3 Ways We Undermine Love

 

Dear Soul,

You are an extraordinary spirit although you may not know it…

You might doubt, or even outright deny, it.

I know. I've been there.

When it comes to love, what I know both by personal experience and from supporting thousands of Ecstatic Intimacy clients, is that as much as we want love, we're usually simultaneously pushing it away. 

 

First... Hidden Resistance to Intimacy 

Identifying how you push love away, even as you seek it, is just one of the ways I dive deeply with people. Together we'll find your inner tug-of-war, the battle that silently endures between the part of you that's working so hard and so actively to find and keep love while there's another part of you that's in resistance to intimacy, and absolutely doesn't want it (that's truly terrified of real intimacy). Fear and resistance are sneaky little devils that try to protect you from the risk and impending pain of love and intimacy. These parts of you will do everything they can to invisibly counteract and sabotage everything that your deeply loving and passionate heart does to ignite love.

 

Second... Baggage turns into Picky and Protective

This is the area that most people don't want to admit exists, even insisting it isn't worth consideration. And, I've watched time and time again, that when this is truly addressed, the doors to romance swing wide open. 

What is it that's so avoided, yet so crucial, you ask? Simply put, baggage. You have it. I have it. We all have it, and we must lighten the load. The weight drags you down with every thought, feeling, resentment, annoyance, sadness, jealousy and the like, that you're still carrying from past relationships. (Even if you think it's over, clients have been shocked to see it's not.)

It's heavy, it's burdensome and stands as a solid but often transparent barrier between the past and the future your heart longs for. The unresolved hurts of the past will seduce you into being picky and protective, in other words having high standards, to make sure you don't get hurt again. In turn, this guarantees you'll never find someone you really like. And, if by "accident" you do meet that someone, you'll unconsciously manifest a way to end it, because that's what keeps you safe from the dangers of love. I've seen it happen to great men and great women, time and time again. 

But love isn't dangerous. It's just your mind that thinks so, because someone called you a name on the playground, or your parents didn't show up the way they should have, or your first (or your second or even your third love) got away.  

Your beautiful, precious mind, stepped in and decided it had to protect you. It starts to believe things like "it's not safe to love," "relationships always end," 'I don't have what it takes," "men leave," "women are never satisfied", or "it will never happen for me." 

And so it is. What you believe to be true is your reality. Whether you actually realize it or not, what you believe is what you experience because what you focus on expands. 

So, if you realize, like so many men and women who have stepped onto the Ecstatic Intimacy path of Soul Love realized, that if you leave these unconscious sabotaging beliefs under the surface, they win.  Love, true love, will continue to elude you.  In the Igniting Soul Love Session, you begin to identify the unconscious beliefs and vows you hold that limit your capacity and ability to love and be loved.

 

Third... Who is Actually in the Relationship

You see, dear one, there is no one more important on this journey of love than you. You may think it's about finding your soulmate, you may think it's about getting your partner to see things the way you do, you may think it's about protecting yourself from all of those that might once again hurt or betray you, but it's not about them, I promise you that. 

It's about you. It's about you trusting you, knowing you, being you. It's about you showing up fully and completely as you are, warts and all, still knowing how damn lovable you really are. Then and only then does love become available. Then and only then can you finally trust love.

Then your soul mate, your soulmate, can walk into your life. Then you and your partner can reconnect. That kind of love, that depth of connection, that ecstasy of passion, can only appear when you are being completely honoring of you.

If you aren't being you, who is actually in the relationship? The relating becomes a lie, a façade, built on nice girl/guy pseudo-generosity. It looks like a bunch of "I don't want to lose you, so I'll twist myself into a pretzel, so you don't leave" games. That's not true love. That's not soul love. That's not even love.

True soul love begins with you, with you waking up and igniting the brilliance - the sexiness, the kindness, the confidence, the passion, the realness - that is you. 

When you let you out, when you let yourself shine, that's when romance walks through your door. That's when you, yes you, get to say "Wow… I never imagined it could be this good." Ecstatic intimacy clients have said that phrase over and over when they realized what was possible. 

In closing, the question is not, "Are you ready?" but "Are you willing, willing to take a chance on the light and the love at the essence of your soul, the light that can never be extinguished no matter how dim it might feel, no matter how much you might fear opening back up to the intrinsic and natural pains and pleasures of love and lovemaking?"

In the words of Alfred Lloyd Tennyson, "it is better to have loved and lost, than to never loved at all." 

You cannot have what you are not willing to lose. If you don't go for it, you'll never know what could have been. 

The question remains, "Are you willing? Are you willing to see what you haven't seen? Let go of what you've carried too long? Relieve the mind of its protective duties?"... So that you can have what some part of you has always known as the truth of your heart… a deep passionate intimate love that takes your breath away.

I'm here to meet you in the tender, scary and exciting parts of you. I will create a sacred space for you to find the courage to choose love, to see exactly how you can move forward from where you are now to where you, your heart, and your soul long to be.

If you're willing to take the next step, then you and I will meet privately to identify the exact best next steps for you on this journey of love. And even if that is the only time our souls meet, you will leave knowing you are destined for love and exactly how to get there.

 

Until we meet…

 

In much love,

Joanna Shakti

 

P.P.S. Couples, this is an invitation to you too. When the three of us meet, you'll recognize that each of you plays a fundamental role in creating your relationship -- both its pleasures and its pains. When we meet, we will unravel the complexities and identify the steps for you to take individually and together to repair the ruptures of love's challenges and deepen your hearts' connection.

P.S. Individuals in relationship, Igniting Soul Love Sessions are for you. It's one of my specialties to work with people whose partners aren't ready. It's ok. Change is still possible - not just possible. It's guaranteed. When you change, your relationship changes, and ultimately your partner will change too.

 

 

In the end, when ignored - true connection, true intimacy, true love remains elusive and painful.