True versus Temptation
“The devil doesn't come to you with a red face and horns, he comes to you disguised as everything you've ever wanted.” -unknown
The number one excuse we make in love is telling ourselves that the heart wants what it wants. But I hear that all the time and have probably told myself the same thing a few dozen times as well. But what differentiates true versus temptation? Because a lot of the times, we think that whatever we are feeling is from our hearts, so it must be true. But ninety nine percent of the times, what we are feeling is merely temptation, not truth. Thanks to our rigid past traumas and family history of toxic tendencies from generation to generation. We think because it’s hard, that it has got to be true. When in reality, real love is quite the opposite. Which is baffling to me. So I guess I can truly say that in my lifetime of a whole thirty four years, I have never had real true love. Shocking isn’t it? But I think a lot of us can actually say the same thing. Are we all made up to run from something real and true because it’s unfamiliar to us? Pawning it off as “not interested” because it’s ding ding ding…GOOD FOR US?
But the truth is… absolutely! So why do we want what is hard? Why do our hearts gravitationally pull towards the opposite of what can truly fulfill us? Is it lack of growth and maturity? Or ladies, do we still need ten more dicks to trip up over? Gosh the same thing goes for guys that I know. Tripping up over toxic bombshelling heartaches that only lead to more disappointing headache bombs, with no damn bomb shelter near them besides the damn toxic bombshell herself with double d's aiming straight at them. Yet somehow, we think and believe it’s real love. Look, I’ve never had real and true love as much as I’d like to believe that I have. I still tried. I stayed in a relationship for fifteen years believing somehow with my entire being that it was real and true. When it was formed in the beginning as toxic. I hated to break it to myself after years of therapy and spiritual growth that maybe I was in love with the idea of being in love that I chose the first person that made me feel something to stick with. Like that excitement, the drama, the controlling behaviors that should’ve only driven me off a precipice. Instead, I believed because of all of the toxic tendencies and temptation that it was real and true steering me somewhere safe. Gosh.. how else are we supposed to see red flags when we are eighteen years old gravitating towards what we believe is true love? The problem there is.. we can’t. Unfortunately we learn from past mistakes. Our younger selves aren’t mature enough to know what love is. And this goes for us single folk now. But love is something built with another. It doesn’t hit you instantly like a pot falling from a window seal. Or a shock of electric waves running through your entire body.. Geeze those ideas of what love is could kill you let alone heal you. Because isn’t that the purpose of love anyways? To heal our wounded hearts? Okay many of you might disagree, but in contrary, I believe that we should be as whole as we can possibly be when we find someone to build a love with. But I also believe that part of ourselves aren’t as whole until we do finally meet that person. And it isn’t going to be this temptation of instant gratification straight to the bedroom kinda stuff. Healthy real “not toxic” love is something different than what we are used to. The opposite of whatever we usually gravitate towards. I know this not from my own experience, but from a few close friends of mine that are happily married to their real true life partners. Because the funny coincidence about all of their stories are these exact few words. “I wasn’t sure I liked them at first.” Seriously?! How many people have we passed on because of that simple sentence. While we’re over here still single chasing assholes because we simply are too good for that skepticism? Wow. Shocking isn’t it?
Let me break it down with my favorite analogy I love to compare love to. With broccoli being healthy safe and real love, and the cookie being the toxic unhealthy love. Look, of course we naturally want to eat the cookie. Why? Because all our life we were told not to. As kids, we always had to wait until dinner for dessert. Our broccoli, we were forced to choke down or pass off to the dog, or sneak into the trash when our parents weren’t looking. So why as adults would we ever want to choose broccoli? The issue is. Somehow we were built up to believe good is boring and gross, and bad is exciting and good. Gosh I can think of so many ways to be creative with my kids that they will actually love broccoli, and not so much sweets. It’s all how we present things that show our kids healthy behaviors versus toxic ones. But hell, past generations didn’t care about feelings, emotions, or all this nonsense we deal with these days. I think they were more harsh because they didn’t have as many diverse realities. Nothing we do is right anymore. There’s more than one way. So of course our connections get crossed and things get tossed and somehow we’re in this relationship that we didn’t even want, but chose because we thought it was just like the cookie. It tasted great, felt great, I mean duh you want that for life. See, we were only told to eat the broccoli because of a demand. Not told with a justifiable why. I truly feel the more we can explain our whys, we would know and make better choices for our future. As our truth and our whys justify our feelings and emotions. So we need to speak them!
