Human

You know… I love being a woman. I take A LOT of pride in my womanhood and I want nothing less but for me to be as GOOD of a woman as possible.  While I was rising in age,  I had these images in my mind, influenced by my experiences on what it “looked” like to be an awesome woman.  As I obtained these ideas more and more I began to realize that most of these beliefs, lifestyles, and behavior wasn’t for me. As time slowly progressed I began to shed layers of identity and felt myself illuminating more and more of that trueness that is me. I was understanding wholeness everyday by my commitments and relationship with God.

From this point on it’s who I was born to be vs. BAD HABITS/ BAD TRAINING.

“Creative minds can create beauty out of any bad training”

Here’s a simple example, LA style. So when I lived in LA especially, I would get to see fashion styles change immediately, I was a part of the first wave of people to hear all the new gossip, see all the new most expensive cars, all the new gadgets, and celebrity sightings 24/7. It was weird, you actually feel like you’re part of Hollywood, which back in the day wasn’t such a bad thing, but it totally can be bad now. Sucks to admit, but it is what it is. Anywho, at parties in high school we would all try to look like these people we would see in advertisements, on television, on bright billboards because we were trained to think that way.

Think about this;

America used to have “Shirley Temple” as the child icon, now we got “Honey BooBoo.”

All of us were conforming and buying certain clothes and copying hair styles, poppin’ bottles and treating girls like objects, and girls thought that being a sexy woman meant miniskirts/crotch shots/ while dancing on a pole and having 100 likes on a photo of you exposing yourself. That’s just embarrassing, disappointing, and sad. I don’t care what you say, as a woman, WE DONT WANT TO BE THOSE GIRLS. Maybe on a random girls night in with all your best friends singing into bottles and hairbrushes, standing on chairs, and just being silly and such, but at a random club where you’re just hammered and out of your mind with clothes that don’t actually fit you? Hmm…different story.

SO as girls, America didn’t offer us the best examples. We were rising in the age of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie on drugs, partying, our very own Britney Spears losing her mind, the Kardashians’ with their not only 1st world problems but the 1% as well. It’s just ridiculous to me. Why can’t powerful successful women be on the cover of magazines? Why can’t athletes be not the cover of Sports Illustrated?

In places like LA these billboards, magazines, and all that tabloid and commercial buzz is shoved in our faces. Imagery is constantly brainwashing our minds!  And when you spend more time at school and with your peers than with your family or anything constant in your life, those billboards and television shows are your common denominators.

Those are things you converse about, follow, and chase.

Fad after fad – trying to sustain your “coolness” time and time again. And when that becomes the only source of all your desires these lofty ideas become more of a false reality. Your identity becomes societies identity of you.

A lot of times, for people in these circumstances, there is no one intervening and telling you different, because the only people that you are surrounded by are the people who are in it too.

A new sort of religion is popping up – the “City Religion” – and taking over. Think about it……these people are their Gods. What would Kim do? What would Jay-Z do? What would Deadmau5 think? How would Rihanna act? What would Tosh say? … Religion?…

But then your bubble is popped! All that you think is, isn’t!

Personally, my sense of reality – my different states of mind – have been popped, countless times. Due to family, due to poverty, due to short friendships, due to relationships, due to different jobs, due to different sports, due to different locations, due to different festivals, due to traveling, etc….

So as time progresses, you experience new things and your thoughts develop into these patterns and you begin to understanding humanity.

If you feel like you’ve been in the same bubble, please allow me to encourage you to take some risks in new ideas, gaining new perspective, learning something new, and as you accumulate those experiences, you heal from the bad and carry on with the good [building YOUR faith]

You let go of things you do not agree with and agree and hold onto the things you do agree with. Because there are good humans and people all over the world.

Life = Relationship

BEING A GOOD HUMAN:

It’s a funny thing, manners. I try to sustain them at all times, no matter if I’m opening a door for a man or for a woman or a child or a peer or an older person, I try to keep my manners! Holy moly, they were invented for a reason! Everyone deserves honor and respect.

