Archive for the ‘Personal Growth’ Category
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
The personality is in opposition to true nature without understanding it.
Our true nature occurs as a death that is also somehow enticing. This confuses and disturbs the ego. Our True Nature, to the personality, is felt as “not me.” The personality does not like our deepest nature. But the personality is turned away from our Self. What our personality sees is actually itself.
The facts of life: people are whacky, pleasure and pain, triggers, etc. Pinning hopes for happiness on conditions is a mistake. Just enjoy them and suffer them… and take the meaning out!
Interest in truth is the obvious secret.
So what is the practice? How do we deal with the personality?
Hold on to what’s real instead of holding on to the punishing mind, the super ego. The punishing mind is held onto as a mooring, for a sense of self, for a way of looking at things, a perspective or orientation. Instead look to reality.
The mind is held onto because letting go and relaxing feels like one will stop existing. The mind is also held onto because one feels otherwise one will never get done what “needs” to be done, especially to deal with the terrible sense of being alone, unable, etc. One must work, one must think, one must do, one cannot relax, the aloneness, separation, fear, and so on is terrible.
Basically one grabs the sharp scared punishing mind.
Feel Reality moment to moment and be free.
If one let’s go of the managing mind, what is underneath in the shadows can be felt through (the sexual example below give a sample of things felt through).
If you hold on to what’s real, eventually you won’t have to hold on anymore because it’s what’s real and we’re drawn to it for that reason.
And celebrate reality. It’s that good.
Let’s make it concrete
How do you do that during sex?
First you feel what is there… that’s Corework… usually it’s a lot of thoughts and probably some pain or anxiety or anger… basically the personality.
You sense the experience with your body, you feel the experience with your heart, and you let your mind empty out. Things clear up here. We can feel our experience and we can feel Reality in all it’s glorious qualities. People usually do the opposite (they stop feeling the body, start thinking a lot and drive their emotional center crazy!)
From here you engage with the person sexually in this open state of body and mind. You touch them, you talk to them, you apply all of the communication and techniques from the Sex Series.
You will feel what is Real and you’ll feel the rest of your experience. Let’s both be… Reality will win!
Posted in Having better sex, Personal Growth, Realization, Sex | No Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
We will overview the complete teaching from the perspective of the development of a human being.
As evolution progresses from plants to amoeba to crocodile to dog to human each has a different lens through which to view its life. The human being can self reflect, and distinguish the lens for the perceptive mechanism.
Therefore human beings can appreciate being. They can appreciate their true nature and the true nature or essence of everything.
Yet a variety of philosophers, thinkers, and mystics as well as spiritual practitioners, have said that being human is merely a bridge or a possibility, basically that being human is on only half-baked. That although a human being can self reflect and perceive and experience it’s true nature that this is rarely done. That a human being rarely completes itself.
Development of a human being is often not achieved but it can be.
Let’s look at the development of a human being from infancy to full maturity. In the first few months of life the child is a primal instinctual self totally connected to being, experiencing itself as being and yet driven by its instincts to survive. If the child’s needs are not met the ego shell will begin to form in a fearful hungry and animalistic way.
Then as the child enters the differentiating sub phase of development, where it differentiates from its mother, it will begin to have a sense of self-reflection, and a sense of itself. If the child is not well tended to at this point the ego show tends to develop in a very self-centered way. Narcissism classically starts at this stage.
As the child continues its development it begins practicing it’s new physical and mental abilities. Becoming more and more of a rounded individual. It goes through periods of attempting to reemerge with the mother. If all of this goes well then the child’s individuality and personality develops well. If this does not go well the ego shell tends to form a distorted personality. Of course problems in prior stages are reflected in later stages.
By the age of four or five the child has gender recognition and enters what is known as the Oedipal phase. If this goes well the child’s gender sense begins to develop well. If this does not go well then the child will develop difficulties with its gender sense and this will have lasting repercussions in self-image and romantic relationship later.
There are several other phases of cognitive development but we will zoom ahead to puberty because this is a crucial stage where the child’s gender sense completes itself. A type of ego structure can form here that either reflects a healthy gender sense and sexual life or an unhealthy gender sense and sexual life.
By the age of about 16 a human being has fulfilled the fundamental phases of biological development.
What we can see here is that as a human being develops there is the opportunity for a fully rounded human being to come into being. This is natural development. Of course there are many distortions that happen for each of us. But by understanding our development we regain access to our true selves, which includes a sexual self.
It is a lusty life. I like to call it the wisdom of teenagers where passionate and sexual life is embraced instead of suppressed and discarded.
Being loves sex.
A complete human being is a spiritual personal sexual being.
That’s real life.
Posted in Health, Personal Growth, Realization, Romantic Blueprint | No Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Last week we discussed Reality or our true nature as what is most basic in us, most essential in us… our being.
Over time we have examined various qualities of Reality: it’s realness and existence, the spaciousness and peace of reality, it’s infiniteness, love, peace, joy, and so on.
Babies are completely in touch with their being, with their true nature. They are being, they experience themselves as being, without being consciously aware of that fact. It simply is that way for them.
Babies are out of touch with circumstances. They don’t understand them at all. They can’t function without their mother’s total care.
The child cannot distinguish the true nature of reality from its surface manifestation, it’s circumstances.
He equates the surface with the depth.
The child loses his trust of reality because as he experiences difficulties and in his young life he equates those pains with the depth of reality not merely its surface manifestation of circumstance.
For example, if the child is rejected, or not fed properly, or enmeshed, or left alone too much, and so on, he will associate all of that with Reality itself. Instead of understanding that his circumstances were simply not ideal.
Circumstances are never ideal, difficulties happen to every baby in greater or lesser degree… that doesn’t mean anything about Reality itself.
When difficulties arise he becomes defensive to survive and develop. That defensiveness gets applied to Life itself… God, Being, Reality, not just the difficult circumstances that life inevitably entails.
He becomes cautious, fearful, strategical, avoidant, even opposed to Reality because he can’t distinguish that the depth (Reality in its essence) remains trustworthy. He projects the surface onto the depth.
As he becomes defensive against the whole he experiences himself as more and more separate from the whole… more alone. He loses his initial identity as the whole and becomes the defensiveness. He identifies with the avoidant, hostile, strategical, inflated patterning that helped him survive.
Through identification with this relationship blueprint he becomes further and further disassociated with all the qualities of Reality… peace, joy, and so on.
If true understanding of the nature of Reality, our essential nature, our true nature, blossoms then defensiveness is not required. Only discernment is required to see that the surface is not the depth.
One begins to understand that whatever difficulty arises is a surface temporary manifestation of Reality and that Reality itself is whole, complete, love, etc. He did not have this discerning capacity as a child.
His parents mistreatment or any difficulty in relationship or problem with his surroundings or body, etc. are merely the surface of Reality, not its true nature, not his true nature.
He learns to take them in stride… and not make them mean anything about life itself or about himself, ultimately. He is free to enjoy life, to enjoy being, to be being, to be what he is, in all it’s fullness.
Any yes, he still has to deal with the comforts and discomforts of life… but they don’t hold the meaning they did.
Self-development is a process of regaining trust in Reality, which involves seeing circumstances and one’s blueprint (ego, etc.) for what they are… survival strategies based in the assumptions of a child.
Posted in Committment, Health, Personal Growth, Realization, Romantic Blueprint | No Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Actual life. The one that is happening. What is really happening? Being is happening. Being means existence… is realness. Something being.
