Sex and HeartHow I transformed devastation into love and loving lust

Committed love What is it? What does it look like? How does it play out in the real world?

My definition of committed love looks like this.  It means I want to be with you and only you, body, mind, heart, and soul. I adore you and cherish you.

I am passionate about you, can’t imagine being with anyone but you.

I love being with you even if we’re doing nothing, just BEING together.

I am whole onto myself, yet you fill me up even more, take me to places I can only touch on alone. You don’t complete me, but you make me feel bigger, more expansive than I do alone. We feel great by ourselves and even better together.

I love you and want you more every day, nearby me, inside my body, inside my heart. I feel more at ease and comfortable, more ME the more we are together, separate yet as one. You bring out the best in me in all ways.

And this kind of commitment isn’t necessarily voiced aloud, yet the understanding of it is so profound. There is no question in either person’s mind, no words needed even though they may slip out now and then or more often. I have come to prefer the randomness and spontaneity of the occasional. The words never carry lost or diminished meaning this way.

Yes it does feel really good to hear, yet the actions say so much more, in the open, welcoming, glowing eyes, a safely comforting embrace, the warm, accepting, enveloping heart, through passionate lovemaking. Committed love is not calculated. It just is.

The deeply intimate bond I speak of rarely if ever happens without having been together for a while, years even, that place you can only get to with time, as your energies and spirits intertwine and feel almost as familiar as yourself.

This kind of love goes way beyond lust though lust definitely still factors in. It’s when you know each other so well, there are no more surprises, yet each moment together is a surprise, a happy one even in the midst of challenge or turmoil. Each minute a delight even if there’s pain. Each hour soul filling even if there’s a feeling of disconnect. For even when you feel a distance, there is an energetic cord between you, invisible yet tangible which cannot be broken.

It’s not a question of forsaking all others. The others don’t even figure into the picture. We may or may not recognize there are others, “appealing” others even, but they are passing images in the periphery. We don’t want them. We only want each other.

When two people are deeply connected in love and passion, it’s not that there’s no one else in the world. Yes we notice attractive people, BUT we are not attracted. Yes there may a little buzz of arousal, BUT there is no desire for that person.

And yes we have friends, dear ones, deeply loving ones, but it’s a different feeling, fulfilling in another way altogether.

It is often said that over time love becomes predictable, but I have to say my heart flutters more now when K walks in the door at night than it ever did in the beginning, and the joy emanating clearly from his eyes and through his smile, love radiating from him when he sees me tells me he feels the same.

Sex is never boring, people are. A little creativity and imagination go a long way. Relationships never grow stale, people do. None of this is hard work. It feels easy. The work on self is the challenging bit, difficult at times, painful, but the bond between us is our anchor, our source of respite, home. This is true love. This is committed true love.

xxoo

Is there really a difference? Is one “better” than the other? Isn’t deep commitment far more meaningful than what any piece of paper would dictate? Or are marriage vows the ultimate? Or does it depend on circumstances?

It seems to me that there are many people, women predominantly, who become so consumed with the IDEA of marriage and all they imagine it entails including (and maybe more importantly to them) the pretty dress and the flowers and the party. These women seem to get all caught up in a romantic creation and sometimes seem to close their eyes to the truth of what is.

It seems as though many of these same women lose sight of what this is really all about. Deep commitment, loyalty, fidelity, and most importantly, lovely, luscious love, profound, playful passion, and truly intense intimacy.

I’m not against marriage at all. In fact there is something delicately sweet and special about the real idea of marriage that goes beyond words. Yet paper or no paper, it wouldn’t change my feelings for my partner. Or would it?

We are deeply committed to each other, possibly more so than a great many married couples. Both of us can only imagine being with each other ’til death do us part, so why marry? I could ask this.

There’s something really sweet and lovely about living in the moment too, day by day, and not at all with the thought of “just in case something better comes along”. This notion wouldn’t even cross our consciousnesses, for we have found what we want in each other and then some. In fact we exceed our most secret dreams of what could be possible in a love partner.

