The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Three]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I was watching some clips of Charlie Sheen last night and I have to say that if you want to see a meltdown, then watch these clips.

I will say Mr. Sheen has major cojones, but I would have to qualify that by noting that he seems to be extraordinarily defended. Mr. Sheen’s bravado seems to be a defense mechanism against a glaringly obvious insecurity. In other words, he appears to me like an egomaniac with low self-esteem.

Actually, he reminds me of me when I was an active addict. In fact, if I had had the fame and money Mr. Sheen has when I was active, I would most likely be dead. And while I wasn’t fucking Denise Richards-caliber starlets, I was just as recklessly promiscuous. In fact, I get kinda turned on thinking about what Mr. Sheen did with Ms. Richards... never mind!

Seriously, I’m not here to pass judgment on Sheen, nor do I think what he’s going through is in any way humorous. In fact, I’m not even calling him an addict. I can’t do that. I do find the clips difficult to watch. However, he’s correct in at least one thing: 12 step fellowships aren’t for everybody. However, if you were to ask me how I got clean, I would have to tell you that the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous saved my life. My experience also tells me that working the 12 Steps could be beneficial for everyone, regardless of whether they identify as an addict.

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-=[ Turning it Over ]=-

Step Three: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The first time I came to the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, by the time I reached this step, I had quit. This is bullshit! I told myself. Fuck that God shit.

I wasn’t ready for recovery and I spent the next five years, the worst of my life, chasing a bag, a piece of ass -- anything that could get me outside of myself. In a very real way, my addiction was my Higher Power, and at some level I knew this, but I would not kneel before a God I didn’t believe, or religious principles that I saw as intolerant and juvenile.

I didn’t sit still long enough to read the part of the step that says: ... as we understood Him. The second time around, I was desperate to learn and to live more effectively, more wisely. I was more open, but I also knew that I couldn’t pretend to submit to religious dogma and not go back out.

My First Step work forced me confront the contradiction of my addictive process: that I felt powerful when in fact, I was powerless and needed help. The First Step gave me hope... However, having internalized and accepted my powerlessness (not to be confused with hopelessness), I was left open and vulnerable, and while I understood my powerlessness, I needed something to latch onto, some form of support.

My Second Step work helped me come to terms with trust -- at least a little bit and it challenged my feelings of grandiosity, bringing me to the realization that I am a human being, and as such, I am not all-powerful -- the “Great I Am.” It taught me the value of surrendering my small self in favor of my Higher Self. The Second Step helped me take a good look at faith and it helped me begin my spiritual search anew with fresh eyes. In fact, I see my entire history of active addiction as a spiritual search gone wrong. Recovery was a matter of turning that mad search into something sane and good.

In the beginning, I was able to accept the collective consciousness of the fellowship of NA as my Higher Power, but as I continued to work the steps in my life, I came upon the teachings of Buddhism (The Dharma) and I accepted them as my Higher Power. In Buddhism, I found a Higher Power that could restore me to sanity.

In NA, there are no “shalts,” nothing is forced down our throats and everyone works the steps to the best of their abilities and at their own pace. The first three steps serve as a foundation, a bridge, back to life. It’s not about belief, but about practice. Believing is not enough; it is through living and applying the steps that we recover our Original Self. I think what’s most important for anyone, is maintaining a frame of mind described by Zen masters as “beginner’s mind.” In the mind of an expert, it is said, there are few possibilities. But in the mind of a beginner, everything is possible.

Let me add that I as I have progressed spiritually, I have come to realize that bridge back to life was made from the bones of those who came before me. many of whom never got clean, never tasted spiritual freedom...

Truly, change and recovery are about coming back to a state where we’re open to suggestions and looking at life with fresh eyes. It’s about dropping the mess and listening to the message. If you’re like me and many others, there are issues that have tested you sorely. Whether it is drugs, sex, relationships, your emotions, food, or other people, we all have found ourselves at our wit’s end at one time or another. The Third Step is about letting be, as the Taoists put it.

One thing I was painfully aware of was that whenever I imposed my will, things got messed up quick. If I was in a relationship, my will meant lot’s of insanity. Imposing my will on my addiction meant that it made it worse because my will was warped. So recovery (and the Third Step) is a lot about letting go of the impulsive need to control. It’s about allowing a Higher Principle, Higher Power, or God -- or whatever you choose to call it -- guide your actions.

For me, that Higher Power as I understand it, is The Dharma. In other words, instead of exerting my will on my addictive behaviors, I was letting go in favor of a set of spiritual principles that emphasized ethical behavior, contemplation, and cognitive restructuring. Rather than chasing a bag, or the delusional grasp for happiness through destructive behavior, I was instead flowing into a spiritual practice that guided me toward a saner way of life. For my purposes, I do not believe in an Abrahamic God, but I am an addict in recovery.

My experience teaches me that when I’m less reactive and defensive, life becomes less stressful and simpler. The truth of the matter is that I’m constantly taking my will back. I become a backseat driver to my life and demand to make a left turn, when my Higher Power (as I understand It) is telling me to make a right. There are times I’m downright nasty about it and I take the wheel and “all of sudden” there I am, ass out on Broadway. In my early recovery I would take my will back on an hourly basis. I had the good fortune to have someone explain to me that recovery (and life) is really about practice not perfection. The point is if we’re to evolve, then letting go becomes a way of life. These principles are guidelines to progress. The issue isn’t spiritual perfection, but spiritual practice. No one, my guide told me, gets this perfectly.

Whatever your understanding of your Higher Power, it is suggested that it be a loving and understanding. For me this means living a life of non-harming, of skillful speech and action. If I can turn my life over to that Higher Power, then I’m released from the bondage of my smaller, ego-driven self. For some this can mean throwing away the concept of an angry and jealous God for one that is loving, accepting, and compassionate. It could mean an understanding of God that resides within, instead of the concept of a God-in-the-sky. Perhaps the Universal Principle is a stream flowing through all of us. Maybe my Higher Power, rather than being an old white guy with a beard can look like Halle Berry, instead. Who’s to say? LOL! What’s important, in this spirituality, is that your Higher Power be loving and trustworthy.

Most importantly, this step is all about coming to terms with trust. It is really about learning acceptance, of letting go the compulsive need for control. In my active addiction, I was more concerned with control than about relationships. Lack of trust, my friends, is really about control. If you don’t trust someone, then you’re trying to control that person. In other words, lack of trust is the impulse to control because if you can’t trust another, you want to do everything yourself. And how has that worked so far?

Let go...

This is for you, whoever you are. Take what is useful. but this is mostly for the still sick and suffering addict out there all alone thinking there’s no way out, or defending a madness slowly killing him or her.

