Sex and HeartHow I transformed devastation into love and loving lust

“I was reading sections of your book again. I can’t read it all at once because there is so much feeling and emotion in it, and it speaks to me in ways no other book ever has. So I read a bit here and a bit there and then digest that so to speak and try to feel out how it would work for me.

The one thing that really struck me is the fact that you actually opened up and went where he was going. Those porn sites. Opened yourself up to it and at the same time to him. So it is not all about leaning back to get what you want, sometimes it is stepping up and forward to be a part of what he is and wants. Or am I seeing that wrong?

It is of course something that you did for yourself. explored and discovered, but I am wondering if what he did had not triggered you in that way and you had not done what you did – would you be where you are today with yourself and with your relationship?

You did that for yourself but didn’t you also do it for the relationship because he was worth it? You together were worth it”

Okay. This is important and needs clarification, firstly what I did back then and also to demonstrate the subtleties which can arise when you are working on leaning back. I understand where you might see this as me leaning forward, but I did not step forward to be a part of him, in other words to change myself to please him, nor did I do this thinking this would be what HE wants. He didn’t ask me to share any of this with him. This would likely have never occurred to him. He DID NOT ask me to participate. I don’t believe he even secretly wished for this.

The unspoken was for me to accept him for who he is, to TRUST him in his love for me, to accept that what he does has no bearing on his feelings for me, not his love nor his lust, that it’s absolutely not a reflection on me whatsoever. He may have had a habit, but he did not have an addiction.

I could not accept all of this at face value though. Many women can but not me. When I don’t “get” something, I have a need to understand, to feel what a person feels and think how they think as closely as possible. In this case the only way I could come up with to delve into K’s his mind and his heart in order to reach an understanding within myself was to immerse myself in his behavior.

Eventually there came a time where I felt compelled to ask for a front row seat right up close and personal, i.e. ask to share it with him that I may see for myself how innocuous it is for him with my own eyes and to also feel this with my entire body.

He had no idea what I was doing for a long time. He had no idea about the work I was doing on myself. He did not know I was exploring porn for myself, but this exploration was not necessarily as a form of entertainment. It was a means to an end, a way of overcoming a deeper fear. This was the only way I felt I could truly meet the fears that porn aroused in me, head on. He had no clue until the day I asked him to show me what he does.

I had a huge resistance to and fear of porn. But why you might ask. I don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that his porn habit was a trigger for much more important issues inside ME, things I may have not been aware of or if I was, I had up until then, ignored them or pushed them away.

This alone would have been cause for me to look at and explore this dramatic reaction within me complete with intense obsessive thoughts. I was clear that this was something I needed to address inside myself. It meant something much deeper was happening in ME, something having nothing to do with porn.

Delving into porn really came about because the revelation that the enjoyment he derived by looking at it brought me to a place where I had to decide if this was a deal breaker. I had to ask myself, was this thing he did which was a habit and not an addiction, for it did not interfere in our love life, our life as a couple, nor with his own life, something that I absolutely could not live with?

I had to ask myself if all the other really wonderful stuff worth rejecting over this, a silly habit? Was this man, this relationship worth it to me?

Somewhere inside me I knew this was a very special man, special enough to for me to finally deal with my stuff. Yes he was someone worth it enough for me to do this work. If he hadn’t been, then maybe I wouldn’t have braved the elements inside me. For if I had not faced my fears which were not porn but what this triggered in me, then likely we would not still be together and if we were, it definitely would not be the intense passionate, deeply intimate bond we now have.

So not only was there more going on here aside from the porn, I also had something at stake, this relationship. This man who in every other way was a perfect fit, a soul mate if you will, was yes in a sense the impetus, but he was never the instigator.

This was really about me and for me. I had deep issues that had been plaguing me for much of my life. I had never felt good or comfortable inside myself let alone around men. I had always wanted a REAL relationship with a man, and I also wanted a happy relationship with myself. But my fears seemed to prevent me from digging down as deeply as I would have to do to get what I wanted. It took this, something that shook me to the core, but I didn’t do it for anyone else but me.