I learned that from my father. My father would have me enter a party and I would have to give two sometimes three kisses to every relative small and large, young and old, and I have a huge Italian Family. Saying hello and good bye would total to 2 hours of my time. haha.

Every time I would be present myself around a table of elders or children or peers I was trained to ask “Does anyone need anything?” And if I walked down the hall and someone was older, I wouldn’t just race pass them, I’d stand and let them pass first.

Little things like this were ingrained in me from an early age. And I feel like Major Cities have lost a lot of that  and “that” is a good thing! It’s not a bad thing to do things for people, it’s not a bad thing to give people rides places, it’s not a bad thing to open the door for a person (especially a woman), and it’s not a bad thing to help people. These ideas of manners and chivalry seem to be lost as technology and a fast paced lifestyle take over. Yet in this on-the-go, busy world, it is important to know that human contact and support is necessary.

Support is a key to success (Kickstarter and Facebook have known that)

and Appreciation is the best way to sustain that.

but………………..

My love isn’t limited to my gender!!!

Definition of the word humane: “philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; learned, refined, civilized”
Example: “Taking the injured dog to the animal clinic was a humane way to treat it.”

The core root of being a good human is being kind, and civilized, and loving. “I’m only human” is a common phrase but I think being human is a glorious thing! Oh yeah I’m human! I’m not a pet, I’m not a ferocious animal, I’m not a possession, I have soul and I use it for LOVE!

 What makes women incredible women and what makes men incredible men, is how much we combine our attributes. There is so much for a girl to learn from a woman and there is so much a girl can learn from a man. There is so much a boy can learn from a man and there is so much a boy can learn from a woman. Obviously women and men are different and every single person is different in the choices they make to express themselves, however we are all HUMAN. As I’ve been attaining this never ending goal of being the most incredible woman I can be (long road ahead of me), I should be focusing on being the best human I can be. A strong, intelligent, loyal, fun, free, comedic, embracing, welcoming, talented, eager, driven, generous, able, peaceful, human.

Its baffled me how selfish men regularly are. They live in a type of LALA land oblivious to loving actions. And what is really interesting is how selfless women can be. Oblivious to the lack of time and effort they put towards themselves. Both can be self-sabotaging. So in the spectrum of selfish and selfless I want to be the mixture of both in the position that exists right in the middle. Trusting God and living at your best. I preserve what I need to not only to survive but to be happy and then I pass it on to the people that surround me.

I’ve been reading this book called “The Lost Battles” and it’s a deep read about Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo’s feud during the Renaissance time. I can go on and on and on about it, I’m obsessed! However, Leonardo, who was not only an artist, but a philosopher, a religious man, an engineer, and a science man (back then astrology, science, and faith all supported each other; super cool), would most likely would agree with this concept. Because… I’m learning not only was Leonardo’s art unbelievably beautiful and have meaning behind the work as whole, but it literally had a meaning behind every single stroke! The philosophy and psychology behind every position of a person, every placement of their garments, the background choices, the ceilings, the walls, the food, holy moly everything represented some 15 layered meaning. Leonardo painted both male and female differently, obviously. Women were depicted freely in semi-transparent garments and even the folds were distinct and different then the folds on a man’s garments HOWEVER, the ONLY time Leonardo gave men these “womanly” type garments, was in the painting of  The Last Supper because they were enlightened men.

They were free men.

They were the first in their society – the first in their world and many worlds around them – speaking, traveling, and moving freely, without being a part of society, while sharing a Royal understanding toward the poor, sick, and casted out. They were treating people that everyone IGNORED, DISREGARDED, AND LEFT HOPELESS with love, respect, and honor.

They were GOOD HUMANS.

In Conclusion:

There is nothing “manly” or “womanly”about doing good and cultivating love in this world.