real men & women

I try to be uplifting on this blog and never be negative but if there is one thing I could gripe about for hours, that's someone saying "he's a real man"or "she's a real woman." What the hell does that mean? Are there fake men and women walking around some place I don't know about?

Generally when I hear this I hear it come from a person comparing themselves to another person of the same sex. They want to "show someone what a real man or woman is". I wish they could hear what they really sound like when they say this. It's rather a childish thing if you think about it. People who feel good about themselves would never say this.

Think about what you a really saying. It's all about being better at being female or male than someone else. I'm pretty sure we can't really measure that. It's the yin and yang of life. We are born with the duality of male and female regardless of sex. That is what makes us beautiful. When we can find balance in this duality this is sacred ground.

If we could stop identifying in the roles that sex assigns us at birth according to the world and just make our own way, we would wake up to such possibility. If  you believe you have to be a certain way because you are a woman or a man then you will miss a lot of opportunities.

It's time to shed the old roles. Let's forget about being real men and real women and redefine what it means to be either in our own special way.

If you follow along here you know I just did a retreat where I went away to fast for 3 days. The plan that I followed had an exercise for releasing old roles we play. The author suggesting using toothpicks, a candle and a bowl of water. He said that you should assign each toothpick a role you play in life whether negative or positive and imagine blowing that role onto the toothpick with your breath. Next, burn the toothpick and just before it burns to your skin put it out in the water. He said the first time he did this he burned over 200 toothpicks. I did not do this activity while I was away but I still want to give it a try. He gave example roles like, father, son, husband, brother, teacher, etc. The idea is to leave yourself a blank slate on which to reassemble the real you little by little instead of remaining in the roles that life and the universe have assigned you. It's a fresh start. You can still be all the things you were before but this time you get to decide if you want to accept the roles or not. Of course we don't want to use this as a way to walk away from family but you get the idea.

You don't have to be a man who can never cry. You don't have to be a man that has to be tough so he doesn't appear to be a sissy. You don't have to be a REAL man.

You don't have to be a woman that solely takes care of your family and home. You don't have to be a woman whose been a victim of life. You don't have to be a REAL woman.

If you could celebrate the attributes of  both male and female in you, then you'll be the most real you've ever been. That's what you were made for in the womb.