Sure I hoped he would respond positively. Sure I wished his habits would change too. But my goal was get to a place where whatever happened, I would be okay.

So I wasn’t leaning forward at all. I was in fact leaning back. I was taking care of me.

So though it might look like I was leaning forward to become part of his world in this, I was actually leaning back to take care of my heart and my spirit and my body too, for the only possibility for me in coming to accept if not embrace this “thing” and thus all of K, not just pieces of him, was to grab the bull by the horns so to speak. I had to immerse myself in this “thing” FOR ME, so that I could see for myself how not a threat it is to me. I did it to heal a piece of me.

And as result of my healing I inspired some healing within him which included new thoughts and feelings around porn but more importantly his own heart and spirit and how that relates to us.

As I have said, love brings up anything unlike itself to be healed. The world and especially intimate relationships are a reflection.

xxoo

It can be frightening rediscovering yourself, the REAL you. It can feel shaky and insecure under there for a long time. It may always a little bit. Or those feelings can resurface now and then when you are faced with something new thus out of your element or comfort zone. Or sometimes for seemingly no reason at all.

It’s not easy getting rid of the old stuff, in part because it’s become such habit and in part it’s been a part of you for so long it’s soothing in an odd sort of way. It’s familiar, and there is comfort in the familiar. Letting that stuff go not knowing what may lie beneath is a very, very scary thing. The unknown is, well….scary.

Something about which you may have pondered and which could add to the anxiety of this process is this question. What exactly is there under there lurking beneath those sometimes seemingly impenetrable layers which have been your shields of protection and wherein has been trapped the ickyness of pain and hurt? Is it something even more scary? Maybe I’m empty. Maybe there is nothing at all.

You really don’t want to think about things be worse than, so your rational/logical self might tell you that since you are releasing things, letting stuff go, habits that no longer serve you, fears which interfere, there will then be a void appearing as you discard the detritus from your wastebin; an empty space of nothingness will be uncovered.

That could be interesting as in new possibilities, but it sounds like it would feel awful too. Nothingness is after all rather empty, and that conjures numbness which feels icky all by itself. You really don’t want to dwell on another negative, but your wheels are turning now, so you might then take this further and think that maybe instead something else will have to be put there in this newly cleared spot or expanse as the case may be.

Well…there really isn’t an emptiness, nor will a hole be left behind. Nor will there be anything else needed to replace what’s being cleared away. As you work and process and release, what you are doing is peeling away these layers to reveal what has always been there, something that had been squashed down, compressed into tiny nuggets. What’s really under there are little lumps of pure gold all ready and waiting to burst open and shine. What’s really there is LOVE.

Look at it as unveiling and revealing the real and authentic you who has lain there quietly, patiently or maybe not so, buried under the walls and/or curtains of deep pain and hurt, traumas accumulated over the years, all of your own making and likely at the time justifiably so.

As the walls come down and the curtains part, you may think you feel a blankness in there, but really that’s not what it is. What you are feeling is newly liberated, opened space where there is now room for those compressed bits of love to swell up as big as they will, like dessicated little sponges now able to drink from the well of loveliness that is YOU to transform into what they always were, what you always were. They now can breath fully and fill up the spaces that your stuff used to occupy. They now have the freedom to move and dance more freely. You now have the freedom to be YOU.

All that love, YOU, your love is now uninhibitedly available, and she is eager to glow and burn brightly, radiate beautiful, peaceful love. As you release more fear, it will continue to get easier to allow the love to come forth and flow, the love that is you.

So the more your love circulates, remember to love on yourself lavishly, you the most important person there is, pleasure yourself, a must as you enter loving, passionate, healthy relationships. I don’t necessarily mean masturbate though if you feel inspired, please do. It’s amazing therapy plus it feels good. Glow golden goddesses, GLOW…

xxoo

I had another piece in mind to offer this week. It was nearly finished, but I received a reminder, an inspiration, so I’ve switched gears and offer you this slightly different perspective on something I love to talk about, as much as sex, LOVE.

