Going in...Coming Out...

If you want to make an omelette you have to break some eggs.

Well I love cooking and I am willing to break eggs so lets just dive in. Diving headfirst into love is not something I have been timid about.
The question on the table for me is, have I been diving in heart first and undefended?
I have used my head to understand so much about relationship, its dynamic patterns, my part in those patterns, how to get accountable and how keep the focus on myself, speaking only about myself and not the other person. I have a full tool bag of skills to use to ‘make relationships work’. True, I have picked people with far less fascination than myself in implementing these tools but is that really the issue or is it that I have avoided the one simple and yet essential ingredient necessary to anchor the relationship in secure attachment.
What would that be you wonder?
I’ll take NEED for $500 please Alex.

Yes NEED!

In our autonomous, individualistic society, need has become a bad four letter word. We are told that we should grow up and be self sufficient, stop asking for our needs to be met like a child needing attention from a parent. I myself have advocated for this kind of autonomy, feeling that leaning too much on a partner was a burden and somehow unenlightened.

After all as spirit I don’t need anything...right?
As spirit I am called to BE not need.

And yet I am also a human being and I am realizing more and more that I have been leaning away from needing, as evidenced in my default to spiritual wholeness rather than feeling the need itself. Ultimately it felt safer to learn how to return to myself and my own essence then it did to trust that another person would be there for me consistently. Where is the balance in this? Is it possible to return to oneself with the help of a human union?  The time has come to admit I need other people and feel how vulnerable being in that state makes me. I am realizing that I have not admitted to myself what I need because I held a belief that I was meant to rise above my needs for fear of being needy.

Well there is a world of difference between asking for one’s needs to be met in a relationship and being needy. And I am embarking on a curriculum to get really clear about that distinction.

I just did a one day workshop called Hold me Tight facilitated by Dr Sue Johnson whose book by the same name has inspired Emotionally Focused Therapy as an effective way of working with couples in distress.  Watch this experiment called Still Face.


http://youtu.be/apzXGEbZht0

When I look at that baby I see myself. When the baby turns away from its mother because it is too painful to reach and not be met, that makes my insides quiver. It explains to me why spiritual fullness feels safer than needing another person. The baby doesn’t understand what to do to retain contact. And truth be told, neither do I. When it comes to vulnerable interaction with another being I get confused.  Yes, I have become an expert at breathing into myself and spiritual centering as a way of not acting out from fear but true vulnerability with another person would include the need for consistent attachment since that is at the core of our human wiring.

Let me be clear that I am not throwing out my well earned skill set of years of independent centering. I am in fact intending to add to it. And what I am adding is the ability to be humanly vulnerable and let my needs be known in relationship. That means I would have to feel what the needs are and risk asking for them from another. Yikes!

Try on these words if you will.
 I need you.
What happens when you say them?

For me I feel fear, I feel a weight and judgment rise up warning me that this is not a good choice. It’s not a healthy or safe choice and it’s certainly not an attractive choice. And yet this dichotomy of on the one hand knowing I am whole as spirit and on the other wanting to create an interdependent full body relationship cannot be ignored any longer. I want to cultivate a human relationship with its messy inconsistency and sometimes exquisitely painful nuances not sit in Zen mode on a mountaintop (even an urban one in a penthouse.) Breathing away my needs and attachments just won’t cut it anymore.  I want to risk not having my needs met but knowing that I asked and that I didn’t die in the process. Understand that this is not about asking for things, I have no problem with that. That is easy because it is not at the core of my vulnerability. The human desire for connection and safety is.

Need needs to be part of the human equation and that means you would have to know what you need and be able to ask for it in a way that the other person can understand.

On the other side of fear is a need. When I feel this fear or contraction at saying the words ‘I need you’ to someone if I keep breathing into the body, I just might have to FEEL the need for attachment, safety and security. In the past I trained myself to meet this need by myself and that felt like progress. I learned to stop asking to be met, just like the baby would if her mother continued to not respond and instead I soothed myself becoming my own internally referenced safe sanctuary.