My name is Eddie and I am an addict in recovery...

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 1]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Life is change/ Growth is optional/ Choose wisely -- Karen Kaiser Clark

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-=[ Stopping the War ]=-

We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
-- The First Step of Narcotics Anonymous

I was once told that my spiritual principles were as a bridge back to life. What I didn’t know then was that this bridge is built on the very bones of those who came before me. This series of posts is an attempt to honor that sacrifice.

I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is a narrative of a life lived on the extreme edge and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people, regardless of whether they are addicts or not, can benefit from an application of the 12 steps.

The First Step confronted me with two problematic words: powerless and unmanageable. I also didn’t notice at first that every step began with the word “We.” I was a loner; “we” wasn’t a word I used much. Everything was about me. They say an addict is an egomaniac with low self-esteem, and I believe that was how I felt.

Let me just say that 12-step recovery is about action. Every step involves growth, exploration, and action. I think people have huge misconceptions about 12-Step Fellowships. People in recovery like to say that the first step is the only step you have to get perfectly. I disagree, recovery is an ongoing process, and my understanding of the first step expands as I grow. However, there is a level of acceptance necessary for the integration of this step. But I get ahead of myself…

There are several powerful psycho-spiritual factors at work in the First Step. Primarily, there is an admission. Admitting to a problem has become a popular notion in our culture that first came to prominence in the recovery community. Admitting touches on the first spiritual principle of the first step: honesty. However, admitting means nothing without acceptance. For example, I had no problem admitting I was an addict; I could be honest about that. LOL! That and $2.50 got me on the train, which is another way of saying that admitting by itself it is worthless. It wasn’t until I embraced another core spiritual principle of the first step, acceptance, that I was then able to make changes in my life.

The more meetings I made, the more I heard my own story being told by others who were honest about themselves. I began to see that I had a lot in common with these people when it came to my to my addictive behaviors. It took me a long time to come to grips with powerlessness. I was raised to think of myself as powerful. I was taught that if I exerted my will on any issue, that I could overcome anything in the world. If I had enough cojones and worked hard enough, I could have power over anything.

Besides, it wasn’t my addiction that was the problem, it was everyone else. At least that was what I told myself. If only other people got their shit together and external situations in my life corrected themselves, I wouldn’t be in such a fix. The problem with my thinking was that it involved exerting willpower. The problem with my willpower was that it was warped. The more willpower I exerted, the more I fucked up. I tried everything: using only on the weekends, snorting instead of using needles, drinking instead of using other drugs, using only certain drugs in certain combinations, etc. No matter what I tried, I always ended up in the same place: all fucked up.

Imagine a machinery part that was made to perform only one action, or to move in only one direction. No matter how much you oil that part, no matter how much you try to fix it, it will still perform what is was meant to perform. Similarly, if the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail. simply put, if i wanted to change, I needed to develop new tools, to step out of confines of my comfort zone. For me to begin my journey, I first had to surrender. In fact, as I look back now, the whole process of recovery is one long, beautiful, liberating process of surrendering.

The First Step is like the beginning of a hero’s journey. In the archetype of the hero (or errant knight), most heroes begin reluctantly, clumsily, and then forces beyond their control propel them past their ordinary lives into a journey of personal change and renewal. Like most addicts, I was unaware of aspects of myself -- my feelings, for example, and the wreckage I was creating. The first step freed me to begin my quest for self-knowledge and transformation.

Admitting to powerlessness took me years; accepting that admission brought me to the gateway of healing and sanity. That was also about another core spiritual principle: willingness. instead of willfullness, what I needed was willingness. It’s part of what is often called the HOW (honesty, openness, and willingness) of recovery.

The first step is not about defeat. It says powerlessness, not hopelessness. We have no power over many things. Take the weather, for example. You can’t stop the rain, but if you take the time to stop, look, and listen, you may come to realize that using an umbrella is a lot better that railing against the elements. We have no power over how others act or think yet we spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to exert control over other people. oftentimes, we don’t even have power over our own emotions, but we can learn to relate to them differently.

The first step is really about admitting powerlessness over living in the extremes. Try fighting the rain, or better yet, a hurricane, and you’ll get a sense of what it is to fight addiction. You have to surrender.

As part of taking the first step, you take an inventory of the consequences of your addiction. For me this meant documenting the jobs I lost, the people I hurt, and most of all, the harm I did to myself. In this way, I could no longer deny the unmanageability of life as an active addict. This was a hard nut to crack because I never wanted to admit my life was unmanageable. I had it together, I liked to think, I just went a little overboard sometimes.

I also discovered the insanity of the obsession that led to the compulsion and how my fight would be fruitless until I surrendered. If you’re fighting an inner war, then someone has to lose. If you’re fighting an inner war, it follows, you will always lose.

Taking the first step clearly showed me that my thinking had little connection to reality. There were countless times, for example, that I would experience a blackout. With a blackout, you can sit down one minute and the next thing you know you missed an entire episode of your life -- while conscious. It’s similar to what I imagine a time jumper would feel. One minute you’re in one place and the next, you’re somewhere else and you don’t know what the fuck is going on. One time coming out of a blackout, I had a whole party-full of people wanting to kick my ass, and I had no clue why. It seems I propositioned the bride-to-be (it was an engagement party) and that kinda pissed a few people off. I once came out of a blackout in a different state and different year. Still I couldn’t admit my powerlessness. It wasn’t that something was wrong with me, I rationalized, it was those damned stuck up muthafuckas, and besides, I know that bitch at the engagement party wanted me. Perhaps you may have never this extreme form of powerlessness, but have you ever had a situation spiral out of control to the point that you were at a loss?

Most of all, the first step is the beginning of the undoing of the karmic consequences of denial. I had to be brought my knees -- from hopelessly addicted to institutions and even close to death -- and still I wouldn’t admit my powerlessness. There was definitely a lot of evidence of unmanageability in my life. Shit, I attempted suicide at least once. What “normal” person can say that? More than anything, I was addicted to insanity.

Oh, and yes, I’ve kicked more habits than I can remember. I just could never stay stopped. It was never really hard kicking a habit. But addiction, I soon learned, was not merely about substance abuse. I would get “clean” and chill for six-seven months, but when I started again, it was as if I never stopped. My last day as an active addict, I had spent $300 after having been released from an institution for exactly fourteen days. I went from clean to a $300-a-day habit at the drop of a hat. I would say that’s unmanageable...

However, there are other ways our powerlessness and unmanageability manifests in our lives. Whether it’s food or cigarettes, or relationships, I think we can all look where we’re slowly killing ourselves, suffering needlessly, or causing ourselves and our loved ones harm. I believe we all can identify with the need to exert control and the denial of powerlessness. I use my life as an example because the extreme manner in which I lived it makes it easier to illustrate my points, but we all have the dark places, the places that scare us.

