Dance With The Devil

They're talented, you know.

They have the best moves. They're exciting to be around, and they're the best dancer in the ballroom.

You can't wait to show them to your friends. You've been dying to see their face, that smile, that laughter. It is one of life's pleasures to be around someone this fun and entertaining. They're sexy, enticing, spontaneous, riveting, they tell the best stories. You can listen to them for days.

They just seem to know your weak spots without you having to tell them. They touch all the right areas in your mind and body. They're intelligent, spunky, sharp, attentive, and seem to have all the right words to your problems.

There's just one issue:
They don't like you.

They don't like you, and that seems hard to believe.
I mean, why would someone this great and awesome spend this much time with you if they didn't? Wouldn't they have just up and told you that they didn't want you when they had you in their arms?

They don't like you, and that seems hard to believe.
I mean, why would someone this great and awesome share with you their victories and their successes if they didn't? Why make you laugh so hard then? Why entertain your presence? Why smile at you?

They don't like you, and that seems hard to believe.
I mean, why would someone this great and awesome not simply be honest and just tell you straight up what they wanted or did not want?
All of this is simply too easy for someone like them to do. They are too great for stalling, too awesome for hesitation.

In all of these accounts, you would be terribly, dangerously mistaken.
You got so entranced dancing with the devil that you forgot to keep pace with your own two feet. You lost sight of the sequence, neglected the timing of your step, and you don't know how to find your way back into the music.
You got so caught up in the devil's movements that you don't remember your own.
Now your feet are up off the ground, and you are being swung about like a puppet telling yourself, "if they didn't want to dance with me they would have put me down by now." The devil hears this and decides to keep you up, knowing that you assume they are attracted all because they kept you from dancing.

You haven't realized that the music has long since stopped playing and your part is over.
They don't like you, but you don't notice that yet.

Before this dance began there were no dress rehearsals. There were no rules nor judgment. All that was required was that you dance to the music, and once the music was finished, you return to your place, awaiting the next song.

But you, you found yourself in love with the tune during the dance, you began humming your favorite parts, you memorized the song rather than where your feet were supposed to be, and your dance became a serenade of two; your voice and the devil's feet. A spotlight begins on you both, and how could the devil turn down a chance to shine? Meanwhile, you fell in love with the way the devil danced to your voice and forgot all about the stage.

Your voice became a siren song, and the devil became captain of your ship.

This is how moments like these come to meet their end. You transform into your own impending disaster; you have found your voice too sweet and the devil still has their feet.
Where the rocks would run your ship ragged the devil leaves you to crash alone, devastated by the sound of your own voice.

You are no longer singing, and so the devil no longer dances.

You see, the devil is indeed talented but only for as long as you praise their talent.
The devil is indeed a good dancer but only for as long as you watch them dance.
Keep your eye on the devil and their wit, and you will be constantly amazed. Speak and sing of the devil and they will appeal to every word that you say.

But a dance with the devil is only as good as the power in your tongue.

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Tears Of Re-Birth

It's strange how crying has become taboo for the men, but somehow for the women too.

The fact that we shrug off her tears because she is not a man and say "she's just being emotional" is telling. We expect her to cry. We expect her to be crazy, expect her to make up stories just because she speaks in nuance and we think to ourselves that we "don't have time" to piece together nuance so we don't even bother trying to listen.

When it is a man that has tears we don't expect nuance from him at all. "What could possibly make a man cry" we think. We look back through our personal experience with men, remember only the aggressive, belligerent, stubborn men we personally know and think "he's the same" so we don't even bother trying to listen.

So it is clear that no one knows what it means to be emotional. Why do we then make fun of people who are emotional and concern themselves with nuance? 
No one knows what it means to cry as an adult. Why do we think it strange when we see it then?

When a baby is born, they cry.
We might allot our own meaning to a baby's cry, but plainly, I will tell you that it resembles birth.

