Awareness of THE LAW OF TRUTH.

Awareness leads to consciousness

Let me quote Deborah Anapol from her book, The Seven Natural Laws of Love. This is from the chapter on “Law of Truth”:

The conditioning which most of us have gotten is the exact opposite of the law of truth. The man-made version could be stated like this: If you want to be loved you must project an image of perfection and never say anything, which might hurt someone’s feelings. Never show weakness and never be impolite. Never reveal family secrets. Lie if you need to in order to make a good impression, and keep quiet about anything controversial. If you have been trained to lie about your real feelings and needs from an early age, being truly intimate maybe a challenge for you.

The aversion to truth-telling is partly habit, but it persists for two reasons: First, in order to speak the truth, you have to know the truth. Second, you have to give up trying to control the outcome of speaking the truth.

And Anapol adds so poignantly:

The best way to lie to others is to lie to oneself. After many years of lying to yourself, you may no longer know your true feelings and thoughts...You want to be authentic but you’ve forgotten how.

This really makes so much sense in my own experience and in the experiences of so many of my abused clients.

I have been accused of talking too much about sex and of being addicted to sex. What I do want is for readers to learn that there are other ways of having relationships that our Western culture keeps a lid on. In my opinion, much of our Western consciousness through years of religious indoctrination and “Victorian morality” has forced us to keep secrets and not be truthful.

How does our culture see polyamory?

Counselors and therapists often know very little about polyamory (I certainly did not until I started to read books like Dr. Anapols’s book Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy with Multiple Partners. I also attended a polyamory workshop in Greece.)

Many people may fall back on considering polyamory to be an aberration, a pathology to be avoided or “cured” (as people used to consider homosexuality). I quote from The Polyamory Handbook by Peter Benson:

A common myth in our predominantly Judeo-Christian culture in the Western hemisphere … has been there is only one traditional or “standard” way, one valid and healthy and right way, for people to conduct their loving relationships and that is a pairing of one man and one woman.

POWER OF INTENTION.

As I write, I realize the importance of “beckoning intent”, a concept developed by Carlos Castaneda. I am reminded of Wayne Dyer’s book, Power of Intention, in which he quotes from Castaneda’s book, The Active Side of Infinity. Wayne read this just before undergoing successful surgery on his artery:

Intent is a force that exists in the universe. When sorcerers (those who live in the Source) beckon intent, it comes to them and sets up the path for attainment, which means that sorcerers always accomplish what they set out to do.

I want to invite and live in the Source in this time of personal pain, and I want to retain this integrity in the rest of my life so I can learn and teach. I experience the Source when I meditate. Where I learn to listen with an open heart!

 When I am truly listened to by Source it’s like a close friend. I feel my eyes water, and my inner power of wisdom rises up into awareness. Then what I face in life feels like lessons to be learned. I believe this: that to give a person the gift of being truly listened to, can enrich love and inspiration for living.

I experience this listening power in self-help groups, where Source is working to help each other listen with such warrior love. I love such intimacy.

In the early days, as I started to grow, I was naive. I saw some counselors, and what unraveled was the revelation of my fear of life and that I had been living my life without any true understanding of love … the love inside me. This man’s—this hurt boy’s—rage at his own upbringing came through with such venom! I grew up scared to feel how scared I was. Have you experienced fear dominating your life? Fear of self and of life, I believe, this anxiety kills us early and attracts a lot of destruction into our lives. I see this so often in men as they open their mouths to speak about how they live life. The beliefs and feelings of mistrust and rage surface so quickly. Even in men who appear so knowledgeable, cynicism breaks their hearts. So let’s do our lives differently!

Heart Love can dissolve abuse.

Learning to give and receive from the heart

I have often given away my services cheaply. I have asked people to pay me when they have made leaps in self-esteem or, with their new consciousness, so in turn help someone else who might need their assistance. Often I received financial help, and I had no way of paying back the money. I hope I have passed on this kindness later. This, I believe, is how life works in a more truly caring culture. Yet, as I said earlier, all of this undermined my own self-worth and my partner’s opinion of me.

I have received such abundant finances through my father-in-law, and from my father and one sister, which I am so grateful for. Their help has allowed me to give my time and energy and skill to so many people. I was always grateful to my mother-in-law for suggesting, “Roger, you could build a special garden hut and use it as a place to meet your clients.” Thank you … may your spirit be free and happy.

That hut has attracted and heard such long stories from deeply frightened personalities, and I have been privileged to guide and witness deep and authentic positive healing.