Today, I apply the first step to many things in my life, especially in relationships and to certain behaviors. Addictions like to migrate. One might be able to kick the heroin or the alcohol, but then you see people acting out sexually or financially. If you don’t do the inner work, applying these principles in all your affairs, then you’ll continue to be in the grips of addictive behavior. The first step stipulated that I was powerless over my addiction. Addiction is not about a substance, but a way of thinking.

Eventually, I began to think of the first step as something similar to the concepts of Aikido or Wing Chun, two martial arts that stress the importance of never meeting force with force. In a sense, the first step is about learning to flow with the forces of life instead of fighting all the time. It’s learning to transform difficult emotions into opportunities for healing. It’s knowing that you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

Alcoholics Anonymous: Official website

Narcotics Anonymous: Official website

Recovery USA, llc: Recovery USA, llc is an online resource for those seeking recovery information, community connections, and high-quality 12 Step Recovery Supplies for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

Sober Recovery: The Alcoholism and Addictions Resource Guide. "Our Sober Community is always open 24 hours a day with helpful moderators in our message boards and Sober Forums."

Alano: "The Online Alano Club is a nonprofit association intended as a resource for Alcoholics Anonymous® members and groups, as well as any individual who has a desire to stop drinking. Members from other 12-Step programs, especially the Al-Anon Family Groups, also are welcome."

12 Step Radio: A great site for Recovery Music, Artist Interviews, Online Communities, Links and Resources, and more...

Note: The featured artwork is from an artist who sells the prints online. I happen to like them. His website features prints of all the 12 steps.

Surrender

¡Hola! Everybody…
Busy, busy, busy…

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-=[ Stopping the War ]=-

“The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”

-- Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968), American actress

I sometimes am concerned that people will confuse my story for the message. When conducting a workshop or speaking in front of an audience, I always worry that some people may get stuck on my particular story and miss out on what I feel are underlying universal points.

Equally challenging for me is the possibility of people dismissing my message because they are so far removed from my specific issues, or find it hard to identify with my story. However, the deeper I look at society and the larger issues, I know that there are many who not only can identify with my story, but also know intimately the pain of loneliness and the sense of inner poverty.

Perhaps we can begin by opening up to the possibility that those considered best-adjusted in our society are neither dead or alive, just numb, zombies. When you are alive, you are more likely to question the status quo. When you are fully alive, you are constantly questioning the many insane practices of society: the racism, the polluted environment, the nuclear and biological warfare threat, the fragmented people from extreme political positions who run for office (and often win), drinking unsafe water, and eating carcinogenic or genetically modified foods.

If we can open up to this view (I promise you can go back to your default view later), we begin to understand there is a social investment promoting those things that keep us dull, keep us busy with our fixes, and keep us slightly numbed and zombie-like. In this way, our modern consumer society itself becomes an addict. I remember reading this in author Anne Wilson Schaef's When Society Becomes an Addict, and being struck by what should be a very obvious observation.

In the USA, there are at least 30-40 million drug addicts, millions more addicted to cigarettes, gambling, food, sexuality, unhealthy relationships, or the speed and busyness of work. In a way, we are all part of an “addicted society” and our most pervasive addiction is to speed. Modern society pushes us to increase productivity and the pace of our lives.

Having to live life in a society that demands it lived double-time, speed and addictions numb us to our own reality. Our pereception of reality makes it is almost impossible to settle into our bodies or stay connected with our hearts, let alone connect with one another or even our life-giving ecology. I believe there is a huge hunger for community or regaining a lost sense of connectedness. For example, we rush around all day and that leaves us little time to connect, so we log on to our computers and connect here. I’m not saying there is something wrong about this, I’m just making an observation.

If we’re honest, most of us would admit that sometimes we find ourselves increasingly isolated and lonely, cut off from one another and the natural web of life. You get in your car, drive to work, get back in your car, drive back home... you can actually very easily live your life in almost total seclusion in your climate-controlled existence and not even be aware of it.

I would submit that this is the most pervasive sorrow of our modern lives.

Folks, this is where the depression, the war with food and weight, body image, substance abuse, and exploitive sex practices originate and the only cure for it is becoming fully alive.

But how does someone become fully alive?

I think it starts from within and creating the psychological space for reflection and stillness. Stop long enough and listen to the inner dialogue in your head and you will be amazed at how crazy it all sounds. When I first tried it, I thought I was crazy until I realized that the inner dialogue in my head was not me -- it is merely the conditioned within me floating around undisciplined as a stream of consciousness. The thing is that this inner conversation has a tremendous influence on our behavior if we don't put it in its place.

We cannot change ourselves for the better through an act of will alone. This is like wanting the mind to get rid of itself, or pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Remember the studies I quoted on how many people break New Year's resolutions (70-80% quit by the third week)? When we struggle to change ourselves we only reinforce the self-defeating patterns of self-judgment and aggression. We keep the war against ourselves alive. Such acts of will backfire, and in the end often strengthen the addiction or denial we intend to change.

Genuine movement toward the happiness that is our birthright as human beings requires that we learn to

Stop

The

War

This is the first step, but actually, it must be practiced repeatedly until it becomes our very way of being. The inner stillness of the person who truly “is peace” brings peace to the whole interconnected web of life, both inside and out. To stop the war we must begin with ourselves.

The only effective means of change is one that has as its purpose to empower us to stop the war, not by force of will, but organically -- through understanding and gradual training. If we have an ongoing practice, we can cultivate a new way of relating to life in which we let go of our battles.

When we let go -- when we step out of the battle -- we begin to see how each of us creates conflict. We begin to see our constant likes and dislikes, the fight to resist all that frightens us. We begin to see our own prejudice, greed, and possessiveness create our suffering. All of this is certainly hard to look at, but it is there. Look deeper, underneath these ongoing battles, and we begin to see the deep-rooted feelings of incompleteness and fear. We being to see how much our wars with life have kept our hearts closed.

When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is it -- this is the beginning and end of any true effective means of change or spirituality. Only in the moment can we discover the love that we seek: love in the past is simply a memory, and love in the future is fantasy.

Only in the reality of the present moment can we love, can we awaken, can we find peace and understanding and connection with the world and ourselves. The NY Lottery has a marketing campaign that goes: “You gotta be in it to win it,” and so it is with life. Stopping the war and becoming present are two sides of the same coin. To come into the present means to experience whatever is here and now. Most of us have lived our lives caught up in plans, expectations, and ambitions for the future, in regrets, guilt, or shame about the past. Most of us have an argument with reality. Waking up is partly committing to stopping the argument – even if only for a short moments everyday.