Realness is the highest, most subtle, ultimately it is not even a dimension, it is the nature, the actual existence of everything. You can feel it now, substantially…
Being is not body, heart or mind (but includes them).
Being is our true nature, the deepest, most real part of ourselves. It is a category of experience usually overlooked, but is actually our core.
In this series we’ll explore our deepest nature as well as what is real for us experientially at the level of body, heart and mind.
At the level of body, heart and mind, one of the things we find REALLY going on for people are relationship issues, repetitions patterns.
I don’t mean theoretically… I don’t even mean in the future or the past…
A person’s blueprint for life has a relationship blueprint right at the center, which includes one’s sense of self (self identity) and sense of other (superego, modeled primarily on the mother and early caregivers)
The super ego is the designer, the handler, the inner parent, the survival program. It seems to be god speaking.
The self-identity is split into 2 parts
1. Deflated
2. Defensive
The deflated part is the wounded part of us… ignored…. hurt… sad… scared… and so on.
The defensive part aims to protect us from others, from the super ego, from certain emotions and experiences.
The four primary themes that the defensive shell of the self identity forms around are:
1. Inflated (narcissistic)
2. Mean (anti-social, controlling, etc.)
3. Soft (capitulating, enmeshed, lack of center)
4. Avoidant (schizoid)
Everyone uses all 4, but their identity usually has a preferred method which can be hard to distinguish for them because reality just seems that way (others are less than, others need to be avoided, etc.)
Although things going on at the mind/heart (and to a lesser degree body) level are less real, they still are real to us and must be dealt with. This facilitates openness to Being and Reality because we don’t get caught in those mind/heart/blueprint stories if they are not there.
At the same time Being/Reality can is always present and accessible because it is another category of experience
Posted in Health, How to relationship, Personal Growth, Realization, Relationship | No Comments »
Monday, November 12th, 2012
People think that the Absolute as a state or realization or living somehow involves no sensation, no feeling, in other words no experience. This is the usual view of realization or enlightenment. But the Absolute realized, as a living state is the total opposite.
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It is total sensation, uninhibited sensation. There is no filter to sensation. Experience is not filtered through the blueprint of one’s ego. The repetitiveness, the sense of suffering, an image of oneself always at the center of experience, and so on… all these things are gone.
Experience is pure, direct, unfiltered. One result is that the mental component of experience is severely diminished. Another is that experience is new. The qualities of being are present, and so on. But the aspect of feeling that I would like to focus on primarily tonight is that sensation is greatly increased. |
The greater the realization of the absolute is integrated into living the greater the degree of sensation. Physical feeling is dramatically increased.
This works wonders for sex and will prepare us for next weeks Sensuality Research Pool and Demonstration of Extended Orgasm.
Part of what is happening is that you switch into a mode of perceiving your experience instead of conceiving about your experience. Perceiving experience unwinds it, clarifies it, and so on… Consciousness “works” on it.
Perceiving your experience is the practice of corework. Access and understanding are there.
While perceiving your experience, sometimes you perceive part of your blueprint, but you understand this. In fact, this is almost always the case. But because you are perceiving it realness is there, clarity is there, even understanding blossoms there. Since you are perceiving, you are still experiencing truth.
Sometimes and eventually you experience more and more direct reality minus mental filtration. But this is not the goal.
The goal is now simply perceiving things as they are.
Tags: Being, better sex, DOing, enlightenment, Personal Growth, sexual pleasure
Posted in 15 minute orgasm, Having better sex, Personal Growth, Realization, Sex | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012
The first 2-3 years of life are so formative that the most fundamental and elementary ways that someone experiences and interacts with the world are set. Personality changes throughout life, but less and less so. How the child deals with separation from the mother and his or her own sense of self lays a foundation for all later development.
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What qualities of being are required to move through the stages of development for the first 2-3 years of life? And what happens when some of these qualities are not fully present?
Basically, according to depth psychology the infant starts on a ‘merged with the mother state’ for the first 6 months or so. From there the baby begins a process of separating and individuating from the mother until 2-3 years old. |
The merged state that the child starts with is like a childhood enlightenment. There is little sense of difference or separation. It has a blissful quality that is sometimes interrupted by physical and emotional needs. How these needs are dealt with sets an initial and immediate sense of how the world is basically or bodily. Safe, nourishing or not, at a very basic or bodily level.
The dominant quality and the quality required in this early stage is a type of blended merged love, where the mother’s psyche and body are shared with the infant. This makes entry into the world of conditions safe, gradual and generally pleasant.
If this merged love is not present or infrequently present or somehow dimmed then the baby will experience and begin to perceive the world in a less safe and positive way at the deep level of the body.
Next the child begins to differentiate themselves from the mother. The quality of strength is key here because he/she is separating themselves from the merged mother. Strength slowly begins to take over as the primary quality of experience, instead of the merged type of love. Ideally this is not strength in a contracted form, rather it is a bright uplifting yet relaxed feeling of capability.
If the merged state did not go well (needs were not met) then it is likely that ego has already taken on a more rigid and defensive structure. This naturally blocks out the natural feelings of goodness of reality because the child is more self focused toward a false self. It also sets the stage for the strength, which is needed to differentiate, to arise in an ‘egoic condition’. Additionally, trauma at this differentiation stage can cause the more rigid, being-blocking form of ego. Trauma at these early periods is particularly damaging for obvious reasons. Fundamental issues (around separation, survival, etc.) can centralize themselves in the blueprint for living which is being formed!
But let’s assume things go ideally in the merged state and differentiation happens ideally; the baby feels strong, able and happy. The next stage involves experiencing limitation, the limitations of his/her little body in the conditional world. If the mother, and to a lesser degree the father (most commonly) deals with the child’s attempt to remerge in a healthy supportive way, that both loves the child but encourages them to venture out strongly, then a quality of strength and ability will be added to a quality of merged safe love at the deep level of body.
If the attempt to remerge is not dealt with well the child will end up too merged with the parent or too separate and independent. If the parent clings to the child the child will stay more merged. If the parent rejects the child, then the child will be more separate. In either case the love quality of being or the strength quality of being is diminished to a type of enmeshment or separateness. In a typical “softy” or “meany” personality style.
Next the child individualizes and develops their own sense of individuality and personality. The primary quality here is individuality. This individuality is not based on egoic separateness ideally, but instead forms a unique personality that is fully connected to being. Any number of things can happen in this stage and cause the personality to become more contracted and further away from being. The contracted form of the individuality quality is something like the personality of ego (often called the false self).
Around four years old the child enters an Oedipal phase where each child develops a sense of their ‘boyness’ or ‘girlness’ and what this means. The child develops the ability to polarize love, and years later to romanticize love. This is furthered by the biological development. Freud was absolutely correct that a sexual self sense begins to form when a child realizes their gender and begins to integrate it into their personality. This sexual self sense, unless addressed, will underlie all romantic connections to follow. Of course, it will change and further events will influence one’s romantic ability, but one’s basic sense of one’s gender will underlie all of that.
Strength and love, as well as many other qualities become enhanced by these gender developments if they go well. Ideally the child has received the environmental support necessary to move through these stages while maintaining a connection to Being. In which case, one’s identity is in being, one’s individuality is an alive vibrant personality not a separateness, and one’s gender sense adds a thrill to life instead of some type of obsession or problem.
