Be In A Relationship With Yourself

 

 

There comes a time in a lot of relationships when you miss the person you used to be. It doesn’t mean that you don’t love the person you’re currently with, and it doesn’t even mean that they don’t make you happy. And, anyway, the question you should be asking yourself isn’t if they make you happy but do you make you happy?

My good friend always tells me that relationships are always hard because of the compromise. “There’s always shit that you don’t want to do, or shit that you do want to do that you feel like you can’t because of the relationship,” she always tells me.

And it’s somewhat true: every relationship involves some degree of compromise, where you set aside certain pieces of yourself for the greater good of your relationship. But depending on which pieces of yourself you decide to stash away, it’s easy to feel annoyed, angry or even bitter that you felt like you had to hide that part of yourself in the first place.

That’s why you should be in a relationship with yourself — even when you’re already hot and heavy with someone else.

When you are in a relationship with yourself, you remember to do all the things you want to do, all those things that make you happy. You don’t put your wants, needs, and desires aside. You pursue them actively, right now.

Go on dates with yourself. Take yourself to the movies to see that movie you’ve always wanted to see, or treat yourself to that new brunch place you’ve heard so much about but that you haven’t had a chance to check out yet. When you go on dates with yourself, you remember to build a connection with your inner spirit and soul, and that alone will make you a much fuller person.

But don’t just go on dates with yourself or do the things you want to do —indulge yourself into your passions. If you love Italian culture, learn Italian and make that your hobby. If you want to be a DJ, figure out how to make that happen for yourself. The point is, feed your soul by following and developing your passions.

From time to time, step away and ask yourself if you are really happy where you are right now. Are you getting what you need from yourself? Is this how you imagined you life? Is there anything about it you want to change? Do you really see yourself working that same job over the net five years? Being in a relationship with yourself means always checking in with yourself, finding out what you need and pursuing that to the fullest.

Sometimes finding out what you need can be as simple as breaking your worst habits, those traits you have that get on your nerves but which you can’t seem to break. Or it can mean treating yourself the way a lover would — yes, even sexually! Make yourself feel as good as a lover might.

Masturbation is certainly about sexual release, but it’s also a way of learning to appreciate yourself. It’s so easy to give up and get angry when somebody doesn’t love us the way we need, or to zero in on our worst traits and habits without focusing on all the positive things about ourselves. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to hate ourselves. And the hardest? To love ourselves.

When you are in a relationship with yourself, you should love yourself unconditionally because that’s the hardest kind of love to develop. It’s like Samantha said on Sex and the City, that philosophical beacon of relationships and sex:

“I love you Richard but I love me more. I have been in a relationship with myself for 49 years and that’s the one I need to work on.”

The most important relationship you will ever be in is the one with yourself. After nasty break ups, divorces and heartbreaks, you will always be the last one standing.

Romancing With My Shadow

Imagine putting all the bad thoughts and anger you have ever projected towards anyone, all the times you have judged somebody and any other unpleasant feelings you have ever repressed into a shadow…then set it right in front of you.

I have been lost in a dark sea of negative emotions the past 1.5 weeks.  Feeling weighed down by my heavy ego-controlled heart and overcome with anger, sadness and grief.  I really did not enjoy feeling this way so I decided to use this time wisely to re-think and re-evaluate my life. I mustered up all the faith and courage I had to face my pain and to take a closer and honest look at my heart and ask myself “What is wrong?”.  In looking to my heart, I did not expect to meet face to face with the monster that appeared to me last night.  That monster was my own Shadow self.

This previously unconscious shadow is seeking the light of awareness, and it is calling out for my help. That’s when the dance of romancing my Shadow can begin.  When I start romancing my Shadow, I seduce the Shadow figure out into awareness and explore it – Who is there? What is she trying to tell me? Why did she form? What does she need? How can I help her?

I will try and describe how it felt to meet my Shadow self…Imagine putting all the bad thoughts and anger you have ever projected towards anyone, all the times you have judged somebody and any other unpleasant feelings you have ever repressed into a shadow…then set it right in front of you.  Your own mirror of all the things you have ever been ashamed of or hated about yourself, right there inside you.  Your own karma created by none other than you. I wanted so badly to run, but I knew I could not run from me, and that was one of the most terrifying realisations I have ever had. I felt trapped by my own fears.  My heart was pounding, I was anxious and shaky.  I kept reminding myself over and over again to try to breathe and relax, but my stomach turned with a dark eerie sick feeling. And as I looked into the mirror in my bathroom, what was staring straight back at me was years and years of neglect, repression and unresolved pain. She was raging mad and I had kept her locked up, sealed, chained and denied like a prisoner – like I was ashamed she existed. At that moment, I was delivered the biggest piece of humble pie I have ever received. This is proof that the truth is not always pretty.

