BLOGS

Love is the energy that connects all of us to one another.  We are bound to one another through love.  Or as Yoda says, “My ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”  So love binds us together making us one and yet we do not have boundaries (see my blog on boundaries). It is fear that makes us feel separate and distant from our truth. Our truth is love.

You fall in love and that love binds you to the other.  You feel the connection.  You want it to last “forever.”  Love is infinite.  So, why does love in your life not last forever? As Yoda mentions, you are not just of this physical crude matter.  You are so very much more! 

You feel that wonderful connection of love inside you!  Your core lights up and your heart sings.  You know love from your inside experience.  Yet, we try to keep love alive by doing external things and by communicating about external expectations.  

Love binds us through a beautiful and endless energy.  It is our fear that limits it and lets it appear to end. To be bound by love is to go beyond all boundaries and limitations of life.  lt is to go within where the “journey” is endless.  Bound to the love of self.  Trusting in the truth of you.  

To be bound in love with another is to invite the other into your inner being.  Bound together on the “journey” within you.  Bound together in the “journey” with the other person.  Boundaryless as you embark upon life’s infinite experiences within each of you.

Love.  It binds us.  It takes us beyond all boundaries.

How do we keep love alive?  For love to continue it cannot be stopped or limited.  Love is about opening.  Opening your Self, each other, and doors in life.  Limitations are about fear.  Limitations stop love from opening and growing.  In a relationship each person is responsible for keeping love alive.  Each person will have their strengths and weaknesses, styles and patterns.  So, when all of this is put together, we have several key parts to keeping love alive in a partnership.  Today I will address the unfolding awareness, communication, and behaviors that you and your partner can implement to keep your love growing!

Awareness in a relationship is a foundational key!  A true partnership requires each person to be aware of their own Self, each other, and the experience they wish to have.  Once the awareness is active it will constantly unfold in life.  In other words, awareness leads to more awareness.  You can see how this is a key part to the opening of the relationship and its love.  The more aware you are with your Self, the more you know your strengths and challenges.  The more you are aware of your partner the more you realize there is a lot to know.  Your awareness will open you to not thinking you know. The assumption that you know your partner or your partner knows you, limits the relationship.  The opportunity to learn stops immediately upon that assumption.  Awareness!  It will help you see that life is a constant adventure of exploration, not an endpoint of knowing the answer.

As your awareness becomes a rhythm in your own life, you will wish to communicate your new learnings.  Each person wants to be known.  As you gain awareness of your Self you will want others to know you.  That is true of your partner as well.  Each of you is in a constant state of change.  So, how do you communicate so that you are embracing the constant change?  I teach a style of communicating called Teach and Explore Communication. At its core is Compassionate Curiosity.  If each person in a partnership can learn to stay in a constant state of Compassionate Curiosity, then they will always be asking questions to explore their partner.   If you are in a constant state of exploration of your partner and you are willing to be explored by your partner, then you will always be on an adventure of learning about one another and life, together and as individuals. Compassion is a key ingredient to love.  When it is coupled with curiosity, it opens doors endlessly.  When a couple learns to constantly open doors, their relationship will keep moving and growing!

In a healthy, growing relationship, your communication deepens beyond verbal and into sexual.  Sexual expression is the most intimate and opening form of communication between partners.  If you are communicating in a way that opens doors, sexual expression will continue to grow and be exciting.  It can stay a form of intimate communication rather than a behavior. The sacred exchange that can occur during lovemaking can unite the two of you beyond your physical bodies. Because of this, it is critical to keep your bedroom as a sacred place (not that you are only going to have sex in that room!).   Too often, sex is a behavior in the relationship and consequently, it becomes boring or uneventful.  Incidentally, boring is the absence of self.  If there is an absence of self in the sexual expression in a partnership, then slowly sex will become uninteresting, and the partners can drift apart.  If sexual expression remains a part of a deeper communication between the partners, then it will continue to open and be a point of exploration for the partners. 