When we come into the present, we begin to feel the life force around us again, but we also encounter whatever we have been avoiding. We must have the courage to face whatever is present -- our pain, our desires, our grief, our loss, our secret hopes, our love -- everything that moves us most deeply. As we stop the war, each of us will find something from which we have been running -- our loneliness, our unworthiness, our boredom, our shame, our unfulfilled desires. We must face these parts of ourselves as well.

We all share a longing to go beyond the prisons of our personal fear or anger or addiction, to connect with something greater than the small ego, what we call “I” (the mini me). We ant to connect to something greater than our small story and our small self. It is possible to stop the war and come into the eternal present -- to touch a great ground of being that contains all things. For me, this is the true purpose and mission of life: to discover peace and connectedness in ourselves and to stop the war in us and around us.

Yours,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Surrender and Devotion]

¡Hola! Everybody…
I wrote this the last time I moved two years ago (LOL)… I am decorating and as soon as my back gets better, I’ll finish and take photos.

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Surrender & Devotion

You all are probably sick and tired of my constant references to surrender. But you see: there’s no way around it: if you want to fuckin’ be happy for once in your fuckin’ life you first have to surrender and surrender completely. This is no the, “Well, I’ll surrender a little bit, Eddie, then later I’ll surrender sum more” surrender. No, that shit doesn’t get it. You’ve been doing that long enough and half-assed surrendering got you half-assed results.

No, I want nothing more than your total, unconditional, utter surrender. And I don’t want it for myself (though my world would be made better by your utter surrender), nor do I want you to surrender to me (though that would be nice).

I guess I should start at what I mean by surrender (there are two words in my title today, BTW… )

The word “surrender” gets a bad rap in our culture, with it’s almost obsessive and exclusive focus on the individual. Surrender is often interpreted as giving up, weakness, giving up, as in defeat. While I am referring somewhat to giving up, I use it in a different way. Surrendering to me means letting go of our resistance to and fear of the total openness of who we really are. Allow me to reiterate:

Surrender means opening up to the fact of the total openness of who you really are.

Yup. You are total open consciousness. You may not know it, but everything you need for your freedom exists within you right now, in this very life, this very moment. You just need to stop resisting that fact.

Surrendering to me means giving up that little mass of tensions you call your “self” – the story you created as a response for the need to feel real. All that bullshit: your horoscope, your Myers/ Briggs categorization, your social security number, your ID card – all that shit is bullshit. It’s your little personal soap opera. That is not who you are. That whole thing – that “personality” -- is a bundle of tension you chose to take on in order to separate yourself from everyone else’s personal soap operas. Feel it: it manifests itself as a contraction in your body.

You cannot be vulnerable nor can you surrender while clothed in your personal soap opera. You cannot love, nor know love, nor be loved while you’re all twisted like that.

Soften yourself, breathe – luxuriate in your free space…

Surrendering to me means to open with no boundaries. Shit, you cannot say, “I love you,” when in a state of surrender. There is no “I” -- no “Eddie” -- that loves you. There is only love. Quick! STFU! Think of someone you love totally without condition – a son or daughter, or a lover…

Feel that?

That is what you are. It’s palpable -- you can feel this thing that you are -- it’s always there even when you lose sight of it. That’s who and what you are.

Surrender to me means loving without limits. It means to break down your walls and to let down your guard so that your lover can feel your very core – genuine, naked, and unhidden, without defenses. Your belly becomes soft and your breath becomes full. You willingly open your body and heart to your lover. If you are hurt, you are hurt, but you remain open and full. You live your live as open like the sky, the ocean, the trees. Surrender to me is the gateway to the deepest possible way of knowing.

You might say you have opened like this and I will challenge you. You may have surrendered to someone or something but I have met very few people who have surrendered to the notion they are love. What I mean by surrendering is the practice (not the thought, or analysis) of surrendering -- not to your own fears, nor the demands of another -- but directly to love. If you tell me you have no resistance to any of this, then I’m going to call you on your bullshit because if you have ever tried surrendering in this way the first realization is that there is a huge resistance to it.

True surrender, in the manner in which I use the word, is not adapting yourself to please people. Nor is it even momentarily surrendering your emotional needs. These are all secondary needs and true surrender is about breaking through veil of these secondary needs and amplifying the primal core, and very human yearning to give and receive unlimited and unbound love.

And that my friends is devotion.

Love,

Eddie

The TGIF Sex Blog [Surrender]

¡Hola! Everybody…
So, I’m looking to move on the 15^th (next Saturday). I abhor moving! I’ll be spending the whole weekend packing and tearing up my back in the process. Did I mention I have thousands of books?

Today? Another letter…

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-=[ Surrender ]=-

Dearest Lover,

How much pleasure can that sweet, soft body of yours handle? Can you feel The Creator in your cunt? I mean clitoral orgasms are fine, but your cervix is where it’s really at. Yes, you can touch yourself, or have your pussy licked, you can shake and shimmy your vagina as much as you want, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you want to be really fucked, your whole pussy has to open, like a surrendered heart, an exotic flower, purring like a kitty, collapsing open as love, throbbing open as your heart is surrendered over to a Godly fuck.

Rubbing your clit just isn’t it.

I know, I know, it feels good to you. That’s because feeling good is good enough for you, lover. Look at you, screwing up your pretty face in anticipation of that rush of pleasure you can almost already sense, holding your breath and clamping down on all that hot, moist energy, keeping it all locked up in that pretty little pussy of yours, building it up so you can do your thing. And when it’s over, you’ll still complain.

Women like to complain, it’s a warped form of foreplay, a game that never ends. But I’ve learned that knowing how to treat a woman means not arguing with her. You want one thing, lover, and one thing only: You want to be fucked.

There, I said it.

And I’m not talking about licking your clit, or inserting my cock in you and pumping a few times. I’m talking about fucking you till you see God. Do you know what I mean? I don’t think so.

At the risk of getting too Freudian, in order for me to fuck you to God, I first have to kill my father and fuck my mother, you know? I have to leave my childhood behind and be a man. All those bullshit images of being too small, or of not being good enough -- I had to leave that all strange shit behind. Stroking my cock and feeling good is not enough. We all know that when you stroke your cock or rub your clit it feels good. That’s not what fucking is all about. That’s not what we’re here for -- at least I hope not. Feeling good is for people who are afraid to feel God.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying that you’re not afraid. But my question to you is: do you trust men? Do you trust me to enter you? You might say that you have trusted men in the past. So again, I ask you, have you totally received a man into your heart and body? I mean actively received him, worshiped his cock, sucked him into you so profoundly that every part of you was penetrated? Have you ever opened yourself and taken him so deep your heart was opened wider than the greatest love you have ever known?