I want to reiterate something I have spoken of often, that we are ALL born as love. This thought and feeling bears repeating over and over again, for it’s far too easy to become overwhelmed with “life” and thus let this be masked, hidden even from our own consciousness.

This innateness we carry is often buried under many, many layers of hurt, pain, or trauma though. So in order to rediscover who we really are at heart, we must set off on our journey of uncovery which can be difficult, filled with its own pain, as the layers are peeled away.

This journey is not for the faint of heart. It’s not an easy process uprooting old ickyness, but it most definitely gets easier, and the rewards are beyond anything you can imagine and then some.

Love is frequently presented as the opposite of fear. I have said this numerous times, but how about looking at it this way. See if this resonates with you more.

We are all made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not.

All our emotions are made of the very love in which they float as well.

And the negative emotions we feel are just bits of flotsam floating around in the pool of our cores, and this pool is love.

All things beautiful and ugly, courageous and fearful, kind and not so kind, powerful and subservient come to be, affect us as they do for awhile, and then they drift away to transform into something else in this endless pool of love. IF we allow ourselves to fully feel these emotions.

So how about this: True love is not the opposite of anything. For true love is far more powerful than any negative emotion.

You can remain trapped in a negative feeling eddy within your pool if you don’t allow yourself to fully feel these emotions, yet still this pool is love, true love.

It is an illusion that you are separate from this gorgeous love force that drives your being and keeps the universe in motion. It is this same illusion which causes you to believe that choosing anything other than love could make any sense or even be possible.

In this seemingly dualistic world of positive and negative, darkness and light, male and female, you will still feel “bad” feeling feelings, and you will still feel good feeling feelings; you will still have to make decisions, choices; you will still have cause and effect arising from your decisions, choices, and you will learn from them, or you won’t.

Underlying all of this though which is likely found in the shallow end of your pool, quite accessible, is the true choice which is to be aware, conscious of what you are which is love or to be unaware, unconscious.

When you become aware enough to realize you have this choice, it’s inevitable you will choose love which is what you are anyway.

When you are able to have this awareness, that we are all made of love, it will facilitate an ease within, a peace, a joy, a loving wisdom intertwined with a delightful sense of fun, as you live your days knowing that love is all there is.

The love that you cultivate or return to with your awareness will shed light on the love that is everywhere, that connects us all, and this light you shine will shine more brightly to maybe light the way for another who may have forgotten their own love or lost their way.

You are here to remember love. You are here to choose love. You are here to be love. You are LOVE.

xxoo

When you as a woman come to a place in your life when the  desire for an extended journey inward is calling so strongly you can’t but heed the call, you might ask what will happen with everyone else in my life, my significant other? my children? my friends? everyone else who plays an important role?

Will they notice? How will they respond? Will it make them feel good. Will they feel more connected to me? Or will they feel threatened? Will they abandon me in search of status quo?

For the most part, your inner workings, the struggles, the triumphs go on inside you mostly unnoticed to the extent that no one will come to you and tell you that it seems as though you must be working on yourself.

But they might notice something which they can’t quite put their finger on. They might tell you you seem different, ask you if have you cut your hair.

The more deeply you plunge within and weed out, release the “stuff” you no longer need or does not serve you, the things that keep you from being the person you want to be, the woman you really are at heart, the greater are the chances are that someone will feel it, especially those close to you.

Someone more astute might notice that you seem blue, a heaviness pervading you during a time when you are working to peel away a particularly nasty piece, or they might perceive a peacefulness enveloping you, a lightness following the relinquishing of that big, bad chunk.

As you journey, you may have periods of intense introspection, and during this period you may be immersed in some old painful blocks within which may manifest outwardly as troubled and irritable or quiet and withdrawn or sad and gloomy or morose and pensive or just kind of off.

As this releases, you will feel amazing, a huge relief like a big sigh but better. Maybe more like an orgasm. This can manifest as a lovely calm or a huge smile on your face, energy pouring out of you.

You can, and it’s probably a good idea to talk about whatever arises in you with a close friend, a confidante, a coach, or a therapist. Women do very well, much better usually if there is someone on whom they can unload, use as a sounding board, as a support system.

