How to have amazing Lesbian Relationships, Love, Sex and Passion

It is not love that is blind, but jealousy.

By Lawrence Durrell

When I was growing up my mother always told me, “Do not be jealous of others. Do not wish for what others have. Do not fight to possess and control someone, because in the end you will be alone as nothing belongings to us but is merely an experience.”  She was a wise Buddhist that attempted to sooth a young adolescents’ tantrums of wants that weren’t fulfilled.

It is true today, that I rarely feel jealous or envy, which I account for my upbringing and the love I was given as a child. Therefore, in the spirit of my mom I would like to pass on a footnote of knowledge hopefully, lightening up the weight of those emotions that have a hunger for our soul: jealous, anger and envy.

I have often heard in therapy and in my own life people projecting this emotion as a trigger of someone else’s behavior, “She makes me Jealous. It’s her fault she makes me this way.” Basically, when it comes to jealous we very quickly pass the buck onto our partners as the creator of this unwelcome feeling. Unfortunately, they are often not to blame as no person is able to create feelings and emotions within us. Only I have the power to create and control what is within me.

Now I know, some of you are thinking “cut the crap with this Zen shit it’s definitely not me, it really is her.” Well, sure they  are cases where partners work very hard to make you jealous, but I would bet money that they are very jealous people themselves and that you are both in heated water suffering from the same illness just different symptoms. The illness is one you probably know as Low Self-Esteem and Insecurity.

When we have negative beliefs about ourselves we are off balance, and feel very much powerless to the world. We will even try regaining this power by bargaining with our partners by saying things like: “If you wouldn’t … then I wouldn’t react this way.” However this has very little success in the real world often neither you achieve your goal because this is not a balance within yourself and simply a quick exchange of false power.

So, in order to eliminate jealous we must only look within ourselves and start the change there, addressing our beliefs that create the emotions. Your relationship will change once you eliminate jealous, and even anger and envy will subside.

Here is how to begin the process:

• Build your inner power, so that you see that you have control over your emotions and don’t become a bulldozer that is reactive.
• Look at the whole picture. What are you jealous of? What is the underlying emotion. Focus: is it perhaps fear, abandonment, unworthiness that your experiencing? Delay you reaction by understanding where it is coming from?
• What are you inner core beliefs about yourself and the world? Identify you triggers? Example: I get jealous of my girlfriend, because I fear abandonment and that she may leave me for someone better.
• Just because you feel and believe something does not make it a fact. Learn to separate and question yourself.
• Be the creator of your inner world. You have the ability to create the images you project into your mind and the emotions you choose to experience.

~The Lesbian Guru

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at TheLesbianGuru@Gmail.com with ExaminerQ as the title or you can follow me on my Blog http://TheLesbianGuru.com! Or  just Join The Lesbian Revolution of Health & Love on http://Twitter.com/TheLesbianGuru or http://Facebook.com/TheFemmeGuru.

 
Walking down the hallway back to the Vice Principal’s office, again, for another detention I wonder will life ever be any different. Sitting staring at his lips wondering what he and his wife will do on the weekend (wanting to be anywhere else but here), he is delighted to give me another lecture on how thin I am and whether I will eat a candy bar with him. He fears that I have an eating disorder and is trying to trick me into getting fat.

Sitting in my office fifteen years later I feel relief those days are behind me. You could not pay me enough money to go back to high school or be a teenager.  As far as Mr. Jones, well, he was right I had a sever eating disorder and I was not about to give in to anyone and eat that candy bar. After all it was the only thing I felt I had control over.

Most days I felt that I lived outside my body and was so very much alone, and it seemed that my father was the only person that could see through me.  He would say, “You are different Alex and this world doesn’t like those that are unlike them. Try not to be so different because I don’t want you to suffer for it. I want you to have a good life.”

I would lay in bed crying most nights hating the body I was in and the thoughts that raced through my head. I could not figure out what was different about me, except that every piece of me felt alien. I guess that is what being a teenager is all about.

It was around that time I knew I like girls but was too immature and honestly too tired from malnutrition to care.  However, it didn’t stop the fantasizing that went on in my head. I remember listen to my Boyz 2 Men album (I know, I am old as dirt!), imagining slow dancing with a woman and kissing her.  It was that feeling that put me at ease, the only images that would relax me. I can’t believe that now at thirty I am actually living my fantasy that my dream came true and I have my very own perfect love waiting for me at home.

It was not an easy journey. Coming out has been a difficult struggle and continues to be today, especially living in a southern state in the US.    In today’s society our LGBT youth have so much to overcome.  Risks include gender conformity, lack of support, school dropout, family problems, victimization, homelessness, substance use, eating disorders, religious intolerance, negative sexual experiences, and suicide attempts (two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual counterparts).