Tags: blueprint, enlightenment, Health, openness, Personal Growth, self-esteem, success
Posted in Health, Personal Growth, Realization, Romantic Blueprint | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, October 16th, 2012
Reality has fundamental qualities. When we are experiencing reality it feels any number of ways. For example we may feel clarity, or peace, or strength, or joy, but it is clear that we are experiencing reality. There is a fullness, unity, a fulfillment, ultimately a realness to the experience.
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Reality does not come in a negative form. All of the qualities, which we listed, are somehow positive or what we might consider good. They are actually beyond good, they are real. Actually real, not something theoretical.
Negative qualities, on the other hand, are contracted forms of reality. They all are the qualities of reality filtered through the ego or one’s blueprint. So all kinds of prejudices and preferences impact the experience of that quality, but the largest impact is that the quality is experienced along with a limited self sense. Or ego identity. Or sense of “me”. |
Let’s look at several qualities as they are in their pure form and how we normally experience them so that we can observe the contrast between the pure or direct experience of reality and a contracted form of reality. As well as, notice what stands in between.
Strength for example is a quality of reality. We experience reality through a quality of strength when that quality is needed or most appropriate to the situation. Strength is a feeling of physical and emotional ability. It is a feeling of being capable, a pulsing sense of energy throughout the body, yet calm. It has a bright and awake quality but it is not sharp. It is not still or moving but rather pulsing. Strength has an expansive feeling in the body, especially in the chest.
Strength as we usually experience it is more like tightness or tension. More like a type of hardness, or going against something. It has the quality of conflict. This is because it is experienced along with a “self”. For example, “I feel strong” “he’s so strong “. These examples and how we usually experience strength usually involve an “I” sense which gives a contracted, separate, and negative undertone to the experience.
Clarity is a quality of reality that feels expansive but is located more in the skull, like a very subtle pleasant buzzing in the brain. It feels like being able to see forever and everything. It is a sense of omniscience, which is very relaxed. It is the ability to see and understand and know. Clarity has a very bright awake experience in the body but is deeply calm. Still. Silent.
How do we normally experience clarity? Yes it has some of the above traits but is more like feeling clear about something or me being clear. Or me being unclear. There is some kind of tension between clear and unclear, some kind of opposition, duality because it is experienced along with a sense of limitation. Similar to how the normal experience of strength always involves some type of weakness, or resistance to weakness, etc. This is the ego or the blueprint.
Real clarity as a quality of being has no opposite and no sense of opposite. There is simply clarity. Clarity as it is normally experienced always involves a positive pole and a negative pole. Even the positive pole of a contracted quality is still contracted. Real qualities of reality simply are, they have no opposite.
The quality of being merged or blended with everything is a fundamental quality of reality. This quality is so all consuming that there is no self-defense in it. It is almost more like a dimension than a quality because it is so all pervasive. People yearn for but also fear this experience. Infant experience a great deal of being merged with everything.
Merged in an ordinary sense, how we normally experience it, is more like losing one’s individuality. Being engulfed by something or losing oneself in somebody or something else. It is normally experienced as more of a type of enmeshment. People fear the enmeshment because there’s a lack of direct knowing and understanding of the merged experience. “We merged” etc. There is something tight in even that statement when it is the normal everyday contracted form of merging. There is something about this seemingly positive statement that is subtly distasteful.
You get the idea. Any quality, for example the sensual or sensuous qualities of reality, can be experienced through an “I” filter or experienced directly as what they are. Real sensuality is a physically alive and vibrant experience, but sensuality paired with the ego brings an immediate sense of tightness to the body. You can look at “will”, you can look at “love”, you can look at any fundamental experience that a human being has and determine how clearly reality is shining through by examining the level of contraction of the quality.
Tags: Being, blueprint, enlightenment, happiness, Personal Growth
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization, Romantic Blueprint | Comments Off
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012
Corework is experiential inquiry. Either on a topic or into what you are experiencing currently. Even if a topic is chosen, the focus of corework is still your immediate experience.
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Corework unwinds, unblocks and frees up experience by feeling through the layers of experience. From the trigger all the way to happiness and real freedom. This is a spiritual process and goes far beyond simply resolving the issue.
The practice involves feeling into bodily experience, emotional experience and mental experience without thinking about it. This way the underlying material, held in the unconscious, can surface. Body focus and breath focus can be powerful anchors that help one sink into deeper experience without getting lost in thought. |
The typical pattern is: trigger –> issue –> emptiness –> related aspect of being
Almost all the time, almost every human being is triggered by something. Usually we only pay attention to the big ones. But anytime you can feel into your experience and detect some circumstance that is triggering an upset, however large or small. For example, a lingering feeling of resentment based on a comment someone made to you.
Under the trigger is an issue, part of the person’s blueprint that is painful. The trigger has power because of the issue. What is key in Corework is to leave the trigger behind and feel into the issue. This in itself is relieving because you are no longer triggered and you feel you are working on something real, though normally hidden. For example, an underlying issue of being treated unfairly by others.
By inquiring experientially, rather than mentally, into the emotions and their meanings, the issue will begin to dissolve. The issue and it’s related meanings are seen and felt through. They are first experienced as painful but ultimately as unreal. One’s sense of identity, especially around that issue, will also tend to dissolve. For example, the issue of unfairness and the victim identity dissolve.
This usually leaves one feeling empty, sometimes experienced with strong feelings of vacancy or aloneness. This emptiness is the base of the blueprint or ego. It is the human being as mind or blueprint (rather than being). Normally this empty shell or identity as mind is not felt because we are upset and distracted. It is like who you thought you were died and nothing is left. For example, if one is not a victim one feels like no one or nothing.
If you continue the Corework and feel through this empty shell of ego then a sense of being will arise. It will be the expression of being that was blocked by the issue or an expression of being that supports dealing with the issue. Anything from joy to inner strength to a sense of clarity, and so on. Not only is trigger relieved or resolved and the underlying issue unwound to whatever degree, but one is returned to oneself in the deepest sense. For example, a deep sense of compassion for oneself and others arises associated with a sense of oneself as being and presence.
Tags: Being, blueprint, enlightenment, meditation, realization
Posted in Health, Personal Growth, Realization, Romantic Blueprint | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 27th, 2012
To really not get what one needs. What does this do to a human being?
The human mechanism distorts, the energy drops both from stress and exhaustion and to conserve resources, the mind slants negatively, and it is all taken personally. Brightness is replaced by dullness. Bright feeling is replaced by dull painful feeling. Enthusiasm and interest are replaced by hopelessness.
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The being can’t help but take it personally. When the situation is bad over here and good over there that good gets associated with them and that bad gets associated with oneself.
One becomes addicted to thoughts, imaginations, substances, really anything, in a desperate attempt to avoid being overwhelmed by the bad feeling.
Being awake means facing the experience of whatever is present including and especially this feeling of not getting what one needs, because this experience when it arises is often shied away from. It can feel like an endless bad feeling, and endless emptiness, an endless void or lack, that one feels is ultimately one’s own fault. It is very important to confront the fear of never getting that need fulfilled without flinching away from how that feels. Otherwise one is dominated by it from the background. |
Now what does this have to do with your sex life? Sex is full contact with another, or can be. It is a fundamental human need, in some ways greater than food and air.
A relationship where this aspect of oneself is suppressed can never, by definition, be a full relationship, nor is it experienced as a full relationship. Sex as full contact is what human beings crave most emotionally because it is connection at all levels or, at least, can be.