There is no question of exclusivity or not. It just is. So in reality there is no “future”. There is only right now. And right now is amazing, incredible. Why would we mess with this? I could ask this.

For in a way, marriage feels like a constraint imposed by society and the government meaning it can be difficult to maneuver within the legal system without it. Meaning if anything happened to either one of us, the other would have no legal rights whatsoever. Which would mean neither one of us would be legally entitled to anything belonging to the other. So why not marry? I could ask this.

I resist and reject this imposition, yet it’s a very real one and one we may very well be faced with one day. It feels like a cruel thing to force onto  couples, those like us who carry fear and distaste around the idea of making what is such a beautiful thing into a contract.

But on the other hand there is still something kind of nice about the idea. If K asked I wouldn’t say no, but he has fear around it as do I, fear that it will change the dynamic between us. It probably won’t, but fear is fear. That said we probably will marry someday, as an afterthought, not as an event, and sadly it feels to me, as a convenience.

The real deal is already between us, so sealing that would feel anti-climatic.

Though actually going through with marriage still scares me. Like I said it wouldn’t change anything unless we set ourselves up for changes. Yet there is still that tiny little piece within that’s afraid this will spoil the fabulous thing we have by maybe unconsciously setting expectations that weren’t there before. I understand these fears are illogical, yet they persist.

But then again it would be maybe a little something extra that only we would share between us. So for us maybe the difference between being deeply committed as we are and actually getting married would be like the difference between a Veuve Clicqout Grande Dame and a Cristal champagne, both delicious and decadently expensive with little if any variance in quality and taste, aside from what WE determine are the subtleties of difference.

The point in writing this piece is this. I have been noticing increasingly that women are rejecting perfectly wonderful men because they don’t want or can’t go just yet to signing what is aside from financial reasons a worthless piece of paper. Love is in the heart. A ring and a fancy party cannot change that. I am asking you to reconsider. A deeply committed man trumps an indifferent man any day or worse a lying, cheating husband.

A marriage certificate guarantees nothing on an emotional/spiritual level and not even on a financial level. Ultimately only you can decide what feels best for you, but I ask you to please think deeply about this before saying no to the next guy who in all other ways make you go all weak in the knees, brings a smile to your lips, brightens your day, and makes you feel SO good.

xxoo tinque

Real love feels good.

It’s really that simple.

You may not feel blissful in every moment, but at core love feels deep, unwavering, and wonderful.

Anything but real love will leave you feeling anxious, drained, sad, bad. At core you will feel instability, maybe a sense of emptiness, and kind of icky much of the time.

A man who is unable to step up, a man who is self-absorbed, a damaged man, a toxic man, a man who does not or cannot love you, every little bit of you will not feel good.

Yet many of us stay anyway, maybe because part of us feels unworthy of better, but it’s ALSO because we THINK we feel something, the real thing. But this something is IMAGINARY.

Yet you hope he’ll change; you think that YOU can change him so that you may have what you have dreamed of. AND you will also find yourself constantly making excuses for this kind of man. This is NOT love.

When it comes to love, and women seem to be far more prone to this than men, we can easily fall in love with the romance of it all, the fantasy of the man or the fantasy of the love that we have made up, wished for, dreamed of. We fall for the story we have created in our heads, but this is not necessarily the reality of what is.

And you see this everywhere, in your own love life, those of friends and family, and very much so in books and in the movies. It may be all you know, so it can be very easy to get caught up in what isn’t, a fairy tale you have written for you.

Sadly not much of what we see depicted in various media actually leads to an authentic experience of love. Instead it leads to illusions, and even more sadly, we can desperately clutch at these illusions, at what we think is love, and not surprisingly we suffer because it’s all built on false ideas. So they vanish as easily as the mirage they have been built on.

In the early stages of a relationship, you can feel anxious, excited, nervous, and thrilled. What you are feeling is the romance and the lust. You are also feeling  possibilities, but this is NOT love. This is romance, and romance is fun. There’s no question about it. But if you make more out of it than it can possibly be when a relationship is blooming, the romance can become painful if it does not grow into what you have imagined.

