Holy Relationship bound

Whew! What a day yesterday! Talk about stewing in my own muck and crappy thinking! I spent hours feeling uncomfortable and irritable. Although I knew this wasn't the highest possibility, ultimately, I allowed myself to just be there feeling everything; I learned so much! I had been feeling a desire to approach my husband about a concern I had. I got the urge the day before, and decided to process on my own. I woke up with the same urge to approach him. After some consideration, I decided to go for it. After speaking, I didn't get much out of him (it appeared) and I interpreted the experience as standing on a stage professing my truth and him giving me a single clap. I placed a lot of pressure on him to appreciate my "performance" and to see all the nuances of my vulnerability, courage. I wanted him to know that I desire him to share and communicate with me his VISION FOR OUR FUTURE. This is what I told myself was true. But was it true? Did I question any o

A frequent ego trap for me in the past (key phrase here) was the thought that my husband does not communicate with me . My perception was that he didn't like sharing with me, or didn't trust me with his feelings. As I reread those first two sentences, I realize that this experience triggered feelings of unworthiness and feeling unlovable. I admit, I don't always share 100% of what is on my mind; however, when I have been upset in the past, I felt the need to talk with him. I had expectations of him responding, then and there with an equal amount, or at least SOMETHING. This has set me up for repeated disappointment, resentment and hurt. Recently, I decided to reduce the number of questions I asked him. A friend of mine who shares the same enneagram number with him (see post: losing yourself in a relationship to learn more about enneagrams), told me that questions overwhelm her. After I heard her say that, I began reducing the questions like: How was your day? How was

Last night all the elements of my perfect melt down were presented to me. I felt the well of emotion from who knows where, my mother's mother's mother. I felt betrayed and disrespected and hurt and afraid. Luckily, my work of clearing my mind of fear thoughts helps me to re-align with peace more quickly. For a few minutes there I felt like such a hypocrit. All of the messages I am providing in this blog to achieve the Holy Relationship were thrown out the window and I was easily offended, suspicious and looking for signs that my husband was the enemy. Whew! It sucks! I hadn't been here in months which in itself is a miracle and a blessing. What got me out was a practice of forgiveness: Ho'oponopono. Ho'opononpono is a hawaiian prayer that essentially is: I love you. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. This is a clearing prayer. In the period when my husband was out with friends and sounding inebriated and slurry, I felt my being go back to

In Byron Katie's Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet, the final step is to put a stressful thought after the words, "I look forward to." Many times I have felt rejected by my husband. I have felt that he rejects my cry for love. I have felt that he rejects my feelings, and/or my requests. While doing the process Byron Katie calls, The Work, I have explored this experience of rejection. Her process encourages you to turnaround your stressful thoughts in as many ways as you can. If my original statement was "My husband rejects me," I can try, "I reject him"; "He doesn't reject me"; and "I reject me". In this process, it is possible to see the mirroring of my own unhealed behavior. What I have come to notice is the way that many of us reach a point where our romantic partners, bosses, children, mothers, fathers, friends do not give us that love we desire. We experience suffering due to our disappointment and conclusions that

I watched a Byron Katie video where she said, "When you love someone,  you want what they want"...blew my mind. She said this in response to an upset audience member who was hysterical that her partner had wanted to be with another. Byron Katie looked at her with compassion and listened to the participant say, "I don't want to be YOU, Katie. I don't want to be so evolved if it means my lover can be with others." Byron Katie held her sweetly and then said something to the effect of, "Oh sweetheart. To love someone is to want what they want."I don't expect my husband to only love me." "If he had an affair, I could ask him how it was". She went on to say that that LOVE doesn't want anything. This did not comfort the audience member who was indignant and wanted her partner to be wrong, which I so appreciated and related to. I recall being at a retreat with Jennifer Hadley who said, "If my partner adored me and fulf

According to the Enneagram personality archetype, I am a 2. Twos are helpers and givers. In addition, my first instinct for relating is intimate, meaning, I put the needs of others and the whole before my own. In the past, this combo was a recipe for putting myself last and allowing relationships to eclipse my own sense of self and my own desires. The beauty of my path of awakening is that now I know that I am not my personality. As I wrote previously that there are many influences that I sense in my being. The highest truth is that I can from God and I AM SPIRIT. I AM ONE with the energy of the creator. I have learned that my personality is a tool, a catalyst for my growth. Through the temptation to unlovingly ignore my own needs, and give to get love to feel secure, I inevitably met pain and suffering. This pain and discomfort taught me to go another way. I remember when I was in my twenties, I took an entire English class for my boyfriend. I read the books and wrote the papers

A Course in Miracles teaches that there is only ONE MIND. In workbook lesson 95 its says, You are one Self, in perfect harmony with all there is, and all that there will be. You are one Self, the holy Son of God, united with your brothers in that Self; united with your Father in His Will.  This quote encourages me to remember that I am in harmony with my brothers and sisters, strippers, pimps and....trying to remember the name of the male strippers.....Chip & Dales :). I am ONE with them. If I walk into a strip club with the Dalai Lama (from Part 1's post), we can focus on experiencing the ONEness. My mind is exploring this thought.....  I can admit that in order to go a strip club, I would want to feel safe and secure. One of the ways I am working on establishing safety within myself is tuning  into and consulting my Higher Self, also referred to as "The Wisdom Seed of Potential," "The Divine Self," "Inner Guide", or "Inner Goddess.&quo