Like why was I so gravitated towards that damn temptation? Because it fulfilled a temporary void. But temporary voids extinguish. True and real broccoli kinda love, doesn’t. Because it’s what you need. It helps you, heals you, and builds you. Temptation destroys you. This I can confide to you. After feeling like a failure standing in the court filing for divorce, the first thing I did was pour a bottle of wine and sob tears. Not because I was heartbroken because it didn’t workout. Because I felt ashamed. I felt defeated. I felt destroyed. Like nobody else could understand how this feels, yet the stats are far more for what I was going through. But I didn’t care. I was alone in my suffering. Facing numbness, like I lost at life. Like I was given only one chance and I failed at it. I wasn’t seeing the strength it took to walk away. That the tears might have been tears of joy because I finally for once chose myself. Because I didn’t know then, that I actually chose true happiness. You see when temptation strikes and actually hits your bullseye, it does destroy a part of you. A part of you that takes years to rebuild. But just like the argument to all of our problems, as a young woman who is now looking back at her, told myself those famous words. I would never change a thing. Because it’s made me who I am now. It’s only built me to be strong. So maybe after all, that’s what the cookies are for. BUT…will I ever allow myself to be destroyed like that again. HELL NO. I’m mature enough now to know better. The issue is, when we keep making the same mistakes, we’ll keep being destroyed by them. Like that same saying goes, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes". I am all for winning, but not that way. Maybe playing it safe is boring, but it's better than winning at a never ending losing kinda game.
I think breaking the gravitational pull of temptation is a hard thing to master. But once you do, you’ll finally stop being electrocuted by it. Because only then, you’ll be swimming in calm currents by taking the easy path to what's true. The peaceful stroll in the park with no dark woods to run scared through. Someone beautiful told me that real love is boring, but it’s safe, and drama free. We’re just not used to something like that, but once you find it, you’ll feel something tugging at you to stay. That’s how you’ll know you have made it to a safe place. I realized then, that perhaps all of the love that I did ever know was false. But the realization didn’t destroy me. Because I knew why. So I’m not looking for instant gratification temptation kinda love. My mind is set on the path I would’ve never taken. Which, maybe I’m still hung over stumbling making my way towards. But when I get there it’ll be worth the hurtles. And I’m sure it will feel more like walking through trails full of broccoli, but it sure as hell beats being destroyed by a damn Oreo.
Written by: Tiffany Bales
But the truth is… absolutely! So why do we want what is hard? Why do our hearts gravitationally pull towards the opposite of what can truly fulfill us? Is it lack of growth and maturity? Or ladies, do we still need ten more dicks to trip up over? Gosh the same thing goes for guys that I know. Tripping up over toxic bombshelling heartaches that only lead to more disappointing headache bombs, with no damn bomb shelter near them besides the damn toxic bombshell herself with double d's aiming straight at them. Yet somehow, we think and believe it’s real love. Look, I’ve never had real and true love as much as I’d like to believe that I have. I still tried. I stayed in a relationship for fifteen years believing somehow with my entire being that it was real and true. When it was formed in the beginning as toxic. I hated to break it to myself after years of therapy and spiritual growth that maybe I was in love with the idea of being in love that I chose the first person that made me feel something to stick with. Like that excitement, the drama, the controlling behaviors that should’ve only driven me off a precipice. Instead, I believed because of all of the toxic tendencies and temptation that it was real and true steering me somewhere safe. Gosh.. how else are we supposed to see red flags when we are eighteen years old gravitating towards what we believe is true love? The problem there is.. we can’t. Unfortunately we learn from past mistakes. Our younger selves aren’t mature enough to know what love is. And this goes for us single folk now. But love is something built with another. It doesn’t hit you instantly like a pot falling from a window seal. Or a shock of electric waves running through your entire body.. Geeze those ideas of what love is could kill you let alone heal you. Because isn’t that the purpose of love anyways? To heal our wounded hearts? Okay many of you might disagree, but in contrary, I believe that we should be as whole as we can possibly be when we find someone to build a love with. But I also believe that part of ourselves aren’t as whole until we do finally meet that person. And it isn’t going to be this temptation of instant gratification straight to the bedroom kinda stuff. Healthy real “not toxic” love is something different than what we are used to. The opposite of whatever we usually gravitate towards. I know this not from my own experience, but from a few close friends of mine that are happily married to their real true life partners. Because the funny coincidence about all of their stories are these exact few words. “I wasn’t sure I liked them at first.” Seriously?! How many people have we passed on because of that simple sentence. While we’re over here still single chasing assholes because we simply are too good for that skepticism? Wow. Shocking isn’t it?
