The Friday Sex Blog [Opening Your Heart]

¡Hola! Everybody...

A long time ago, the man in charge of ringing the bells at a nearby church for years would play the opening notes to My Cherie Amor ("la la laaa, la la laa... ") every Sunday. I once tracked the man down and asked him why. He explained he played it because it was the song he dedicated to his now deceased wife when they first met. After returning after being away for many years, the bells no longer rang and when I investigated, I discovered that the man had passed away and no one else knew how to ring the bells...

* * *

You can outrun that which is running after you,
but not what is running inside you.
-- Rwandan proverb

For real change to come about there has to be a how. There has to be a set of actual exercises we can implement that can bring about a change in our mental software. People, we follow scripts, some of which were written generations ago, and they often cause much pain. So today I'm going to offer you an exercise. I try to offer experiential exercises because people think too fuckin' much! In fact, most of you are tyrannized by thinking most of the time. So I try to offer basic exercises you have to experience in order to begin moving you away from thinking.

See?!! You're already thinking! Sheeesh! Shut up!

Okay... Breathe! Ready?

Pretend you are going to kill the next person you see. I want you to try to feel this in your body. Imagine that you are really going to kill this person. How does this make you feel (not think) inside?

Now, imagine that you are going to have sex with the next person you see. Again, how do you feel inside?

Bear with me: Now pretend you are going to save the life of the next person you see, but in doing so your own life will end. Imagine you are going to die as a result of saving this person's life. How does this make you feel inside?

Now... answer this question: which imagined action -- killing, having sex, or saving while dying -- most feels like liberation, freedom, and unbound love?

My challenge to you today is why would you intentionally hold anything in your mind, except that which most opens your heart and soul so that others may benefit from it?

I have just fucked up your constriction. Now you know. From now on, the choice is yours. When you find yourself imagining something that results in you feeling less open, simply imagine whatever most opens you. It is that fuckin simple, believe it or not.

This is the first step that helps you get off the merry-go-round of living those painful scripts -- those childhood imprints on your psyche. Remember the equation I wrote not too long ago:

constriction = hate/ love = openness.

This is the beginning of the conscious act of replacing habits that bring constriction with habits that bring openness. The other part is to hang out as awareness in space, maintaining openness without support; being openness without effort or intention. At this point, if you haven't done the exercises and just tried to think about them, you will not understand. So go back and do them now. Not later, but now.

Remember the feeling that most opens you? Perhaps it was saving your best friend's or your child's life. Whatever feeling most opens you, allow this feeling to dissolve into an awareness of openness, like a swirl dissolving in water. Let go of any effort to imagine anything, instead just be that feeling.

Another moment will come and you might come up against an event (perhaps a rude driver) that has you once again thinking of something that constricts you, if even a little bit. What do you do? What can you do?

First, consciously visualize or feel whatever opens your heart, softens your body, and relaxes your mind. For example, you can visualize making passionate love with a superior lover, your bodies entwined in emanations of light.

Then allow this visualization to dissolve into an authentic feeling, like an ocean of openness, alive and as real as this bright moment. In fact, if you have someone in your life that you trust, you can combine this visualizing with certain sex practices that speed up or facilitate the opening process.

This is a way to replace unloving (constricted) mind formulations with loving (open) ones. With time and practice you will be able to allow all mind forms to relax open as love's clear light. Repeat this two step process whenever you happen to notice that you're closing up, so that openness becomes the default state in your every conscious moment.

This is the practice of opening your heart and throwing away the old scripts -- of undoing the deeply ingrained childhood imprints that oftentimes force you to sabotage your life. Many of you say you want to be loved, but as long as you're closed, you will wait forever to be loved.

My Name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Frozen Thinking

¡Hola! Everybody...
Was it just me, or did anyone else note that as the new neocon goobers were being sworn in, birds were falling from the sky and millions of fish were turning belly up all over the world. If this were Faux news, I'd come up with a silly conspiracy theory...