This is where I may lose some readers :)..or heck, gain some :). I remember being at a week-long retreat with Iyanla Vanzant, author, spiritual teacher and tv host of "Iyanla, Fix My Life." The first thing she said was "I am f*cked up" which blew my mind. Later on in the week she said, "I want to learn how to do a lap dance." I was totally stunned. It is not that I am a nun and no need to go into stories or try to prove my non-nunness, yet I just didn't see the clear connection between spiritual studies and sex. I saw them as two different things. Or a blurry, confusing mess, actually. As I commit to true willingness to be FREE and to release all of my judgments and opinions, AND have a loving relationship, this is topic that deserves some time. I have recently thought of writing a book called, "The Dalai Lama goes to the strip club." I thought, if I can figure out how the Dalai Lama would act in a strip club, I have a model for wha

I'm inspired for my posts to respond to quotes from Byron Katie's book "Question your thinking, change the world." Here's today's: When you don't love the other person, it hurts, because love is your very self. And you can't make  yourself do it! You can't make yourself love someone. But when you come to love yourself, you automatically love the other person. You can't not. Just as you can't make yourself love us, you can't make yourself not love us. It's all your projection. What I get from this quote is that I haven't known LOVE according to it's highest, purest form. I've known attachment and entanglement.  When I ask myself the question, "How can I get to a point where I know myself AS LOVE?", I think: meditate. It's brilliant because I can sense this is where the intellect meets a wall. You can't think your way to knowing yourself as LOVE. In my awareness, this must be experienced

I have heard many spiritual seekers ask this question, "How do you know if you should stay in a relationship?". I love this Byron Katie quote: Once we begin to question our thoughts, our patners-alive, dead, or divorced-are always our greatest teachers. There's no mistake about the person you're with; he or she is the perfect teacher for you, whether or not the relationship works out, and once you enter inquiry, you come to see that clearly. There's never a mistake in the universe.  (I felt that statement was bold-worthy!). So if your partner is angry, good. If there are things about him that you consider flaws, good, because these flaws are your own, you're projecting them, and you can write them down, inquire, and set yourself free. People go to India to find a guru, but you don't have to: you're living with one. Your partner will give you everything you need for your own freedom. It's quotes like these that prompt a huge sigh of relief f

I recently heard my spiritual teacher, Jennifer Hadley share that Earnest Holmes and the Science of Mind teachings describe our thoughts as a container, a mold into which God pours in life/creation. Whatever thoughts we hold, energize, entertain begin forming a mold for God to pour creation energy into, and thus become our experiences. Today I experienced my husband as a sweet and innocent being. He was showing me that he has been looking at optical illusion pictures on his phone, and sending them to his friends. He read to me that in the picture he was viewing, there was supposedly a whale, an eagle, a bear and something else. Then he said, "I can't find the whale." His eyes were wonderous and his tone so innocently sweet. I recognized the marked difference of the times I hold him in my mind like an untrustworthy enemy. I would dare say, "mother f*cker".  How can he be both?  I have also heard Jennifer Hadley share that we become disappointed at times

This blog is my journey to the Holy Relationship. I am seeking all signs, lessons, messages, symbols and teachings that give me a piece to this puzzle. Yesterday the piece of peace I received was the notion of "being the love." I received this message in a counseling session. My client was expressing fear about her family members not being ok in the future. What came through the session was that even if her fear were to materialize and her grandson did go to jail, it wouldn't change HER function and her focus to BE THE LOVE. I have a similar feeling of fear of the future of my marriage. I fear that in the future, my husband will not choose me and he will leave me. I fear that all of the beautiful experiences we have shared will be overcome by resentment and distance. I fear the separation that A Course In Miracles talks about will essentially spoil our marriage. Fears of the future rob me of my opportunity to witness the blessing of being married NOW and offering the

When I met my husband back in 2009, it was an intense “intrigue at first sight”. I felt a deep connection to his gaze, and he held me very tenderly and intently. I can’t prove that we had known each other before, but my first thoughts were “Who are you?”. “How are you so captivating?”. Fast forward to present day, we are married. I would say that up until just a few weeks ago, most of our eight-year relationship we were in what A Course In Miracles calls the “special relationship.” He was an idol to me. His love, affection, reactions and actions could send me soaring to feelings of intense happiness, or plunging into dark places of fear. Feeling that I needed his love, his affection, and his undivided attention would send me into moments of fear, rage, jealousy and suspicion. Thanks to the brilliant work of Byron Katie, I began questioning the thoughts that often sent me spiraling. Her process of asking the four questions, “Is it true?”, “Can you absolutely know that it’s true?”