I've been lamenting about possibly going back to living as a boy. I confided this into the lady who does my eyebrows. (lets not comment on how stupid that is or sounds) Anyway she said she felt that I was not on the right path. That maybe I shouldn't try to be a woman and go back to being a guy. Sounds bad but she means well.

So she said I should ask God for guidance. I figured 'what the hell' and did so. I said to give me a sign that I couldn't miss because I was very dense to my surroundings. If he wanted me back to give me a sign.

So I finish my eyebrows and start to walk home. I stop at a local Loaf and Jug, buy some candy bars and pepsi and go up to the counter. A cute guy standing behind the counter looks at me and says, "Has anyone ever told you you look like an Amazon princess?"

So did I get my sign or just hit on, or both?

I would say both.  You are to continue on to womanhood.

...So am I a christian again? Why can't my life ever be simple?  Then again I did ask.

You have 777 posts.

Jackpot?

I would say that could well be the sign you were looking for, Terra. 

And, yes, you did get hit on.  Nice, huh?

I think most of us have so many doubts as we go forward.  This is a difficult path, but I think the little incidents like yours at the Loaf 'n Jug help clarify it.

(And I don't think you necessarily have to be any particular religion or even believe in God to be able to read the tea leaves.  You just have to be open to what the world around you is telling you.)

- Kate

You are grasping at straws. Talk to your therapist you have issues yet to deal with.

This is uncanny! When I was trying to decide what to do at the end of my enforced reparative therapy I took a trip to Amsterdam. This would be about 1983.

On the way over on the ferry I went up to the onboard cashier and changed some money. I got a handful of notes and a one solitary Guilder coin (this was well before the single currency). I too had been looking for a divine sign as to whether or not to transition as I wished. At the time I called it looking for a fleece after Giddeon's famous fleece from the book of Daniel.

As I left the cashier I saw the line of four wheel fruit machines on the boat. I don't generally do gambling, but acting on sudden inspiration I prayed "Look lord, if I'm really meant to do this it is going to be very expensive. If I put this single coin into the machine, please let it come up with the jackpot as a sign."

I pulled the handle and not really expecting anything I slowly walked away. Clunk Clunk Clunk Clunk, then there was a pause.... then suddenly pandemonium! Bells and sirens were going off, lights were flashing and all I could hear behind me was the gushing of coins as the machine emptied itself onto the floor paying out a jackpot of well over £200. I think the wheels had stopped on something like 7777.

I honestly nearly dropped dead on the spot because I knew for certain, in that instant, that my change had been personally divinely sanctioned in a very direct way that even the pope himself could not have convinced me was not a personal, direct and surprisingly instant answer to my prayer. I knew that it was only a matter of time before my dreams would come true.

Shortly afterwards I transitioned without medical help and self medicated for about a year (which knowing what I know now of the risks I really wouldn't recommend) and then a short while later I used the money I had won to fund my one and only private visit to the gender psychiatrist who thankfully broke all the rules and wrote me out a surgical referral on my very first visit.

Just over 18 months after the ferry incident I was a postop woman. The rest, as they say is history.

I know it sounds unbelievable, but that is absolutely the way it happened for me.

Quote from: lisagurl on March 20, 2010, 09:06:46 AM
You are grasping at straws. Talk to your therapist you have issues yet to deal with.

Youch Lisa.

I've always been spiritual, and always been practical. Being hit on is not normal for me. In the last 2 years of living as a girl I can literally count on one hand the number of times i've been hit on, especially by a guy.

So the odds that less then 10-20 minutes that I look up at the sky and say, "give me a whopping sign if you are there and if you want me to be a guy or a girl" that I get hit on comes across to me a as a huge coincidence. Possibly to big to be just a coincidence.

Maybe I am 'grasping at straws', but thats why i'm asking. Either way its food for thought.

Quote from: lisagurl on March 20, 2010, 09:06:46 AM
You are grasping at straws. Talk to your therapist you have issues yet to deal with.

Sometimes you know, there is more to life than solid material rationality. I'm living proof of that.

I have to say I think it's a bit of a stretch to go from someone believing in divine signs to telling them that they have issues.

Many perfectly sane religious people do live their lives that way. I don't personally do so these days, but I have done in the past...

So sorry but I beg to differ.

If you want to see a sign, then you probably will, such things become their own self-fulfilling prophecies.

QuoteSometimes you know, there is more to life than solid material rationality. I'm living proof of that.

