What has lust got to do with it?

SEX. LUST. LOVE. HOW DO THEY ALL FIT TOGETHER? 

These famous lyrics by musical group Salt and Pepa highlight a very real conundrum in our intimate relationships:

   Let's talk about sex, Baby

   Let's talk about you and me

   Let's talk about all the good things

   And all the bad things that may be

   Let's talk about sex

[Let's Talk About Sex lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc]

How do we know if sex is love and not just lust? And can lustful sex turn into real love? What do sex, lust and love have to do with relationships? 

In my women's Facebook group, After A Breakup: Going From Heartache To Happy, a member posted that after some playful flirty texting with her ex-boyfriend, he came over and they had sex. He later asked if they could continue to be intimate, which she agreed to because she really wanted to rekindle their love; she wanted him back (her words).

But does the fact that they text-flirted, got horny and had sex mean there is still a chance for monogamous relationship love between them? Or were they just horny, turned on by flirtexting? What's the difference? When does sex mean love and when does it just mean lust? And can lust be love?

And there it is...that blurred line between sex, lust and love. 


THE BLURRED LINES BETWEEN SEX, LUST AND LOVE

The line between these is so blurred, many women spend years in the back and forth of on-again, off-again relationships, endlessly hoping that great sex means there's a chance at great love. Let's be honest—with happy-ending love stories deeply entrenched in our cultural mythology, it's hard not to secretly wish and hope that the strong sensitive hero we read about in books or see on the screen will show up in real life and be our hero, just at the moment when all seems lost. 

But more often than not, we end up desperately trying to get the person we love so deeply to love us the way we love them. Many of us sacrifice everything for them, for love. Then if the relationship ends, we are devastated! We feel confused, lost, lonely, and hurt. We can't believe the person who said they loved us just walked right out of our lives like we were always disposable to them. Many start new relationships right away, leaving us wondering if they ever loved us at all.

I've been there myself a few times and heard so many stories like this in my work with clients that I sometimes wonder—Is long-term, intimate, loving monogamy possible? Or are we just fooling ourselves, brainwashed by the fairytale endings in our culture?

To beg the question, let me share another story from my group. A member posted that her relationship ended because her partner of several years wants to be polyamorous and she does not. She wants monogamy and marriage. The group jumped all over this, calling the guy an ass and guessing he just wanted "his cake and eat it too." They seemed to take his choice as a personal affront and a sign that the guy did not value her or their relationship enough. They encouraged her to let him go.

But could there be another explanation? Is sexual greed the only possible reason for these types of experiences, or might something else be going on?


LOVE IS NOT BLACK AND WHITE

Before we launch into that discussion, let's get a few terms straight:

• Monogamy—choosing to be in loving, intimate relationship exclusively with one person

• Polyamory—choosing to be in loving, intimate relationship with more than one person and all are in agreement

• Open Relationship—a committed couple who chooses to have playful sexual fun on the side with other people

• Swinger—a person who engages in group sex or the swapping of sexual partners 

What I know for certain is that Human sexuality and relationships are far from black and white. In fact, they are so gray that pretty much anything goes. People break the law to have it the way they want it, as with polygyny (a husband with multiple wives), polyandry (a wife with multiple husbands), and bigamy (having two spouses). These are all illegal in the United States but people do them anyway. And I won't even mention the rest.

In a culture where not only anything goes but where our Human struggles become popular reality TV shows, how do you sort sex from lust from love? Is it even possible? 


WHAT ARE SEX, LUST AND LOVE?

Let's be real. In this context and in the broadest sense of the word, sex is an act. It refers to sexual activity in general, and specifically including intercourse. This can be done with one or more partners, in any location and whether or not there is lust or love present. 

Lust, on the other hand, is a desire and a feeling. For purposes of this article, it means having a very strong sexual desire for someone. Lust can lead to sex and love, but not all sex and love are lust.

And then there's love, the most elusive of the three. Like lust, love is an intense feeling of deep romantic or sexual attraction or affection for someone. Love can lead to lust and sex, but not all lust and sex are love.