I have excelled at the art of giving love, of stretching so I feel my own essence and spiritual wholeness but I have not become an A student yet in REACHING for another. I stopped myself after a series of partners who without words were saying no to meeting me in this dance of vulnerability. For my part, I am sure that the way I was asking back then was clumsy and cloaked in toughness on the outside to mask the softness within. I can see how energetically I contributed to simple cues being missed and how my needs might have been perceived as an impending hammer of doom.

These days, I am hearing from men that they like a woman who needs them, that it is important to them. Ok, I believe you. So I am going to learn to locate, identify and ask...vulnerably.

Ultimately without that reach for a partner it occurs to me that the invitation to dance is rather one sided and not at all conducive to juicy reciprocity between a man and a woman. Or between any 2 human beings for that matter. I don’t ask in my friendships either. I pride myself on the flexibility I offer the friendship rather than what I have considered the weight of including needs.


So there you have it.  Into the next layer of the cake I go.

I wish it felt like a sweet delicious Limoncello Baked Alaska crowned in crisp sugary peaks but alas…it doesn’t. It feels risky and uncomfortable, sticky even, fear that my friendships won’t withstand this new added dimension and my messy learning curve. That’s a clear indicator that I am called to explore it. I am called to break some eggs.

Cover me I am going in! Again!

Here’s to leaving no shell uncracked.

Branded by exploring needs….

Authentically yours,
Marty

Sometimes you're the windshield ...

Sometimes you're the bug
Sometimes it all comes together baby

Sometimes you're a fool in love

Sometimes you're the Louisville slugger

Sometimes you're the ball

Sometimes it all comes together baby

Sometimes you're going to lose it all.

Do you know this Dire Straits song? Well this week I felt like I was in dire straits – certainly emotionally.  It had to do with possibly losing it all.  Or at least thinking that was the case.  I came face to face with potentially losing my business location, my condo tenants’ giving notice, sales being abysmal, and a friend seemingly betraying a confidence, resulting in my losing a shot at a long-standing dream I had nurtured for several years.

As miserable as it all felt – and believe me, I hadn’t been this down for years – there was a spark inside that kept reminding me that everything has in it a grain of truth and a nugget of pure gold.  So I ploughed through the muck and came out the other side with at least a 24k chunk.  The story isn’t as important as my finding out that simply by sticking with the uncomfortableness of the situation, and going for gold as it were, that was enough.  No amount of money, acquisitions, relationships make me enough.  That can only come from me. 

When I finally realized that I would be okay if I lost it all, I felt very liberated.  And once I was able to truly accept that, each of the situations took a decided turn.  My new landlord is keen to work out a win/win situation for the business location, my tenants have decided to stay, sales have made a comeback, and I have reconciled with my friend.

Yes, my life has had its fair share of ups and downs but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  As Diane Ackerman so beautifully wrote:

The great affair, the love affair with life,
is to live as variously as possible,
to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred,
climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.

Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding,
and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours,
life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery,
but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Branded by gold,

Buns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIHMN1rFi9s

Pain Pushes Until Vision Pulls

Pain pushes until vision pulls.   I had scribbled this on a piece of paper ages ago and just found it at the bottom of a closet I was clearing out. Its odd, just when I think I have made this shift to living out of vision, something happens.

 Maybe as long as we are human, pain will present itself as an natural option only now the choice is whether to water it and grow it into an ouch tree with roots and branches and leaves so sensitive to the touch that a perimeter of hardness must be created to guard against contact…or go through it, all the way to the other side. The other choice I am learning to rest in is, in the immortal words of the fab four…let it be. 

And when vision calls now, I answer. Even in the middle of the pain or discomfort I will answer. It can be in a piece of music, a scent, a texture or a light bulb moment of fashion festivity when I realize my motorcycle boots will work perfectly tonight with my short pleated black skirt, and wide metallic hip belt. If this sounds too hard edge don’t worry fashion police, I will wear pearls…long black ones wrapped around my wrist.

Vision can be found lurking, waiting, tempting, whistling for attention... just about anywhere.

This kaleidoscope of creativity, sensuality, pulls me into a feeling state…whenever I allow my imagination to unfold uncensored and reign as if it’s real. I feel a leap of excitement in my heart and then that uncontrollable explosion of smiling, that inhale of pure pleasure and acceptance where every nuance of the experience is taken in fully. The details are always changing but the intention to let the feelings that arise nourish my essence calls for cultivating a state of constant receptivity.