* * *

Frozen Thinking
Convictions make convicts.
-- Robert Anton Wilson

I came across the above quote and I had to laugh for several reasons. One is the simple but elegant truth of the words, another because I am a former “convict.” I like what the great French writer, Camus, said about convictions -- something about not dying for them because he might be wrong.

I am struck by the sense I get from both quotes: that rigid thinking, or adhering to rigidly held beliefs, choke creativity. Oh yeah, did I mention I am obsessing about creativity? One common theme I hear coming up constantly is people’s need for more creativity -- especially in the realm of work and relationships.

I hear it from people all the time: how they wished they could work at jobs where creativity is valued, for example. The irony is creativity is a choice that can be taken anywhere at anytime under any circumstances. If I were to allow it (and sometimes I do), my work could quickly morph into a dry set of rituals of paperwork and referrals.

Anyway, in the past I have written about the “enlightened” or open heart. Today I am reflecting on the opened mind. I would say, and I think it would be correct, that when people think of the creative mind, they think of a mind full of ideas and brilliant new insights. My own experience tells me the creative mind is both full and empty. It is able to create within itself a space for the new to arise. A creative mindset is constantly opening itself to the internal and external world.

My experience of the opened mind is that it can be relaxed and playful. It is filled with curiosity and wonder. The opened mind has a childlike quality about it. It loves to go off the beaten track, to explore paths not taken by social convention. Playfulness is important. The opened mind likes to play with an idea or object, and enjoys looking at it as if for the first time. Try this one day: take a walk around your neighborhood and pretend you are a tourist. How does your perception of the mundane and “normal” things you see on an everyday basis change when you do this?

The opposite of that playful quality is what I call frozen thinking. Frozen thinking is what you get when you no longer think of possibilities:

“This place sucks.”

”My life would’ve been so much better without you.”

“I’ll never succeed in this shit job.”

Frozen thinking deals in absolutes, there are no possibilities in frozen thinking -- everything is preordained. Whenever someone begins a sentence with, You never... , or You always... you can be sure you’re in the presence of frozen thinking. In short, frozen thinking is the result of all our assumptions and beliefs about others and ourselves.

The open mind remains receptive to the possibility that we may not know everything there is to know -- and what we do know may be wrong. It challenges assumptions, makes new connections, finds new ways of perceiving the world. The opened mind can wander joyfully into areas others do not take seriously, and return with creations that must be approached in all seriousness.

Some of the most celebrated creative minds in history have allowed themselves to drift into dreams states and extended meditations during which they have played with the irrational, the symbolic, the metaphorical, and the mysterious. Often they have returned with images that they translate into scientific theories, musical compositions, and transformative actions.

I would like to point out that people often mistake obsessive thinking with creativity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Creativity entails dropping the mental masturbation. There’s a lot of letting go in the creative process -- a lot of “emptying out.” Creativity is about not thinking (in the conventional sense).

This is a scary journey into the unfamiliar for me, personally. There are times some discoveries are so strange that I want to cover them back up and run. Whether exploring the depths of the human soul or the depths of matter, artists, mystics, scientists, and ordinary folks like you and I, come face to face with chaos and disorder. Still, the enlightened mind thrives on this chaos, sees the emerging patterns, respects difference, and remains open to the paradox of life.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Sunday Sermon [Opening Your Heart]

¡Hola! Everybody...
At a church in my neighborhood of origin, the man in charge of ringing the bells for years would play the opening notes to Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amor every Sunday (“la la laaa, la la laa...”). I once tracked the man down and asked him why. He said he played it because it was the song he dedicated to his deceased wife when they first met. Returning to the neighborhoods after being away for some years, the bells no longer rang and when I investigated, I discovered that the man had passed away and no one else knew how to ring the bells...

* * *

-=[ Openness ]=-

You can outrun that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.

-- Rwandan proverb

Anybody who knows me knows how I feel about the majority of self-help books out there. It’s not that I don’t like them as much as I feel that they don’t offer actual ways to change -- hows. Some books are good at identifying a problem and offering insights. And while I won’t deny the importance of insight, that and $2.50 will get you on the train. Other books deal with specific issues that are not transferable to other issues.