Birth because when a baby is hungry they will cry to tell you so. The baby is hungry NOW, so they will cry NOW.
Birth because when a baby doesn't have attention and their previous attempts at you have failed, they will cry right then and there.
Birth because when a baby hurts themselves or has a bruise, they will cry right then to indicate that they feel the pain.
Birth, because we seek to interpret among a baby's many sounds which one thing it might be referring to at any given moment.

As an adult, when we cry the meaning doesn't change, but the interpretation does.
Those interpretations include the fact that there are going to be experiences that cause us to realize that we lack certain things, things that cause us to grow.
In those moments our realization and growth are going to be accompanied by crying... Because at a very deep and unknown part within us, we are coming in that present moment to be filled with a new perspective.

We are being "born again", if you will. Every single time you cry, imagine coming out of your own emotional womb. Fresh set of emotions ready to be felt.

Of course, this doesn't mean you need to cry every single time you feel the sensation to do so however, this DOES mean that you need to understand why you cry when you do. You need to understand because your parents will not always be here to take care of you, and neither will your lover, and neither will your brother or your sister. No one directly tells you what needs to happen when you cry because they just busied themselves trying to make the situation better. That's all you ever observed as a child.
So a gap needs to be filled here.
The lack you feel and the need you have must be supplanted. You should always know why you cry; the reason will always be valid, so something must be done about it.

The people who look at you as though your tears as taboo because you're a "man" or a "woman" are not the people who can help you. Likewise, if no one caused the problems that you have, no one can help you fix those problems either.

The ultimate problem is that people generalize nuance in an effort to satisfy the issue quickly without spending too much time on it. This causes people to attempt to stop your tears instead of empathize with them.
From the outside looking in, people will try to find all kinds of reasons why you should not be crying, yet from the inside looking out, it is almost strange that they have no clue why you are. 

Allow yourself to be reborn as many times as it takes to know yourself.
That is when the tears will stop.

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Side by Side

To say "you cheated on me", or someone "cheated on" you in a romantic relationship is a dangerous phrase. Specifically because of that word, "cheat".

What does it mean to "cheat"?
Was the relationship a game in which two or more people were playing and you lost? Did they take advantage of an unknown loophole that you didn't see? Would you have moved on the same opportunity if they hadn't seen it before you did? Is there a winner at the end of this game?

To accept the term "cheat" and use it on someone or yourself assumes that you as a person, an identity, have no value.
This cannot be further from the truth.
To "cheat on" someone assumes that you do not belong to yourself in your relationship.
This simply isn't true.
When people romantically invest themselves in someone else while they are already in romantic exclusivity with you, they are not "cheating on" you.

They are betraying your "trust". They have transformed your love into a "tray of food" so to speak with which the world can serve themselves.

"Trust" individually belongs to you and that is what you give your partner in exclusivity. In return, they individually give you theirs, and so you now have a double portion of "trust". You do not "give away" trust and then find yourself no longer in possession of it. That is not how relationships work.
It is impossible to "give away" a relationship. You are always in one whether it is with yourself, or with food, or with money, or with your lover, or with children, or with belief, or with your job, or with love, or with friends, or with technology... ad infinitum. You will still be able to "trust" many other things.

You have your own specific relationship with trust, and so does the person you're involved with which means you are representing what "trust" means to you in the way you live your life alongside your partner and so are they.

When someone "cheats" on you, what they really are doing is representing THEIR OWN relationship with "trust" to you. They aren't misrepresenting you as a person, or your trust in them.
We are tempted to take betrayal personal when the core issue is: that person wasn't connected with the idea of "trust" in themselves or in you enough to find themselves by your side when a test came to prove them. That person has betrayed themselves and no one else.

It is understandable to feel hurt or slighted when you've been betrayed because there is a decision you feel you must make, however it is more important to reevaluate what this means for your relationship.
If this person was willing to betray themselves in their relationship with you just to have what they want, how do you continue to walk with them side by side?

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Who, What, Where, When, How, Why

If you want to know "who" you are, know "what" brought you "where" you are now.
Knowing "where" you are allows you to ask "when" and "how" you got to your present state.