Perhaps you have opened to a man but not as much because you’re afraid of losing yourself. And that is why your pussy is afraid of pleasure. Your clit may not be afraid, but your cunt is. When was the last time your cervix opened wide as the universe, your body radiating love in waves of bliss so that you lost yourself entirely, I mean really gone -- obliterated?

Lover, you have never been fucked.

I know you want to be fucked but you’re afraid. You’re afraid that if you give yourself to man in that way, you will be hurt. You’re unsure and afraid because there is no guarantee he will stay with you. You’ve worked hard and long to trust yourself, to not need a man to feel good about your life. And you know that you’ve never really opened or given yourself to a man completely. And now you’re afraid of getting old and never finding that man you can trust.

Your emotional geometry won’t work here. You might want your clit to be licked by some Joe Neckbone who bows at your feet, or cry in the arms of a lover, safely ensconced in a cocoon of fake intimacy, but this isn’t the place where you can find a daddy you can finally trust to do as you always wanted.

This moment is it. It’s as close to it as you will get, and it is the only home you’ll ever have, the only beloved you will ever know. If you’re looking for a better moment, waiting for a better lover, you might as well sew that thing up right now. Daddy isn’t going to take care of you and mommy isn’t going to feed you from her tit. That moment you dream of is your delusion, your crucifix. Can you feel it? You want a man you can trust before you give yourself completely. So you’re waiting, sad and unopened, before you will offer yourself to be claimed by a Godly fuck.

Lover, here’s the truth: any man you ever meet is going to betray you. I can guarantee it. Not because men are evil, emotionally crippled or anything Cosmopolitan tells you. The only truth is that everything changes. We live in a world of impermanence and unless you are already surrendering to that one truth -- The Giant Cosmic Fuck -- right now in this very moment, you will always feel betrayed by change.

Can you open your pussy now? Can you receive the energy that obliterates you till the ends of time, the same force that fills you as large as the universe? Why do you think they call it the Big Bang, lover? It’s the Cosmic Fuck of the universe -- the force of The Creator. And this force right now is opening as you. You are the expression of this force.

Will you surrender? Will you receive the force so deep in your heart and body that your little fears vanish in the blissful agony of love’s perfection? Hmmm…

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step Three]

¡Hola! Everybody...
I realized this morning that March had passed and I had forgotten to post Step Three...

* * *

-=[ Turning it Over ]=-

Step Three: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The first time I came to the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous, by the time I reached this step, I had quit. This is bullshit! I told myself. Fuck that God shit.

I wasn’t ready for recovery and I spent the next five years, the worst of my life, chasing a bag, a piece of ass -- anything that could get me outside of myself. In a very real way, my addiction was my Higher Power, and at some level I knew this, but I would not kneel before a God I didn’t believe, or religious principles that I saw as intolerant and juvenile.

I didn’t sit still long enough to read the part of the step that says: ... as we understood Him. The second time around, I was desperate to learn and to live more effectively, more wisely. I was more open, but I also knew that I couldn’t pretend to submit to religious dogma and not go back out.

My First Step work forced me confront the contradiction of my addictive process: that I felt powerful when in fact, I was powerless and needed help. The First Step gave me hope... However, having internalized and accepted my powerlessness (not to be confused with hopelessness), I was left open and vulnerable, and while I understood my powerlessness, I needed something to latch onto, some form of support.

My Second Step work helped me come to terms with trust -- at least a little bit and it challenged my feelings of grandiosity, bringing me to the realization that I am a human being, and as such, I am not all-powerful. It taught me the value of surrendering my small self in favor of my Higher Self. The Second Step helped me take a good look at faith and it helped me begin my spiritual search anew with fresh eyes. In fact, I see my entire history of active addiction as a spiritual search gone wrong. Recovery was a matter of turning that mad search into something sane and good.

In the beginning, I was able to accept the collective consciousness of the fellowship of NA as my Higher Power, but as I continued to work the steps in my life, I came upon the teachings of Buddhism (The Dharma) and I accepted them as my Higher Power. In Buddhism, I found a Higher Power that could restore me to sanity.

In NA, there are no “shalts,” nothing is forced down our throats and everyone works the steps to the best of their abilities and at their own pace. The first three steps serve as a foundation, a bridge, back to life. It’s not about belief, but about practice. Believing is not enough; it is through living and applying the steps that we recover our Original Self. I think what’s most important for anyone, is maintaining a frame of mind described by Zen masters as “beginner’s mind.” In the mind of an expert, it is said, there are few possibilities. But in the mind of a beginner, everything is possible.

Truly, change and recovery are about coming back to a state where we’re open to suggestions and looking at life with fresh eyes. It’s about dropping the mess and listening to the message. If you’re like me and many others, there are issues that have tested you sorely. Whether it is drugs, sex, relationships, your emotions, food, or other people, we all have found ourselves at our wit’s end at one time or another. The Third Step is about letting be, as the Taoists put it.

One thing I was painfully aware of was that whenever I imposed my will, things got messed up quick. If I was in a relationship, my will meant lot’s of insanity. *grin* Imposing my will on my addiction meant that it made it worse because my will was warped. So recovery (and the Third Step) is a lot about letting go of the impulsive need to control. It’s about allowing a Higher Principle, Higher Power, or God -- or whatever you choose to call it -- guide your actions.

For me, that Higher Power as I understand it, is The Dharma. In other words, instead of exerting my will on my addictive behaviors, I was letting go in favor of a set of spiritual principles that emphasized ethical behavior, contemplation, and mind training. Rather than chasing a bag, or the delusional grasp for happiness through destructive behavior, I was instead flowing into a spiritual practice that guided me toward a saner way of life. For my purposes, I do not believe in an Abrahamic God, but I am an addict in recovery.

My experience teaches me that when I’m less reactive and defensive, life becomes less stressful and simpler. The truth of the matter is that I’m constantly taking my will back. I become a backseat driver to my life and demand to make a left turn, when my Higher Power (as I understand It) is telling me to make a right. There are times I’m downright nasty about it and I take the wheel and “all of sudden” there I am, ass out on Broadway. In my early recovery I would take my will back on an hourly basis. I had the good fortune to have someone explain to me that recovery (and life) is really about practice willing and not perfection. The point is if we’re to evolve, then letting go becomes a way of life. These principles are guidelines to progress. The issue isn’t spiritual perfection, but spiritual practice. No one, my guide told me, gets this perfectly.

