I found an enormous white stone, quite flat. Many little red points were moving around on it. I found it very amusing to watch them. Out of curiosity, I pushed one of those little points with my finger. It stopped moving. Oh! I tried the same on other red points, and they all stopped moving. That was fun! I used the little red points to draw some nice geometrical shapes on the stone. I just watched them closely, my finger above them, and when one of them was in the right place, I pressed it.

Suddenly, something very strange happened. I felt smaller and smaller. It was like shrinking to the size of a dust particle. I felt so extremely tiny, a microscopical part of a colossal, dark, impressive Universe. At the same time I grew bigger and bigger and expanded to an enormous size. I was as huge as the Universe itself! Even vaster, as I was containing it entirely. It was even more than that - I was the Universe. I could intensively feel the whole world as being me.

It was an amazing feeling that I never forgot. Being simultaneously so minuscule and so gigantic, such a small part of the Universe and the Universe itself, blew my mind. I had such an encompassing awareness of everything that is. I've never felt so much Power and Peace at the same time.

And then I understood that those little red points on the stone were tiny red spiders, living beings, and that I had been killing them. I suddenly got a sense for what Death is, not only an idea, but a very concrete feeling for it. I also understood that I did not have the right to play with their lives the way I had been doing it.

What happened that day shook me to the core. It was the most impressive experience I ever had so far. I still remember this feeling very well, it played an important role later in my life. For instance in developing my social skills. More about this in my next post!

Do You Love Killers?

Hi all,

I was asked a couple wonderful questions! In my previous post I wrote that for me, there are no strangers, because I believe that we are all one Consciousness, and all permanently connected with each other.

Question: When you have the belief that "Everyone is my friend, there are no strangers", what about people you don't like?

My take on this:

There are people I don't like. When I'm being honest, I realize it has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. I don't like them

because I'm judging them or part of them in some way
or because I see in them something I don't like about myself (again, because I'm judging myself or part of myself for that)
or because I'm scared of them in some way (and this too is a consequence of judging either them or the situation)

Basically, it's always about judging, them or myself, with or without fear as a consequence.

My answer to this is present moment awareness. When I'm judging, it means I'm not being present. When you're being present, you cannot possibly judge. To judge, you need to label things. You need to give them a name, a value, a "good" or "bad" tag, to think of consequences they might have in the future or in the past, and so on. It's impossible to do this when you're being totally focused on here and now.

Therefore, a high present moment awareness means no judging, and no judging means I can't dislike anyone, because I dislike people on the basis of some judgment. So when I notice that I don't like someone, putting myself immediately back into a state of presence solves the problem.

What also helps is to ask myself what it is exactly that disturbs me about the person I don't like. If it's fear, I face that fear and shine Love on it. If I'm judging them or seeing in them something that I judge myself for, I practice Acceptance. I remind myself of the fact that there is no right and wrong, that all choices are valid and that everything is perfect the way it is.

I also work on loving all that is unconditionally. Since we are all One, all manifestations of one Consciousness, those I don't like are aspects of this Consciousness: parts of myself. It doesn't make sense to hate some parts of myself and to reject them because they're not as I want them to be. This would only create disharmony, separation and fear, and harm the whole system.

Instead, I practice loving all of myself unconditionally, both internally and externally as other people and the world around me. I especially send Love to those I don't like. I think accepting and loving them instead of resisting them has a healing effect, on me, on them, on the world.

I see not liking someone as disconnecting. When I'm being fully present and connected, I love everybody. My goal is to make this my permanent way of being. I'm not there yet but on my way. I'm convinced that if everybody were fully present and connected all the time, there would be no such thing on this planet as not liking someone.

Question: What about people you've met and decided you don't want to associate with them for one reason or another? Do you still feel they are your friend, or does that belief "Every stranger is my friend" holds true until you've gotten to know the stranger and decided that stranger is not someone you want to be friends with?