I feel in order for real change to come about there has to be a how: exercises we can implement that can bring about a change in our mental software. It’s a lot like an exercise program. I call it the Happiness Crosstrainer. We follow scripts, people, some of which were written generations ago, and they often cause much pain. So today I'm going to offer you an exercise. I try to offer experiential exercises because you people think too fuckin' much. In fact, most of you are tyrannized by thinking most of the time. So I try to offer basic exercises you have to experience in order to begin moving you away from thinking.

See?!! You're already thinking! Sheeesh!

Shut up!

Okay! Ready? Breathe… relax yourself and…

Pretend you are going to kill the next person you see. I want you to try to feel this in your body. Imagine that you are really going to kill this person. How do you feel (not how you think you feel) inside?

Now, imagine that you are going to have sex with the next person you see. Again, how do you feel (not how you think you feel) inside?

Bear with me for one last exercise: Pretend you are going to save the life of the next person you see, but in doing so your own life will end. Imagine you are going to die as a result of saving this person's life. How do you feel inside (feel)?

Now, answer the following question: which imagined action -- killing, having sex, or saving while dying -- most feels like liberation, freedom, and unbound love?

Which one feels most like freedom? Got it?

My challenge to you is why would you intentionally hold anything in your mind, except that which most opens your heart and soul so that others may benefit from it?

If you did the exercises, I have just fucked up your defensive wall. Now you know. From now on, the choice is yours. When you find yourself imagining something that results in you feeling less open, simply imagine whatever most opens you. It is that fuckin simple, believe it or not.

This is the first step that helps you get off the merry-go-round of living and reliving all those painful scripts -- those childhood imprints on your psyche. Remember the equation I wrote not too long ago:

constriction = hate/ love = openness.

This is the beginning of replacing habits that bring constriction with habits that cultivates openness. The other practice is to live your life as awareness in space, maintaining openness without support; being openness without effort or intention. At this point, if you haven’t done the exercises and just tried to think about them, you will not understand my message. So go back and do them now. Not later, but now.

Can you remember the feeling that most opens you? Perhaps it was saving your best friend’s or your child’s life. Whatever feeling most opens you, allow this feeling to dissolve into an awareness of openness, like a swirl dissolving in water. Let go of any effort to imagine anything, just be that feeling.

Another moment will come (perhaps a rude driver will cut you off) and you might find yourself once again thinking of something that constricts you, if even a little bit. What do you do? What can you do?

First, consciously visualize or feel whatever opens your heart, softens your body, and relax your mind. For example, you can visualize making passionate love with a superior lover, your bodies entwined in emanations of light.

Then allow this visualization to dissolve into an authentic feeling, like an ocean of openness, alive and real as this bright moment.

This is a way to replace unloving (constricted) mind formulations with loving (open) ones. At first, this exercise might feel ineffective or even silly to you. But with time and practice you will be able to allow all mind forms to relax open as love’s clear light. Repeat this two step process of visualizing openness and then applying it whenever you happen to notice that you’re closing up. In this way, openness becomes your default state in every moment that you are conscious of.

This is the practice of opening your heart and throwing away the old scripts -- of undoing the deeply ingrained childhood imprints that force you to sabotage your life. Many of you say you want to be loved, but as long as you’re closed, you will wait forever to be loved.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Uncovering the Heart)

¡Hola! Everybody...
It’s a little cool here in the north, but life is good...

* * *

-=[ Uncovering the Heart ]=-

Your Heart [A work in progress]

A rare and beautiful bird
resides in the
nucleus of your heart.

Occasionally...

when I listen
to your silent painful pauses,
I can heart its song...

faintly.

It struggles within
its bejeweled prison --
bars of gold
And though it flutters its wings,
longing to be set free,
it sings its song.

