Finding Your Authentic Self, In Life’s Sensual Journey
Story Notes:
This one is intentionally meant to follow my last post of a trilogy of quotes.
Yes, it’s another thought piece. But part of being your erotic self is living your erotic self, and being true to yourself, your authentic self.
Both my own journey and personal conversations with others have inspired me to write this.
Bear with me through the next few sentences. They’re just a setup for our topic.
Ah, yes. The Sister story. An unintended and unbeknownst scenario, as you’ve seen if you’ve had the chance to read it!
I’ve never been inspired to write about another unintended scenario, but, speaking of accomplished cliché fantasies- I was also with a mom and daughter, without knowing. I was with the mom twice, the daughter four times, including a threesome with a friend of hers.
But I was never with both mom and daughter at the same time- not sure if I could, or should handle that… even me! (Not that they would do that, anyway.)
Just like The Sisters experiences, I didn’t know that they were related until much later… until a different friend told me they were mom and daughter. You can’t make this stuff up.
As the saying goes, “All Who Wander Are Not Lost”, and wandering certainly does take you to some interesting places!
Kind of a roundabout way to reach today’s topic, but here we are.
Wandering. Adventures. Collecting experiences.
**
Are you a collector of experiences?
Some collected experiences count as adventures, and some don’t. Defining them is not important. Living them is.
Let’s take this into a vanilla direction- Doing something on a whim. Taking the left fork in the trail because you haven’t turned left at that fork yet.
Going to that place you’ve said you’d go to someday… you know, that place or attraction or museum or cool shop or eating place you drive by several times a week, or a couple of times a year.
Walking, wandering for hours during a trip… then stepping into cool, new discoveries, stumbled-upon places.
Or maybe being mesmerized upon finding a couple of softball fields amidst a cluster of expensive Chicago high-rises, complete with ongoing friendly condo league games… then watching a few innings, enjoying the pure joy of the players and spectators, becoming one of them before you continue the next couple of hours of your walk. (Cheering for the blue team because you like their uniforms.)
I don’t know, this softball game is just one silly example of what the unexpected can bring. There are many bigger moments than a softball game, and many smaller ones, even tiny ones.
There are millions of moments I could write about, even though I can probably only recall thousands, LOL. The cool thing is when you start remembering the first few, many others previously forgotten will resurrect themselves in your memory, delighting you all over again.
But even the forgotten ones will subconsciously define who you are, how you’ve lived.
And you needn’t travel far. Wandering can be very fruitful, happen very happily at home… even though somehow, many of my memories and tales are of distant places.
The traveling salespersons I used to work with had a saying, “You always sell less in your hometown, because you focus so much on being on the road.” (Their sales numbers backed this up.)
Maybe that’s how my writing has been, lots of distant tales. It’s true. I think it’s because travel memories are so strong.
**
So in our erotic realms, how do we collect these experiences?
Wander.
Fly whatever freak flag you’ve yearned to fly, but haven’t yet flown.
Own yourself- your fantasies, your desires, your whims, your serious and silly thoughts, your bucket lists.
Look, I’m an adherent and student of real life. We’re all constrained by real life commitments, sustenance, family, time, money, and more. And yes, sometimes you need to sit for a moment, or a day, and do nothing. That sustains the soul, too.
**
Feeding your soul.
Speaking of your soul, that’s what this next section is all about.
We all grow throughout our lives. The part that will make you different, the part that will make you thrive is recognizing this, and most importantly, addressing it.
There’s a couple of ways that you’ve likely grown and evolved…
- There may be yearnings in your soul that have been added during life’s journeys. This just means that your authentic self has grown, evolved.
- There likely will be parts of your soul that were always there, but you had put them aside, for real life or other reasons, needing to address them later.
In my case, all of my adult life there have been deep, soul-felt parts of me that I’ve put aside, denied myself, whether it was due to my surroundings, life commitments, or other reasons.
I wasn’t living a life that wasn’t me. I was living my life. But I did voluntarily put certain things aside, to hopefully address later. There were also yearnings added to my soul along the way, through growth. So yes, I’ve grown and evolved in both ways above.
I’m human and I expect most of us have had both of these evolutions to our souls… the accumulated growth, and needing to catch up on things that were put aside.
I’m purposefully addressing this all via the construct of our souls. For me, there is a deep distinction of a want, versus a “normal” need, versus a need defined by one’s soul.
I apologize for using the construct of the soul so much. I’m obviously not using it in a metaphysical or religious sense, and I’m not saying there literally is one, like in that movie 21 Grams.
I’m using it as that internal life force, that thing that pulls at you, that essence that if not satisfied will literally eat at you. That thing that when satisfied, makes all the difference.
Restated, the soul has needs that differ from wants or various superficial “needs”, which are really just only fancy wants.
I don’t have many better words for it. Hopefully you get what I’m trying to express. If you’ve felt it, you know it.
**
Evolution
There are benefits to getting older. You’ve (hopefully) increased your fluency within life’s situations, gained confidence, and have become better equipped to shed inhibitions.
Perhaps you’re in my age neighborhood, and family commitments have evolved due to children springing the nest. It’s a sad and poignant moment, but it does open a window of opportunity for you.
Maybe you’re younger than that. Maybe you’re in your 20’s and seeing how you will embark on life. Maybe you’re realizing that your 30’s are looking different than your 20’s, or your 40’s versus your 30’s.
Maybe it’s just the realization that at whatever age you are, you’re not 21 anymore. (That’s perhaps unwelcome, physiologically, but good in almost all other ways.)
**
Next? Here’s the hard part.
Once you assess your soul’s desires, you will often find the need to communicate to those around you, friends and loved ones, the fact that you have grown in certain ways. That your soul has undeniable needs that you must satisfy in order to become your fully authentic self.