Insight: Abuse in one generation does not have to pass onto the next generation and down the family tree. It can stop when people learn they are full of love, and not hate. However, this is a challenge we face today, right now. This little book is part of that offering. Imagine if all dictators had been loved and had been able to trust in their formative years. I don’t believe they would come out from childhood projecting all their rage onto ethnic minorities or any group. I ask you, what would happen if all potential dictators and despotic leaders of gangs and tribes had learned to love themselves and had been taught love rather than hate and fear? What would our world be like? You might think that is so simplistic. Well, I have seen such positive changes in men who could be, and indeed were, so cruel to life.

Imagine in schools that we were taught why and how to love ourselves. What would our world be like?

Warrior Love

Warrior love, in a rapidly changing world, is for all granddaughters, grandsons and future generations. May they know that what we do now, in learning to love who we are, helps everyone to grow in a world that is safe for future humans to love each other. It is dedicated to warriors of love like Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. And to all unseen warriors of love.

What we do now with our thoughts, beliefs and actions, is vital in laying foundations to create a truly loveable world. Our willingness to move from fear to love, I believe, can create a safe earth and a much safer, spiritual, loving and loveable race called human beings. Warrior love is one agreement that says: The more we each choose to love the miracle we are, the more this enhances new types of love relationships for future generations to live more peacefully and richly on planet earth. 

There appears no easy path, yet the more our thoughts and feelings move from fear to forgiveness and kindness, then we can build an intention so powerful that a new earth is created, past all individual pain and is transmuted to living in the power of NOW. Not in the past or future. My warrior love Roger

Looking for the Perfect Partner

A Sufi Story

Nasrudin met an old friend whom he had not seen for twenty years. They sat together in the cafe and talked over old times.

“Did you ever get married, Nasrudin?” asked the friend.

“No, I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“Why not? I’ve been married many years, and I’ve never regretted it.”

“Well,” said Nasrudin, “I was always looking for the perfect woman. I wanted my wife to be beautiful, intelligent, and sensible.”

“And you never found her?”

“I thought I had, when I was twenty. Her name was Ablah. She was beautiful, just the kind of woman I like, but I’m afraid she wasn’t very intelligent, and her language was atrocious! I was embarrassed to be with her! She certainly wasn’t the perfect woman.”

“Was she your girlfriend?”

“No. When I was twenty-five I met a woman called Bahira. She was good looking and intelligent, but she wasn’t very sensible. She spent all my money on frivolous things, and she couldn’t even boil an egg! She wasn’t the perfect woman either.”

“Were there anymore?”

“Only one. At thirty I met Haddiyah, and she was truly a gift from God! She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, and the most intelligent. What’s more she was prudent and sensible, a good cook, and a brilliant conversationalist.”

“She sounds like the perfect woman you were looking for!”

“She was the perfect woman I was looking for.”

“Then why didn’t you marry her?”

“Unfortunately, she was looking for the perfect man!”

THE GIFT EVEN WHEN LIFE IS TOUGH.

Being safe

To feel safe is such a human need, especially when we delve into the loving and exacting power within, where truth uncovers a process that makes us feel vulnerable … where tears flow and anger erupts, yet we still know we are held in loving arms of grace and deep consciousness. It is where “being” all parts of who we are meets consciousness and transformation begins.

This book is an inner journey, and I invite you to join me. It is a perfect time to be here in Crete. I feel I am going out on a limb, risking deep changes in my life path—“the shift” as motivational speaker, Wayne Dyer, calls it, “from ambition to meaning.” It is a journey to the afternoon and evening of a meaningful life!

Dive deep with me!

So as I dive daily into the warm blue Libyan sea, I ask you to dive in too. The message in this book is divided into a series of dives (some quite beautifully fierce) inside to the “power within”! I know I need divine inspiration, which I ask for daily, and moment-by-moment in my meditations and affirmation prayers. Let me tell you a story about those hidden gifts we all have when we take risks to go into a desert retreat.

 

I affirm you may find this book similar to the story from poet, philosopher, and scholar John O’Donohue in his book Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.

The king and the beggar’s gift

Once upon a time there lived a king who was so popular that his subjects would often bring him gifts just to show him how much they loved him. They brought him exquisite ornaments, expensive jewelry, fashionable clothing, exotic foods and spices. The king received these graciously, and felt very humbled by the generosity of his subjects. One day, a shabbily dressed man appeared at the palace. “I would like to see the king,” he told the palace guard. “I have a special gift for him.”

