France

(crossposted from Facebook)

Awhile ago I asked you all how you felt about people sharing good things that happen to them on Facebook, because I was worried about it making other people feel bad. The general response I got was that people wanted me to feel like I could celebrate the good things in my life (and thank you for that!), especially if I didn’t try to hide the bad things. So here’s a good thing that happened to me:

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Yesterday I got back from a 5-day party / festival at a castle in France, where I stayed in the fanciest room in the castle with two lovely friends. I had somewhere around 11 of the most beautiful and emotional experiences of my entire life (I wrote them down and counted) with some really incredible people. I talked a lot, about the things that matter the most to me, and people listened. Some of them cried. Some of them held me while I cried. I might’ve cried more in the last few days than I had in the previous 20 years.

I can’t remember the last time I felt this open in the heart and relaxed in the stomach. I feel very grateful and very energized. It was clear in France that all the work I’ve been doing on myself over the last year and a half has made a huge difference for me, and that’s really renewed my confidence in my sense of the gifts I have to offer.

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I feel embarrassed about saying all that. I’m worried it will come across as… competitive? I’m nervous about participating in the social media game around talking about how good your life is and, y’know, posting photos from castles in France and so forth.

A lot of what I’ve been sharing on Facebook lately is my thoughts and feelings around topics like relationships, and that feels a lot better to me to share because I feel like I’m helping people see things in their own lives more clearly. I’m less sure whether this kind of sharing helps people and it has me feeling uncomfortable.

So, in the interest of not hiding the bad things, which feels better to me: a big part of my experience at this event was feeling intimidated by a lot of the attractive women there (a lot less intimidated than I would have been a year or two ago, but still). I could have tried to talk to them and get to know them and mostly didn’t because I was afraid they would dismiss me based on my physical appearance, which I’m still pretty insecure about, especially because there were also a lot of attractive men around. It’s hard for me to feel attractive as a kinda nerdy-looking asian guy with glasses in a sea of attractive white people.

One of the beautiful things that happened was that some lovely people ran an event called “Literally Blind Dating” where we were all blindfolded and ran through connection exercises involving talking and touching in pairs without knowing what anyone looked like. I ended up really connecting with one of the women I was paired with, and one of the other beautiful things that happened was that I cried a lot in her arms while she told me how beautiful l was. I cannot express how badly I needed that. I’m still getting teary-eyed thinking about it.

Okay, having said all that, I feel a lot better about sharing this now. I’d be very curious to hear feedback from all of you about all of that!