Just now, I find myself
drinking in your smile
and I wonder...

that bird...

to hold that precious bird,
gently caressing it in my hands,
to feel its rapid heartbeat...

what joy...

Would you... ?

Let me set it free,
so it could soar
to sing its song
of freedom and love?

* * *

What counts is to strip the soul naked. Painting or poetry is made as we make love; a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back.

-- Joan Miro

Uncovering the heart means exposing the very core of the self. For many of us, this is a scary move into unknown territory, though it is a part of our inner selves that we are uncovering. The heart symbolizes feeling and intuition. Though we may be fearful, the true danger is in the death, not the exploration, of the heart.

Sometimes our hearts remember, better than our analytical minds, the times and places of our deepest felt experiences. During times of crisis or personal breakdown, the heart insists on revealing itself to us; we are forced to pay attention. These are times of deep personal pain that most of us would rather avoid, because we fear that the load will be too much to bear -- that it may be possible to feel too much.

Just as it is possible to close our eyes and not see the world around us, we can also close our hearts. We do so at a great price: we may choose to live in a world of flat surfaces, a clinically dry and angular world seemingly sterile until we peer under its surface.

To undress the heart is to reveal our inner history -- a history forgotten or hidden. We may be paying a price for relegating powerful forces to the shadow world for it is there they hold greater power. One of the aims of depth psychotherapies is to help us rediscover our lost selves gradually and integrate them again into our whole personalities.

The language of the heart may seem illogical. But if we listen to it -- really listen to it without losing our heads -- we just might find the faintly shimmering message in it that what lies ahead is a new and better way of living. It is in this aspect that there is strength in living with a naked heart.

However, there is that fearful vulnerability also. We take a chance when we open to others. We can be hurt. We may ask ourselves if we are risking too much. Who wants to be open and vulnerable?

I have found that in my own life, some of the most rewarding examples of creativity have been those moments when my heart was uncovered, when I was able to emerge and address those unique yet universal experiences that bind us together in the human condition.

I have learned that the uncovered heart contains both vulnerability and strength. Its strength perhaps lies precisely in that ability to open itself to itself with an exquisite grace that invites the hearts of others to do so too.

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (The Sound of the Big Bang)

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve seen similar posts before, and I would have to honest in admitting that I’ve thought about (if only to chuckle), but I recently read a post regarding cyber relationships and death... Carissa brought this up recently and linked to an article about it (click here).

I have to say I have no contingency plans regarding my online life and my inevitable death. I don’t know how people would react, but this -- my writing -- this is it. Most days I post something here (and elsewhere). I am not ashamed of anything I’ve written and I think that it’s served at least some positive purpose. My only wish -- my only contingency death plan -- would be a hope that when I’m gone from this dimension, some of you would take the time to commit a silent act of kindness in my name.

That should be your prayer for me...

* * *

-=[ The Sound of the Big Bang ]=-

“Let us dare... ”

I never liked chanting -- it makes uncomfortable. But I once went on an extended loving-kindness (metta) retreat and much of the practice involved chanting. Metta chanting is the radiation of loving-kindness towards all beings: May they all be happy and peaceful. Metta chanting is a powerful practice and it was difficult for me because it took me out of my comfort zone.

I do loving-kindness (metta) practice whenever I’m feeling too much anger or resentment. One begins the practice by wishing one’s self peace, happiness, blah blah blah. Eventually, as you get better at it, you extend that loving kindness to people you know and love. The practice progresses until you can radiate loving-kindness to those you’ve had bad experiences. Eventually, as your heart opens, you radiate loving-kindness to those who have caused you great harm.

As I said, it’s a powerful practice, it changes you profoundly. I let go of a lot of hate, fear, and anger doing this practice.

But that fuckin' chanting! LOL

I have found that chanting is halfway between speaking and singing. The tone -- “Ah” -- is considered the first tone, the first syllable, the root. Someone once explained the tone “Ah” as a sound that emanated from the Big Bang. I liked that explanation.