Confused yet? So how do you sort sex from lust from love? The sex part is easy because it is an act and not a feeling. But what about lust and love? How do you know if lust is lust, lust is love, love is lust, or love is love? Can you know? 


DO WOMEN AND MEN WANT THE SAME THINGS?

In my experience, most women are looking for love, not sex. And most men are looking for sex, not love. This is a generalization and an oversimplification to be sure, but talk to anyone over the age of 35 and see what they say. Chances are good that the women are hoping great sex means long-term love. And the men are hoping great sex means long-term great sex. 

Perhaps women use sex for love and men use love for sex. And what about lust? Maybe it just helps with the sex and love parts. If that is true, then it might explain why so many relationships ultimately fail: because in the end, women and men hope to pull different things out of the lust box—women want love; men want sex. 

That is not to say that women don't want sex or that men don't want love. But my guess is that if I took a vote, women would choose love over sex in the long run, hands down. I'm not sure I could say the same for men...But maybe.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Women and men are cut from different fabrics based on survival patterns that evolved from the dawning of Humankind. Today these deeply rooted primal patterns have been refined into a culturally appropriate template. I imagine we each hold strong beliefs around what sex, lust and love are, and what love, in particular, should look like.

THE NATURE OF LOVE

The problem is you can't really put a thing like love into a box and expect it to slumber quietly forever. Inevitably, it will burst open because in its purest form, love is a powerful, dynamic and free energy. Inherently, it has no bounds. Trying to make it conform to any particular shape is futile.

This may also be true for sex and lust. Perhaps the real struggle  we face is in our trying to make these dynamic energies static? Perhaps culturally we simply feel safer and more comfortable knowing these powerful energies are contained rather than wild. Wild anything in this culture tends to get a bad rap but particularly when it comes to sex, lust and love. Just look at Hollywood, for example.

WHAT ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS?

Now that we've distilled all of this down, what does it mean in terms of relationships? The bottom line is there is no bottom line. The arena of relationships is a complex, multi-layered  and dynamic beast.  There is no right, wrong, or one way to do them. 

Sex, lust, love and relationships mean different things to different people. And there are a number of things that impact how  a person treats them. Plus, since lust and love are dynamic energies, they change, making it impossible to predict the course of any relationship.

The key is to align with what feels best to you. It doesn't matter what that is; you just have to align with it. And realign with it (or not) as it changes. That's the thing about relationships—they invite us to risk, open, grow and evolve. They are our greatest opportunities to learn about ourselves. Without others to challenge us, we stagnate and have little idea of who we truly are.

So who are we, truly? I believe that at our core, we are pure, unconditional love. Being in relationships challenges us to reconnect with that core or true nature. To do that, we must be willing to give up our ego drives and desires, fears and threats, wounds and stories. We must allow our hearts to heal and open instead of fester and close. Authentic loving is not for the timid!

But it is possible. Reaching a state of unattached, unconditional or authentic loving is what many traditions call bliss or enlightenment. And it is what many of us believe we are here to do—evolve on a spiritual level. Viewing your life experiences through the lens of spiritual evolution is a game-changer. It turns pain into power. 

REACHING FOR AUTHENTIC LOVE

The place to start this journey is with awareness of your truth. As you learn to honor your inner truth, your being becomes clear and light. The more clear and light you become on the inside, the more clear and light your life becomes on the outside. Because your external life is nothing more than a reflection of your internal life.

It works the same way for your relationships. The more clear and light you are on the inside, the more clear and light your relationships become on the outside. What you don't want falls away and what you want rises to the surface, because when you view your life as a spiritual journey, obstacles become opportunities.

There is no point to sacrificing what you want—your truth—out of fear, especially when it comes to love. All that does is muddy up the energy, leaving you with a cloudy, confusing mess to sort out. Don't be fooled; there is no scarcity of love in this Universe! Love has been, is, and always will be waiting for you. All you have to do is open to receive it. 

Love Your Self Enough To Walk Away

If you have never had someone you love turn on you, consider yourself lucky. And quite rare. Unfortunately, the people we trust to love us the most are often the ones who hurt us the most. That is because we have the most to lose in relation to them.

