People say not to judge someone from a first date. And there is some truth to that. But I believe there are certain things that you can take from a first date that give you some indication about the potential for a real connection. A good relationship typically means that you connect on a few different levels: emotionally, mentally, physically, and (hopefully) spiritually. Compatibility and shared goals are also important. And even on a first meeting with someone there may be indicators that will help you asses the possibility for a real lasting connection.
Emotional connection means that you feel a comfort level with the person, when talking, doing, or just plain silent. Their presence feels good and is comforting to you. It’s intimacy. Now, of course you don’t always feel intimacy with someone you just met. And sitting across the table from someone in silence may feel awkward at times even with your closest friends. But, take notice how you feel while sitting in a car with them or looking at a menu. Basically, notice how you feel when you are both semi-distracted with something else. Are you feeling sort of relaxed and comfortable with them? Are you able to feel like yourself? Does it feel (even just a bit) cozy? Emotional connection also means having compatible emotional intelligence. Do you feel that the person takes notice of the way you feel and is responsive to it?
Mental connection means that you can have a good conversation. That when you say something, you feel understood on some deeper level. That you can laugh together. That you listen when they speak and they listen when you speak and you find each other interesting. That you are genuinely curious about them. That speaking to them is fun. That you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts and don’t feel the need to censor yourself or filter what you say too much. That you actually want to or find yourself telling them about yourself.
Physical connection is often tied to emotional connection and is perhaps the only thing that is not necessarily indicative on a first date. The only first date indicator I think of whether you can have a good physical connection with this person is the comfort level emotionally, because that may ultimately determine how much you enjoy their touch and physical proximity. If you are actually turned off to the person then it may not be the right person for you, but if you are sort of neutral about them, its worth giving it some more time.
Sometimes we meet people who are not the right person for us but who take us to the next station on our path and our experiences with them help prepare us for the right person. So, as always, I will say, ask yourself how you feel inside. If you get a good feeling about going on a second date then go for it, and if you get a bad or indifferent feeling you may want to delve into what is giving you that feeling and whether its a legitimate reason to say…’next!’.
Sometimes we are aware of a pattern we have, but as much as we examine it and try to fix it, we just can’t seem to wrap our understanding around it and find a solution. In cases like those, it can be helpful to look at the flip side of the pattern and do some healing on that. Think of working on the flip side of an issue like emptying a pot of water – you can use a cup or utensil to scoop out the water but it will be difficult and time consuming, or, you can just turn the pot over. If you find yourself in the pattern of often feeling like the victim, it may be likely that there are situations in which you are actually the aggressor. A coin has heads and tails, but they both belong to the same coin. By healing your aggressive side, your victim side may be healed as a byproduct.
Lets take another example. Many people struggle with low self esteem and feelings of inferiority. They feel uncomfortable with others, and it comes out in their body language and behavior. They shrink into themselves or tend to overcompensate and constantly try to impress people. And these people may get stuck thinking about why they feel inferior to others and attempt to find ways to bolster their confidence and hide their feelings of insecurity, but feel that the minute they heal one aspect or expression of their insecurity, another comes up. If they chose to look at the flip side, they might notice the people in their life with whom they do have a comfort level and are able to just be themselves. Perhaps they are people that they see as lesser than themselves in some way (less accomplished, successful, good looking, put together, etc.) and are therefore less threatening to them. They may want to ask themselves why they have a need to feel superior to others in order to feel comfortable with them rather than asking themselves why they feel inferior to many people. Or they can ask themselves what is the worst thing that could happen if they didn’t feel superior?
So next time you think of someone else playing some role in relation to you, it can be helpful to ask yourself – ‘when do I play that role in my life and how does it serve me’? Of course, once we examine the flip side of an issue, we may want to take a closer look at our value system that came to light as a result of the examination. If we perceive someone as superior, either ourself or others, what factors do we use in making that judgment and are they a genuine measure of anyone’s self worth?
Having trouble controlling your thoughts about something? Regurgitating the same tired details again and again? Playing and replaying the same scenarios in your mind obsessively?
If you’re a woman, I can bet you’ve had the experience of not being able to stop thinking about a guy at some point in your life, or at least have had a friend with that problem. You have no idea why you are so stuck on this person, and yet nothing real seems to be happening with him in your life. Or at least nothing that is emotionally healthy. Objectively speaking, he may not be that great a catch, perhaps he doesn’t treat you very well, and you don’t actually feel that comfortable with him. At some points you may actually feel that you hate him. Yet you can’t seem to get your thoughts off of him and be open to someone else. Whats really going on here?