Speak the tone “Ah” in you normal speaking voice. Now, sing the same tone. You will feel a difference. Chanting, I found, is to sing in your speaking voice.

Chant “Ah” with every exhalation for about five minutes. Feel the reverberations spreading outward, penetrating space, and dissolving into all that openness. All words are variations of a universal tone, modifications of the special “Ah.”

Now, no one loves fully and openly all the time, certainly not I. LOL But step back to reflect on what is the general order of your speech. Does it cause your heart to open in love and offer that as a gift, or do your words reflect the fearful contraction of a closed and sterile heart? Are your words barren or are they the fruits of an open and loving heart?

Chanting allows you to open the love in your heart. In the same way, everyday speech creates the same reverberations -- of opening (love) or contraction (fear/ hate). Chant “Ah” until you feel your heart open, a sound of love offering outward to all. Feel how word forms take shape, like waves. “Ah” is the openness of love. Words are its textures.

While speaking (or writing), feel each word and the universal “Ah” love-tone of which it is a modulation. Feel “Ah” as open love. Perhaps we can learn to begin to speak all words as shapes mouthed from the openness of your heart. Think of it as devotional speech modulating “Ah” so that every word released from your lips carries at least some measure of love, opening into space without end.

When I find the intent of my speech veering, I try to practice this chanting -- a connection back to the Big Bang all-pervading modulation of love.

Do I practice it always?

No!

And sometimes love can manifest itself as tough. It’s a spiritual stereotype that we’ll all walk around in blissful levitation. Still, the only antidote I know for the fear, anger, hate and resentment within myself and others is to offer myself as open love. Yeah it’s corny and doesn’t make for much blog drama, but if I died today, would this blog and my speech stand as an adequate testament to my life? Time will only tell...

May I be free from enmity and danger

May I be free from mental suffering

May I be free from physical suffering

May I take care of myself happily

May my parents

teacher relatives and friends

fellow humans

be free from enmity and danger

be free from mental suffering

be free from physical suffering

may they take care of themselves happily

May even the dumb-ass resentful and bitter bitches on the internet be free and happy. LOL!

Okay, that last one doesn’t belong, it’s my addition... *wink*

Below is a beautiful rendition of loving-kindness (metta). Even if you don’t believe any of this shit, it’s powerfully soothing.”

May you all be happy, even those who would wish me harm...

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon (Sex & Money)

¡Hola! Everybody... You know all this is weird for me -- I’m not a Christian, though I was raised as one. I don’t really celebrate Christmas. To me this is all a lot of nonsense to make us buy things. There is very little that’s spiritual about Christmas. Sure, if I had a kid, I would most certainly celebrate Christmas -- it’s not an evil thing and it would be horribly cruel to make a kid go through the cultural trauma of a Christmas without acknowledging at least some part of it.

But, I don’t celebrate Christmas now, though my family does and sometimes it’s a little tiring.

This year, I will not be posting everyday, it takes too much out of me...

* * *

-=[ Sex & Money ]=-

“My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.”

-- Ashleigh Brilliant(1933– )

Imagine, if you can, going out and seeing a reasonably trustworthy-looking stranger you find sexy. Imagine giving this sexually attractive (to you) stranger some money, looking him or her in the eyes and saying, “I’m doing this as part of an assigned exercise. I’m supposed to give some money to somebody really sexy. Then I am to have no further discussion with you.”

As you imagine doing this exercise, how does it feel to give someone money while admitting out loud he or she is sexy?

Most of us are a wee bit complicated about both sex and money. Essentially, there are forms of energy exchange, which can be as simple as an unexpected gift, or as complicated as a lawsuit.

::blank stare::

Sex and money: the sources of our desire and disappointment, our hopes and fears.

To live fully, as far as I’m concerned is to live every moment so that no residue remains except the free openness of love. Sex and money are most often our least lived domains, these are the areas smeared with the most residue -- the most baggage. Therefore, few people (if they are honest) can imagine doing this exercise without some lingering clinging of an emotional complication.