It does not necessarily mean physical sexual contact with the other, but, at the very least, it means that the ‘sex space’ is not suppressed. It will often mean sensual contact between the people relating, but it may not. For example: two straight males, who simply allow that part of themselves ‘the attraction to the female’, to exist. They are at ease with that feeling. They can discuss it. It’s not suppressed. Between people of the opposite sex and woman-to-woman the sensual involvement with the other is less mental and more body based, sensual in the standard polarized definition.
For this sex space to be closed with another or most all others leaves the individual without much real contact. It leaves them starving physically and emotionally. The desire for the bright fun of sensual contact and relating is denied.
When this fundamental need is not met, this need for sex which is actually a need for others and contact and the physical sensual aspect of full relatedness, one is left in that bad emptiness, taking it personally, and blaming oneself – again, the basics of what happens when a human being does not get what they need fundamentally. Energetically, emotionally and mentally and, even, physically it creates a negative momentum, a downward spiral, a vicious circle.
So my invitation to you is to explore this need and fulfill this need, to become skilled here, to open sensually & sexually, and reclaim this space, this vital point of contact that is perhaps best characterized by brightness and fun.
Posted in Health, Realization, Relationship, Sex | Comments Off
Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
If you want to succeed at attraction and seduction then surround yourself with turned on positive people who are in the know about picking someone up and how to have a turned on relationship. The graduates of the Pleasure Course are those kind of people!
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This way when you have challenges or failures or simply “blow out” (lose consciousness) because of the intensity of the process you have people to restore you to sanity instead of ending up floating around in the outer space of your mind alone!
People in the know about picking someone up also inspire you to new heights. You gain momentum and success instead of quitting at the initial failures and ending up in the “Klutz” stage of learning forever. The “Klutz” stage is the failures and corrections you inevitably have to go through to learn something. |
The Pleasure Course is designed to move you through that difficult stage of learning in your love life so you can enjoy a fantastic love life!
Tags: dating advice, Personal Growth, pick a partner, relationship advice
Posted in Dating, Finding a partner, How to relationship, Personal Growth, Pick-up, Realization, Relationship | Comments Off
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
This is very advanced material.
How many people have a real understanding of what is actually going on psychologically within themselves and the people they are interacting with? What is that worth to you? What could you do with that?
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The most useful skill in drawing someone (anyone from a stranger to your spouse) toward you is to understand and function well in the psychological and social dynamics of the group/person you’ve approached and play just barely faster than them. That means being present and being on top without being a dominant jerk. Unjustified arrogance rates as one of the most repulsive qualities a person can possess. In other words, real power and real understanding are required.
You’ve got to be attuned to that person or group and know what is going on. Who’s in charge? Why? Are they bored? Are they wound up?… and so on. If you were going to drive a car you’d probably want to know if it’s a Ferrari or a truck. |
Picking someone up means you are driving, you are leading. As we’ve covered previously, you can do that from a masculine or feminine position. Ideally both sexes are doing it simultaneously, and because it is done differently by each sex they don’t clash! Regardless, if you do your part well, odds are strong they’ll get in step.
Crucial to attuning yourself or calibrating yourself to someone is putting your thoughts aside and paying attention to them. Notice them and you’ll be surprised at the information you get. With that information a woman can direct her energetic charms (turn on, body language, etc.) far more effectively. For example, if she gathers that he is kind of wound up and distracted she might stand closer to him than she normally would and flash him (sexy eye contact) more strongly.
Males usually use the gathered information to lead the conversation more effectively. He has tremendous power if he knows what is going on with her. This is known in the social sciences as knowing the person’s “frame” (like ‘frame of reference’). It is the filter through which they perceive the current situation.
The goal is to create ‘frame resonance’, in other words to have her ‘frame’ resonate with yours. This grants you connection and great influence. There are 4 verbal ways to create frame resonance and although both sexes use them, they are the bread and butter for a man picking up a woman.
- Frame bridging: create a connection between two ideas (often fixes a logistical issue): “I’m glad you want to see my pet rock collection, my car is around the corner.”
- Frame amplification: really step into her viewpoint: “Yes, it would be terrible to sleep with someone without being connected!… I’m glad we’re connecting.”
- Frame extension – stretch her frame to connect it with yours: “your passion for detail is exactly what it takes for me to be a good artist/doctor…”
- Frame transformation – stitch together your and her frames at some future point and then bring it back to the present: “One day I hope to really be able to commit like you want me to; it’s really what I want in my heart, even now.”
Women can ‘grab’ a man’s frame with the tremendous power of her turn on and potential for sensual contact. She’ll use the above verbal methods intuitively, but her sex is her greatest asset. I call it the ‘biological imperative’. Within seconds of meeting, any man and woman have totally evaluated the other sexually. If she is pressing “go” sexually, she has his attention, no matter what their relationship is! If she does want the interaction to proceed, the verbal maneuvers described above can be very helpful in handling concerns or viewpoints that he might have.
Hexing is another key psychological tool available to you. It is a type of teasing or dominance play where you confirm somebody’s self-doubt. For example if you know someone has an issue about the car they drive, you might say, “so did you drive the old clunker here?” The purpose is to have fun in a teasing way. You can also accomplish putting yourself on top in the interaction and steering them (in this case, perhaps to buy a new car). It is not an insult! If you buy into their self-doubt it is an insult. Unfortunately, people usually are insulting the person when they try to tease or hex them because they actually believe there is something wrong with that person (or their car). It’s easy to overdo it and use hexing in a defensive, hostile or arrogant way. Then it’s not a good hex and will backfire leaving you hexed!
Because sex is such a charge-y subject, women are walking hexes for men (and for themselves). If a man can learn to hex well, he gains a big edge in his pick up game because women like a guy who can steer.
Now, let’s address one of the most important things you need to know about your psychology and the learning process. This applies to learning most things, not just picking someone up. There are stages in learning. The first stage of picking a goal is usually very exciting. The next stage is a bitch. Let’s call it the Klutz stage. You put ten in and get one out. It’s full of failure. The mood of it is like being in an emergency room: you are rushing around trying to see what is going on and stop the bleeding! This is where most people quit.
If you keep going and intelligently make corrections you will succeed. That is the secret of getting over the hump: Keep immersing yourself and making corrections. The later stages in the learning process are about success and enhancement. They are relatively fun, creative and interesting, and your results accelerate exponentially. Don’t stop at the Klutz stage… or you end up living there!
Tags: attention, Being, blueprint, dating advice, emotions, failure, flirting, intimacy, pick a partner, relationship advice, romantic fate, turn-on
Posted in Dating, Finding a partner, How to relationship, Man-Woman Dynamics, Pick-up, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint | 7 Comments »
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
What’s real, what’s not and how to be happy.
The nature of stuff is stuff. What it means to be stuff is to be an object, to not be alive, to be lifeless. This means all stuff: a cup, a thought, anything. It is all just stuff, just objects, material objects or mental objects.
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Your feelings are stuff too! This is a tough one for people to understand. A feeling is a thing, although not a concrete one.
If your life is all about stuff, you have a problem. Would you bow down to a lifeless, dead God? Is material that is by definition: dead, lifeless, impermanent, and mostly just imagined in your mind worth devoting your life to? Worth being infatuated with?
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I am not recommending being negative about stuff, critical about stuff or down on stuff. I am just recommending seeing the nature of stuff. What it is and what it isn’t. I am recommending see how easy it is to get trapped in… and think that there is more happiness or freedom or bliss or peace in stuff than there actually is.
What is left beyond stuff? What is non-stuff? It is not something you can see, feel, taste, touch, hear or think.