The brain may be the major sex organ but it doesn’t always give us clear clues about how to get romantically involved with someone who is right for us, and the games and ego defenses set up by our minds can really frustrate our attempts to find a relationship that supports our happiness. Beginning by developing an awareness of what is actually going on in our minds can help us move past the problem.
Odds are, if you are thinking about someone a lot, you probably have a number of daydreams about them that you rerun over and over again in your mind. Start by really taking notice of the details of these daydreams and looking for the common denominator among them. Are you directly speaking to the person or is one of you observing the other? If you are talking to them what characterizes the verbal interaction between you? Is it playful or serious? What type of surroundings are you in? What message are you trying to send them and what message are they sending you? How do you want them to see you? What are the satisfying emotions you are feeling during or at the end of the dream? What hole are these emotions trying to plug?
The scenario you replay in your head gives you insight into an emotional lack: a problem in your life that is currently unresolved. The daydream is your mind’s attempt at satisfying an unfulfilled emotional need or putting to rest an unresolved problem. It is your mind’s best solution to the problem. It is a way to bring back some emotional balance to the currently emotions of the issue. Because it is a created solution, you will notice that there is some sort of satisfaction that is derived from the scenario. The satisfaction could come from a sense of revenge,pride or social prestige etc. The resolving emotions of the daydream are usually shallow and tend to satisfy the ego. To examine your own issue look to the “satisfying emotion” first. If you then look at the flip side of the resolving emotion it will identify the emotional lack. For example: if the feeling of satisfaction come from social prestige,perhaps you are feeling ignored in your social circle. If it comes from a sense of power from recognition of a job well done, perhaps you are feeling powerless and overlooked at work. The daydreams seem to give the daydreamer back a sense of power in a situation they may feel powerless in.
When you find some common aspects you begin to understand that this person may represent an addiction the mind has to a particular feeling and then you can use other healing techniques to remove the addiction to that feeling, like theta healing or DMT (Huna). Even if you don’t use a healing technique simply having the awareness of the addiction the next time you start a daydream can alter it and the effect it has on you.
In recent years I have begun to be much more careful about how and when I talk about others and the content of what I say. Gossip, even when its trivial and seems harmless can have an effect on people and the circumstances of their lives.
I recently read an article about a man (lets call him Charlie) who let someone else’s observations negatively influence his view of a woman who he would otherwise have been interested in.
The story goes like this. A friend of Charlie’s wanted to introduce him to a female friend of his. “She’s great. You have so much in common’, he said. And there were some rather uncommon odd interests that they shared, like a love of silent films. Charlie was looking forward to getting to know her, but before they even had a chance to meet up, he happened to run into another friend of his who also knew this woman and who said ‘oh forget it, you won’t like her’. The last comment stayed with him, and although he had a great time with the woman when they did meet, he subsequently blew her off. Months later, he happened to see her at a party and and wondered why he had acted like a jerk, she was great! She lit up the room and seemed perfect for him. He tried to start things up again, but she had already lost interest and wouldn’t take his calls. He felt regret at having allowed his attention to his friend’s comments to have actually eclipsed his own judgment and effected his choices.
The problem with gossip boils down to a few things:
1. You wouldn’t want to be the subject of someone’s gossip and have it affect your relationships and life, so why do
that to others?
2. We tend to feel guilty about things that hurt others, even if they give us some momentary pleasure. And when we feel guilty about things, we may subconsciously create something in our lives to punish ourselves for the perceived transgression. Why create some level of guilt in yourself by talking about someone else?
3. The world we observe around us and other people in our lives can serve as mirrors for us, reflecting back things we either like or dislike in ourselves. In the same way, the thoughts we have about others, and the words we speak about them can affect us by being reflected back as well - we are all connected at some level.
4. When we say something or think something, we have put our attention on that thing, and since energy flows where attention goes, we may create more of that thing in our life. If that thing is not positive (whether its something observed in ourself or another) it is better to disconnect from that thought and focus on something we do want more of.
But, as with everything else, the answer is always in our feelings. Next time you are speaking (or thinking) about either yourself or else someone take notice of your body and the way you feel. Do you feel really good or is there some discomfort somewhere, at some level? If there is, odds are you don’t really feel good about it and it may be better to shift focus and think and speak about more positive aspects.
One of the best ways to feel better and get those good things in life coming your way is to love yourself more. Once you do that you will increase your capacity to draw and accept more love from others because you can only feel worthy of and accept as much love from others as you give to yourself. Once you get used to loving yourself, that becomes your default state of being - your status quo - and you wont have to work so hard at it anymore. You status quo is also what you tend to create more of in your life. Make love your default state and you will create more love in your life on a regular basis, in many different, and often unexpected, ways.