Journaling is an excellent tool as well though I suggest it as an adjunct and not the sole tool.

You can tell your man, and it’s probably a good idea that you do when you feel ready. Tell him that you feel introspective lately, disconnected maybe, whatever it is you feel. You can even tell him you’re sorting things out within yourself, that you want to dig out “bad stuff”. You can tell him you are working to open your heart up even more, as you let go of old habits. You can tell him you don’t want him to think you’re upset with him.

I DON”T suggest outlining your journey with him though.

It’s just not a good idea to share the details with your man. They do not understand this work the way we do, for the most part. They think differently; they work things through differently though the end result can often appear the same.

I have never spoken of my process with K. Speaking out at all was so foreign to me anyway when I began my last, most intense lap. I didn’t tell him anything at all for a very long time. Fortunately for me he is very sensitive and knew I must be working on something or dealing with something. He’s also enormously patient, so he never probed, nor did he take it personally. He lovingly works under the assumption that I will tell him what’s bothering me when I’m ready, or I won’t, and he’s okay either way.

But as I became stronger within myself, more secure, felt safer, once the darker clouds lifted I did eventually tell him what was going on with me. I told him I had been having a tough time, digging down deeply, letting go of unneeded, unwanted “stuff” which had been interfering. I told him I had been working on releasing fears.

But that’s all I told him. It’s not that there are secrets between us. You all know I don’t believe in secrets, for it gets in the way of true intimacy. He’s welcome to read any and all of my journals I kept at the time, but he has no interest. Nor would most men. Or maybe he instinctively knows it wouldn’t be a great thing to do, for there are things in there which when taken out of context could cause him pain. It’s unlikely though that thoughts such as these even cross his mind.

There have been a few times when mention of my processing has arisen, and I’ve tried to explain, but he doesn’t “get” what I’m saying. His eyes start to glaze over very quickly as would most men.

It’s not that he doesn’t care. He cares deeply. He just doesn’t need or want to know all of this. You see unlike us, men don’t need or want to know every little thing we women are thinking and feeling, the whys and wherefores of our heart and mind processes.

I’m more open and connected. That’s all K needs or wants to know. Not how I got there. Not what I uprooted. Not what I felt as I traveled through nor what I thought. He only wants to know the now. This is typical of most men.

And this frustrates many women, for most of us want to talk about it all, explain ourselves, go over every little item. Rather than allowing this be to a source of frustration, let it be, and go tell all to your best girlfriend. I don’t even try to discuss these things with him anymore, and it no longer bothers me.

Men process differently than women do. Naturally there are some men who push things away, ignore things just as many women do.

But for those who don’t, it seems to be a much more internal working  in that it’s not shared with others. They don’t feel that burning need most of us women do.

I think too men are just more accepting of things as they are, their thoughts, their feelings, the moods of their woman, so they don’t usually turn them over and over, upside down and inside as we do. They don’t tend to let things eat at them. An example might be, “this hurts; this will pass”, and then it does. They tend to live more in the moment than we tend to.

I’m not saying men don’t have emotions or don’t show them, but they do so in their own way. They will expose themselves and their feelings in different and many times in more subtle ways than we. And they will do this when they feel safe.

You might ask when and how do they feel safe. Men feel safe whenever it is they feel safe. This cannot be forced or rushed.

You create that safety by allowing him to be who he is, accepting him warts and all, by being okay with whatever he does or does not do as long as he’s not hurting you and if he does, you would tell him how awful whatever it is feels, and you don’t want to feel that way. Or you can negotiate.

The feelings of safety will happen or they won’t. Being anxious about it interferes.

You can create that safety by feeling good within yourself, feeling love for yourself, doing things that make you happy, by taking care of you.

Much of the male inner work is unconscious, often prompted by our inner work. Remember they take our lead in this.

As you work on you though, you have to keep in mind all the time that you cannot make him or anyone else do anything or see anything. He will, or he won’t. If he comes along for the ride, great, but you can’t make him.