Life is always changing as are your emotions and divine feelings. Many have had tattoos that now regret it. Transition is forever and many that have transitioned have committed suicide afterward. There is nothing divine about changing gender you need solid rational reasons that is why we have gatekeepers.  Higher probability success comes from planning, a step by step approach , rational expectations and a reasonable results. Las Vegas banks stay in business because of customer divine feelings.

Quote from: lisagurl on March 20, 2010, 05:22:41 PM
Life is always changing as are your emotions and divine feelings. Many have had tattoos that now regret it. Transition is forever and many that have transitioned have committed suicide afterward. There is nothing divine about changing gender you need solid rational reasons that is why we have gatekeepers.  Higher probability success comes from planning, a step by step approach , rational expectations and a reasonable results. Las Vegas banks stay in business because of customer divine feelings.

All absolutely true... and obviously as someone who up until that little episode had lived almost all of my childhood as a female, with the help of my family, and only gone through reparative therapy at the insistence of a rather unsympathetic 1970's gender shrink I am not going to start arguing about the value of planning and being rational.

The fact is that up until my own little episode my whole life had been leading up to one thing - namely SRS.

BUT - during my reparative therapy I had also caught religion, and not just any religion, but a rather extreme evangelical form of it too.

Now if you have never been infected with fervent religious belief (and I think I use the words advisedly) you probably won't understand this, but sometimes, when you need to overcome the foreign prejudice and irrationality that is injected into your thinking, as a poison, by the religious leaders and so called pastors - you NEED a little irrational thing like a sign or some such to help you find the courage to do what deep down your rational self KNOWS for absolute certain is the right thing, and indeed the thing that you HAVE been meticulously planning.

It seems to me that you may not understand the sheer power of religious brainwashing that can happen. That's why those of us who have been captured by that can sometime place what you may feel is an irrational faith in a chance happening.

The fact is it is just a mental trick to allow one to silence the inner voice of our pastor or whoever it is who is trying to bully and control us. Having something like this gives one the courage to escape. My family, for one, were hugely relieved that that silly chance event, brought me to my senses and started my exodus from the religious sect and return to the rationally planned set of events which I had previously abandonned.

These days happily I belong to a more accepting faith. But back then that little "sign" litterally saved my life. Horribly illogical I know - but before you argue against this I really think you should perhaps try walking a mile in religious shoes...

Terra isn't mad or unstable, she isn't doing this on an irrational whim. I would guess she has planned, as indeed I had. But she is obviously battling religious programming from control freaks and so she needs that little extra help to find the courage to follow the rational course.

I hope I have at least been able to explain that a little.

Quote from: tekla on March 20, 2010, 10:00:02 AM
If you want to see a sign, then you probably will, such things become their own self-fulfilling prophecies.

Quote from: lisagurl on March 20, 2010, 05:22:41 PM
Life is always changing as are your emotions and divine feelings. Many have had tattoos that now regret it. Transition is forever and many that have transitioned have committed suicide afterward. There is nothing divine about changing gender you need solid rational reasons that is why we have gatekeepers.  Higher probability success comes from planning, a step by step approach , rational expectations and a reasonable results. Las Vegas banks stay in business because of customer divine feelings.

I really wasn't expecting anything. But in my experience things have happened that were just a coincidence that have kept being coincidences. An example has been my transition. Every time, and I mean every time something has come up to stop my transition something else comes along and makes it so I can keep going. Maybe not as smoothly, but it does. Top it off with I keep hearing the same things from various people on certain topics about myself that I don't share. Some sources I respect very much, others not as much, but all keep saying the same thing. Its a pattern, same as with my transition. Cause and effect and so on. So when I ask for a sign I can't miss and get it. Yeah, gives me a pause.

I wasn't really expecting anything to happen, and now that something has I still don't know what to think about it. You don't believe in signs? Fine. But you can't really dismiss that it was a bit of a coincidence. Does that mean I should drop everything and run for this guy? No. Does it mean I need to rethink everything in my life? Maybe, maybe not. Does it mean I should give it a second thought? Yes.

I know someone or something has had my back my whole life. So suddenly having this very un-ordinary just means that I need to think about some things. That is all. So I think i'll go with the fact I got a sign for now.

I believe that transition is our mission.
I also believe 100% your stories of signs from the gods that transition is the right choice.
I recieved obvious signs from the spirit realm that made it very clear that I must transition this lifetime.
I do not want to live anouther life as a transsexual. One lifetime of this pain is sufficient.