The other day I came a cross something in an e-book which lead me to what I felt was a very useful exercise to increase self love. The e-book mentioned the final scene in the movie ‘What the Bleep Do We Know’, where Amanda, an unhappy woman who tends to focus on unhappy scenes from her past, moves to a place of self love and acceptance and draws hearts all over her body while in the bath with a makeup pencil. The movie is a type of new-agey and scientific look at how we create our reality at every moment by the choices we make, which are often influenced by our gut-level reactions to events in our lives, which in turn are influenced by similar events we have experienced in the past. One message of the movie is to get ourselves to be spectators of our own patterns and consciously choose what we focus on and how we act. Act, not react, being the keyword in that sentence.
So, to get back to the hearts I mentioned before, I decided to do a mental exercise where I take several minutes to imagine myself drawing hearts all over my body with a tube of lipstick. I mentally visualized myself drawing hearts at each of my chakras, all over my arms and legs, stomach, chest, and face. I took my time with the exercise, actually feeling the metal tube of lipstick in my hand and the texture and pressure of the lipstick as I slowly and deliberately drew each heart. It felt incredibly good.
Once I finished that mental and emotional visualization, I decided to do a variation of it where many of our self love issues originate, our first encounter with other people - our parents. They are often well meaning but can pass their own fears and self worth issues on to us or simply not know how to create a feeling of worthiness in us. I took my time imagining my parents drawing lipstick hearts on me. It was a sort of catharsis and felt like an affirmation of my own value.
The next heart-drawers were ex-boyfriends, and any addresses of unrequited love, misplaced love, regret, and abandonment - basically any men in my life that had left me with less-than-good feelings.
It was all pretty powerful. I literally felt a shift within me from these visualization exercises. So much so in fact, that today I went out and bought a tube of lipstick (which I don’t usually wear) so that I could draw some real hearts on myself.
I only got around to actually doing it a few days later, but what was surprising was that I found that the visualizations had been so powerful that while the real thing was good, I had already cleared many of the issues with the previous mental and emotional work. Which confirms that having an imaginary emotional experience is not all that different than having what we call an ‘actual one’. An psychologist of mine used to encourage me to spend time envisioning the type of life I wanted to create, repeatedly telling me that the only way the mind knows the difference between reality and fantasy is that it attaches a tag ‘fantasy’ to a fantasy.
Family are supposed to be those we are closest to, and, as the Latin origin of the word suggests, most familiar with. Yet family members are often the ones that we find most difficult to get along with and whose behavior poses the greatest and most challenging enigma. Recently, I participated in a workshop called Family Constellations. The purpose of this workshop is to resolve current life issues by unraveling the unhealthy family ties that lie at the root of the problem and allowing the family members to rediscover the love connections between them. The term ‘family constellation’ refers to a group of family members and the roles they take on in relation to one another - or, in other words, the collective consciousness of the family.
The method was developed by Bert Hellinger, a German psychotherapist, and works by way of a group dynamic that forms as workshop participants come together to represent the members of a particular family and reach a point of release and healing in their stead, which then somehow effects the actual people they represent and the original dilemma the person was struggling with. The members who are represented in the constellation may be immediate family members, more distant ones, and at times even ancestors that are no longer alive, but whose unresolved life issues have been adopted by one or more of their descendants. It sounds a bit like psychodrama, but it isn’t. And they don’t know how it works, but somehow it does.
Although the workshop attendees participating in a family constellation often have little or no knowledge about the family members they are representing, an energy field develops around them and they actually begin to feel what the people may have felt. The method is not a form of psychodrama because there is no playacting going on here - the group members actually allow themselves to become the people they are representing - to energetically merge with their consciousness. The emotions that come up for them are very real. Grief. Guilt. Sadness. Anger. Frustration. They are asked to verbalize these emotions by the workshop facilitator and are guided towards realizing the core issues at play. Once a core issue is recognized by the members of the constellation, they are instructed to say one or two sentences to one another which allow them to release the core trauma and reach a point of healing, which lets them discover their rightful place in the family. The shift that occurs is more than just an emotional one. Its actually at the soul level of the family.
We are connected to our stories. They may have happened when we were young, or before we were born, but they link us to our ancestors and descendants in ways that effects us, our behavior and our lives, even if we did not know the former and have not yet begat the latter. But although we play a part in our stories, we should not allow them to own us. Family constellations is a way of being a spectator of our story, seeing our own role in it, watching a healing interaction take place, and then watching it have an effect on our present day life.