Romance may lead to love, but it can also fade without blossoming into anything more than a wilted bud. If you continue to hold on tightly to it, try to make it more than it is, you are setting yourself up for more pain. This is a relationship that was never meant to last, so it will hurt.

Desiring true love, wanting your one and only to manifest is apparently something we are born with. It drives us. It’s seems to be our ultimate quest, especially but not exclusively for women.

So when the love you think you have causes you to suffer more than to feel healed, you can be fairly certain that what you have found is not love but something else, a pretty story.

REAL love on the other hand feels GOOD. There is a peaceful quality to an authentic experience of love that penetrates to your deepest deeps, touching that part of you that I often speak of, that innateness which has always been there. True love activates this inner being, filling us with warmth and light and beauty.

An AUTHENTIC experience of love embraces you exactly as you are, no changes requested. Though you have worked to develop a deep and abiding love for yourself, when you are truly loved by another, this love awakens an even more profound love, for self and for your beloved who mirrors back to you your lover within. It creates a never ending spiral of deep and abiding LOVE.

TRUE love does not inspire neediness or lack. REAL love does not create anxiety. AUTHENTIC love does not feel bad. It EMPOWERS you with the ever present message that you are, always have been, and always will be love, PURE LOVE.

xxoo

Can you imagine feeling your full, lusciousness, your goddessness which is your birthright as a woman most if not all the time? Can you imagine feeling fabulous no matter your size, shape, or age?

Can you imagine a heart so big and open and spilling over with love, you can suspend yourself over the edge of a precipice utterly fearless? Can you imagine this precipice as love for yourself? How about your man?

Can you imagine allowing yourself the freedom to feel wonder and awe each time you touch, kiss, embrace, make love? Can you imagine feeling renewed, replenished in the gift that your lover fills you with, his member as well as his love? Can you imagine falling in love over and over again with the same man?

When our relationships don’t work out, we tend to push our goddess selves aside. We lose faith in love. We may even believe that love is for anyone but us. We fall into the trap of believing we are unlovable, undesirable. And this just keeps our true goddess self even more deeply buried.

But you are lovable and desirable all the time. You are a goddess all the time. If you can believe this, then you will naturally do the things to make you feel this even more, your juiciness, your gorgeous goddess self. Goddessness will ooze from you more and more. You will feel this wonderful feeling more and more even when your heart is hurting.

One of the most critical things you must do to recapture your goddess self if she has faded into the background is to stop being critical of how you think you look. You only look that way to you, and this perception must be changed. You must come to own that you are beautiful regardless of anything, period, end of sentence, nothing more to say.

You are uniquely you, and there is nothing more beautiful than that. Why compare yourself to another when there is no comparison to be made.

Every time you pass a mirror, blow yourself a big kiss. OUT LOUD, tell yourself you are beautiful, stunning. Tell yourself how special you are. Tell yourself you love yourself.

Yes you may feel silly doing this, but do it anyway. Yes your lying little gremlin voices will want to jump in and deny everything you just said and did. Tell them to shut up. In time you will believe yourself.

It also doesn’t matter how much you get done in a day or what you do to make money. It doesn’t matter what you wear, what kind of if any make-up you put on, or how you style your hair. The images the media give you are NOT REAL, so ignore them. Avoid magazines if you must. Change the channel on ads that promote these kinds of falsehoods. Fixating on any of this keeps you from coming into your true self.

All that matters is that your heart is open and you are experiencing all the joy and love the universe has for you whether you are in a relationship with a man or not. You are always in a relationship with yourself, “THE ONE” whether “the one” is in your life or not. “THE ONE” is you by the way. There is no greater love than love for you. “the one” is a wonderfully lovely extra surprise.

And when he is there, you WILL be able to feel every little bit of him with this huge heart you’ve allowed. You WILL feel each and and every nuance when you make love. You WILL fill up with SO much love. You WILL fall in love with this amazing man and with yourself over and over again, maybe every time you see each other. Because you WILL feel brave enough to be vulnerable with your heart, with him. You being all the goddess you can be.

