The Glass – Half Full, or Half Empty?

by guest blogger Mikaya Heart

I grew up in post-war Scotland, a depressed country that was riddled with alcoholism and denial. At university in England, I took a course on ecology, a word that very few people knew in 1972. The course taught me that our society was destroying the environment, and, not wanting to be part of that, I chose to a study something different: how to live in a way that is respectful to our world and all its inhabitants. I dropped out, becoming a hippie and a political activist, and later a rabid lesbian feminist. Angry and self-righteous, I strode around determined to address all inequities. My friends and I struggled—oh, how we struggled—to make the world more peaceful.

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where I had heard there were thirty thousand lesbians. Even there, life seemed full of injustice. Both as a woman in manual trades and as a lesbian, I got my share of those injustices: being forced to live illegally in the United States because I was an alien and couldn’t marry my American lover was just one of them.  As a seventies lesbian feminist, I am not a great proponent of marriage—but I needed those legal benefits!

In the late nineties I really began to wonder what life was all about, and if it was really worth it. Something was missing. I was hounded by existential questions, which boiled down to, “What am I here on this planet for? Who put me here and why?” In the process of searching for answers, which involved conversations with many different people, I had some extraordinary experiences. One of those was an awareness of joy beyond anything I had ever known. A Buddhist (which I am not) might call it enlightenment, although it didn’t arise out of meditation.  Nothing happened that any observer would have noticed, and it lasted only twenty minutes or so, but its repercussions were enormous, because now I knew the power of being joyful, and I knew that nothing I could do would ever be as effective at changing the world as being in that place of joy.

I had the answer that mattered, and I started looking at how to change my life so it didn’t feel like a struggle. In order to get rid of all sources of stress, I sold my house and most of my possessions, and took to the road. Nowadays I spend a lot of time kitesurfing, an activity that always leaves me refreshed and renewed—joyful, that is. I teach the art of being fully alive, which is about learning how to implement choices. I stopped reading newspapers, watching TV, or listening to the radio. I refuse to follow all the horrible social injustices that I used to get up in arms about, not because I no longer care about others’ wellbeing—I am simply no longer willing to work myself into a state of despair and anxiety. I choose to see the glass as half-full. Truthfully, things in this world are better than they have ever been: I can freely acknowledge my lesbianism in many situations without negative consequences; environmental issues are common knowledge and millions of people worldwide are working to better them; there are fewer wars and dictators worldwide than ever previously known; the US has a black president; child abuse is openly acknowledged, and much has been done to prevent it; the position of women has improved hugely since the seventies when a British woman was not allowed to hold a mortgage. It is not a perfect world, and never will be—but it’s a picnic compared to what it has been, and I’m celebrating. Want to join me?

Mikaya Heart is an award-winning author, speaker, and life-coach, using shamanic methods to teach people how to access the vastness of being. Her latest book, The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women, is just out. For information on her other books, see www.mikayaheart.org