You will not receive if you are not already open to receiving. That state calls for trust, for letting the pull lead you and guide you without analysis and evaluation. Risky? At times, the ‘what if’s’ creep in and they will play havoc with your mind. Yet as long as I stay true to returning to pure acceptance instead of control and strategy, then my heart’s desire can pull me instead of pain pushing me into reactivity. The freedom in all this is quite simply that this is always an option regardless of content.

And for those times when you might forget, there are your mighty companions, your tribe. That’s what we are here for, to give each other a little elbow nudge of “Hey friend, you seem to have forgotten how much you shine, how powerful you are. Frankly, when I hang out with you I need sunglasses.”


Pain pushes until vision pulls.

 I would rather the latter even with its messy, out of the box, swirl of possibility.
I will raise a glass in this direction tonight as I head out for a long overdue visit with my old friend to L’Abattoir Restaurant in Blood Alley.
 www.labattoir.ca

The food here is so good you might find yourself raising a hand for silence so your taste buds can fall into pure pleasure. Try the beet root salad with Tallegio custard, pears and pumpkin seeds.


Tonight, I will order a Vesper, a refreshing burst of lemony goodness in a Martini, inspired by Ian Fleming in Casino Royale

.
Branded by lemons,
Authentically Yours
Marty


Vesper Martini
Ingredients
3 oz. Dry Gin
1 oz Vodka
1/2 oz. Lillet Blanc
Instructions
In a cocktail shaker half filled with cracked ice add the gin and vodka, then the Lillet. Shake then strain into a chilled martini glass rimmed with fresh lemon. Add a lemon twist and take off. Vision doesn’t mind a little mellow lubrication.

James Bond first ordered a drink to be shaken in Fleming's novel Casino Royale (1953) when he requested a drink of his own invention which would later be referred to as a "Vesper", named after the Bond girl, Vesper Lynd. After meeting his CIA contact Felix Leiter for the first time, Bond orders the drink from a barman while at the casino.

'A dry martini,' he said. 'One. In a deep champagne goblet.'
'Oui, monsieur.'
'Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?'
'Certainly monsieur.' The barman seemed pleased with the idea.
'Gosh, that's certainly a drink,' said Leiter.
Bond laughed. 'When I'm...er...concentrating,' he explained, 'I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold, and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I think of a good name.'
— Casino Royale, Chapter 7: Rouge et Noir[5]

The girl with the invisible tattoo.

As per my last post, I decided to subtly shift my awareness from being single to resonating with what it would be like to be in a relationship.

Just to put you in the picture, I rarely get asked out on a date.  Like, actually, never. I’ve often asked my men friends why they think that is, and to a one they say I come across as very capable, confident, and for sure I must be already taken.  So they shy away. (Of course I am looking for the one who is bold enough to look past all that and actually have the guts to approach me.)

So I’ve been tweaking my inner climate so that it matches what I think I would like to experience.  Wow.  All it took was one little indescribable shift and wham!  The phone started ringing.  In the last two weeks, four different guys have approached me.  But I think I still need to fine-tune my dabbling in this area.

Guy number 1.  Thirty years old.  (Yes, I could be his mother.)  Guy number 2.  Twenty-two.  (We’re getting into “I’m-old-enough-to-be-your-grandmother” territory!) Guy number 3.  Forty-seven.  (Now that’s getting better.  But he has a partner, the cad.) Guy number 4.  Old flame.  Missed me.  Wanted to rekindle – but just the physical part, nothing else.

So WTF?  (And I don’t mean the last three days of the work week, or as one of my friends always says, “why that’s fantastic!”).  I looked in the mirror to see if I had an invisible tattoo on my forehead. Was there something there saying I was available for casual trysts and would look after all non-committal needs? What actually was being mirrored back to me?

I realize this has nothing to do with them.  It’s about what I am unconsciously advertising.  Am I really saying I'm willing if it’s just a physical relationship… where I don’t have to involve my heart?

Shit.  I’m going to have to go back to the drawing board. 