The king wasn’t terribly busy that day and so the poor man was shown into his presence. He bowed low before his sovereign, and taking out a melon from his bag, he said: “Your majesty, please accept this melon as a token of my esteem and affection.” The king thanked him politely, but since he didn’t much like melons, he handed it to a servant and told him to throw it into the back yard.

The next week the poor man appeared again, and once more he presented the king with a melon. As before, the king told the servant to throw it away. This went on week after week, but the king was too polite to tell the man that he wasn’t eating the melons.

One day, just as the man was about to hand over the melon, the king’s pet monkey jumped down from the window ledge where it had been sitting and knocked the melon to the ground smashing it to pieces. When the king looked at the mess on the floor he noticed on the floor a glistening stone. He picked it up and found that it was a diamond; a bigger diamond than any he had ever seen in his life. He immediately went to the back yard of the palace where the other melons had been thrown, and, sure enough, in the middle of all the rotting fruit, there were numerous huge diamonds.

What I want to emphasize with this book and my story is the spiritual principle that the things we don’t like often can contain the greatest treasures. Sharing our negative beliefs, our tears, our lies, our angers, and our guilt can invite the Source to heal the wounds we bear from these experiences. With one proviso, we don’t become a victim to that pain. And you might ask yourself, when in your life have things you thought were going to be awful, become a source of healing, inspiration and happiness? I know I have made many mistakes by holding onto lies about life and myself. Yet I know divine love holds me through those dark nights of soul retrieval.

WHY I WROTE WARRIOR LOVE

Warrior love, in a rapidly changing world, is for all granddaughters, grandsons and future generations. May they know that what we do now, in learning to love who we are, helps everyone to grow in a world that is safe for future humans to love each other. It is dedicated to warriors of love like Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi. And to all unseen warriors of love.

What we do now with our thoughts, beliefs and actions, is vital in laying foundations to create a truly loveable world. Our willingness to move from fear to love, I believe, can create a safe earth and a much safer, spiritual, loving and loveable race called human beings. Warrior love is one agreement that says: The more we each choose to love the miracle we are, the more this enhances new types of love relationships for future generations to live more peacefully and richly on planet earth.

I want this little book to assist a process of growth where we can be free energetically and emotionally like a 2 to 4 year old, yet balanced like an authentically growing wise spiritual adult!

It is dedicated to Antoine De Saint–Exupery, “The Little Prince” in us all, where; “One must look with the heart” and become a ‘warrior of heart love’, even when life throws us tough experiences!

Questions.

Why do each of us believe in our own lies?

Why do each of us tell lies?

What is a lie?

What is hell?

Why do we believe we are not in hell?

What can heal our hell? Is heaven impossible? Is there heaven?

Questions that hurt, are a mirror of what is inside our consciousness and subconsciousness.

What is the art of love and forgiveness?

How can we stop our capacity to love, be loveable and loving, from being bullied, by what we hear, see and experience each day?

Why even when we speak the same language do we misunderstand each other?

Why do we have so little self compassion and deep compassion for our planet?

Why do we sit in judgement and reject and annihalate people around us?

Why do we judge ourselves so harshly?

Why in the book of faces, (social media) do we pass pieces of wisdom to each other?

Why do I believe in lies? Do I hope there is truth?

Can we stop this war of lies, that tells us life is hopeless and we are just going to kill ourselves and our planet?

Can we wake up to loving ourselves and loving each other and our planet?

Can we create truly sustainable ways of parenting ourselves, our children, our community?

Can we be at peace and keep that peace? Or will the drugs of addiction keep calling us to war in mind, body and soul?

Can we create questions that create trust, empathy and no victims?

Can we dissolve the barriers between our mind, body and soul?

Can we truly change our thoughts and change our lives?

Can we create climates of TIME TO THINK and LEARN TO TRULY LOVE?

My love Roger

FEAR LEARNT AS A CHILD. PRODUCED SURVIVAL NOT TRUTH OR FEELING SAFE.

Early times

From a very young age, I knew only the fear of raised voices and the violence I heard in those screams. I was the youngest of three children. My mother wanted a boy after two girls. So at least I was wanted! (Unfortunately, many clients I have worked with felt they were rejected in the womb!)

When I see a photo of myself at nine months of age, on the lawn at home, I see looking back at me a very scared little boy who was going to do his best to survive. I chose a set of parents who were in a “war marriage.” By this I mean that my father proposed to my mother when he was going off to war, which he never did. Instead, he went to Canada, where I think he met many women and realized his prowess as a sexual man; so he returned from the war, like so many men (and women) do, a very different man from the one who proposed to my mother. However, my mother was pregnant, and in those times the honorable thing had to be done.