This communication can take many forms. Maybe you’ll require something from them. Maybe you’ll want them to join you, or need them to accommodate you.
They may understand. They may not. But there’s nothing more disheartening, nothing that disturbs me more, than when friends, acquaintances, or loved ones want to reduce your grown and evolved soul’s complex needs into a cliché.
If you’re of a certain age, man or woman, there will be someone (I don’t know who, and likely more than one person) who will try to reduce and dismiss your evolved life’s needs into a mid-life crisis.
(Yes, I’ve been informed by women friends that the mid-life crisis, often attributed stereotypically to males and red sports cars, is definitely an accusation directed toward them, too.)
As I mentioned above, the part that will make you different is recognizing all this, your growth during life, these changes to your soul, to your authentic self, and most importantly, addressing it all.
Not everyone will have grown like you have, or even if they have, they may never sense this or acknowledge it within themselves. (Or want to acknowledge it within themselves.) Sad, but their loss.
They may call you selfish, self-centered for daring to want to answer to your authentic self. If only they had grown in the same way.
YES, in many instances there will be a need to balance yourself versus your loved ones. It’s tricky and takes a lot of work, and I doubt I’m perfect at it. But I try. I’ve grown and changed, but I’m still me over here.
(Have no doubts that my family is my love, and my first priority. Those of you who know me personally know all about this. Becoming my fully authentic self can be like walking a tightrope. My family priorities are steadfast. But they have to include my personal inner journey as well, now. It can be done, but like anything involving or affecting those you love, it takes a lot of work.)
AND NO, you’re not in a mid-life (or your own age bracket, 30’s?, 40s?) crisis. You are not a stereotype or a cliché, and you don’t deserve to be reduced to one. An author friend of mine called it her mid-life awakening.
And that’s a beautiful and eloquent way of putting it.
But it doesn’t have to hit you as an awakening. It might. Or it just may be something you felt coming, knew you’d have to address, and finally can. Or maybe it’s just a life-long continuation of that age 20’s embarking on life thing.
It’s a little dark, but an old friend’s mom would always tell him, “They only put one of you in the casket.” He is a very selfless person, and this was her way of reminding him never to lose track of his own self.
**
In Closing (Part 1)… The Takeaways
So, just like our selves and souls during our lives, this written piece has evolved throughout these long words.
We started with experiencing often unplanned and unexpected situations and even satisfying fantasies, simply by wandering…
Some of these experiences are adventures, some not. Some are huge, some small, some tiny or fleeting.
All important. All of which feed the soul.
Then we kind of morphed into our need to answer to our soul. How we change and grow during our lives, and the need to feed our soul, before it eats at us.
How we address that… That we should address that. All at the cost of navigating through our loved ones and friends, plus the cost and risk of making ourselves very vulnerable in revealing our changes and evolution to others.
Where I’ve been successful, the payoffs have been huge. But I’ve still got a long way to go.
So this concept of life’s sensual journey is just my way of calling out:
- Collecting situations and experiences. Voraciously.
- Living to be and becoming your evolving growing Authentic Self, by being true to your soul.
- Being bold in doing so. It truly requires putting yourself out there… trusting in the confidence you’ve gained throughout your life, plus a lowering of inhibitions.
- Doing all these things that by definition will make you feel highly vulnerable… Both in doing them, and in explaining or expressing them to others.
That last bullet is probably the hardest part.
You’ll get used to, and gain fluency with, the vulnerability and daring of doing new things.
But will your loved ones and friends try to reduce you to a mid-life or other cliché? Will they think you’re nuts? Will they be critical of your evolution?
Will they be critical of your new reveals? Of your needs? If so, I feel sorry for them, not you. I’m on your side. Go for it.
**
In Closing (Really Closing Now, I Promise, LOL)
Collect situations and experiences. Then apply this to the growth you are embarking on, or that you’ve had during life. The yearnings you’ve always had. The yearnings you’ve gained along the way.
Branch out. Be careful enough, but don’t be afraid.
Also ask yourself these questions:
Are there things you’ve wanted to do but haven’t done?
Things you haven’t thought about trying, but what the heck?
Things you thought you wouldn’t ever try, but probably will?
Things you swore you’d never try?
I’ll urge you to apply these next final thoughts to both your sensual and vanilla lives- they together constitute YOU.
Is it time to just wander, see what comes? Venture around that street corner, that untraveled road? That conversation you might strike up with a complete stranger?
That little farmer’s stand you’ll finally stop at, where you’ll discover a strange breed of popcorn-on-the-cob, just stick the ear of corn in the microwave, then pull off the popped corn to eat it, right off the cob? (True story.)
Is it time to make a plan, to move forward to address the growth and evolution you’ve had during life, and to address the things, desires, fantasies, wish lists, anything that you had put aside, either because of inhibitions, commitments, the demands of real life, or all of these?
I’m no expert, I’m just sharing with you from personal feelings, experience, and desires, plus needs for the road ahead.
I’m still evolving.
If you haven’t been, join in.
If you are evolving, dig in.
It takes a lot of work, and you’ll never be perfect at it and you’ll never be done, but satisfying your soul is an incomparable feeling.
I’ll see you out there. We’ll have a glass of wine, share stories, and make new ones.
I’ll leave you with three of my favorite quotes. They’re mantras for me, the third being my favorite:
“I am a collector. An impressive and respected collector. I collect situations. Let me guide you. The moment that’s always the same… I’ll make it unforgettable for you.”
⁃ Mario to Emmanuelle (Emmanuelle, film, 1974)
**
“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”
– Author Erica Jong
**
It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before…to test your limits…to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
— Author Anaïs Nin