So open your heart as big as you can. Feel the freedom therein. Speak in her voice. Expect nothing. Be forever surprised. Feel your love. Love what you feel. Embrace your sensuality. Love your sexuality. When you are experiencing your fullness, living each moment as if it is your first, when you cease to be constantly in your head and you sink deeply within your body, feeling all that you feel, your true goddess self can than emerge unabashedly, vibrantly alive, full of lusciousness. Step off of your safe little ledge, and just know that someone or something will be there to catch you. (YOU MAYBE?)

Loving yourself hugely and freely, allowing yourself to be authentically you is the biggest turn on, and it gifts you with a grace and essence that is timeless, eternally youthful. And this can’t help but enhance “THE ONE” and thus attract “the one”.

xxoo

Attack from the blue can be a strange and uncomfortable experience. Confusing. Disconcerting. Upsetting.

Has this ever happened to you? You are carefully, mindfully with as much care and concern as you can muster in the moment, and it is genuine, offering support or comfort to someone in pain, when out of seemingly nowhere, this person launches an attack. The more you attempt to explain yourself or soothe this person, the harder he/she comes at you it seems.

I had to really ponder this one, ask myself what this could possibly be. Where does it come from? Why? I can understand it if there was underlying malicious intent or maybe some negative thoughts, possibly conscious or unconscious judgments behind my words of encouragement, but when sincerity and grace are the essence? It seems not to make sense.

Yet we are all products of our pasts. For instance if nearly every time someone was offered kind words, especially when young and vulnerable, and these words were repeatedly and rudely retracted then similar feeling words could set off warning bells when someone even hints at tendering a kind word even if truly spoken.

Or if behind a seemingly caring smile and sweet words, lies lay lurking, then this person may have developed a sense of mistrust of anyone offering solace. Or if this person has been at the receiving end of broken trust from the mouth of a benevolent seeming figure, any similar situation will be cause for alarm, and the fur will bristle, the claws will be extended, the fangs bared, the walls will go up, and the ammunition raised. And this all can happen very quickly ANYTIME someone offers loving support.

Pretty much nothing you can say to this person no matter how lovingly presented will resonate with their bruised and damaged being. It may only fuel the fire more.

If it is you who is under this sort of attack, you must with all you have maintain calm, and keep your heart as open as possible even though you’re hurting now too, feeling slighted, abused even. Your every instinct might scream at you to attack right back. But please don’t. The only thing to do in this situation is to breathe deeply, back off, and leave it be.

But what if you are one of these people who tend to attack, or just feel like you want to, your every fiber feeling threatened even though it’s really love that’s being given? How can you heal this?

Knowing that you can be triggered in this way is a start and the biggest piece of this. Looking for habitual patterns within yourself is another. Desire to more realistically realign your responses is yet another piece.

Now when this situation next arises, take a really good look at the person who seems to be the cause of your feelings. Has this person consistently been a figure of love and support? If yes then you must go inside as deeply as you can, and discover what is it that triggers this response in you. Bit by bit work to relinquish its hold on you.

Always taking a look at yourself first is a good idea anyway whenever you feel triggered whether you react this dramatically or not, for the world IS our mirror. Chances are what is triggering you is your projection, you pasting your apprehensions and fears onto this person in front of you, and this poor person is completely innocent.

Whenever someone summons a strong negative response within me, I look within to see if this is something within me that I dislike. Or is it something from my past that has nothing to do with what’s at hand, but somehow it’s reminiscent, and it’s triggering this incongruous response. Or it could be very real, and it’s your instincts at play though that’s subject for another discussion.

People who lash out are inevitably in pain. As much as they may initially arouse pain and/or anger inside you, it’s very helpful to recognize their reactions have little if anything to do with you. Knowing this will help calm the desire to strike back.

This is a good time to practice opening your heart to them even more as difficult as this may be. NO ONE is a write off. NO ONE. We are all struggling. We are all on our paths, working through our lessons at our own paces. We are all flawed. And we are all beautiful in our imperfections.

Underneath all the “stuff” there really is love. In love there is compassion. I encourage you to find yours which will inspire others to do the same.

xxoo