Both parents had experienced a vast array of childhood abuse on both sides of their families, and this eventually played out in the way my sisters and I were parented  It is interesting that I have spent forty-three years of my life listening to abused men and women. Is that why I chose my parents? And they chose me? I did find this difficult to accept—the fact that I actually chose my parents. (Many metaphysical teachers now believe that’s how it happens). I do now see that my childhood experiences have assisted me in my work and hopefully helped me be non-judgmental and authentic to the hundreds of clients who chose me to unburden their stories and make sense of an old saying: “When you know the true history, everything makes sense!” It does not excuse wrong behavior of any kind, yet it can help us see the real person behind such poor actions. This reminds of the Buddhist story:

The Thief Who Became a Disciple

One evening, as Shichiri Kojun was saying his prayers, an intruder entered his house and, holding a big, sharp knife to the holy man’s throat, demanded his money or his life. Shichiri, unruffled, said to the thief, “Don’t disturb me. Can’t you see I’m busy? There’s some money in the draw over there. Take it!” Then Shichiri went on with his prayers. As the thief was stuffing the money in his pocket, Shichiri shouted. “Don’t take it all. I’ve got some bills to pay tomorrow.” The intruder, surprised at encountering such a strange response, left some money behind, and as he was leaving the house, Shichiri called after him, “Isn’t it good manners to thank a person when he gives you something?”

“Thank you.” said the thief, and off he went.

Some days later, the authorities caught the thief, and he confessed all his crimes, including his offence against Shichiri Kojun. When Shichiri was called as a witness for the prosecution he said, “As far I’m concerned, this man is no thief. I gave him the money, and he thanked me for it.” The man was jailed nevertheless, but on his release from prison he went to Shichiri and became his disciple.”

Insight: As I start to be impeccable with my word and watch what comes out of my mouth, I begin to know that I want to be a disciplined, truthful person, and I believe deep down most people want that for themselves. When we share our own vulnerabilities, a healing space is created where “unconscious behavior” becomes conscious. Then transformation can take place on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. I discover this “person-centered power within” repeatedly in self-help groups and counseling. Choice then becomes increasingly conscious

DEEP CHANGE requires brave wisdom. An excerpt from Warrior Love

Deep change

This deeper change I now face. I have come to encounter, digest, and assimilate the challenge of my second wife and I going our separate ways and doing this with as much kindness, wisdom, love, forgiveness, and truth as we can. I love her, yet our ways of seeing and experiencing love and reality are not compatible.

In my first marriage, I found it so hard to believe I could change and grow. I am not blaming my partner. I was frightened of what others might say. I left after twelve years of not being myself. You see, I never knew who I was. I just reacted to survive. I did the best I knew how with the awareness I had then. Fear paralyzed me to the point that I blamed parents, sisters, schools, church, and most of all myself!

As my arrested inner child dictated, all I knew was, I must never tell the truth. People will hurt me and make me feel stupid. The man I was then was confused, had no real self-knowledge, and was filled with such hurt. I was on the “inner telephone,” as one of my teachers put it, so I never really listened or learned how to live with authentic, responsible, personal power. My chatterbox was full of self-doubt.

Sound familiar to you? I thought, everybody else must change before I can be free to make new choices. I became the classic victim, and of course, my main thought was: There is no money to be free!

I thought of all the reasons why I could not change. The word can’t was in the forefront of my mind. Now can remains after removing the apostrophe and the t. I had no faith or trust that anything “out there” or within me existed that would assist me in making a positive change. I became a taker, a victim, and my own worst judge. I bored everyone with my hard-luck story and felt sorry for myself.

DO GIVE ME FEEDBACK ON YOUR FEARS THAT STOP YOU FACING DEEP CHANGE!

HUMANS PUNISH MANY TIMES, ANIMALS USUALLY ONCE! Excerpt from Warrior Love

If you disagree with everything I have said…

What can you do to me, a sixty-five-year-old man?” Can you imprison me for being who I am? This book is not just about confession; it’s about dissolving all the hooks and threats that our double-standard society puts on us; that each of us helped to make!

I now want to come from the angle that, when I am truthful with a caring, loving intention, I can truly connect to my divine intention and to that similar, yet unique, part in you, which has learned to keep so many secrets that hurt you in your mind, body, and soul. This may be an assumption. Are you squeaky clean?