When we love someone and they love us too, we want to believe we are safe with them because we all need a safe haven to rest into. Life can be tough and dangerous. If we can't trust the people we love and who love us, who can we trust?

LEARNING ABOUT LOVE

Our families give us our first experiences of loving. By virtue of being family, we love them and they love us. We can trust them; or we'd like to think so, anyway. We're blood. They would never turn their backs on us...right? We want to believe they will stand behind us no matter what, and especially through the challenges of our lives.

But family dynamics are a powerful thing. Over the course of a lifetime, we form unconscious roles and patterns with them that are deeply entrenched in our relationships. And without even realizing it, we work hard to keep those roles in place so we know how and where we fit in to the picture.

In fact, we are so invested in fitting in that many will turn on each other to ensure they still do. I have witnessed family members hurting each other over things like attention, acceptance, power, love and money. I have seen them lie, steal, manipulate, stab each other in the back, gossip about each other, call each other despicable names, hit, and even sue each other. Perhaps you have experienced one or more of these in your own family.

THE WOUND OF BEING DENIED

But there is one thing a family can do that shakes us to our core, and that is to not believe us when we tell the truth. There is something deeply wounding about that - the act of being denied our truth by our own family. It is natural to feel betrayed, rejected, or dismissed any time this happens, but especially when it happens with family. We feel unseen, unheard, disrespected, and disempowered. We get defensive because our authenticity and truth - who we are - is rejected. 

Ultimately, people believe what they want to believe, and they have personal (often sub or unconscious) reasons for doing so. But when it is our own family who rejects us - our blood, our safe haven - it can seem as though we have nowhere to go and no one in the world we can trust. This can leave us with a deep emotional wound, feeling alone, hurt, uncertain, anxious, betrayed, and afraid to trust our selves and others.

WHY WE STAY

Sometimes we stay in dysfunctional or toxic relationships well past the point of them being anything close to healthy or safe for us - especially with family and if our earlier relationships with them were loving - because we cling to the hope that it will change. We see the potential of its restoration and we get hooked by that potential. We want to believe it can and will change back to being supportive, respectful, and loving. And we may spend years in suffering waiting for that change to happen.

Other times we stay because the situation feels familiar, even if the relationship is dysfunctional or toxic. We grew up with it; we have enough experience to anticipate its rhythms and know what to do. If we walk away, we have no idea what will be there for us; but if we stay, we do. And some part of us feels safer with the familiar than the unknown.

Still other times we stay because we do not believe we deserve anything more; we do not feel worthy of authentic love. Most of us do not even know what authentic love is. Our culture is riddled with examples of inauthentic love and toxic relating. In my women's facebook group, After A Breakup: Finding Peace and Power, I hear story after story of women dealing with the aftermath of an abusive relationship. Many women struggle to leave it behind even when their life is in danger!

This struggle within intimate relationships points to a lack of self-worth that comes from a deep inner wound. And that wound typically starts in our family and then gets played out in future relationships. If we do not learn to accept, respect or value our selves, we do not own self-worth. And without self-worth, we do not authentically love ourselves. And if we do not authentically love ourselves, we cannot give and receive authentic love with anyone else.

WHEN TO LEAVE

Sometimes our family's behavior becomes so toxic that we must walk away from them in order to preserve ourselves. It is never an easy decision to leave those we love, and want so badly to love us in return. We want to believe that our family would never turn their backs on us. Yet if we do not walk away from a toxic situation, we are turning our backs on ourselves. And that is never a good idea! We must love ourselves best, before we can truly experience authentic loving with anyone else.

It breaks my heart, how those we love the most are the ones capable of hurting us the most. Unfortunately, it happens more often than any of us want to believe. And when it happens, it can be a challenge to get the clarity needed to know what to do about it...especially when it is our own family - our safe haven.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

You cannot make others believe you or even see things your way. But you can maintain your integrity despite your family's behavior. You can take the high road and disengage from their power games. And you can stand solidly in your truth, knowing it inside, no matter what anyone else says. Ultimately, your truth is between you and a Higher Power anyway. And true redemption comes from within.