As recent news over the last couple of years has highlighted, LGBT youth are often bullied at school and unable to receive adequate education. They are shamed and targeted for abuse.  They are more likely to skip school out of fear, threats and vandalism directed towards them. Twenty-eight percent of gay students will drop out of school. This is more than three times the national average for heterosexual students. Four out of five gay and lesbian students say they don’t know one supportive adult at school.

So here are some things to consider and help you became self-empowered?

• Know that being Gay or Lesbian is not a pathological condition (i.e. it is not a mental disease or disability)
• The origin of sexual orientation is not completely known.
• Gay and Lesbian individuals lead fulfilling and satisfying lives.
• They are many ways you can choose to live an LGBTQ life.
• Unless you have seek counseling to “change” your sexual orientation, a therapist should never coerce you into doing so (it’s unethical and you should report them to the board of licensing.)

If you are a teen and living in a home where there is homophobia, here are some more steps you should take and ask yourself:

• Is it safe to come out to your parents? SAFETY first, even as tempting as it may be if you think it may place you in danger hold off.
• Will coming out jeopardize your home situation?
• Are you safe physically, emotionally, and psychologically if you come out to your parents?
• Do you have other available resources, such as money and emotional help if coming out changes your home situation?
• Try and educate your parents on LGBT matters, often discrimination is triggered but ignorance and not understanding the unknown.
• Get support and find people you can talk too that are safe.  Being gay can be a lonely journey, but with the right company can make you stronger and wiser.

The ultimate goal of growing up and developing is finding humanity and breaking down the difference that separate us and isolate others to create a unity and a sense of oneness.

~The Lesbian Guru

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me at TheLesbianGuru@Gmail.com with ExaminerQ as the title or you can follow me on my Blog http://TheLesbianGuru.com! Or  just Join The Lesbian Revolution of Health & Love on http://Twitter.com/TheLesbianGuru or http://Facebook.com/TheFemmeGuru.

If you ever feel alone or unsure please reach out for help and here are some agencies that could help you:

• Advocates for Youth, http://www.advocatesforyouth.org
• City at Peace, Inc., http://www.cityatpeacedc.org
• COLAGE: Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere, http://www.colage.org
• Gay-Straight Alliance Network, http://www.gsanetwork.org
• Hetrick-Martin Institute for Lesbian and Gay Youth, http://www.hmi.org
• Matthew Shepard Foundation, http://www.MatthewShepard.org
• National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYAC), http://www.nyacyouth.org
• Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL), http://www.smyal.org
• Student Pride USA, http://www.studentprideUSA.org
• The Point Foundation: The National LGBT Scholarship Fund, http://www.the point foundation.org

Other Resources

• National Association of School Psychologists
  Phone Number: (301) 657-0270
• American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
  Phone Number: (202) 966-7300
  Email Address: clinical@aacap.org
• American Academy of Pediatrics
  Phone Number: (847) 434-4000
• American Psychological Association
  Telephone Number: (202) 336-5500
  Toll-Free Number: (800) 374-2721
  TDD/TTY Number: (202) 336-6123
• American School Counselor Association
  Phone Number: (703) 683-ASCA
  Toll-Free Number: (800) 306-4722
• Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists
  Phone Number: (215) 222-2800
• The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
  Phone Number: (212) 727-0135
  Email Address: glsen@glsen.org
• Human Rights Campaign
  Phone Number: (202) 628-4160
  Toll-Free Number: (800) 777-4723
  TTY: (202) 216-1572
  Email Address: hrc@hrc.org
• Human Rights Watch
  Phone Number: (212) 290-4700
  Email Address: hrwnyc@hrw.org
• National Education Association
  Phone Number: (202) 833-4000
• National Youth Advocacy Coalition
  Phone Number: (202) 319-7596
  Toll-Free Number: (800) 541-6922
  TTY: (202) 319-9513
  Email Address: nyac@nyacyouth.org
• Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
  Phone Number: (202) 467-8180
  Email Address: info@pflag.org

Here are some books that are great for LGBTQ youth (check out the Lesbian Literature Page on this site for more book ideas):

• Bait by Alex Sanchez, Simon & Schuster
• My Invented Life by Lauren Bjorkman, Henry Holt
• Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole, HarperTeen
• Hit the Road, Manny: A Manny Files Novel by Christian Burch, Simon and Schuster (sequel to The Manny Files)
• How They Met & Other Stories by David Levithan, Knopf
  18 stories, all about love, and about all kinds of love.
• Love & Lies: Marisol’s Story by Ellen Wittlinger, Simon and Schuster
• Mousetraps, Pat Schmetz, Carolrhoda Books
• Out of the Pocket by Bill Konigsberg
• What They Always Tell Us by Martin Wilson, Random House
• Nothing Pink by Mark Hardy, (Front Street Books).