Looking out from this mountain villa, I see a deep blue sky. There are no clouds of guilt, resentment, or fear. What blocks love and forgiveness is constant criticism. In addition, the cloudy thunderous thoughts of self-criticism gradually kill the ability of the soul to receive from Spirit. My own self-criticism so often comes from my belief in my guilt. Don Miguel explains in his book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom that humans have long memories and will chastise themselves a thousand times—or others will do so. In the animal kingdom, a mistake is acknowledged and addressed only once by both the offender and his or her companions. Would it not be healthier in our society to stop making ourselves so full of fear and just love whom we are?

I have seen people come out of places of despair, like churches and mosques, looking so beaten down with fear for being human. I know there is a loving being that must cry at how we have conditioned ourselves to create so much violence inside and outside in our world, all in the name of what appears to be spiritual. I want to cry from my heart: “Please let us stop saying and believing, ‘My god is better than your god’!” This comes from such wounded conditioning and consciousness. I realize I never want to be perfect! I am me, and that includes both my tough and my loveable parts. This combination makes me human and spiritually more aware and connected to life. A little story: A tramp knocks at the door of a church, and no one will let him in. Suddenly, a voice echoes from above (God). “Don’t bother! I’ve been trying to get in there for ages!”

SELF COMPASSION Especially when you feel rejected & paranoid.

Self-Compassion assists the inner journey

The twenty-minute “TEDx” talk is so clear on the well-researched benefits of practicing a self-compassion, called “The Space Between Self-Esteem and Self Compassion” by Dr Kristin Neff.

This short YouTube video is learning the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion.

Do you give yourself self-compassion? The three elements are: “Self-Kindness, Common Humanity, and Mindfulness.” I am always intrigued by how to do things, the why often I see comes later. So how does self-compassion help me build warrior love?

I want to relate to myself with self-kindness, especially going through this parting of two searching souls. Writing this book is being kind and warm to myself, it’s not just being critical of me! With self-compassion, I can integrate the thoughts and feelings that what is happening is very human. I do know in my heart that my sufferings are a common experience throughout humanity and so it’s not just happening to me alone! I don’t have to hide and just go into feeling a ‘bad’ person! I can go out and connect to others. Next, I want to learn “Mindfulness.” This is taking a balanced approach to my feelings; neither to exaggerate nor deny my negative emotions of self-criticism.

The critical belief of “I must not be lazy”

If I beat myself up continually, I just leave the planet early without learning unconditional love. I can get lost in my own pain. I want to consciously learn to be kind to me. When I criticize myself I am threatening and attacking myself. I become the threat and the threatened. The fight-flight response kicks in. My stress response shuts my immune system down and I can become ill and depressed. The old negative belief that I need to be self-critical comes from a protestant belief: work hard and harder—so I won’t be lazy. This can lead to exhaustion! So I affirm:

“I wisely build self-compassion by meditating regularly which helps me learn and be open and receptive to learning the next step for personal growth.”

I choose love even when life is tough so self-compassion can give the deep genuine experience to feel safe. I begin to think what I truly need from the heart of my mind. I need to tap into warmth and soft vocalizations of genuine positive affirmations.  When I feel safe I choose to meditate and respond with wisdom and compassion for others who are close to me, yet knowing I need self-compassion. So I repeatedly choose to tap into nurturing myself. I do yoga and juice with good organic ingredients. I eat regularly and keep fit, watch a funny film. I put on my rich soul music (as you will see throughout this book) dance wild or soft and let grief flow. I send gentle blessings of love to all whom maybe critical of me at this time. I see and think clearly and let self-compassion facilitate positive change. I write my story with self-compassion. One beautiful way of attracting self-compassion is to choose carefully whom I share my pain with. Today the right person came to listen and just let me cry. 

Some of the ingredients for choosing love, especially when life is tough, and so learning Warrior Love, are the following:

·      To be willing to learn the lessons from what I have attracted.

·      To take full responsibility, yet building in shame resilience.

·      To admit my lies with little ego or excuses.

·      To look at my possible negative addictions.

·      To be willing to do the mental work moment-by-moment and meditate regularly.

·      To free any pent up fear energy with safe ways of expressing anger or old anger, resentment.

·      To read and listen regularly to positive audio information.

·      Cry laugh and open my heart to attracting the right people to assist me on a tough inner and outer journey.

·      Write and look at where in my past life the emotional patterns and beliefs emerged, so I can change and grow positively.

BEWARE WHO YOU LISTEN TOO WHEN HURTING! Especially your lower self!