What is non-stuff? It is your life, your consciousness, your subjectivity, you… not as a body or identity but as consciousness, as being, as the absolute. It is absolutely beyond description, all we can see is the manifest side.
Realization of non-stuff and having that at the center of your life is happiness. And it makes all the stuff downstream (relationships, marriage, sex, coffee, your new car, anything) a lot more enjoyable and a lot less entrapping!
Tags: Being, enlightenment, happiness, important quality, Personal Growth, realization
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | Comments Off
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
What does it really take to lean into life and reap the rewards of that? How would you describe that quality? Where is it from?
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Alicia and I were blown away by how the participants of the September Pleasure Course totally leaned into their love and sex lives. You could see people’s relationships expanding as if they were stretching their right in front of you.
Each participant leaned into their life, bringing forth a quality of awakeness, of refreshing vital interest. |
It is so important to bring oneself forth this way in one’s life, especially your love life.
It can’t be work or you simply won’t keep doing it. You are effortlessly uplifted.
Opportunities are not missed. Life is lived fully now. You naturally go for it.
Tags: blueprint, communication, enlightenment, happiness, intention
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, September 21st, 2011
To move from suffering to enlightenment one must release or dissolve the various fixations of the ego structure. This leaves you in touch with your Self rather than your thoughts. The endless preoccupying thoughts are over!
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What is a fixation? What is the way to dissolve a fixation? A fixation is a point of view, a perspective, a worldview from a particular position. Understanding your fixations and feeling through them dissolves them. One’s viewpoints about oneself, others, life, and even that one is separate from others, are examples of fixed |
viewpoints. If one simply investigates any fixation as to whether it is true, one finds that it could not possibly be true because it is simply a perspective from a particular vantage point.
Although this is fairly straightforward, the process has the potential to be almost unlimitedly intense and emotional. This is because as fixations move through consciousness for examination and release they are fully experienced and felt. Some of those fixations, viewpoints, memories, etc. can be quite painful.
Willingness to feel and a clear understanding are the two most useful tools at one’s immediate disposal to realize the journey from suffering to enlightenment. The process can happen at any speed, and paradoxically, is usually gradual and immediate at the same time. This is due to the fact that understanding provides an immediate release, and yet, things take time to feel through and unwind.
Tags: change, enlightenment, meditation, openness
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
What can you do to sensualize your lifestyle? This is a question Alicia and I are always asking ourselves. We are always addressing our lifestyle.
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Usually people have their attention on ‘what they have’ rather than ‘how they are living’. It is a lot easier to put attention on “what” rather than “how”. For example, most people can give you a pretty good description of what they regularly eat but are stumped if you ask them how they eat. How you eat (relaxed, in a nice environment, etc.) is actually just as important as what you eat. |
We just got back from Mexico! How we like to vacation is relaxed with lot’s of free time for extended orgasm D.O. dates, and that is just what we did. Sometimes people come back from vacation more exhausted than they left because they had to see every ‘what’ they possibly could.
Sensualizing your lifestyle is paying attention to how you are living and making sure you are living pleasurably. Sensual living is gratifying and enjoyable now. It can look any number of ways. You can have a partner or not. Here are a few of our favorites:
1. Have a D.O. date every day, with a partner or with yourself.
2. Do that in the morning vs. pushing sex to end of the day when you are tired.
3. Take relaxed vacations (vs. tourism) at least monthly, even if they are short and you don’t travel far.
4. Cultivate friendships and community that forwards your sex life.
5. Don’t miss opportunities! Pleasureable opportunities abound… if you have an eye for them.
How about you? What could you do to make your lifestyle more enjoyable and sensual?
Tags: extended orgasm, having fun, Health, schedule, sexual pleasure
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 16th, 2011
This is the state of childhood.
There is no conception of oneself in early childhood. Eventually one does start to conceive “I am”. An internal imaginary realm gets created with the concept of oneself at the center. Gradually, that inner realm of concepts gains greater and greater traction in appearing to actually be Reality itself. The inherent happiness of childhood ends.
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Initially in childhood we are not separate from anything because there is no conceptualization happening. We do not conceive ourselves as separate; hence we do not feel separate. The underlying unity of everything is experienced directly.
We experience the bliss, infiniteness, unity, depth and love of reality. Our baseline experience is quite extraordinary compared what later develops when we leave that childhood state.
The state of childhood is an experience of enlightenment and connection that we all have had. If you truly feel how profound and ecstatic it was in it’s earliest phases before conceptualization then it will serve you as an anchor and a guide in your personal growth, returning you to yourself. |
Tags: Being, Personal Growth, realization
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
Human beings have a deep and abundant need for intimacy with others. Contact of this type is necessary for our growth and development. It continues to be necessary throughout adulthood and throughout our lives.
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In some ways we need it more as children because we need it, not only emotionally, but also to learn how to function and survive. Yet, in another sense we need it more as adults because without good contact and intimacy it is practically impossible to unwind and resolve the interpersonal issues we bring from childhood into adulthood. And as we know those issues can be significant! (Just look at your “relationship blueprint”).
Denying this need is all too common because it can bring up a great deal of pain: feelings of isolation, loneliness, fear and so on. Yet if we accept and feel this need we have taken the most important step to resolving past issues and enjoying our relationships today. We have embraced our interdependence. |
Some issues need to be resolved interpersonally and some need to be resolved within ourselves. The more psychological the issue the more likely we’ll need to resolve it interpersonally. Psychological issues are primarily interpersonal and were formed from early interpersonal dynamics. A healthy current relationship (often starting with a mentor or therapist) is often what resets the “relationship blueprint”.
Intellectual understanding alone, outside of interpersonal relationship, simply won’t cut in resolving psychological issues. You’ve got to be in the water to learn to swim.
Spiritual issues (“Who am I?” and the like) are ultimately resolved by locating one’s nature or True Self. This is an inner journey and personal growth that one does within oneself. Of course, support and guidance are useful here, but these answers are within.
True spiritual development will support psychological healing and development… and healthy psychological development will support true spiritual realization.
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | Comments Off
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011
An amazing group of people re-wrote their relationship blueprints and discovered the unlimited happiness and pleasure possible in romance and sex during this July’s Pleasure Course! And we all had an incredible time at the Cocktail Party that followed.
Posted in Having better sex, How to relationship, Personal Growth, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint, Sex | Comments Off
Wednesday, July 13th, 2011
The need to be taken care of is deeply felt by every human being. It spans everything from our survival needs as children to our need to be seen and acknowledged to our need to have someone else assume responsibility for things so that we can relax.
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Unfortunately, when we need it most as children, this need is usually not fully met. So as adults we have our normal needs of interdependence, acknowledgement, being seen and so on, plus a sense of unmet childhood needs which carry over into adulthood. |
After 20 years of supporting singles and couples in thir relationships I can tell you this is what causes most relationship problems: disguised versions of “You are not taking care of me”. Relationships turn into a reflection of early childhood patterns with parents. The parent is projected onto one’s current partner along with a sense of not being taken care of.
The most important thing we can do to resolve this situation is to feel and understand the need directly. It is a fundamental human need that takes many forms throughout life.
We can do things to get this need met, and, of course, that is helpful, but what is of critical importance to our personal growth is that we get familiar with this need. That we feel it directly with compassion and understanding… first for ourselves and then others.
Somehow when we experience this need ourselves calmly and directly it soothes and calms us, as well as opens us to receiving from others.
When unmet need is felt through fully with understanding it begins to shift to desire… then to love, where it switches to more of a giving force… then to stillness, where we transcend even our need.