My take on this:

It happens that I decide, for some reason, not to associate or not to spend much time with someone. However, this doesn't mean I don't love them. Loving someone does not mean that I have to spend a lot of time with them, it does not even mean that I have to communicate with them at all.

There are people I love dearly, but have decided not to meet again. There are people who have chosen to leave my life. There are people I'm simply not interested in spending time with for some reason. I love all of those people though and feel one with them. I send Love to them. Just because we can't be together in this lifetime doesn't mean I have to disconnect from them! Why on earth would I??

Choosing not to associate with someone is no personal attack, it's no rejection either. It's a time-management choice. You can make this choice from a place of Love and still feel loving and connected towards those you don't spend time with.

Question: Even with killers and toxic people?

My take on this:

Toxic people are never toxic because of what they are, they're toxic because of what you are. Only what resonates with you on some level can affect you. So if someone influences you negatively, drains your energy, makes you feel bad, etc, then their "toxic" part resonates with something inside of you in some way. If one person's toxicity totally does not resonate with you, you won't be affected by it. When you become so strong that you don't resonate with some person's toxicity, then this person is not toxic to you anymore. No matter how negative she is, it won't affect you.

Which means that toxic persons are wonderful opportunities to grow. Solution: check what, inside of you, resonates with this person's negativity and work on yourself. If you don't feel strong enough to spend time with this person while simulatneously trying to change yourself, because contact with this person would reinforce the part of you that resonates with their toxicity, then you can of course choose to temporarily not associate with them. But that's not a reason to disconnect.

Same with killers. If you think it's better for your personal security not to meet a sadistic serial killer in person, don't. As I said above, loving someone does not mean you have to spend time with them. I can see no reason to disconnect though. Protecting yourself does not require that you reject others and disconnect from them.

There's a big difference between disconnecting from someone, saying "You are someone else. I don't love you, you're not my friend, go away", which is turning your back to Love and negating that we are all one, thus fragmenting yourself - and simply choosing not to concretely spend time with someone, while still loving them and feeling deeply connected with them.

Everybody is lovable, no matter what they do. There's absolutely no reason not to love everybody. Why would you turn your back on a part of the Universe and disconnect from it?

One reason I can see is judgment. You see "them" as separate from "you" and want to punish them for doing something you think is "bad" or "wrong", like killing or draining you. That's your mind judging them. When you're being present, such a thing doesn't happen.

That's how I see it. What do you think? :-)

How to Connect with Strangers

(This post is the how-to part of Chit-Chat with Strangers.)

For me, talking to strangers is very easy impossible. There are no strangers!

I believe that we are all manifestations of one Consciousness. All others are me too, just in another form, and I’m everybody. I feel one with everything that is, all other humans, animals, plants, inanimate objects, etc.

I also believe that we all permanently communicate with each other. We are one huge network, constantly exchanging information.

This way, you don’t need to connect in the first place: you are already connected, and have always been. We’ve known each other forever. Talking to a “stranger” for me is just recognizing them and acknowledging the bond which already exists between us.

That’s why I behave as if I already knew the people I talk to. Duh, I do! They’re old friends. I just hadn’t met them yet in this life. Time to catch up!

It’s all a matter of mindset

The beliefs I described above allow me to connect with others very fast and easily. It just happens naturally without me trying to do it intentionally. I don’t need to go out of my way for that.

I’m convinced that social skills are a matter of attitude. If you have a hard time connecting, you probably have some blocking beliefs about yourself, other people, social situations, or your own social skills. If you could get rid of them, I’m sure you would be able to connect with strangers as easily as I do. It would just become natural for you to do so.

Here is the description of one possible mindset (incidentally, mine) that yields good results in social situations.

How to do it concretely?

Okay, what to do to connect with a stranger? Connecting is paying attention. Where your attention goes, there goes your energy as well. Therefore, focus your energy on this person.

Look into their eyes. Many people are so afraid of others that they’re too embarrassed to allow eye contact. If you want to connect, you have to be open for connection, and that means eye contact. Looking away is hiding away.