Reflection on transition
When I have problems that I have attracted I have learnt not to share my dramas with people who invest their dramas or judge me harshly. Otherwise I can regret and we all go down the black hole together! What follows is my last few days finishing this book. And the pertinent story of two frogs.

Good day! It’s late afternoon and it’s my 29th day here in Crete. The Cicadas raise their throbbing noise as the heat fumes down the valley like an inferno.

            My Louise Hay card today: “I am here at the right time. The work I do on myself is not a goal, it is a process. I choose to enjoy the process.”

And I add the quote from the back of You Can Heal Your Life: “If we are willing to do the mental work, almost anything can be healed.”

My daughter sent me a text this morning: “Lots of Love.” That meant a lot to me as I play Chloe Goodchild’s evocative song: “How I Love You”!

I have just picked up Herman Hesse’s book Siddhartha; it spoke to me deeply about my retreat. Let me quote:

Siddhartha reflected on his state. He found it difficult to think; he really had no desire to, but he forced himself. Now, he thought that all these transitory things have slipped away from me again; I stand once more beneath the sun, as I once stood as a small child. Nothing is mine, I know nothing, I possess nothing, I have learned nothing. How strange it is! Now, when I am no longer young, when my hair is fast growing grey, when strength begins to diminish, now I am beginning again like a child.” He had to smile again. Yes, his destiny was strange! He was going backwards, and now he again stood empty and naked and ignorant in the world. But he did not grieve about it; no, he even felt a great desire to laugh; to laugh at himself, to laugh at this strange foolish world!

I feel when reading this that there is a bird in my heart that wants to be free to sing and fly. That bird is love.

I am near… No, I am in a massive change and transition to my life with the vulnerable side of me exposed. Yet somehow I feel free. I have no idea what will happen when I return home, and yet I feel like the frog that was hard of hearing! I love to tell this little story:

Two Frogs

A group of frogs was traveling in unfamiliar territory when two of them fell into a pit. The companions of the unfortunate pair gathered round the pit and were horrified to find that it was very deep.

The two frogs in the pit were jumping and jumping, occasionally coming close to the top, but never quite making it. At first their companions were optimistically encouraging their efforts, but as the day wore on, and the numerous attempts at escape were unsuccessful, they became more pessimistic.

“It’s no use,” they shouted down. “It looks as if you’re going to die. There’s nothing we can do to help. Why don’t you save yourselves the effort and frustration and just resign yourselves to your fate?”

One of the frogs listened to the advice of the crowd up above. He stopped attempting to jump out, and very soon was dead. However, the other one kept on jumping; in fact, he seemed to be jumping harder and harder, and remarkably, he eventually jumped out!

The other frogs congratulated him on his escape, but they asked him, “Why did you not continue jumping? Didn’t you hear what we were saying?”

“Well, I saw your lips moving, but I’m deaf, so I thought you were encouraging me the whole time,” replied the frog, who had reason to be thankful for his disability.”

When one partner does not interfere with the other’s love for him/herself.”

“One Day Like This” is a song by Elbow. I often play it at the end of a Dance for Life session, when I see people “throw those curtains wide” from mind, body, and soul. I experience what Greg Bradon calls the “divine matrix.” I see the force of love and forgiveness go in every direction at the same time. I can feel such an intimate connection among all the dancers as we “sweat our prayers”  (Gabrielle Roth: Sweat Your Prayers) and cry out for healing our relationships, especially the one with ourselves.

Jealousy is so often about fear of being abandoned

I have married twice, and I have had many other relationships. So often I have said, “Never again!” The hurt was too much. I hated feeling so disappointed, devastated, and broken hearted.

It’s taken me ages to reach some lighter feelings around relationships. My present partner says, I am so intense. Well, as we part, I am living in this mountain retreat doing my best to enlighten myself and work out what’s going on. Now I am gradually learning that I need to clear old beliefs and the poison of a parasite that tells me I am not good at relationships! So my affirmation is: “I will not abandon myself; I am here for me.”

I would love to believe what Sandra Ray says: “I know that there is a new way to handle relationships, a way that always brings me peace and joy and enlightenment no matter what happens.”

This is my intention. I know things out there are always mirrors of what’s going on in here.

I am letting go of what others may think and what my past has molded me into. I want a self that is permanent and can live in the now and drink in life without always crumpling into devastation. I want to handle jealousy and grow old with grace.

Sondra Ray quotes Kyle Os’ definition of loving relationships When one partner does not interfere with the other’s love for him/herself.”