Sometimes there is something we want in life, but we just cant seem to fully feel the desire for it. We know it could be good for us but we have become so complacent in our current life situation, so fearful of change, or so closed as a result of past hurts and disappointments, that we just don’t seem to really want it enough to generate the desire that would help magnetize it to us. Perhaps we require something that will allow us to feel a void and thus create an intensity and longing to fill that void.
About a year ago a friend of mine sent me an article about a weekly fast that traditional Hindu women keep in order to meet their soul mates. Some married women keep it as well to ensure a harmonious family life. There are many religions and spiritual traditions that include the use of ritual fasting in the attempt to cleanse, become closer to the divine, seek salvation, and atone for misdeeds. There are those who say that the purpose of fasting is not to impress the divine but to alter the person who is fasting. Fasting lets us feel a certain intensity that we do not normally feel when we are well fed. And that intensity can be translated into a yearning - not just for food but for whatever it is that we wish to create in our lives. Fasting can lend an intensity to our prayers which can be a challenging note to strike when we feel comfortable and well fed. Perhaps we can use our desire for food to consciously fuel our desire for other things as well.
I would like to suggest the use of fasting as an agent for increasing desire. Next time you want to invite something into your life, how about setting aside a day a week as a fast day, with the intention to feel the full desire for it, create a space to allow it into your life, and effect any changes in yourself necessary to bring it about.
Sometimes I find it hard to get out of my head and quiet my thoughts. I wish I had a switch in my mind to shut the noise off or at least turn down the volume. And I’m not sure if all the thinking actually helps or changes anything. I’ve tried meditation to quiet my mind but have a lot of trouble remaining focused and I tend to feel bored very quickly.
Recently I started dating a guy who is very cerebral. He is really on the extreme side of brainy and always in his head, so it is hard for me to relate to him on an emotional level. I was thinking about techniques that could help people like that connect to their emotions and bypass the brain, and in the process discovered something that has actually helped me connect more. I simply put my hand over my heart in the center of my chest area and feel it. I don’t think about it - I just feel the warmth and pressure of my hand lying there and that automatically puts my attention in my body, and specifically in my heart. Anytime I feel my mind begin to wander I just feel the heat and pressure of my hand again and it helps me return to a place of feeling instead of thinking. And I don’t do it for very long, just a minute or so. But afterwards I always feel more centered, connected, and able to view situations and people that previously annoyed or angered me with a great deal more compassion, which lets me feel a lot happier.
A lot of the troubles we encounter in life are a matter of our perspective and caused by our resistance to what is. We feel miserable because we don’t have enough friends, are not attractive enough, don’t have enough money, are not talented, had a bad day, well…fill in the blank. Its our thoughts and emotional reaction to the situation that makes us miserable. Basically, we don’t accept ourselves and the situations in our lives as they exist. But guess what? Our resistance to them does not make them go away. In fact, it actually makes them more of an obstacle and more real to us. Its sort of like a non-Newtonian fluid. If you go through it gently and accept it, it gives way. But if you try to muscle your way through, its like going up against a brick wall. (A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid whose viscosity is variable based on applied stress. If you punch a non-Newtonian fluid the stress causes the fluid to behave as a solid and your hand will not go through. If you put your hand into the fluid slowly, it will penetrate successfully.)
There are techniques like emotional freedom technique (EFT) which let you come to terms with a situation and reach a place of self love and acceptance irregardless of it. EFT is done by repeating certain self affirming statements while tapping various points on your body, which lets you change your perspective about things on an energetic level. The basic form of the EFT statement is “Even though [state problem], I totally and completely love an accept myself”. And you repeat the process until you no longer feel an emotional reaction to the problem. Letting go of the attached emotion releases the resistance you felt to what is. Once you accept something - you own it. And once you own something you can do what you want with it, including changing it into something else.
Sometimes we have worked through our resistance to what is and want to create a what could be – a new and very specific possible alternate reality. In some cases it may be enough to simply change our perspective of what is and let go of resistance to it, which frees up space for the new situation to come into our lives. But if we have resistance to what could be as well we may need to do some extra work on that. Perhaps it would be helpful to do EFT on a situation that we would like to create. “Even though I am socially successful, I totally and completely love and accept myself’. Our minds can be enigmas and there may be many reasons why we feel resistance to something we ostensibly desire. Maybe we think if we were socially successful it would create envy in others and actually lead to our rejection. Maybe we think we don’t deserve to be socially accepted for some reason. Maybe we think that being socially accepted comes with new responsibilities that could be overwhelming. We might just need to own a possible reality, as well as accepting an existing one, before we can create the change we want in our life.
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