Whatever your understanding of your Higher Power, it is suggested that it be a loving and understanding. For me this means living a life of non-harming, of skillful speech and action. If I can turn my life over to that Higher Power, then I’m released from the bondage of self. For some this can mean throwing away the concept of an angry and jealous God for one that is loving, accepting, and compassionate. It could mean an understanding of God that resides within, instead of a concept of a God-in-the-sky. Perhaps the Universal Principle is a stream flowing through all of us. What’s important, in this spirituality, is that your Higher Power be loving and trustworthy.

Most importantly, this step is all about coming to terms with our trust. It is really about learning acceptance, of letting go the compulsive need for control. In my active addiction, I was more concerned with control than about relationships. Lack of trust, my friends, is really about control. If you don’t trust someone, then you’re trying to control that person. In other words, lack of trust is the impulse to control because if you can’t trust another, you want to do everything yourself. And how has that worked so far?

Let go...

Love,

Eddie

The TGIF Sex Blog [The Way to a Woman's Heart]

¡Hola! Everybody...
So, on Monday, I went at length on surrender as a tool for change. Yesterday, I attempted to show how surrender can be applied to relationships, and today you’re gonna haveta surrender to me sexually. LOL!

* * *

-=[ The Way to a Woman’s Heart ]=-

I write the following fully knowing my POV is filtered through the lens of what it is to be a man in this society. I write from my own experience (or lack thereof). I will submit, however, that some here will find a measure of truth.

Simply put, a woman’s heart and genitals are usually deeply connected. When a woman’s heart is truly open to you, so are her genitals (or “coochie,” as a friend calls it), and when she opens herself sexually to you, she opens herself emotionally. For most women, emotional, sexual, and spiritual openness are all part of the same ritual of trust, openness, and love. In fact, for many women, their deepest sexual experiences are their deepest spiritual experiences.

This is why sex for sport, or sex with random strangers, is not a big attraction for women. Doubt me? Well, how many women are lining up in front of glory holes (note: if you don’t know what a glory hole is, you shouldn’t be reading my blog! *grin*). A man will stick his cock through a hole in the wall, and he would care less who’s on the other side -- he will find release. Remember, men seek release, women seek fulfillment.

Most women open emotionally during good sex. My experience has been that women don’t just want to open up like that to anyone. This is why a woman tends to fall in love with whomever she has profound sex with: her heart opens along with her vagina and she feels love for the man with which she has had great sex.

As a woman learns to surrender sexually, her emotions open and she feels the undercurrent of love -- yours and hers. No matter what you say you’re feeling on the surface, deep down you want to give and receive total love, and guess what -- so does she. Shit, she can feel your heart buried deep beneath the anger and shame. She can feel her own heart deep underneath her own resistance and hurt.

Want her completely? Then practice surrendering with her until you both develop that capacity of surrendering as love. Practice surrendering until you both learn to magnify that love even in the entanglement of the everyday dust of life: the boredom, pain, and superficial emotions that distract us from genuine presence.

To help her do this, remember her vagina and her heart are directly connected: treat her vagina as you would her heart… and vice versa.

Love,

Eddie

Relationships Thursdays [Surrendering]

¡Hola! Everybody…
I touched on the spiritual principle of surrender earlier in the week. This is one way of applying that principle to other areas of your life...

* * *

-=[ Surrender ]=-

“[A relationship] takes time and deeds, and this involves trust, it involves making ourselves naked, to become sitting ducks for each other.”

-- Eldridge Cleaver

Surrender gets a bum rap in our society. It is often culturally interpreted as giving up, as weakness, as admitting defeat. And certainly this is one way the word can be used. When I speak of surrender, however I use it to mean letting go of your resistance to the total openness of who you are. For me, surrendering is an expression of one of the cornerstones to genuine and lasting change: willingness. It means putting aside the little war of the mini whirlpool of who you perceive yourself to be and embracing the realization of yourself as a powerful wave -- as limitless and deep as the ocean.

To surrender is to love without limits, in the process bringing down the walls of fear and shame so that your lover can feel the very core of you -- genuine, precious, fearless, and unhidden. In surrender your muscles relax, your breath becomes soft and full. In surrender, you present your body and heart as a sacred offering. Yes, there is pain in life, but if you are hurt, surrendering means you make the commitment to stay open and full like the ocean – as limitless space.

Surrender isn’t an act; it’s a state of being often called “grace.”

Believe me, there’s a lot of surrendering that we all do. Too often we practice surrendering to our fears or to the demands of others. And while this may be a gateway toward genuine surrender, it’s only a beginning. If you’re going to surrender to anything, it should be love. Surrender into love, as one of my teachers is fond of saying. The entire purpose of surrender is to break through the resistance and tension of your small sense of self. Beyond that mass of tension and neurosis you call your self is a vast ground of being known as love. Undergirding all the drama, all the hurt and anger, lies the desire to give and receive love.

To surrender is to practice being with whatever emotion -- anger, fear, whatever -- and committing to see through it, to breathe through it, and to relax into the love that lies behind it. And then, when in the presence of that light, committing to surrender to that love. To surrender is to open as love. Surrender magnifies love by loving.

True sexual and spiritual surrender is not merely adapting yourself in order to please your partner or master. Nor is it about surrendering to momentary emotional needs. Genuine surrender is about relaxing through these secondary needs, both yours and your partner’s, and channeling and magnifying the primal desire to give and receive love...

Pure unbounded, limitless love.

Love,

Eddie

The 12 Steps for Everyone [Step 1]

¡Hola! Everybody...
So, I began this series last year and I think I stopped at Step Four. I’m going to revive this and see if I can finish it out.

* * *

-=[ Surrender ]=-

“We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.”

-- The First Step of Narcotics Anonymous

This is for all those who still suffer needlessly, not knowing there is a way out. To you I offer my gratitude and love...

Every month, I will post my strengths, hopes, and experiences on one of the 12 steps of Narcotics Anonymous. What follows is a narrative of my journey toward healing. I don’t know if this will work for you, but if you were to ask me, this is how I recovered my life. My story is a narrative of a life lived on the edge -- extreme -- and you might find it hard to identify with some of its elements. All I ask is that you try to identify with and not compare my story. Listen to the message and not the mess.

I believe all people can benefit from a rigorous application of the 12 steps and I offer this in the spirit of hope.

The First Step confronted me with two problematic words: powerless and unmanageable. I also didn’t notice at first that every step began with the word “We.” I was a loner; “we” wasn’t a word I used much. Everything was about me. They say an addict is an egomaniac with low self-esteem, and I believe that was how I felt.