I’m not telling you to stare at someone with a crazy or aggressive glance. Just allow friendly eye contact, you can look away once the person has seen and acknowledged you. When they look back at you, smile, but only if you spontaneously feel like smiling. A fake smile is a turn-off.

And then it’s simple really. If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. You don’t need to talk. When you’re being open, others feel it. If they’re being open too, and in the mood for communication, they’ll probably start talking to you on their own.

If you feel like saying something (like “hi”), then just say it. No matter what it is. You need no caution or shared interest. Feel free to talk about stupid or crazy or trivial things, it doesn't matter. I'm very spontaneous, so sometimes I say really strange things to people! But you won't believe it, they like it. Once I saw a guy in a CD shop. The next day I came back, and he was there again. I was so surprised that I stared at him and vigorously exclaimed "You again! What are you doing here?!" To what he replied "And what are you doing here?!". We both laughed, the ice was broken.

Some people tend to be way too attached to figuring out which words to use. But the energy you're sending off in that moment is way more important than the content of what you're saying. If you're attached to making a specific impression, you're likely to be self-conscious and to send off a stressed out and unpleasant vibe. If you're feeling self-confident, connected and loving towards this person, they will feel it no matter what you say - and that's what they will get.

And feeling self-confident, connected and loving is a matter of mindset...

Being present is key

I’m not fond of watching one’s body language or using lines, tricks and strategies to socialize. When you focus on what you should say or where to put your hands, you’re not being present in the moment. And that’s not what you want. You can’t connect if you’re not being present. When you’re not being present, you’re not really here. And if you’re not here, how could you meet this person here?

Present moment awareness means focusing on here and now. Don’t think of anything else than what’s happening right now. Don’t try to impress or to analyze, don’t think about what could happen next, or what happened before. Just be here with this person. Be open, listen. Observe your reactions without trying to control them. Let what happens happen. :-)

What I've found to be very useful is to always keep a part of my attention in my inner body. The inner body is what you feel when you focus on your body from the inside. Can you feel the inside of your body as one energetic field? If you can’t, practice feeling it, it’s a great sensation!

To learn more about being present and feeling your inner body, read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He’s the great present moment awareness specialist.

Assault old ladies!

If you want to get better at connecting with people, you need to practice. My advice is not to practice with people in your sexual or romantic target group. This would make it much more difficult. The possibility that they interpret your approach as hitting on them could block you, even if it's not at all the case, and even more so if it is the case. ;-) So, avoid that at first. Practice with other people, you'll feel safer.

The ideal targets (hehehe) are old ladies, in my experience they're always happy to get some attention and to have a nice chat. Usually they're also very friendly. Also people the age of your parents, or much younger people.

Little kids and babies are great connectors. It's very easy to connect with a baby, much easier than with an adult. They haven't all the fearful social conditioning to block them. They're curious and spontaneously offer you toothless smiles and wave you goodbye with their little hands.

They can't speak, but it doesn't matter. Remember it's more about the mindset and the energy than about the words. It's about opening up, staying present, and allowing emotions to flow out of you. You'll feel genuine connection even without words.

So, and now go out and talk to people! :-) Good luck!

(Edit: there's a follow-up to this post here.)

Chit-Chat with Strangers

I love to chat with strangers. You can do it everywhere: on the street, in a shop, while queuing somewhere...

Recently I was at the florist's, looking for flowers to experiment with, when a guy who was looking at the roses turned to me and asked me whether he should buy the red ones or the pink ones.
- For whom are they? I asked.
- For a girl.
- And what do you feel towards her?
- Friendship. She's a friend of mine. It's her birthday. The flowers are meant to be a surprise.
- Don't take the red ones then.
We briefly talked about the language of flowers and what those in front of us meant. I told him I liked the orange roses best.
- But they weren't part of the choice, he said.
- ok, take the pink ones then.
He did, and left with a big smile, wishing me a nice day.