Tags: Personal Growth, relationship problems
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | Comments Off
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
Now let’s look at your relationship future. What is the quality of your future when you look at it?
You can immediately sense if your future is given by your blueprint, i.e. that it is predictable. Or perhaps your future blossoms from your being present now. In this case the future you imagine is more open, more organic.
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If you are present your future has a quality of or softness and openness, if you are not present it has a repetitious dull and dark quality.
Where you are now, or how you are now, determines your “now future”. This is where the future is created or lived from. The present gives the future.
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Your mind is always mapping out the future. That is the activity of mind. If you are in your blueprint/playbook now, in the presnt, you are going to map out what is in that blueprint. And that is what your future will look like.
If you are present then the map becomes very different and very secondary… and the future is bright.
Tags: blueprint, relationship advice
Posted in How to relationship, Personal Growth, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011
Well, there’s your relationship life now, as it actually is… And there is your relationship life in your head, all the thoughts you have about your relationship life and all the patterns and activities you have from those thoughts.
Let’s look at your relationship life as it actually is.
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Before you think anything, what is there? Before you think anything, what is present? Nothing that you thought in your head is actually there the way you thought it. If you can get out of the relationship life as you think it is in your head, everything is somehow unified and together and there’s no opinion about anything. Things just are as they are, but there is a very distinct experience to it.
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Your relationship life occurs very differently here, than in your head. Fundamentally, there is no sense of a problem.
Now, what human beings ordinarily think up in regards to their relationship is from their past, as we distinguished last week. Mostly it’s given by our early parental and sibling relationships. This gives a limited ability in relationship, and can cause many relationship problems. The natural skills of relationship, such as the love, connection, paying attention, seeing what the other person wants, and so on, are largely blocked. To be more exact, these are not so much skills as natural capacities of reality that one has when one is present.
There are two ways of developing these relationship skills. One way is to develop and practice them; the second is to be fully present and let them arrive. The first is somewhat willful and keeps the identity pattern intact, but it can be helpful. By being present, they will come naturally.
Tags: blueprint, Personal Growth, relationship problems
Posted in How to relationship, Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | 3 Comments »
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
The biggest influence from your past on your current love life, whether you’re in a great relationship or having relationship problems, is your relationship with your family. The first 3-5 years of life are the most influential in terms of how we relate to other people, even sexually. This is in part because our current relationship blueprint is stored as memories of past relationships. Earlier memories carry more weight because experiences which come later are filtered through the earlier memories.
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There are many challenges to looking at your relationship with your family and how that relates to your core relationship tendencies. The first is that our relationship with our parents, especially at such a young age when we are so open and undefended, is a very tender part of the blueprint. Another challenge is that sometimes, rather than mimic our parents, we do the exact opposite. |
So take a moment to go back in your past and note, what are the critical influences that your family had on you when you’re young? This can be priceless information for your personal growth.
Tags: blueprint, Personal Growth
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, April 19th, 2011
Manifesting specific results in your life.
Now that we have explored the spiritual side of change, let’s examine how to change specific things in your life like something about your job or your relationship. Manifesting specific results in life is an incredible game to play… as long as you are not playing it as the end all and be all or the most important part of life.
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Creating specific results in your life starts with envisioning or simply knowing what result you would like. Setting your objective is crucial. The more creative the objective the better, while balancing being realistic and what is possible.
Putting your heart into it is next. You must examine is this something you really want to do or something you have to do or something you should do. The first two are accomplishable but the third is not. You must be motivated. It must matter to you or you must be in a position where you have no other choice. The first is better.
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From here, you must organize your life and yourself in any number of ways such that you are engaged in fulfilling your goal in your personal growth, job, love life, anything. You can get very creative here. This is setting the path and environment that will lead to your change.
Tags: change, success
Posted in Personal Growth | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
We will further explore the challenges we confront when we attempt to change ourselves and discover the key to effortless change.
Imagine trying to change your internal reality and your external reality at the same time. By inner reality, I mean you’re head reality, how you felt, what you thought, and by external reality I mean your circumstances, your environment, the situation you’re in. Imagine trying to change both because somehow you knew that they were both false, or at least that your head reality was false, and that your external reality had been largely created or influenced by your head reality.
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So it wasn’t so much just trying to change your thought about something, but rather your thought had actually manifested in your environment so that the change you now wanted to create was much steeper. A good analogy would be, imagine feeling totally isolated, totally alone, and very separate (internal reality), and then at the same time living in an abandoned part of town, off the suburb of some very small city, rarely speaking to anyone. |
The reason this is so much more difficult to change is not just because it’s twice as much to change, but once it’s gotten into your external environment, there is an enormous amount of evidence for the mind version, the isolated alone abandoned feeling, and it becomes much much harder to change the mind, and hence change the environment back.
The way to deal with this is to go right to the center of your inner reality, the center of all your thoughts, to your first thought that holds all the others together. It is “I”. If that thought is transcended then not only are all of the issues of him or her transcended, but the very person who had them is gone. You are left.
If you want to transcend the “I” sense, then inevitably you are going to have to confront major self doubt. If you don’t go for transcending that “I” sense then you can numb yourself to the self doubt to a certain degree. But, if you do go for transcending the “I” sense, commonly called Realization or Personal Growth, then inevitably you will have to confront the self doubt associated with that “I” sense. You’ll have to confront that portion of the blueprint of your mind. It really is the center of the blueprint.
Effortless change simply comes from moving through the center of the blueprint, which is the “I” sense. If you realize you are not that, you will merge with everything, and all desired changes are accomplished effortlessly. Things are just right.
Tags: blueprint, change, Personal Growth, realization, self doubt
Posted in Personal Growth | 17 Comments »
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Have you ever been frustrated by the rate at which you, yourself, change? Perhaps you’ve wanted yourself to be some way and it just isn’t happening according to your timetable. Or maybe the person you are married to, or in relationship with, isn’t changing at the speed you’d like.
Often we know things about ourselves that would be great to change, and yet it can happen very slowly. Sometimes it happens very quickly, but that is rare.
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There are two things you must take into account:
1) It took a long time to get this way and you are a very, very, very complex system, most of which is functioning outside of your conscious awareness.
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2) The very effort to change reinforces the sense of ‘I’, as in “I want to change”. This “I” is your ego and it is what is causes most suffering in the first place. So it is like saying “I don’t want to be I”. (This is a big topic fleshed out in other blogs and live teachings).
Real change happens when you see through this “I” and have patience with the complexity and momentum of yourself and your life. It is the opposite of “taking heaven by storm” (i.e. you can’t force yourself to change).
Personal growth from this perspective is immediate in the sense of you are no longer that ‘ego I’ trying to change. It is also gradual in that all the momentum and complexity of patterns, beliefs and so on, which make up a human being, will take time to unwind. Knowing this about yourself is invaluable, and knowing this about your partner can solve many relationship problems.
Tags: change, Personal Growth, realization, relationship problems
Posted in Personal Growth | 14 Comments »
Monday, March 21st, 2011
The mass of concepts, beliefs and patterns through which people experience their lives (relationship, work, oneself… everything) dominates experience most of the time.
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When we start to see that mass of concepts, beliefs and patterns for what it really is, which is just active thoughts and unconscious thoughts, we begin to separate from it. This can happen quickly or slowly and brings a tremendous sense of freedom, joy and peace. It is the key to personal growth. |
This is a very difficult process for people, not because it is that complex to do, but rather because it is very confronting. It is both painful and humbling to feel through the mind you have built up over time. That is the process of Corework or meditation.