"Why" is the question you ask yourself when it's time to go on your next journey, not when your journey brings you to a dead end.

To feel lost in life is to lose track of "who" that brought you here.
You are "who".

"What" hurts when you are in denial about the thing that "who" did.
Your hands and feet are "what".

"Where" is illusive to "who" even though it desperately wants "who" to catch it.
Your desire is "where".

People are often surprised that "when" arrives as it wants, but to be surprised about "when" is to fail to realize that "who" is "where".
"When" is now.

"How" comes from a long distance to make "who" and "where" happen "when".
"How" is a fond friend of "what".
Your eyes are "how".

Most people are angry at "why" because "when" is always in between "who" and "where", but all "why" wants to do is help include "what" by support of  "how".
"Why" is choice.

The power to change the fate of "who" comes from knowing "how" to be wrong by being friends with "why" first.

That way, no one is surprised that "how" and "when" arrives beside "where" and "who" with "what".

In other words...

Choose to see now what you desire by what you are doing.

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Liar Liar Pants On Fire

You might think that liars get away with lying to you.
And that might lead you to believe that you can't trust what people say.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Do not let a liar, cause you to think like one.

Maintain your idea of trust within yourself, because what you don't know is that words respect themselves more than its owner that speaks them.
Words MUST live out what has been spoken. Words are hound dogs.

Liars don't get away with anything.

The liars you meet have been living out the judgment of their sentence long before they met you. That is why many of them come to you with sob stories. They try to find someone who can catch their words so they don't have to.

If you want a liar to fail, GET OUT OF THEIR WAY.
Do not give that person back their word, and do not show them compassion for refusing to follow through with their word. Let their word continue to chase them.
Their word will lead them off the edge of a cliff and, like a ruler who is leading people to ruin, will execute them for being betrayed.

A liar's pants are truly on fire.

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Good Sex Is...

The look you have when you see me.

See me when I struggle to put on my favorite pair of jeans and shirt because I've been really dedicated to working out so I don't quite fit like I used to. 

See my eyes light up like a Christmas tree when I realize how much you make me smile.

See the way I look at you before I join you in song to our favorite movie of the year, the one with that really great soundtrack. We act like fools trying to remember the lines but it doesn't matter cause we know how it goes in our heads.

Good sex is in the way we communicate.

I already know what I want to tell you, and so do you, but we like hearing each other's voices more. 

We take the long route in conversation just so we can stop and smell the roses along the way. The destination is already known, but we communicate as if the secrets of our minds were hidden in every letter spoken from our lips. There is so much more to discover about who we are that way.

Good sex is in laughter.

I swear I can feel my belly fill up when I laugh with you.
You're not trying to make me laugh, you're just so damn silly that you force the rugged plates in my heart to shift just enough to send quakes through my body. Those quakes come up out of my mouth as confirmation of your humor. I am damaged by you and only chuckles and giggles can repair me.

Good sex is in the food we share together.

It is nothing short of magic that I get to taste food I've never had with someone I've never known beyond today. I get to witness new expressions from you that no one else gets to see. I collect memories of your excitement like I pick fresh flowers in the field.

Good sex is in the silence.

The silence between us is when I can hear you the loudest. Everything you don't say illuminates in my mind like a projector and I can watch it all like a movie. My dearest scene is the one where you confess that you want me by biting your lips while you watch me jabber on endlessly about my favorite subject.
Also the one where you let me know you care about me by concerning yourself with the limp that you don't remember me leaving you with.
And even the one where you thought I couldn't hear you say "I love you" but in that hug that felt like it lasted for a decade I heard you spell out every letter.
Or how about the gasp and moans that tell me "right there" when I'm in the right spot. It's not something you can say. It's not something I would let you say. I'm too busy drowning you in thoughts of what I'm going to do next.

Good sex is in your touch.