I decided to buy the orange roses. As I was paying, I asked the florist if she likes her job. I was just curious, I wonder how it feels to be a florist. She was very surprised, looks like nobody asks her that question usually. She smiled, a bit puzzled and said yes, it's a nice job. She seemed to suddenly remember that she had a nice job indeed.

Such small talk with strangers is a lovely embellishment of my everyday life. It's nothing life altering or world changing, but I really like it. It makes my strolls through the city more interesting, and my whole life more beautiful.

Small talk isn't necessarily shallow. Strangers often talk with me about their private life, about their feelings, their fears or their relationships. You can become intimate with someone in the space of a minute.

Once in Germany I met an old lady on a bus. She sat down next to me, looking tired. I said "Hello." and smiled, happy to see her. She was such an adorable airy old-fashioned lady with white hair and an umbrella in her hand. She confided to me that she had been attending a tea dance. And she got to dance with a few gentlemen! I grinned. After just five minutes, she was leaning against my shoulder, whispering things into my ear about the gentlemen in her youth. We giggled like two school girls for twenty minutes till I had to alight from the bus. It was a fun bus ride!

When you're being open to communication, other people feel it, even when you're not talking to them. And then weird things happen sometimes. It's magic!

A few days ago I was walking in a neighborhood unknown to me, looking for the location of a tango class. Two young women were walking ahead of me. Suddenly one of them turned to me, claiming "You! You're spying on us!" She was kidding. I laughed.
- Oh crap! Now I got caught!
- You were following us!
- I admit. I even heard everything you just said!
The two laughed. I asked them if they knew the place I was looking for, but they didn't. So I decided to check another street. I thanked them and left.
- Hey! They called after me, And have a nice evening!

Hehehehehe.

Talk to strangers on the street. Open up. It's fun and makes everybody's life nicer. If you think you're too shy, I once was the shyest person on this planet. That's something you can work on. Imagine everybody greeting each other and chit-chatting on the streets. Wouldn't that be wonderful? :-)

Meeting an Exhibitionist

Something awesome happened tonight!

I've been going through a big crisis these last few weeks. First, my son died. That's a cat. I found him on the street when he was a little baby and brought him up. As some of you may know, I love animals as much as humans, and I was devastated by his death. He's the first loved one I lost, I'm still deeply grieving. Then, I got dumped. Or at least I suppose so, because the guy I thought was the absolute man of my life suddenly just disappeared without any explanation. I don't even know if he's still alive. I guess he is and simply lacked the courage to tell me the truth. Nevertheless, I've been worried, angry, and of course terribly sad. After that, a second cat family member died! I had known her for 24 years, which is almost my entire life. And last but not least, reading Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina made me realize that most of the goals I had till now were in fact disempowering goals. I'll write a review of the book later, let's just say for now that I suddenly lost what was keeping me going despite of the grief and pain I was feeling.

Needless to say, my mood hasn't been exactly excellent lately!

Tonight I was feeling particularly grumpy and awful. I couldn't sleep, so I decided to go for a walk, and to withdraw some money at the nearest ATM to buy a big bunch of bananas tomorrow morning for breakfast. On my way to the bank, I saw a guy on the street with his penis in his hand. He said "Oh, sorry!" and hid it. He then asked if he could drive me home as a way of apologizing for his indiscretion. I wasn't really present, for I was busy imagining the horrible things I would do to the alleged man of my life if I had him in front of me now, so I did not really pay attention to this guy. I said "No, thanks" and walked away.

On my way back from the bank, he still was at the same place, this time with his pants completely off! He immediately got dressed and apologized. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd come back. I'm going to some other place now, to make sure you won't see me again." I found it odd to meet an exhibitionist who's sorry I saw him! So I laughed and told him "Oh, you can stay where you were, I won't come back, I promise!" "ok, one last time then" he said, and demonstratively showed me his (quite impressive) manly attributes. I couldn't help but grin, but deep down I was still feeling grumpy and wanted nothing but go home. When he added "You have very big boobs" I asked him in a not-so-nice way to leave me alone.