I have found that the best way to discover how live fully is to break the usual rules, in the least risky ways, in order to find out where the obstructions reside within us.

Repeat this exercised, or invent one of your own that require you to imagine offering gifts beyond your comfort zone. As you learn to give despite your fears, your sexual and financial lives can be lived according to what serves openness the most, rather than being ruled by the consequences of living a fear-based life, holding your gifts back.

It’s easy to become stuck in your own personal soap operas of sex and money. What you can’t live as openness, offered without baggage, creates sickness in your life. Yet, the price of discovering where you’re stuck sexually and financially may be more than what you’re willing to invest.

The core question today being do you maintain no sexual or financial secrets? These secrets are among your most secret refusals to live openly as love.

Are you willing to face, feel, confess, and open beyond your every sexual and financial complication now? MY life has taught me that human birth is for those who are not quite ready but may be on the verge -- willing -- that’s the reason why you are here as your are.

If your issue was about swinging from a vine, you would’ve been born an ape.

Love,

Eddie

[un]Common Sex Blog [Opening in Sex]

¡Hola! Everybody,
Unfortunately, I got some bad personal news last night as I was returning home. Today, I will be busy attending to that issue. I do hope you all have a great weekend. I’m looking forward to continuing my decorating projects and making this space my home. Last week, I was reading in my space in the backyard and what a pleasure that was. There are wild roses springing up everywhere!

Sex and the City opens here this weekend and I’m sure all my girl friends will be flocking to see it. I hated the series. Lemme see: professional, supposedly “independent,” successful, and highly educated women who nonetheless still measure their lives by the men they have/ don’t have? BLAH! I believe the film will be wildly successful because 1) A film (written and directed by a man) on relationships is catnip for women, 2) You can’t beat NYC as a supporting character, and 3) shoes.

* * *

-=[ Opening in Sex ]=-

[Note: Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know some of you are sick and tired of me writing about “opening your heart.” Yet, the fact remains that so many of you constantly complain about your man/ woman not opening, or your inability to find someone to “open up.” What I find is that what many women call “opening up” is not really about opening up, but rather me conforming to what they perceive as opening up.

Two different things.

The latter is about control, not opening up in a mutually honest and respectful manner. My other observation is that even if I were to conform to a woman’s idea of opening up, she will eventually lose respect for me, because her concept of opening up is fundamentally flawed.]

Below is one way to practice opening up and living your life as a gift of opening and giving…

I fucked up and said something stupid that hurt her emotionally. I apologized and tried talking to her, but it made no difference. So there we were in bed, together and at the same time miles apart, emotionally. She was hiding behind an icy wall of protection, her body, tense, unmoving. Her face is a frozen reflection of tension, anger, and hurt.

I love her. So I tenderly touch her with my hand. No response. I take her hand in mine and I softly caress her cheek, run my hand over her shoulder and lightly caress and massage her. I try to give her as much love as I can. And she relaxes just a little. I touch her, caress her, I try to feel her emotions and responses. After a while, she turns and faces me, and with a sad smile, she pulls me closer.

I roll on top of her, pinning her beneath me. I am relaxed, my belly soft against hers, my breath full and deep. All the while, I am looking into her eyes, trying to give her love through my eyes, my stomach, my body, my breath.

She closes down again, my actions perhaps violating her momentary battle lines/ boundaries. I am not forcing myself, I’m persisting as love. I’m slowly, softly pressing my love into her, my warmth penetrating her skin reaching her heart.

She begins to respond, opening more. I can feel her belly softening as I sin more deeply into her. As her tension releases, tears well in her eyes and roll down her cheeks. I kiss her tears and she holds me tightly against her. From the depths of my heart I feel her, as if my heart could find her in the depths of the ocean of her very being.