As a child you have little, if any, influence over the dynamics of your family. But as an adult, you can empower your self around them. There are many ways to do so, and it is important to find one that feels best for you. This might include:

• having a difficult, straight-forward conversation with a family member; 
• calling a family meeting with everyone involved; 
• continuing to observe in silence for clarification; 
• reaching out to several family members for perspective; 
• writing letters to one or more family members;
• setting clear boundaries with one or more family members; or 
• letting one or more family members go from your life

If you do nothing to free your self from dysfunctional or toxic family relating, you walk a long and painful plank to desolation. Your body, mind and spirit suffer. You become diminished in your sense of self-worth and value. Your capacity to trust your self and others fades. And your heart closes, putting authentic love out of reach. 

There is no good reason to tolerate relationships that disregard and hurt you, especially within your own family. 

• It is not healthy. 
• It does not provide security. 
• It is not all you deserve. 
• You cannot change or fix it alone. 
• They are not the only ones who will "love" or be there for you.
• And it does not serve you to stay. 

To believe otherwise is error thinking.

If your family or someone you love has rejected your truth, if they are disrespecting and disregarding you, or otherwise hurting you, find the courage to take action on your behalf. It may resolve more easily than you imagine. Or you may find that walking away from them is necessary to preserve your self and your integrity. 

Distancing your self from your family or other hurtful people in your life does not have to mean you no longer love them; and it does not have to be forever. But if your relationship with them is unhealthy, dysfunctional, abusive or toxic, it may serve you to leave them for now. Because staying in such a relationship will only continue to diminish you. And nothing loving ever comes of that. ❤

How to find your holiday cheer through a not so cheery life

The holiday season is upon us and life is buzzing with activity. People are decorating their homes, out shopping for gifts, and sending greeting cards to people they maybe haven't spoken to in months or seen in years. It's a special and fun time when our hearts are open and filled with the spirit of love and giving...right?

Who doesn't love Christmas?

I'll tell you who: all those people who hate their lives.

This time of year, folks seem either especially cheerful and bright, or overwhelmed and depressed. They either dig the colorful lights and pretty decorations or they loathe them. They either participate in the season of giving or they hate it, feeling grumpy and angry inside. 

Which category do you fit in?

When we are off balance - meaning our lives just aren't going the way we want and we can't seem to change them - we feel miserable inside. And when we feel miserable inside, we don't want to be around a lot of cheerful, happy people. We want to sit alone and be mad with our arms folded tightly across our chests and our lips in a pout...

Or do we?

Perhaps what we really want is to have exactly what we don't have, and exactly what we believe we can't have. Perhaps we get mad because when we are around them - all those cheerful, happy people - it reminds us of all the happiness we want but don't have, and believe we can't have. Yet there they are and there it is, staring us in the face.

We wonder: Why do they have it but not me? 

And that simple question sets us into a tailspin of all the reasons why we don't have it and can't get it. We feel victimized, unlucky, cursed, and trapped. Or we feel broken, discarded, worthless and hopeless. Looking around at all those happy faces makes us feel more alone in our pain, like no one else in the whole wide world understands what we have been through, what we are going through, or what we still have to deal with.

Whew. You feel the heaviness of that?

And the sad thing is - it's all a lie. Yep, a lie. You are not alone. You are not a victim. You are not unlucky, cursed or trapped. You are not broken, discarded, worthless or hopeless. You are a child of the same Divine Source as the rest of us - my brother or sister. Family. 

We all have our stories of struggle, heartache, and pain. We all carry wounds because Humans have egos, and when those egos go unchecked and get out of hand, they create a hurtful, hateful environment in which to live. 

Yet we can heal our wounds and grow our inner  capacity for compassion, love, joy and equanimity. These things create a safe, authentically loving environment in which to live, both internally and externally, in which we feel seen, held, worthy, purposeful, connected and happy. Each and every one of us craves such an environment to live in, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. It's our Human nature. If we didn't, we wouldn't feel so hurt or angry at not having it.

If you find yourself struggling to get through this holiday season for whatever your reasons, it is a sure sign that you are caught in the trap of a lie buried deep within your unconscious psyche.  The answer is not to punish yourself by isolating and judging yourself as unworthy. Or to punish those who are happy by being hurt and angry and judging them as the problem. They are not the problem. 