There is nothing more grounding than the way you seek my hands for comfort. It reminds me that I am the earth.
Your hands water me with reassurance that my body needs tender care; that I cannot be stiff and dry forever. In due time I will thank you by bearing fruit knowing that you want the first taste of my offering.
You remind me that you know my curves, and know them well. The way down to my roots are long and heavy yet you saturate me thoroughly enough to drench the parts of me that are utter desert.

Darling, we are having sex all the time, and to go to bed with you only neatly wraps the gift.

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Put Some Respect On It

We have arrived here at the Relationship Survivalist Kit yet again to talk about another topic I feel is imperative to discuss before we shoot into even smaller but critical components about self and relationships. On today's menu is Respect.

Respect = Knowing Yourself

There are a few definitions of respect people these days walk around with, and you might find that people define respect as understanding that you are a human with boundaries, wants, likes, and dislikes and they treat you according to those things... Or they define respect the other way around like you are someone that exists only to serve them and their needs, wants, likes, and dislikes. The latter will be quick and sure to let you know these things often.

Many of you already know what it's like to be on the receiving end of someone who thinks the world revolves around them. They act like anything you do outside of what they want is disrespect. It's a slow but sure attempt to box you in. We already know that in "Scissors", if people cause you to disrespect yourself, you cut these people off. The only difference is, self-respect and self love is designed to be reflexive, not defensive. You can't weaponize it. That means that the reaction of a person with self-respect and self love is not retaliatory. There is no backlash, there's just response.

You will hear about respect when people want you to "show some respect". In translation it's a demand to "act like you understand the value" of a thing, whether they are talking to you about you, themselves or someone else.

Some will even talk about respect as though it means that you need to shut up, listen, and refuse to think. They will act as though asking questions and withholding trust from them for valid reasons is betrayal. They will have no true grasp of respect. They are the kind you need to know yourself for, so that when they try to manipulate you and try to make you into someone you're not, it won't affect you as much because you know who you are. Coincidentally, when they do that, it will teach you who that person is.
Knowing yourself protects you from those who prey on lack of self confidence and knowledge of self. The cool thing about respecting yourself is that you'll be less confused about those that don't respect you.

At its core, respect is all about value, honor, admiration, regard, and esteem. It's about knowing who someone is. It's about knowing who you are, regardless of the controlling, oppressive way others try to use this word on you.

There are huge benefits to respecting and knowing yourself. You will move with conviction, strength, and a certainty when you go to accomplish goals. You will be able to interact with people in a way that is comfortable for you. You will know better what you like and don't like, but more importantly, you will be able to say "no".

The Power of "No"  

Essentially, we all are hollow bodies to each other when we don't know one another, like police drawing lines where the bodies would be at a crime scene. As you encounter someone and begin to learn them, detailed lines slowly start to flesh out the form of who they are: what you both like and dislike, are attracted to, what habits you both might have.

As time goes on, there will be moments where you need to show someone that you respect yourself, that you have boundaries and this is highly important. 

This is highly important because it is when you draw boundaries and respect (keep, maintain, value) them as well that you become "real", both to yourself and others. That's how you show someone you respect yourself. 
This is what divides people who are focused and people who drift. People that date anything that stands on two feet and looks pretty, and people that date others who have a basic understanding of courtesy, awareness and the like.

You have to have some semblance of an idea, a particular focus, of what you want in life as far as passions, partners, goals, achievements, and be willing- but not necessarily able- to say yes to it. That's for two reasons: 

1) you should want to keep yourself open to the possibility of what you want even if you don't know its exact angle and where it is coming from, and

2) it makes saying "no" easier.

If a person or an opportunity comes into your life and it contradicts what you want more than it satisfies, you would want to say no. It's better to pass by a romantic/business opportunity that does not suit you rather than suffer and regret having wasted your time. 

Here is the real focus though.
You have to understand just how vital a "no" is.

By allowing yourself to say "no", you reinforce the idea that you are real enough to deny experiences you don't want to have.