What would I do now that I have seen my awful and wounded ways so clearly?  Part of me could not stand to be in my own body consciously knowing these parts of myself.  I felt so guilty and ashamed at myself for hurting so many people with my mean and selfish ways.  How could I be so cruel and cold?  I knew I had to pull myself together and think rationally – and more importantly, from a loving space. Trust me, it was hard. Yet this was darkness and the perfect opportunity for light to shine through.

I needed to decide how I was going to handle this monstrous piece of myself.  I knew I could either condemn myself for all I had seen in my shadow, and let it take over my life, or I could use this experience as an opportunity to forgive and accept these ugly and neglected parts of myself I had hidden for what seemed like lifetimes.  I decided I would love and forgive these nasty parts of me.  I spent many tears feeling the repercussions of my own actions, and much time sending out etheric apologies to all the people I had wronged, silently asking for forgiveness.

I now know, first hand, how everything you do has an imprint on your life and the lives of others.  This imprint (or karma) stays with you until you are able to step up and take responsibility for your actions, rectify the situation and clear it.  With this new found awareness, I have taken a vow to do the best that I can to be wise and loving in all of my decisions – thinking of all those involved and acting with compassion and thoughtfulness.

I am my Shadow. My Shadow is free. Together, we have birthed into the Light.

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.  Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.”

–Rainer Maria Rilke

In This Moment

 

 

In this moment…
I am alone.
And though I embrace this stillness…
this periodic passenger of mine 
that finds a paradise in that peace,
I know that less than a heartbeat away
someone else is alone.
And I, in my infinite power 
have nothing to offer but myself.
And that is all the paradise they want, 
and in this moment, 
all that I am empowered to give.
If I give it away, 
the Universe expands 
and I am forever changed.
Not because I had to,
But because it was the right thing to do
…in this moment.

A Meditation on Love

“Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” ~ Rumi

 

So a few things to be remembered. One: love, but not as a need – as a sharing. Love, but don’t expect – give. Love, but remember your love should not become an imprisonment for the other. Love, but be very careful – you are moving on sacred ground. You are going into the Highest, the purest and the holiest temple. Be alert. Drop all impurities outside the temple. When you love a person, love the person as if the person is a god, not less than that. Never love a woman as a woman and never love a man as a man, because if you love a man as a man, your love is going to be very, very ordinary. Your love is not going to be more than just lust. If you love a woman as a woman, your love is not going to soar very high. Love a woman as a goddess, then love becomes worship.

~ Osho

The Dance

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiraling down into the ache within the ache,
and I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery,
sweet lips on my own, every day.

Don’t tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
and see who I am in the stories I live.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don’t tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly okay with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by th e strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have
set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that
help us live side by side with each other, let
us risk remembering that we never stop silently
loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the ea rth that teach you how to dance,
the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet
and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but sti ll the voices within and around us
shout that Soul’s desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your
people and the world
the stories and the songs
you want our children’s
children to remember.
And I will show you how I struggle not to change the world,
but to LOVE it!  

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness 
and our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and
in the sound of small daily words,
holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind,
Dance with me in the infinite pause 
before the next great inhale
of the breath that is breathing us all into Being,
not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don’t say, “Yes!”
Just take my hand and dance with me…

Kickstarting Someone’s Dream

A proud backer of Jack Cheng’s “These Days”

Back in 2012, I backed US$35 on kickstarter.com with the intention to help make an aspiring US writer’s publishing dream come true. It was probably one of the top things I did in that year that makes me smile each time I think about it.

Titled “These Days”, Jack Cheng leads us into a world of startups and an examination of the human side of technology, of both the makers and the end users, who are often one and the same. It’s about finding happiness and fulfilment in the digital age; a meditation on time, memory and things gained and lost in an accelerating world.

I love it when someone sends me a handwritten note.

And as if that wasn’t enough reason to back Jack (which it is, by the way), my name would also appear as one of the 961 Kickstarters backers – printed under the “Credits” section. Amazing.

My name! Look! Yay!

Apart from the material gratification, it makes me happy to be a part of someone’s dream – in which a small contribution on my part helped turned that into a reality.

Lately, I have also been thinking a lot about a wonderful quote from Paulo Coelho, “When you want something, all the Universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” Like many of kickstarter.com’s thousands, Jack had a dream. And because it was aligned with his vibration and life’s passion, he projected this dream right out to the far ends of the Universe and in turn, the Universe responded and gave him exactly what his heart asked for.

So when was the last time your heart felt a conviction so strong, so powerful, that you knew this would be the one thing that your soul yearns for? Perhaps it is time to dust off the layers of fatigue, past hurts and let go of the “you do not deserve this” limiting belief. If there is one thing you could do today, let it be about reinstating your personal power to become the beautiful person you were always meant to be but have forgotten. Let’s do this.