And neither are you. But the problem lies deep inside of you.

The answer is to make it your business to uncover the lie you are telling yourself that keeps you bound to the belief that you don't deserve or can't have happiness for yourself. Only by bringing the lie into the light can you unravel the threads of hurt that hold it in place so you can grow beyond it. There is nothing more important to your life than that, because until you do that, you will continue to suffer under the pain of the lie, not just during the holiday season but in spite of it. 

If you make it your business today to uncover the lie by investing your time, energy and resources into healing it, by this time next year, you may very well be one of those people your pain is currently judging. And you will wonder why it took you so long to love yourself enough to transform yourself and claim your own cheerful, happy life!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU!

Reality Check

In case you haven't stopped to notice it, we are already midway through August, 2017, two-thirds of the way through the year. This is stunning for me to consider, as it feels just last week was the new year's beginning.

If you read my last blog, "2017 - The Year of the Ten Fire Rooster," you may be feeling the truth of what was predicted based on ancient numerology and Chinese Calendar lore. Though perhaps a tad less tense than last year, 2017 comes packed with its own set of opportunities (or dramas, depending on how you choose to look at it). 

At this point in the game, it is important for you to find your inner balance. With strong beliefs and opinions streaming out from every arena, you'll need that inner balance to stabilize you through the rising and falling of emotional waves that pass through your personal space - those belonging to you and those belonging to others. It is human nature to have reactions to things, but it's not your inner emotional reactions that are the problem; it is what you do with them.

   

If you use your reactions to justify blame, shame, judgement, or separation, you are missing the truth and a powerful opportunity. Whenever you slip into this type of justification, you are actually passing off your responsibility for yourself onto others, where it does not belong. Your emotional reactions belong to you and you alone. 

Let me say this another way: Others are not responsible for your feelings - not now, not ever. 

It does not matter what they did or didn't do; you are the sole proprietor of your feelings today, in this moment. They happen inside of you, not outside of you. They are created inside of you. They exist and are managed inside of you. They dissolve away inside of you. They do not belong to anyone else; they belong to you, even when what you attribute them to happens outside of you.

This means that you are also 100% responsible for your reactions to the experiences of your life - how you deal with your feelings. Nobody makes you do anything, unless someone threatens your safety or your life if you do not comply with their demands. And even then you have choices; limited ones, but still choices, either in that moment or sometime later. Other than that extreme situation, you make your life choices from a place of freedom. You are nobody's slave, nobody's prisoner.

If you insist on blaming others for your state of being, you try to make them responsible for your choices, your feelings, and the quality of your life, when in reality you are. You hand them all your power by sacrificing to them how you feel and what you do in your life. And then you blame them when it doesn't turn out like you want. That's messed up. That is part of what Marianne Williamson refers to as error thinking.

As a free adult living in this country, you have the luxury - and it is a luxury - to choose for yourself who you want to befriend, who you join in partnership with, where you work and live, what you eat and drink, where you go, what you do, how long you stay, what you believe in, what you reject, how you feel, etc. No one else makes those choices for you. You make them for yourself, each one adding to the creation of the story of your life.

That means when things "go wrong" in your life, so to speak, or don't go as you hoped, you have the choice to change something to bring it back into alignment with what you want. Whatever happened in your past is past; whatever wounds you carry forward from that past can be healed. You have the choice to stop blaming others and take responsibility for your life now, starting today. There is no one to blame for your current situation, or for the feelings you hold in relation to it.

Instead of blaming others when you make a choice or a string of choices that do not bring you the outcome you want, or when you disagree with what is, or when you let your emotions get the better of you and react destructively, step off the road you are on and find a new path to walk. It really is that simple. 

You are the captain of your ship; the star, director and producer of your movie; the King or Queen of your life. You have the power within yourself to change the course of your ship, to manage the contents of your movie, and to make rulings about the direction of your life. But first you must stop blaming others and take full responsibility for yourself. You must reclaim your freedom to choose, for you alone can truly change your life.

And the sooner, the better.