In other words, when you say "no" or "I don't like that" you are telling yourself things like
"I am here" 

"I exist"

"I am real"

"I am a person with choice and preference" 

And there is nothing better than being able to look people in their eye and tell them exactly who you are through your "yes" and "no". There is nothing better than someone asking you questions about you and you being able to tell them those answers...

There is nothing better than you knowing yourself.

Respect, Value, Goal 

You might already be able to assume that respect is the kind of thing that comes with time, and this is true. However, if you keep an eye out for what happens in your life and learn quickly from it, and also take notes from the things other people tell you and apply it, it would serve you greatly and speed up your learning curve.

If you have the ability to treat others with respect and love by knowing what people don't want and not doing it, by knowing what they like and giving it to them, by seeing their mistakes and forgiving them, then by all means self-love and self-respect is exactly that, just given to your own self.

That might be an obvious thing to many but... 

The only reason why this is even needed to be said is because internally, people either batter themselves with burdens but treat everyone else better than themselves, or batter everyone else with burdens but treat themselves better than everyone else. Either insecurity or narcissism, naïveté or pride. For those people who have extreme versions of the two, you'll want to find yourself in a neater balance in between, because embellished pride will refuse you true friends, and loud insecurities punish the honest and well-intentioned around you.

Once you can find a better balance between those two, or at least a less biased perspective of yourself and the people around you, you allow yourself to have a better view of the relationship you have with someone else. 
When you look at a relationship through a lens that focuses more on others because of pride, or more on yourself because of insecurities, you miss out on a special key which are the ingredients to making a relationship look good: 

You AND them.

Not you and you, or them and them. 

You need to get to a place in your head where your happiness is priority, and not by a means of malice and disregard for others, but because of the need to respect yourself enough to make sure you are well, that if you're not happy, you won't be able to respond to others the way you need or want to. This means that you should be able to say "no" when you are uncomfortable, presented with that which is unwanted, irritable, angry, unprepared... etc. Sexual happiness is not what "happiness is priority" means.  

Have your mind in a high enough place that causes good things to happen around you and to other people as a consequence of that mentality, and not merely because you intended to treat any specific person well.

So do you know who you are? Do you know what you will invite and say "yes" to, or deny and say "no" to? Because if you don't, you are leaving yourself in a very vulnerable state, and people can put you in places that can harm you much more often without any true concern for your well-being.

Considering your well being, there are a few dangerous thoughts you can have that can harm the respect you want to have for yourself. Here is one: Wanting the temporary to be permanent and wanting what we know that is permanent to be temporary. 

This conscious or subconscious thought in our respective lives is an example of a lack of both self respect and understanding, especially when you consider where you're trying to go in life. That's an avoidance of reality and does more harm than good to yourself as well as people around you. 
What that does is make you desperate and cling to what doesn't last and make you resent those that fail you in your attempts to live and relive those temporary highs. It also makes you bitter and depraved for what you know will never go away since what is permanent will inconvenience you time and time again. That kind of goal in itself will drive you crazy.

Know where you want to go. 

Know the kind of people you want in your life. 

Know the kind of experiences you want to have. 

Know the kind of love you want to experience. 

If you can do that, your "yes" and "no" will define your values and bolster the strength of your goal no matter the direction, because values are nothing without the goal. If you have respect for your values, your goal will matter. There will be more on this topic in a future blog.

To wrap this up, respect is knowledge of yourself, of your value (what you have to give), and the attitude that comes with knowing those things. If you respect yourself, you will act like you understand your value and will guard and guide yourself. If you respect others, you will act like you understand that other people have value, and will guard and guide yourself accordingly.
You are not a transformer, and there is no need to become one. Respecting yourself is part of the path of a trailblazer and sometimes it is a very lonely road. Those without respect might suggest that you think you're above them, might envy you, might try to chip away at your foundation slowly, or attempt to turn you into someone you're not. Be wary and protect yourself the best you can here, not many people can be saved while they hold that kind of mindset against you.
Respect also comes with the power of "no" and encourages the shaping of your values based on what is refused and accepted. Being able to say "no" is so essential to respect, that this entire post wouldn't really hold much salt if it wasn't mentioned. Learn to say no with intention and direction.
Learn to say "no" with a reasoning of "why" (and no, you don't have to explain why, just know it).