We say we would like to let it go but doing it is another matter. That old mind carries a great deal of pain for each person. And the notion of letting go of how you have known yourself to be is itself inherently challenging and feels unsafe.
The self you used to be doesn’t gain anything from it… but you do.
Tags: happiness, meditation, openness, Personal Growth
Posted in Realization | 9 Comments »
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
An amazing group of people re-wrote their relationship blueprints and discovered the unlimited happiness and pleasure possible in romance during this February’s Pleasure Course!
Posted in Having better sex, How to relationship, Personal Growth, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint, Sex | Comments Off
Tuesday, December 21st, 2010
Flirting is worth bringing into long standing relationships as well as new relationships and the exciting process of meeting potential partners. Why leave the romance behind, right?
| Enlightenment… we could spend days discussing what that is. Here’s a useful definition: knowing and feeling your inherent perfection and the perfection of all that is. This doesn’t mean there aren’t pleasure and pain, good stuff and bad stuff, and so on. |
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Flirting with enlightenment can mean two things: 1) considering that perhaps everything is right the way it is… or 2) flirting with a sense of rightness about yourself and the other.
My point about enlightenment is maybe it’s time for you to just love yourself, others and life exactly as they are and exactly as they are not. Of course, you still grow, things change, you learn and so on, but the endless waiting for things to be OK is over. You can start having fun now!
My point about flirting is that if you are right with the way things are, really in agreement with them, you are a way better flirt. Whether you are dating, falling in love, married or any other state of relationship, your love life simply works better.
There is something beyond endlessly trying to get there. Why not start from good? It is a pretty enlightened thing to do… especially romantically.
Tags: dating advice, enlightenment, flirting, realization
Posted in How to relationship, Personal Growth, Relationship | 7 Comments »
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
| 1. Set an intention (for example: to love the people I am with more than I ever have.)
2. Take 5 minutes and make a list of the things that you are grateful for.
3. Bring something to the party! |
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Tags: happiness
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | Comments Off
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010
Let’s face it, most people don’t love their jobs. Enjoying your work is critical to being happy because, like most people, you probably spend half or even most of your day working. You may wonder what you can do about it. You may feel resigned about it. And… you may love your job and simply want to know how you could love it even more. Here’s how:
| 1. Do what you love for work. For some people this may mean taking a radical step and switching careers. For others it doesn’t. But, thinking this radically may be necessary because we spend so much time working.
2. Bring what you love to work. For example, if you are a big people person but work in front of computer, you can emphasize the aspects of the job that involve working with others, or if you’re really into yoga you can focus on things like your posture and your breathing as you are working (Yoga is an elaborate discipline, aspects of which can be brought to any activity.) |
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Maybe you can bring your cat to work (if that would light you up), or play the music you like (which can really change your mood at work). You get the idea; bring the things, qualities and activities that you love into your job no matter what it is. This has limitless potential, but requires creativity.
3. Spiritualize your work. This rarely occurs to people, but is actually the most important. Let’s stay with the Yoga theme. Yoga, although usually looked at as a form of exercise, is actually a spiritual discipline involving concentration and meditation. Concentrating and focusing on what you are doing is a spiritual activity. Meditating doesn’t need to mean sitting in lotus position with your eyes closed focusing on your inner self. Many forms of meditation are done while engaged in an activity. That activity could be anything, even what you do for work!
When I lived in a Zen monastery we did meditate while sitting, but we also meditated while plowing the fields, while cooking and even while relating to each other. It changes the quality of the experience totally. You even get better at whatever you are doing because you are more focused. For this purpose, I will summarize meditation as ‘focus on your awareness’. No matter where you are at about your work this will add to your experience of joy while working.
We start each Oracle of Life and Love session that I teach with meditation. And in the Oracle of Sex, Money and Power we add in this “Career lens” of loving your job. Having a structure of support for these critical activities makes all the difference.
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Tags: happiness, having fun, Personal Growth
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 9 Comments »
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
We had an amazing live event last Wednesday where 50 people discovered their relationship personality type and it’s assets and liabilities. It was a blast!
What’s yours?
Basically there are 3 or 5 types depending on how you slice it up. This is based on nearly twenty years of giving relationship advice and supporting people in their love lives and I can tell
| you, although we are all unique, there are definitely general orientations that people fall into. These orientations depend on your preferred ways of responding to pain and difficulty when dealing with relationship problems. As you know, we each have a relationship blueprint, a set of information we use to navigate relationships buried deep in our unconscious. That blueprint instructs us to deal the pains of intimacy by avoiding them, challenging the other or surrendering. These are the three basic types: the Avoider, the Softy and the Meany. |
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There are two other types which are really versions of the prior types but they show up often enough that we consider them types of their own. One is the troublemaker, basically a Meany who is also an avoider. It’s the rebel or black sheep type, on their own stirring things up. And lastly, the Clueless, who comes in two varieties: the naïve and the arrogant. Both don’t know much about relationship (i.e. they’re clueless, but the arrogant type thinks they know a ton.)
From these brief descriptions you probably have a sense for your primary type. We all use all three (or 5 if you like) types, so having a combination is OK, but make sure you know your primary type. It’s really helpful in relationship to know it.
Then you can correct course! Meanys should be nice! Avoiders do well to show up; Softys benefit by asserting themselves; Troublemakers do well supporting something or someone; and the Clueless should learn!
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Tags: blueprint, relationship coaching, relationship problems
Posted in Personal Growth, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Last night I figured I would watch a video so through Netflix I picked an old Japanese movie Oneida. Liking old Japanese movies and not knowing Japanese I just launched into it not knowing what it was about. Turns out it was about two Japanese women killing a lost Samurai to sell their gear to buy rice. The title meant Demon Woman. Watching this movie right before bed really did a job on my sleep.
| The next morning I went out for tea and at the table next to me two men and two women were talking loudly, “Let me tell you the worst of it… her husband was diagnosed with cancer and two weeks later her cat dies…” and something else I can’t remember, but equally painful. Of course, difficult things happen to people, but I couldn’t help but notice how they were drooling over the conversation topic like a tasty morsel saved up to share.
Then I figured I would read the paper… and I don’t need to tell you it wasn’t a summary of all the good news from around the globe but exactly the opposite. As if they scoured the planet to find the worst things they could write about. Oh yeah, they did! |
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For better or worse, this is the world that surrounds most of us. It is the culture we live in. And it has only gotten more pain oriented over the last half century. Look at TV programming or movie titles for clear proof.
Fortunately, I practice Yoga, not just as a physical discipline but a spiritual one as well. An aspect of the Yogic path is called “Pratyahara”, which means turning the senses inward. My yoga teacher, Menuso, is a disciple of Iyengar, who was a disciple of Krishnacharya. Krishnacharya practiced Pratyahara intensely in early 19th century India. He walked around eyes cast down, didn’t listen to music, and so on, so as not to be distracted. And this was a nearly a decade ago when the distractions were far fewer, especially in rural India.
But what was he avoiding distraction from?
In short, the unending source of happiness, Being itself, as experienced in the human soul. The good news is that there is not an ounce less of that unending source of happiness today than there was back then. It is something we tap into all the time. The clichéd example is how we feel when we see a beautiful sunset. Maybe the sunset is just a moment of undistracted calmness when we to turn our attention to the vastness and openness of life, a beautiful sight that encourages us to look within although our eyes gaze outward.