Let me just say that 12-step recovery is about action. Every step involves growth, exploration, and action. I think people have huge misconceptions about 12-Step Fellowships. People in recovery like to say that the first step is the only step you have to get perfectly. I disagree, recovery is an ongoing process, and my understanding of the first step expands as I grow. However, there is a level of acceptance necessary for the integration of this step. But I get ahead of myself…

There are several powerful psycho-spiritual factors at work in the first step. Primarily, there is an admission. Admitting to a problem has become a popular notion in our culture that first came to prominence in the recovery community. Admitting touches on the first spiritual principle of the first step: honesty. However, admitting means nothing without acceptance. For example, I had no problem admitting I was an addict; I could be honest about that. LOL! That and $2 got me on the train, which is another way of saying that admitting by itself it was worthless. It wasn’t until I embraced another core spiritual principle of the first step, acceptance, that I was then able to make changes in my life.

The more meetings I made, the more I heard my own story from the lips of others who were honest about themselves. I began to see that I had a lot in common with these people when it came to my relationship to addiction. It took me a long time to come to grips with powerlessness. I was raised to think of myself as powerful. I was taught that if I exerted my will on any issue, that I could overcome anything in the world. If I had enough cojones and worked hard enough, I could have power over anything.

Besides, it wasn’t my addiction that was the problem, it was everyone else. If only other people got their shit together and external situations in my life mended themselves, I wouldn’t be in such a fix. The problem with my thinking was that it involved exerting willpower. The problem with my willpower was that it was warped. The more willpower I exerted, the more I fucked up. I tried everything: using only on the weekends, snorting instead of using needles, drinking instead of using other drugs, using only certain drugs in certain combinations, etc. No matter what I tried, I always ended up in the same place: all fucked up.

If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything begins to look like a nail. For me to begin my journey, I first had to surrender. In fact, as I look back now, the whole process of recovery is one long, beautiful, liberating process of surrendering.

For me, the first step is like the beginning of a hero’s journey. In the archetype of the hero, most heroes begin reluctantly, and then forces beyond their control propel them past their everyday lives into a journey of personal change and renewal. Like most addicts, I was unaware of aspects of myself -- my feelings, for example, and the wreckage I was creating. The first step was a tool I could use in my quest for self-knowledge.

Admitting to powerlessness took me years; accepting that admission brought me to the gateway of healing and sanity. That was also about another core spiritual principle: willingness. It’s often called the HOW (honesty, openness, and willingness) of recovery.

The first step is not about defeat. It says powerlessness, not hopelessness. We have no power over many things. Take the weather, for example. You can’t stop the rain, but if you take the time to stop, look, and listen, you may come to realize that using an umbrella is a lot better that railing against the elements. We have no power over how others act or think yet we spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to exert control over other people. We don’t even have power over our own emotions, but we can learn to relate to them differently.

The first step is really about admitting powerlessness over living in the extremes. Try fighting the rain, or better yet, a hurricane, and you’ll get a sense of what it is to fight addiction. You have to surrender.

As part of taking the first step, you take an inventory of the consequences of your addiction. For me this meant documenting the jobs I lost, the people I hurt, and most of all, the harm I did to myself. In this way, I could no longer deny the unmanageability of life as an active addict. This was a hard nut to crack because I never wanted to admit my life was unmanageable. I had it together, I liked to think, I just went a little overboard sometimes.

I also discovered the insanity of the obsession that led to the compulsion and how my fight would be fruitless until I surrendered. If you’re fighting an inner war, then someone has to lose. If you’re fighting an inner war, it follows, you will always lose.

Taking the first step clearly showed me that my thinking had little connection to reality. There were countless times, for example, that I would experience a blackout. With a blackout, you can sit down one minute and the next thing you know you missed an entire episode of your life -- while conscious. It’s like what a time jumper would feel. One minute you’re in one place and the next, you’re somewhere else and you don’t know what the fuck is going on. One time I came out of a blackout, I had a whole party-full of people wanting to kick my ass, and I had no clue why. It seems I propositioned the bride-to-be (it was an engagement party) and that kinda pissed a few people off. I once came out of a blackout in a different state and different year! LOL! Still I couldn’t admit my powerlessness. It wasn’t that something was wrong with me, it was those damned stuck up muthafuckas, and besides, I know that bitch wanted me.

Most of all, the first step is the beginning of the undoing of the karmic consequences of denial. I had to be brought my knees -- from hopelessly addicted to institutions and even close to death -- and still I wouldn’t admit my powerlessness. There was definitely a lot of evidence of unmanageability in my life. Shit, I attempted suicide at least once. What “normal” person can say that? More than anything, I was addicted to insanity.

Oh, and yes, I’ve kicked more habits than I can remember. I just could never stay stopped. Addiction, I soon learned, was not about using. I would get “clean” and chill for six-seven months, but when I started again, it was as if I never stopped. My last day as an active addict, I had spent $300 and I was on the street (released from an institution) exactly fourteen days. I went from clean to a $300-a-day habit at the drop of a hat. I would say that’s unmanageable...

However, there are other ways our powerlessness and unmanageability can manifest itself. Whether it’s food or cigarettes, or relationships, I think we can all look where we’re slowly killing ourselves, or causing ourselves and our loved ones harm. I believe we all can identify with the need to exert control and the denial of powerlessness. I use my life as an example because the extreme manner in which I lived makes it easier to illustrate my points, but we all have the dark places where we butt our heads.

Today, I apply the first step to many things in my life, especially in relationships and to certain behaviors. Addictions like to migrate. You might be able to kick the heroin or the alcohol, but then you see people acting out sexually or financially. If you don’t do the work, then you’ll continue to be in the grips of addictive behavior. The first step stipulated that I was powerless over my addiction. Addiction is not about a substance, but about a way of thinking.

Eventually, I began to think of the first step as something similar to the concepts of Aikido or Wing Chun, two martial arts that stress the importance of never meeting force with force. In a sense, the first step is about learning to flow with the forces of life instead of fighting all the time. It’s learning to transform difficult emotions into opportunities for healing. It’s knowing that you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.

Love,

Eddie

Resources

Alcoholics Anonymous: Official website

Narcotics Anonymous: Official website

Recovery USA, llc: Recovery USA, llc is an online resource for those seeking recovery information, community connections, and high-quality 12 Step Recovery Supplies for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.

Sober Recovery: The Alcoholism and Addictions Resource Guide. "Our Sober Community is always open 24 hours a day with helpful moderators in our message boards and Sober Forums."

Alano: "The Online Alano Club is a nonprofit association intended as a resource for Alcoholics Anonymous® members and groups, as well as any individual who has a desire to stop drinking. Members from other 12-Step programs, especially the Al-Anon Family Groups, also are welcome."

12 Step Radio: A great site for Recovery Music, Artist Interviews, Online Communities, Links and Resources, and more...

Note: The featured artwork is from an artist who sells the prints online. I happen to like them. His website features prints of all the 12 steps.