But then I suddenly felt bad. I didn't feel guilty for rejecting him, but it suddenly dawned on me how disconnected I had been feeling lately. I was just seeing this guy as an annoyance, something foreign to me intruding in my life without being planned. I was upset at him for disturbing my thoughts and talking to me, and I judged him for behaving strangely in my eyes, for being so different. Separated from me. Someone else. And a weird one for that matter! Bleh.

I realized how disconnected I was! And said to myself "Hey girl, no pain in the World is worth disconnecting from others in such a way." So I turned to him, ready to see him as a valuable human being, a part of me, a spirit. Some people are fond of talking to spirits, but we shouldn't forget that every person we meet on the street is a spirit, too. There are spirits everywhere! I find incarnated spirits very interesting too, not only those without a body. Sometimes I walk down the street, amazed at all those spirits I meet. "Oh wow, he's a spirit! A spirit just said hello to me! Damn cool. And she's one as well. Incredible!" There's so much BEAUTY in people when you can see the spirit in them.

Fortunately I was able to remember in time that this guy is a manifestation of Consciousness just like me. He's me. I am him. I forgot about my judgmental mood and became present to this person here and now. And it was a great idea, I learned a lot.

First I asked him many questions about being an exhibitionist. I was curious about it of course. I asked him how long he had been doing it, how it began, why he does it, how he feels when he does such things... It was very interesting to hear his take on this. As I understood it, the idea that he could possibly be seen gives him a particular kick, he supposes it's adrenaline. I asked him a lot of questions, trying to understand him, and he answered them all very honestly. I was able to get what he explained on an intellectual level, but I admit that I cannot really understand why he likes it so much, probably because the idea of showing myself naked on the street just doesn't do much for me. I guess I'd need to do it myself once to know how it is.

I discovered a very kind and respectful person. He intentionally kept a lot of physical distance between us in order not to make me feel uncomfortable. I found his attitude towards his exhibitionism to be conscious, thoughtful and responsible. For example, he explained to me that he normally never shows up naked in front of women walking alone on the street, because this could scare them. He only does it with people in cars or in groups, because those feel safe. That's why he apologized so much when I saw him: it was an accident. He couldn't know I'm not scared by such things.

We spent three or four hours together, walking through the city, laughing and talking about all kinds of topics, such as pets, parachute jumping, personal development, the raw food diet, motorbikes, or the best way to commit suicide. During all this time, he had his genitals out of his pants, but I barely noticed because it was so natural for him. Around five in the morning I got really tired. He walked me home and we said goodbye. That's the only moment he came across a little shy. We thanked each other and said both that we had a very nice time.

It's only once I was back home that I realized how much this guy helped me tonight. Now I'm feeling loving and connected again. I'm able to see others as parts of me again. I feel closely connected to all other beings on earth, and I can see how the way I feel influences all others. I also have this fuzzy warm feeling in my chest, as if my heart was very big. I can feel Love flowing through me. I feel that I am enormous, big enough to contain the whole Universe. I am everything that is. This is such a beautiful feeling! I'm so infinitely thankful to this guy for giving me this feeling back. I had lost it lately, without even noticing.

Now I regret that I forgot to part with a handshake and to ask what his name is when we said goodbye. I hope I'll see him again on some other late night walk.

My point with this story is that when you're in a state of disconnectedness, meeting an exhibitionist on the street - or more generally someone whose behavior you don't intuitively understand - can be a quite annoying experience. And if you're more prone to get scared than I am, even a frightening one. Which leads to even greater disconnectedness, because you'll feel offended or grossed out, and you'll close off. But when you're being aligned with Oneness, such an encounter can result in discovering an interesting person, in gaining some new insights, or in experiencing connection and closeness with someone you thought was very different from you at first. Building such a bridge is a wonderful blessing :-)