I also put a profile on line.  I am not comfortable with that AT ALL but I’m willing to see what might transpire.

And in the meantime, I am having my tattoo removed.  And a new one put near my heart.

Branded by invisible ink…

Love Buns.

Playing in Playa

Now I don’t mean to make anyone in colder snowier/rainy climes envious but I am writing this week’s post in paradise. Playa Del Carmen is a dream of a destination with perks I never really associated with Mexico. Yes, its sand is virgin white and the waters so turquoise and buoyant it feels like being cradled in the azure arms of the ocean but more than that, I am newly intrigued by the people I am encountering. The town is not like any other Mexican place I have visited. The variety and mix of people from around the world makes for a very cosmopolitan vibe, from the chic Italian quarter to Philippe Stark designed restaurants that have seating configurations like still life paintings, each tableau more whimsical than the last. Alice in Wonderland would have felt right at home at Mosquito Blue!
The boutique hotels are hidden gems. We followed some ancient steps to find a rooftop with pool, lounging beds and retro movies screening on the white stone walls.  Joan Crawford in a sombrero…yikes. www.designhotels.com/deseo
Quality tequila tastings are endless. I contemplate slipping into that pool, cocktail in hand.

Local musicians are plentiful here and friendly and the characters are fascinating. Ericka who fled the frost of Sweden marrying a Cuban ex pat now runs one of the many local cigar stores. Her husband is 3rd generation in the cigar business. The frisky doorman at Club Mandala, one of dance spots I dragged my son into at 1 in the morning, who waved our cover… I think because he pegged me for a dame with a gigolo, (but don’t tell my son that as he is just growing out of his ‘I am embarrassed by my mom who can party as hard as I can” stage.

I love Juan who makes me a café latte every morning taking pleasure in the sparkle that lights up my eyes at that first magnificent sip. And the Speedos! I thought I didn’t like them but I admit I am starting to develop a fondness for the look with so many wonderfully toned men wandering about. Oh wait, I am supposed to get over the eye candy pull. Mmmmm….it really is glorious here.

The best part is spending time with my son. Yes, he still rolls his eyes when he considers what I have  said dumb, but he is also owning it and no longer making it about me. I am learning a lot about myself too. I have bounced against a few areas where I realize I am still not fully accepting myself. I have known for a while that my ability to discern what I want and go after it triggers some people. Even knowing that it is their own disowned aspect of deserving or not feeling worthy that is causing the reaction doesn’t really help me wish it wasn’t happening at all. I think that must be the part of me that wants to be liked.
Here is the query I am in. I actually discovered that some people ‘dumb down’ what they want because they don’t want to trouble another person. When I ask you what you want, I want the details so I can make it happen. It gives me pleasure to get you your heart’s desire if I can. I don’t want a dumbed down request based on politeness. I find that concept of politeness overrated. I would rather know exactly what would bring you joy in the moment.

Yet what I am hearing is when I am asked what I want, if I supply all the details some people react and judge that as entitlement, as if I am asking for too much. I shake my head, perplexed. I didn’t ask, I answered their question of me. Why would you not say what you wanted exactly, if asked? I thought when people asked me what I wanted or they ask if they could get me something, they were thinking as I do and want the details. If this seems vague here is an example. If someone says do you want something from Starbucks, saying sure I’d like a coffee is ok, saying I would like a decaf Americano with about 3 inches of cream is not. All the extra details impact some people as an imposition.

I am left pondering this difference in perception and I bump up against a sneaky little thought that says it would be so much easier to just not want anything. And yet at my core I want to taste everything AND I am grateful for it AND I want to share it AND I want everyone to have everything they want too.

I like to go big, not at the expense of another but just as part of the human adventure in sensuality. Perhaps my task is to make peace with the fact that that is not everyone’s cup of tea, or rather in my case, glass of champagne.

And now the waters are calling, I am going to try the hydrotherapy pools, water features include a cascade to relax your back while walking on stones designed to hit reflexology points.

Tonight will be dinner and a local band on the beach at Fusion then more raucous dancing at The Blue Parrot where the dress code calls for barefeet.

When I build my urban oasis back home, I want to being sand up to the deck, have a fire pit and plunge pool and call it Playa. With enough heat lamps we can have beach parties all year long.