Her opening is so inviting, so pure and so attractive. I sink more deeply into her and it is then I feel the tension around my own heart. It is the tension of being in charge, of still trying to serve her instead of being in loving communion with her. So I relax the subtle tension in my heart and stop trying to “fix” her or myself and with that, I begin to do away with the obstruction to our pure loving. Her guard is down, her hear open and mine follows. There is no me to help, no her to save and I find we are completely surrendered to an open, unguarded unfolding of love.

We can learn to have sex (yes, I said have sex, not make love) with a completely vulnerable and open heart. Actually, it’s probably one of the most powerful ways to open. Of course, many women will say that they can’t do that with just anyone and that’s mostly because they can’t open up.

Period.

And it’s not just women, it’s men too, but I mention women specifically because there’s this whole stereotype of the innate receptiveness of women. Women are just as, if not more, closed than men.

If you’re worried about being hurt, you’re closed. No one can hurt you if you don’t allow them to, it’s that simple.

Whatever… I digress.

We can learn to have completely open sex, but the heart may be closed. So it follows that you can use sexual practice as a way for opening the heart and dismantling its defenses.

There are two types of heart closure. One is long-term closure. If you have lived for years with a closed and protected heart, it will takes months of practice to untie the knots of fear and tension that have become stored in your body. (squeak! LOL)

The other form of closure is short term and acute – intense. Something happens – your partner says something to hurt you as in the example above – and you close down. You’ve been hurt and you don’t want to hurt anymore. And you’re certainly in no mood to fuck (“give love”). So you guard your heart to protect yourself and withhold love to hurt back.

Both of these closures can be dissolved through sexual practice. You can actually use sex to melt away the frozen tundra of your heart. You can use the heat of sex to melt away the rigid (and false) protection of fear. You can use the love of sex to become receptive to your partner, inviting him or her to abandon their battle lines. You can use the humor of sex to bring laughter into every wounded inch.

All kinds of emotions may rise to the top through this process. In unguarding your heart, the stress that was being used to maintain the barricade is released and emotional expressions of rage, laughter, tears, striking out, and unadulterated hate come out. And that’s how it should be. You’re releasing toxins from your mind/ body so take precautions in order to ensure a safe environment, but expect long-repressed emotions to boil off as the walls of your heart melt away.

And trauma and hurt is not excuse: no matter how hurt to the core, you must eventually learn to practice loving with an unguarded heart if you’re to throw away the emotional crutches.

The other option is to continue guarding your heart by closing down and separating from the one you love (or could love). Sometimes we’re not ready and it’s necessary to guard. You may feel you will lose yourself if you open into your partner. And this is fuckin’ true! With practice, you will lose yourself – into love.

Into shredded, pure, unadulterated love.

Love,

Eddie

Get your own playlist at snapdrive.net!

Relationship Thursdays [The Wounded Heart]

¡Hola! Everybody,
I’m gone all day, as is usual for me on Thursdays. Hope everyone is doing well, AmyRae: get a miniskirt and we’ll date. LOL! Latina: open up your fuckin QCs, dammit. I don’t care if Joe “Kneckbone” Loser is the jealous type. Emily? When the fuck are you coming back?!!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s a repost but 90% of you ma’fuccas don’t read my shit anyway, so it’s new. LOL

* * *

-=[ Why I Love Fragmented People ]=-
(or: The Wounded Heart)

“The heart is itself its own medicine. The heart all its own wounds heals.”
-- Hazrat Inayat Khan

You are loved… period.

Just as you are, right now, this very moment, you are perfectly lovable.

In fact, you are love itself.

When I exhort you not to complain, I’m actually trying to focus your attention on that which you are most committed to. Make a list of your major complaints over the span of several days and in that list you will find a pattern composed of what you are most committed to in life.

Some people mistake my issue with complaints. Most people assume I’m asking them to disassociate from their complaints and that is exactly what I’m trying to tell you not to do. What I am asking is that you look deep into your complaints, maybe even stop the habit of complaining for one fucking day.

One fuckin’ day!