Let me break it down with my favorite analogy I love to compare love to. With broccoli being healthy safe and real love, and the cookie being the toxic unhealthy love. Look, of course we naturally want to eat the cookie. Why? Because all our life we were told not to. As kids, we always had to wait until dinner for dessert. Our broccoli, we were forced to choke down or pass off to the dog, or sneak into the trash when our parents weren’t looking. So why as adults would we ever want to choose broccoli? The issue is. Somehow we were built up to believe good is boring and gross, and bad is exciting and good. Gosh I can think of so many ways to be creative with my kids that they will actually love broccoli, and not so much sweets. It’s all how we present things that show our kids healthy behaviors versus toxic ones. But hell, past generations didn’t care about feelings, emotions, or all this nonsense we deal with these days. I think they were more harsh because they didn’t have as many diverse realities. Nothing we do is right anymore. There’s more than one way. So of course our connections get crossed and things get tossed and somehow we’re in this relationship that we didn’t even want, but chose because we thought it was just like the cookie. It tasted great, felt great, I mean duh you want that for life. See, we were only told to eat the broccoli because of a demand. Not told with a justifiable why. I truly feel the more we can explain our whys, we would know and make better choices for our future. As our truth and our whys justify our feelings and emotions. So we need to speak them!
Like why was I so gravitated towards that damn temptation? Because it fulfilled a temporary void. But temporary voids extinguish. True and real broccoli kinda love, doesn’t. Because it’s what you need. It helps you, heals you, and builds you. Temptation destroys you. This I can confide to you. After feeling like a failure standing in the court filing for divorce, the first thing I did was pour a bottle of wine and sob tears. Not because I was heartbroken because it didn’t workout. Because I felt ashamed. I felt defeated. I felt destroyed. Like nobody else could understand how this feels, yet the stats are far more for what I was going through. But I didn’t care. I was alone in my suffering. Facing numbness, like I lost at life. Like I was given only one chance and I failed at it. I wasn’t seeing the strength it took to walk away. That the tears might have been tears of joy because I finally for once chose myself. Because I didn’t know then, that I actually chose true happiness. You see when temptation strikes and actually hits your bullseye, it does destroy a part of you. A part of you that takes years to rebuild. But just like the argument to all of our problems, as a young woman who is now looking back at her, told myself those famous words. I would never change a thing. Because it’s made me who I am now. It’s only built me to be strong. So maybe after all, that’s what the cookies are for. BUT…will I ever allow myself to be destroyed like that again. HELL NO. I’m mature enough now to know better. The issue is, when we keep making the same mistakes, we’ll keep being destroyed by them. Like that same saying goes, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes". I am all for winning, but not that way. Maybe playing it safe is boring, but it's better than winning at a never ending losing kinda game.
I think breaking the gravitational pull of temptation is a hard thing to master. But once you do, you’ll finally stop being electrocuted by it. Because only then, you’ll be swimming in calm currents by taking the easy path to what's true. The peaceful stroll in the park with no dark woods to run scared through. Someone beautiful told me that real love is boring, but it’s safe, and drama free. We’re just not used to something like that, but once you find it, you’ll feel something tugging at you to stay. That’s how you’ll know you have made it to a safe place. I realized then, that perhaps all of the love that I did ever know was false. But the realization didn’t destroy me. Because I knew why. So I’m not looking for instant gratification temptation kinda love. My mind is set on the path I would’ve never taken. Which, maybe I’m still hung over stumbling making my way towards. But when I get there it’ll be worth the hurtles. And I’m sure it will feel more like walking through trails full of broccoli, but it sure as hell beats being destroyed by a damn Oreo.
Written by: Tiffany Bales