Could this mean the end of your relationship? Sure, there is always that possibility, but ask yourself this, would you rather stifle your growth to accommodate another? I hope your answer is no.

You may very well grow apart. But if the love between you is strong, the connection deep, these elements can only become more so.

There’s nothing more for you to do. He can take your lead, and he likely will if you are closely bonded, but remember his process still won’t look anything like yours.

xxoo

As you work on yourself, and shifts happen, little changes, big ones, little let gos, big releases, you may have noticed that the people around you seem to be changing as well, and sometimes seemingly commensurate with your changes.

Are they really changing? Or is it your view of them that is changing? In other words is it your perspective of them that has changed as you clear away your defenses? Or is it true change?

These are interesting questions. I would want to say that yes whenever you change, the world around you does as well. I want to say yes you have that kind of power. We all do. And I’m not going to say otherwise. But I will suggest that there is more to this, for as you release and let go of old patterns, habits that don’t serve you anymore, as your energy lifts higher, your vibration is raised, you can’t help but look at the world and the people around you with different, less negative eyes, eyes filled with more love, eyes of deeper compassion, wide eyed wonder.

I do firmly believe that as you peel away layers to reveal the more authentic you which is love, others can’t help but shift along with you. It’s inevitable. Especially the ones close to you. It’s like the butterfly effect. Or the ripple effect. As you relax and release, you feel more comfortable and open, so others can’t help but feel the same. They feel safer around you, closer to you because you feel that way within YOU. If they are as aware as you, they will consciously work to peel away their own layers, maybe taking your lead.

Regardless, you have given them the space and the place to do so. You have created this for them, and in turn they for you. It’s a lovely dance.

But at the same time, your eyes are more open. There are fewer clouds blocking your view. You are able to look at others with more love since you have released more of it within you, so any and all will “look better to you.” It’s also inevitable. I might even go so far to say that some of these others weren’t as “bad” as you thought all along. Your “stuff” was getting in the way, so you were unable to see what was really right in front of you all the time.

These questions arose for me this past weekend. I have released and let go of SO much over the years as you all know. The relationship with my beloved has deepened and grown closer, safer yet more intense, more passionate, more profound. I also feel more comfortable around most people, more at ease because I’m more aligned within me and more true to me. I feel more love flowing through me than maybe since I was an infant when all I knew was love.

I went to see my father over New Year, and I have never felt so close to him, more in the same or similar vibrational togetherness before. He seemed so delighted to see me, be with me, connect with me to the best of his ability to do so. This felt amazing.

I began to think about this. Has he always been this way, but I was unable to see, mired in my troubles as I was, justifiably so or not? Or does he feel more comfortable in my presence because I have opened to him and allowed him in? Would he have always desired to be close to me, and it was I who wouldn’t let him? Or has my growth enacted this connectedness?

When I was a child, he was emotionally unavailable. He had many issues of his own, and I felt them, took them on. I know now he was doing the best he could given what few if any tools he was given by his parents, but as a child all I knew was this man was there, yet I couldn’t feel him at all. He took care of my physical needs, mostly, but that was the extent of it. There was NO connection, no feeling of love.

Indeed over the years he has done some work on himself too, as much as he has been able, as much as he could handle. Yet the more work I did on myself, the more I opened to him, the more I feel he has opened to me in kind. The more I have released, the more I feel his release. Did my work compel his? Maybe. But maybe he has been open to me always and just waiting for me to accept him. Maybe it’s been my vision of him that was distorted, and now this has cleared.

Maybe both dynamics are at play. I would say yes to this. I propose that all of this holds truth. Our changes change others, but our perceptions of others can change just as much.

But does it really matter? I would say no. All that matters is that YOU work on YOU. You will feel infinitely better within yourself, with your choices, your life, and all the people around you. You will feel more aligned with yourself and the universe. You will feel more in love with yourself and everyone else. Whether you are seeing others with fresh eyes or you instigate their growth is irrelevant.

What is relevant is that you have created more love within you, and this can’t help but change the world AND your perception of it. And therein lies transformation.