As your awareness becomes habit and your communication is anchored in Compassionate Curiosity, you will both want to experience more of life with and through one another.  There are many ways in which partners can enjoy physically experiencing their relationship.  Each day, set aside a time where you can sit quietly and talk.  Make it a time that both of you can look forward to.  Create a weekly date night. For example, experience a new restaurant every Friday night! Take, at least, an annual trip together ALONE.  This does not have to be expensive, just intimate. Introduce spontaneous intimate events throughout life.  For example, sharing a hot bath, serving the other for a day, planning a picnic or an event that is special to your partner.  I often make the couples with whom I work, speak with only their eyes.  It is an amazing experience for them.  Can you do this with your partner?  Another idea is to create a love game with little cards that you hide around that, when found, have an instruction of what you wish your partner to do.  This can be intimate sexually and/or emotionally.  Have a movie night periodically, at home or at a theatre. If you are readers, share your reading time.  Open your day with a quote of affirmation or gratitude and share your interpretation of the statement/teaching.  Awaken each morning and look at your partner and say, “Thank you for being beside me.” As you crawl into bed at the end of a day, share three things you are so very grateful for in your partner and do your best not to repeat them.  Regardless of what you choose to share, the idea is to create an experience where, as partners, you are focused on one another, figuratively or literally. There are many ideas that can be shared here but without the awareness or communication, they are just tasks that will slowly slip away into the shadows as you get lost in the day-to-day monotony of expectations.

Keep your love alive by opening doors!  If you limit your partner you are limiting the partnership.  Teach your partner about you and ask your partner about her or him.  Do your best to work at being Compassionately Curious! Then learn to play!!  Play together like you just met! Always. May each of you find great, endless love in this life and beyond!

How are you going to use texting this Valentine’s Day? Will you text your beloved that you love him or her with a heart-based emoticon? Will you send a text to your friends saying “Happy Valentine’s Day” as a meme or gif? Will you try to be the first to say I love you in a text? Pay attention to how you text on this Valentine’s Day.

Too often people are developing and maintaining their relationships through texting or messaging rather than speaking. That may not be the best way to express our love to those who are important in our lives. It is a day to express our love for our friends and our beloved. Just about every one of us will send at least one text to say “Happy Valentine’s Day” or “I love you.” Be conscious of those texts. Ask yourself, “Would I be as comfortable calling this person(s) and saying exactly what is in the text? If the answer is yes, ask if you would be as comfortable saying it to their face, and then if you are you should do so. If the answer is no, honor that fear within yourself.

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As parents and families approach the holidays gifts are fun and yet stressful due to the amount of money most people feel they need to spend. Let’s review some ways you can make your children happy and not create stress or financial worry.

Historically, gifts given during the holidays were in honor of creation in life — whether that is freedom from tyranny, the birth of a master, or the end of the dark and beginning of light. In other words, gifts were an exchange of a spiritual honoring. Each family needs to come back to their religious or spiritual meaning with their children. Spiritually, gifts were useful and promoted the life of those who received them. If parents use that philosophy they can bring the kids to a different mindset about the types of gifts they will receive at this time of year.

American culture is based on spending and uses marketing to the children as a way to coerce families into spending money they may not have. We do not want to transition away from toys completely because they are the gifts that promote the life and creativity of the child. Furthermore, society pushes toys as gifts of expression and, so, the children would have an emotional reaction to the absence of gifts of this nature. I do, however, think by setting a very different stage based on love and growth, children will not compare their gifts to those children who do not have meaningful gifts for the holidays. That awareness must be set into the traditions.

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If you glanced at the eclipse with the naked eye, you saw the sliver of sun amidst the ball of light of the sun. You are light amidst light. On this plane, you experience dark as a way to define the light. We see things as separate: you and me, day and night, fear and love. In truth, there is no fear. Fear is illusion. The darkness always leads to the light. Light will always squelch dark. You learn fear but enter into this life as love.

The moon shines as light because it reflects the light of the sun. Yesterday, the moon blocked the light of the sun. It did not squelch the light, it blocked it. The dark cannot squelch the light. The sun shined bright beyond the illusion of darkness. To the naked eye, the ball of light continued to glow even though the day appeared a bit “darker”. Such an illusion.

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Hate is fear; fear is the absence of love! Within your Self, when you judge and hate you are not able to feel love. You may think that your hate and judgment are about the other person or group of people but it is only happening inside you. You are the one living with the hate, rage, anger, and heavy density. It clutters your mind and shadows your heart. Consequently, you are the only one who ends up suffering until, of course, your anger causes harm to others.

We are given this life and we were given free will. Free will says you have the right to live with your hate, anger, rage, and judgment. Free will also allows people to live in harmony, love, unity and peace. Free will gives each of us the opportunity to live this life as we choose. What it does not do is support the destruction of the free will and the rights of another human being.

You are not born with fear and anger or any of the fear-based emotions. You are not born with judgment since judgment comes from fear. You learned all of that, and the beliefs associated with them, in this lifetime. You thought you had to believe as you were taught to believe. But now you have a choice. Do you want to live with love for you, from you, and for others? Or do you want to live in absence of love? Do you want a life filled with pain, suffering, anger, and heat or a life filled with love and happiness?