There is a Harvard book called "The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine by Anne Harrington " She is a professor of medical history.
She also wrote The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. I am not religious and was threatened by a pastor that I could not be a member of the church if I did not believe. So I told him thanks for the favor and left.

Praying is setting up your subconscious to make decisions so you follow the path of your desires. The fact that you are even looking for a sign is using your subconscious rather than the conscience reality of rational thinking. Many people have to think about things and sleep on them till a solution is at hand. This is still a form of using the subconscious. But still to have rational reasons and a plan is needed to be the highest probability of success you can have. It does not hurt to have a positive attitude and to be tenacious in your pursuit. Sometimes you have to repair mistakes because of things you were not aware of and keep on track. But to blindly interpret metaphoric signs is not the way to plan the rest of your life.

In Literary theory, Stanley Fish and John Guillory tell any interpretation can be a misreading. So be very careful as to what you read into things.

Lisa just because science can not prove the spirit and the influence of the divine does not preclude its' existance.
You are on the spirituality thread not the philosophy forum. We who believe have come to this part of the board to discuss spirituality.
So maybe you just might have taken the wrong exit in Albuquerque....

Quote from: lisagurl on March 20, 2010, 07:18:51 PM
There is a Harvard book called "The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine by Anne Harrington " She is a professor of medical history.
She also wrote The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. I am not religious and was threatened by a pastor that I could not be a member of the church if I did not believe. So I told him thanks for the favor and left.

Praying is setting up your subconscious to make decisions so you follow the path of your desires. The fact that you are even looking for a sign is using your subconscious rather than the conscience reality of rational thinking. Many people have to think about things and sleep on them till a solution is at hand. This is still a form of using the subconscious. But still to have rational reasons and a plan is needed to be the highest probability of success you can have. It does not hurt to have a positive attitude and to be tenacious in your pursuit. Sometimes you have to repair mistakes because of things you were not aware of and keep on track. But to blindly interpret metaphoric signs is not the way to plan the rest of your life.

In Literary theory, Stanley Fish and John Guillory tell any interpretation can be a misreading. So be very careful as to what you read into things.

No offense Lisa, but I kinda agree with Cynthia. Faith isn't the absence of doubt, it is the belief in spite of it. That does not mean I reject the facts at all, or twist them to suit my worldview. I am a scientist, and the repeated probing of my world has hinted that there is more underneath everything. I have seen to much and felt to much for me ever to reject this as anything less then fact. As to what exactly that fact represents is a matter of differing opinion.

I have rational thought. Hell, I have the problem of turning off my rational thought. I pride logic above all yet I know that some of the things of this world simply defy logic. Our transgendered existence for one, or the simple fact people can't seem to get along without the need to resort to killing, and war is simply a scaling of that.

Yes I prayed, but that does not mean I subconsciously wanted an outcome. After all i've asked for signs before, but this is a different set of circumstances from those times by far. Don't look down on those who pray or look for answers out of the ordinary. There have been many scientists that the deeper they delve into the secrets of the universe become more convinced that there is a force behind it.

The idea of saying that 'something is way too coincidental to be a coincidence' does seem like reaching.  I think Lisa is right, if you are setting up in your mind for something to happen, you will, most likely, see it happen in some sense.

Quote from: tekla on March 21, 2010, 02:18:04 AM
The idea of saying that 'something is way too coincidental to be a coincidence' does seem like reaching.  I think Lisa is right, if you are setting up in your mind for something to happen, you will, most likely, see it happen in some sense.

It isn't reaching when it is following a pattern, or when the odds are against the occurrence. Yes it may be a coincidence, but the odds of the event occurring in the time frame are rather remote.

If it had been a day later I probably would have just been happy. Had it occurred hours after the payer I would have been skeptical at best. But in less then 20 minutes on my walk home? Highly unlikely. The odds were against the occurrence. The odds get worse since the occurrence hasn't happened to me from a guy in the last 2 years of living as a girl except mostly from 60+ men. Take also the fact that I was dressed in a men's leather jacket, jeans, taller then the guy, and rather windblown from the snowstorm occurring at the time.  Oh, by taller I mean i'm 6'4" and he was maybe 6'2".

So to recap, the event occurred less then 20 minutes after the prayer while walking home. The event had not occurred more then maybe 4 times in the last 2 years. I was not dressed to impress nor with the looks to do so. I just happened to come across a guy who apparently is into either tall women or women of masculine build.

So if it wasn't some sort of sign, it was a hell of a coincidence. That is all I was trying to say.