Sunday Sermon [You're Alive]

¡Hola! Everybody...
Yes, I am a die-hard Jets fan. Yes, I am rooting for them today! It’s “ground and pound” Blue State against “Manning is Jaysus!” Red State. LOL

My Jets are being written off as a slight encumbrance to the Dolts’ inexorable march to the Superbowl. I’m just happy they made it this far. A win will make me very insufferable. LMAO!

* * *

-=[ Alive ]=-

“Change your words into truth and then change that truth into love… ”

-- Steveland Wonder, As

Ever thought of the fact that you are alive, right now? I mean really get into that? Soften your belly and relax your jaw. Feel (feel don’t think!) – feel your heart beating deep inside your body, and feel the rhythm of your heart as it radiates outward, pulsing in your hands, feet, and neck. Feeling your heart in this way, relax and open as in an offering to the world.

While you’re at it, take a moment and try to feel how you live your life – how you spend your moments. What did you do today or yesterday? What are your plans for tomorrow? Who do you love and do you love deeply?

The undeniable truth is that no matter what -- no matter how much money you have made, how many Coach bags you own -- one day you will become numb and your heart will stop, you will stop breathing, and all this will disappear. In some moment just like this one, your life will end.

Period.

Are you ready for death? Are you ready for the death of your children and your loved ones?

Many of us are celebrating today with picnics. A picnic with your loved ones. Fried chicken, cold drinks. A gentle breeze, the sun caressing your face. Suddenly your heart stops. A final plea -- fade to black…

Are you ready? I mean are you truly ready? Have you loved and lived fully and given your deepest gifts?

A life lived well is a life faced with an open heart -- every moment. You can be wide open, holding nothing back and you will receive in return without pushing away. The opening of your heart doesn’t come from an analysis of some kind, it doesn’t come from “loving” in the sense that we normally think of love. The opening of your heart comes from a deep felt sense. You are openness, inseparable from this entire moment. The one truth is that everything comes and goes. Everything must change.

Your child’s smile: precious but temporary and already dissolving.

Your lover’s tender embrace: already disentangling.

Life often resembles the ocean in that, try as we may, we can’t stop the waves -- they come and go, no matter how much we stomp and cry. While it is true that we can’t stop the waves, we can learn how to surf. Every moment is a miracle and already disappearing. Every experience is full and empty -- both.

A life lived merely for the sake of experience is a cheated life full of tension, insecurity, loneliness and a deep sense of being unfulfilled. Your Coach bag can’t fulfill you because at some point in time it will go. It will break or get lost or stolen, or worse, fall out of fashion. Your experience cannot fulfill you because as soon as it comes, it is already gone -- an illusion, just out of reach.

If we stop the grasping, life becomes free and full of light. Surrendering is opening. That’s how you open -- you surrender, opening full and bright, breathing deeply. Offering your heart of hearts, you are reborn in this moment. Believe me, when that time comes the only questions that will matter is whether you loved deeply and lived fully. But don’t wait, death gives us the permission to live freely and love openly this very moment.

Love,

Eddie

The TGIF Sex Blog [The Opening]

¡Hola! Everybody...
The following is a response to a question posed to me by a friend...

* * *

(above: "Gee-Gee")

-=[ The Persistence of Love and its Opening ]=-

So quiet now
soften yourself and listen,
connected and motionless.

To the symphonic pulsing of our blood,
the crash of an eyelid,
the joyous tickle of a bead of sweat.

Your deepest feminine desire is for your heart to flow open with love. No matter how much success you experience in your professional or academic life, the core of your heart will not feel fulfilled unless love is flowing in your life.

Deep love.

Trusting love.

A love that allows you to surrender and relax into its full grace.

You can feel the measure of your openness now. Is your womb filled with yielding pleasure? Are your inner thighs pulsating with life? Are your lips ripe, sticky-sweet with love’s kiss? Is your heart open, vulnerable, blossomed open with the power of a dark night’s storm? If you are sexually aroused, can you express love’s pleasure through your legs, your arms, your spilled moans of overflowing joy?

No matter how much in control or self-directed you have grown, your heart blooms when filled with love. When you are denied love you feel hurt and then the flower of your deepest heart closes in on itself. Suppose you heart is wide open, ready to flow with love, but your lover is unloving. Wounded by love’s denial, your vulnerable heart withers. Closing down in the act of protecting itself, your heart becomes hard.

It is said that pain is the breaking of the limits of your understanding, but the contraction of the heart is something much deeper -- and ultimately much more painful. Your frustrated yearning for love lies confined within the walls of pain’s closure. Anger builds. You make demands. You express rage, or worse, turn it inward. Behind the most feminine anger is the deep yearning for love.

There is a part of you, the in-control, self-directed part, that yearns only for freedom. Your masculine heart yearns not for love’s fullness but to be free, liberated from the shackles of life. Perhaps you think to yourself that one day your hard work will diminish your burdens. You will have the economic freedom to do what you want. You will figure it all out, grasp some unified theory of everything, and your problems will be solved. You will finish all your projects and you will be fullfilled. You will know enough, have enough, or succeed enough so that you will no longer be afraid of failure or loss.

In this moment -- here, right now -- are you waiting for that ideal time before you are willing to relax and open, exactly as you are? Are you aiming for the “one day” when you will finally be free to do what you really want to do? Do you ever become angry at your lover or your children because you feel trapped by their needs?

Your needs, or your anger, can be a warning to open more deeply. Why not open more deeply than your need for freedom or love right now? I think I have a clue: it’s because you are entangled in the drama of your life story. The drama of needs that seem compellingly necessary or at the very least significant. Or perhaps what you’re feeling is unlove.

You will test love.

Sabotage love.

Deny love.

You pine to feel a love that can withstand your tests, survive your sabotages, asserting itself through your denials. You want to feel your lover loving you even when you resist -- especially when you resist. “You don’t love me,” you say, in the hopes your lover will rise to the bait and say, “Yes, I do love you.” Love isn’t enough; it is the persistence of love that you value most.

A good love story requires that love be somehow threatened. In a good love story, love is found, lost, but ultimately love prevails. Your heart yearns for the triumph of love over loss.

But you can choose to go deeper than the drama of your life’s narrative right now. You can use the energy of your hurt or anger to cut through the entropy and plunge into the deepest heart of the matter. Rather than projecting anger, blame, and hope outward toward people and life (as if your relationships and plans can ever fulfill you), plunge into the deepest desire of your heart and gather your cues from the depth of your heart.

Feel into your heart, into love’s depth, feel everything that happens. Feel open now, this very moment. Relax into openness so you can feel this entire moment.

Still yourself.

Quiet yourself and listen...

The love you long for, the freedom for which you aim, is alive within you as long as you are open... now.

Love,

Eddie