Can you be grateful for who you are at the same time you’re hating another? The answer is no. So, yes, it is your right to hate, judge, and be angry. It is your choice to live at that level of suffering. Just remember suffering begets suffering and fear begets fear. It is love that begets gratitude, joy, and love. So, I ask you which do you prefer? And be clear, because even if you were feeling anger and hate at those who are angry and hateful you are feeding the darkness not light.

May each and every one of you be graced with gratitude, forgiveness, and love.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. How often did you hear that in your life? How often have you said it quietly to yourself or out loud to others? Have you ever stopped to think about the depth of meaning in that wisdom? Let’s address the meaning and significance of this wisdom.

I previously wrote about passing it forward. If you read that, you know that the intention behind what we say, do, and give is critical!! It’s also critical how we receive. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. That’s telling you that everything you do, say, think, or project (in anyway) is to be in the name of how you would like to experience it. That’s a very very steep challenge. And yet, you are all capable of achieving it: one baby step at a time. The challenge begins with an understanding of the cycle of doing unto others in the way you wish for them to do unto you! I will then address three areas of mastering the wisdom of doing unto others. Each is a bit deeper than the previous. I will address awareness as it relates to the behaviors and words spoken. Then I will move inside to the thoughts you may have so you can gain an awareness of your thoughts. Finally, I will address intention – the most internal piece of expressing onto others!

Do unto others is also about how you receive. Receiving is doing unto others. Have you ever attempted to give a gift and the person literally rejects it? Or, have you ever given a gift that someone is not comfortable receiving? And what is it like when you give a gift that is received gratefully and open heartedly? The circle in life says what we pass forward will always come back! We will always do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Whatever we do, in any way, shape, and form, we are passing that forward. Even if it’s only an intention. For example, I buy somebody a gift to make them feel guilty. That is not a very nice gift. The intention behind it is hurtful. Guilt is hurtful. So that is passed forward. And it comes back one day so that you have given in the way you want to receive. You have done unto others as you would have them do unto you??

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Once there is a split in the parent’s relationship, the world of the child has been severely disrupted and usually feels destroyed. This is a time to create and maintain consistency. It is critical to the healing of your child during this time. So, at the holidays, it is a good idea to address what part of the holiday traditions and rituals are a match to your child and which can be changed. It can be tremendously healing to create a new tradition with new rituals or with old rituals to offer you and your child the opportunity to embrace this new beginning in your lives.

Create your new tradition with your child. Ask what she would like to change or keep. If there had not been a clear tradition prior, then create a tradition with your child. The process of creating a tradition with your child offers him a sense of involvement and importance. It allows him to value the tradition and rituals that you choose to change or create.

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Now that you are aware of how to create an atmosphere that is friendly and accepting where the loving emotions are prevalent and the gifts are given lovingly and you are communicating, you have the ingredients to create the experience you and your child wish to have during the holiday. What is the experience your child wishes to have? What is the experience you wish to have?

Begin by asking your Self and your child what the ideal holiday would be like. Take notes on what each of you wishes to experience and then as a team, develop an experience that includes each of your dreams. You can find that there is no part of the desired experiences that needs to go unfulfilled. It will take patience and creativity. For example, if your child wants you and your ex-partner to be together, show understanding of that wish. Talk with your child about how he would feel if the family was to be together during the holiday. Take note on the way the child would feel. Ask what the pros and cons of previous holidays were when the family was together. Then help the child to develop an experience that embraces the feeling she is wishing to have during the holiday and help her see she can have the joyousness she is wishing for even if the one family is now two!

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As the discussion of holidays for children of divorced or separated families continues, the focus is now on communication. The prior three key components to happy holidays for divorced families included acceptance, loving emotions and environment, and gift giving. Communication is inherent in all three and yet must be addressed separately. Communication is the key to all experiences in this life. Given this topic, it is important to keep your communication focused on your and your child’s needs and happiness.

Communication must begin with you. As a parent it is important that you know how you are feeling and what you need. Are you struggling with the loss of the relationship, with low funds, with anger? Or are you feeling freedom and excitement? You want to explore your own feelings and thoughts first. If you are struggling or suffering in some way, take the time to write your feelings and thoughts down in a journal. Review the writings and ask your Self what you need in order to temporarily move beyond these stressful emotions and thoughts. Do you have family or friends or a professional with whom you can trust to help you shift from your pain during the holidays? If not, then reach out to someone!

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