Branded by pleasure,

Authentically Yours,
Marty

Cover me. I'm goin' in.

Wow.  Did I ever just learn something big a few minutes ago.  When it’s my turn to write here, my process is to sit still, empty my mind of any agenda, and notice what wants to emerge as the next subject for contemplation.  When it first starts to come into focus, I still may not know specifically what it is but I always can sense the flavour of it.  Then I go to my favourite sources to find an image that best resonates with what is bubbling up from within.

So today,  while I was browsing through a gorgeous collection of photographs, I realized that the ones that truly make me take notice are those with a single woman (yes, like moi) either standing on a cliff ready to take flight, wading into the water towards a beautiful horizon, or looking wistfully at something not quite in the frame.  You know the ones I mean. And they all could be me. Mmmmm.  Interesting. 

So here’s the thing.  I am not resonating with my heart’s desire.  My good friend Mark Ainley, an extraordinary Feng Shuist (my word – probably couldn’t be found in the Scrabble dictionary …) once remarked to me that while the art around my home was lovely, none of it depicted relationship. 

And it’s funny.  Although I decided to find the perfect, eye-catching image for today’s musings, I didn’t get the same feeling of recognition that I do when I see one of a woman with long flowing hair, reaching her arms skyward, and seemingly completely joyful.  But I’m sitting with the one I chose and will notice how it can start to inform me in a new way. 

I’ll let you know how that goes.

In the meantime, being absolutely in love with someone (and him with me) while remaining true to myself is my heart’s desire,  and so I can relate to love poetry… and I love this one …

Love is from the infinite and will remain until eternity. Rumi

Branded by desire,

Buns

Snap

Stretching beyond a comfort zone may seem like work. For me the thrill of the motion overrides any ego chatter in my head trying to talk me out of it. And the ego always will tell you why it’s a waste of energy since it thinks there is safety in the known…in the walls…in the box.

I know that I feel most alive when I am stepping into unchartered waters. So today it was a small stretch, like broadening my preconceived notions in terms of my stereotypes about men (yes I still stumble across them). Tomorrow…who knows. All I know is I look for these opportunities.

Now here is my new revelation. I went to a medical intuitive , a woman who reads energy beyond the physical. The thinking in brief is that our  physical body is not the only body we have. It’s just the one where the vibration is so slow that we can see and feel it in the form of matter. It is on the physical body that we manifest symptoms of illness, yet it is in our other bodies called subtle bodies that the disturbance or dis-ease may be held. You can think of them as energy fields that surround our physical form, each with a different vibration and focus. After the physical body, is the etheric, then the emotional, the mental and the spiritual. Here energy can be intuited on a very different channel than the linear. Here, information is gathered through images, symbols and sounds but not through our seeing eyes, rather our sensing radar. 

This reader was dynamic and what she said landed for me. She said to picture an elastic band and that I am the band moving forward, trying and trying with all the effort I can muster. Yet the other end of the band is locked in place by an energy pattern that keeps me unable to blast free. Like wheels spinning I keep pulling forward because that’s what I do and yet the scenery stays the same. The elastic remains taunt.

All this effort is resulting in physical pain locked into my shoulder and neck.  Mmmmm…ok….I am going to let go. I will keep you posted as to what we discover next week but honestly I can already feel more ease simply because I see the fruitlessness of pulling forward. This does not have to be hard! 
I am cultivating flow as an art form.
I imagine life without effort. I imagine flowing in my natural grace. I sigh so loud with anticipation that the elastic shivers. Letting go can do that.

Branded by ease...
Marty

PS: Who knew that Buns is such a handy woman.
Today we shopped for shelving at Ikea, lugging units of high gloss red lacquer that are being assembled (yes by Buns!!!!!) to organize my work space.  She is a miracle, a gem among friends, she deserves an award and a t-shirt that reads I can put it together and take it apart.

PS: PS: I am planing the next Blind Date Dinner Party, just have to get Buns on the Internet dating.
And, I am off to Playa del Carmen next week so I will have lots of time to percolate poolside on the next stretch into adventure.

PS:PS:PS: Happy V Day. Big love to all and to all a good night.