That's all for today friends, but there is still more to come. :)

As for what was written before... "There are Levels to This"

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**You can find me on Facebook as Isaiah Dunkley (Veaire). I am an artist as well as friendly blogger. Feel free to find me and send messages on your thoughts.

People Pleaser

OF COURSE they'd call you a "people pleaser".

OF COURSE that's the label they'd slap on you. You are shockingly talented, being able to consistently show up for multiple amounts of people in various and unrelated situations and produce quality regardless of the effort involved.

It makes sense to not have time and space for yourself when you are occupied with exercising your gift of making a way out of what many would see as a "dead-end". Your own survival had been laden in making a way out of dead ends, so even when the air got choked out of you you still found a way to slip through the cracks and breathe. They have no idea what a dead end is. That is the problem.

They have never truly choked.

Many people have what they have today because you were a "people pleaser".
Many people have elevated situations and comfortable lives thanks to your ability to design structure for those who clearly had none.

You could say you had pity for them.
Of course you want people who aren't taking care of themselves to do better. Left alone, these people become the savages of humanity, clamoring for every penny, scrap of food, and every bit of emotional refuge that they can get even though with love in themselves they would find so much abundance they wouldn't know what to do with themselves... and that should be the point. 

But they don't know that.
When you met them you entertained their frivolous attempts at making themselves happy. You observed their every move, astounded at the petty ways they made themselves laugh while you knew that inside they were dying.

Of course they'd call you a "people pleaser".
You stayed by the side of someone who if left alone would not have had a single clue how to live their lives outside of a social system that told them what to do, how to sleep, what to think, how to breathe, what to pay attention to... They needed help, even if they never asked for it.

Why do we think that people need to discover things for themselves in order to truly become what they are capable of? Why do people dismiss the effect one human can have on the other? Why do we believe that without a system in place there is only chaos?

These are not the thoughts of people who have faith in human beings... through which systems are designed.

They tried to claim that YOU were the "people pleaser" as they huddled in their muddied system of society (where there was barely any space to fit already) while they pleased the system, which (not ironically) is comprised of and set up by older people they need to please in order to fit in.

Exactly who is the "people pleaser" here?

Sure, their reasoning is that they see the success of those who followed the system, but they don't tell you that those people are not their role models in life. They don't tell you that they don't want to live like the people that tell them when to clock in and out. They don't share with you that they don't want to live out their lives in degrees they had to mortgage for a paycheck. They don't say that they don't want to live like the people that control them.
They don't tell you that their soul wrings itself out in anguish because they have to say things they don't want to say, do things they don't want to do just to be recognized by a title, not even by their name. And that is the problem. They are chasing a title, not a person, a face, or even themselves. So of course you can't get through to them. They are reading words on a screen, and if you're not reading the words from the same screen then you're the one who isn't making sense.

But you are the "people pleaser".

They claim you're the "people pleaser" even though if you stopped "pleasing" tomorrow they would be clawing at the fading vestige of your existence, wondering how to even breathe the air in their very own lungs.

But you should let them suffocate. They have never choked before. They have taken air from other people when they comfortably had their own supply to work with. They would say they were choking but they wouldn't tell you that they were choking because they didn't know how to breathe in their own air.

They were only good at doing one thing at a time, and having to breathe while following instructions would have been too much for them... but they wouldn't tell you that. They aren't as talented as you were after all. They were too busy being a "people pleaser" to those they were sure would give them air to breathe because they were too afraid to inhale on their own. It is no coincidence that in the end they are the ones who are incompetent and incapable, while you thrive, uninhibited.

Let the real "people pleasers" find their own crack to breathe through for air.

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