Dissociation, like all other defense mechanisms, serves an important function. It’s our mind’s way of saying no to and turning away from our pain, our need for love, and our anger about not getting enough of it. It’s also a way of turning away from our body, where feelings reside. Sometimes, especially as children, we need to disassociate in order to protect our psyches. It is one of the most effective of all defense strategies in a child’s arsenal.

However, it has a major drawback: it shuts us off from access to two main areas of our body. It shuts us off from the vital center in the belly – the source of desire, Eros, vital power, and instinctual understanding – and it shuts us off from our heart center – where we respond to love and feel things most deeply.

In protecting ourselves from the feeling of being unloved, we block the passages through which love flows through the body and we deprive ourselves of the very sustenance needed for our life to flourish. We wind up cutting ourselves off to our connection to life itself.

This leaves us in a strange place – a painful space. On the one hand, we all hunger for love – we cannot help that, it’s how we’re wired as mammals. At the same time, however, we also avoid it and refuse to open to it because we don’t trust in it. We all have been burned too many times and we seem determined it won't happen again!

This is what one some psychologists call the wound of the heart, or the primal wound. This whole pattern – not knowing we’re loved as we are, then numbing our heart to ward off the pain and in the process shutting down the pathways through which love can flow – this is the wound of the heart. Although this wound has some of its origin in our childhood conditioning, it becomes fixated and grows into a larger spiritual problem: the disconnect from the loving openness that is our true nature.

It’s a universal wound that shows up in the body as emptiness, anxiety, trauma, or depression. In relationships, it manifests itself as the feeling being unloved, with all the insecurity, guardedness, mistrust, and resentment that feeling entails, as well as all the relationship problems that flow from there.

No matter how powerfully we fall in love with someone, we rarely dare to soar above our fear and distrust for very long. It seems that we’ve internalized the story of Daedalus, who perished when he flew too close to the sun and his wings melted. Indeed, the more brightly another person lights us up, the more it activates our wound and brings it to the foreground. Sure enough, as soon as conflict and disappointment arise, the old insecurities emerge from the darkness. Our ego -- what I call the The Mini Me -- pops up whispering, “You see, you’re not really loved at all!”

I believe all the beauty and horrors of the world originate from the same root: the presence or absence of love. Internalizing the feeling of not being loved (or lovable) is the only wound there is. It makes emotional cripples of us, shriveling us in the process. This is why I would say that, apart from the few biochemical imbalances and neurological disorders, the DSM (the diagnostic manual for psychological afflictions) should begin thus:

Contained within these pages are descriptions of all the miserable ways people feel and behave when they do not feel they are loved.

When people do not know they are loved, a cold black hole forms in the psyche, where the beliefs of personal insignificance, unimportance, lack of beauty and goodness have their root. This icy landscape of fear is what causes the emotional storms that rage within us and in our relationships.

The only way we can wipe out this cross-generational plague of feeling unloved is by healing the wound of the heart. Many religions and spiritual traditions have understood the importance of love in eradicating alienation from love. They admonish us to love more, to give more generously. The way to love, they seem to say, is to love first. This truth is, of course, profound, but there is another truth just as profound: we cannot give what we cannot receive.

I think it was in an Y360 blast where I first saw it, but the quote from the poet Rilke is eye opening here: “To love is to cast light,” he writes, while “to be loved means to be ablaze.” The question begging to be asked here is how can we cast light if we are not ablaze? It follows then that the key to loving is to become more receptive to being loved, to let it all in. Even if we believe that God is love, such a belief will have little effect if we are shut down or obstructed, preventing Great love from flowing freely.

Maybe what we need is a teaching that helps us focus on our capacity to receive love and how to develop that capacity. Perhaps such a teaching would integrate a psychology as well as a spiritual component. Conceivably such a teaching would include concrete, practical exercises aimed at developing our capacity to accept love. Because I know this much, it is often scarier to allow ourselves to be loved than it is to love.

May you find, through knowing that you are held in love, the boundless source of joy within yourself and share it with the world around us. My hope is that you realize your true nature as a blissful, radiant love, and that you are truly loved.

Love,

Eddie