Perhaps the unending source of happiness is at your fingertips all the time.
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Tags: attention, happiness
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 5 Comments »
Monday, October 4th, 2010
The fastest way to end up completely, totally miserable is to feel bad about feeling bad. Everyone feels bad sometimes, sometimes really bad. That’s life. Things happen, everything from stubbing your toe to someone dear to us dying. But if you decide that it is bad that you are feeling bad you are on a slippery slope downwards.
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Why? Because now you have twice as much bad: you have the bad you originally felt about whatever happened and the bad about feeling bad. Twice as much bad! Which quickly turns into three times as much bad because you feel bad about all that bad!!
You see how this goes. Feeling bad can snowball very quickly.
So in my teaching work, where we are dealing with the very sensitive matter of intimacy, spiritual life and people’s love lives, my relationship advice is, “Look up”. Where you put your attention is where you will go… in fact, it is more than that; it is what you will become!
This doesn’t mean don’t feel bad if you do feel bad about something. Of course, it is good to confront emotions, to feel them and feel through them, to clarify and release them. We call that “Corework.” That is very different than “tripping” about them, over processing them and feeling bad about them. |
That is a dramatic hobby that I don’t recommend. One I mastered in high school and college listening to Pink Floyd in my dorm room, lights out, candles lit and a relentless focus on what was wrong. I can tell you it didn’t help my dating, social life or spiritual life.
Being diligent about having a positive attitude in life is very different than suppressing emotions with some sort of false positivism. False positivism leads to numbness and feeling bad about feeling bad is a quick ticket to hell.
Don’t look down! Confront what is, and tilt your gaze skywards.
Tags: approval, emotions, happiness, relationship advice
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
What is the most powerful and immediate way to be more attractive?
This was a theme that came up in the Pleasure Course and something that people have been interested in forever. A million different approaches have been tried and they usually revolve around addressing one’s appearance, level of wealth and sometimes one’s way of being (more confident, for example). While all of these can be helpful and we often recommend them, they are NOT the most powerful and most immediate way to be more attractive.
| The most powerful and immediate way to be more attractive is to be turned on to your self. This covers everything from liking yourself, who you are, to being turned on by your body.
Being turned on by your body is the most important part. If you don’t like your body and approve of it why should someone else…. And they won’t in most cases or at least not for long.
It makes sense to people that if you don’t like yourself, then you send the message out that you aren’t that likeable and people respond to that. |
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Well the same is true of being attracted to your body. If you don’t enjoy your body, that is the message you send. In fact it is even more than that. Because if you aren’t turned on by your body, then your hormones are not thriving, are not pumping and your aren’t physically attracting people, literally.
The visual inventory part of the Sensuality Exercises is a great place to get more turned on to your body.
In the Pleasure Course several people shared about looking at their bodies, not through their filter of concepts and standards but actually perceiving their bodies in the mirror as if for the first time. Each time they approved of what they saw and you could feel them become more attractive. Each time we asked the participants if the person was more attractive as they described what they saw and each time every said yes.
We would be billionaires if we could bottle that, but at least we can tell you how to do it: Do the sensuality exercise of visual inventory, look at your body not through your concepts but rather at what is there and find new things that you like.
You will become more attractive to the degree that you do that!
P.S. this also trains you how to view someone else’s body!
Tags: approval, attractiveness
Posted in Personal Growth | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 17th, 2010
The way to work with deem emotions is first to allow them and really feel them, and then use skillful means with them, vs indulging them. The first point is the most important, and it really means confronting the emotion, allowing it to be, whatever it happens to be. The practice that we use here at Erwan Davon Teachings for this is the practice of core work. Core work is going deeply into your emotions, especially how they are expressed and felt in the body, sometimes using the breath and sometimes using a 5-step process. What we’ve noticed over the years with hundreds of people is that this process tends to lift and open emotions, particularly negative ones.
| The point of this is to have space for these intense emotions. In today’s world we spend a lot of time running around, distracted by TV and the internet, etc. This can cause an emotional deficit or a sense of distance from oneself or the whole emotional dimension of life. Part of working with deep emotions is in the design of your lifestyle, making sure there’s some time for you to just be, time to feel. |
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That can look a lot of different ways, like sitting mediation, walking on the beach or to work, and it can even be sports if it allows you to focus on your inner experience. It’s really important to actually have some space in one’s life to be, so things can percolate up and let go.
The second part of working with deep emotions is to be skillful with them, not to indulge or repress them. There are many ways you could do this – for example, you could journal, or you could discuss your emotions with somebody. What’s important is not to not act it out. If you act out on a negative, patterned emotion you end up reinforcing it. This doesn’t mean we should ignore them, but rather to use a more meditative or spiritual approach to be with them, to deal with them, liberate them, and let them go.
With deep emotions, there’s no magic bullet. There’s only the feeling through process and the releasing of negative emotions, and the expression of healthy, positive emotions.
Tags: communication, emotions, meditation
Posted in Personal Growth | 13 Comments »
Friday, August 27th, 2010
Once you’ve uncovered you’re romantic blueprint (see part 1 of this topic), the second step is creating a new blueprint. This can be a very fun process. Start picking things from your blueprint that you’d like to change, and then practice acting out of the new way of being. Over time you can re-write your entire blueprint: how you’re interacting with the opposite sex, how you feel about flirting, a first date, boyfriend/girlfriend, commitment, , how you deal with relationship problems, your ability to be vulnerable or sweep a person off their feet, etc. And this can be an on-going process. Blueprints can be negative in two ways: They can be made of negative material, and they can be stagnant. The beauty of re-writing your blueprint is that you can do it all the time, informing your new blueprint with spirit rather than a fixed point of view.
| Now that you’ve uncovered your blueprint and created a new one, step three is to motivate yourself. This involves bringing your heart and feeling into the new blueprint. If these aren’t there, the new blueprint is just going to be a good idea that falls by the wayside. There are two parts to motivating yourself. The first is to investigate it: Does this matter? How important is this to me? If you engage in this inquiry and bring your heart into it (not just your head), you’ll feel that your romantic fate is a really big deal. The |
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key is to invest feeling into your new blueprint. Talking about your blueprint with people who are important in your life, or creating a collage, are two great ways of engaging with the new blueprint with your heart. The second part to motivating yourself is to take on your new blueprint in small chunks. Taking on a new blueprint can be overwhelming, and addressing small pieces of it at a time (e.g. setting a goal of going on an extra date every week, rather than going straight for a committed relationship with Mr. Right) is key.
Finally the fourth step is adapting your environment. Your environment is probably structured in such a way as to support your old blueprint. Identifying these structures, and altering them such that they support your new blueprint is key in having your new blueprint take hold. For example, if your new blueprint involves more sensual time with your partner, adding sensual items to your bedroom like candles, flowers, incense, and sexy décor can be a way of supporting this.
Re-writing your romantic fate is a large undertaking. With these steps, it can really happen, and the rewards are well worth it!
Tags: blueprint, intention, relationship problems
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010
We all have a romantic fate. If you look into your future, you’ve probably got a sense of how your romance is going to go. It may be great, it may not be so great, and it may be somewhere in the middle. That is your romantic fate.
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Where does this fate come from? It comes from something I call your “romantic blueprint.” This is the template, or set of principles or beliefs, that you’re using to guide yourself in your romance and love life. The problems with most people’s blueprint are first that it was designed between the ages of 0 and 15, and second it usually lives in a blind spot and operates unconsciously. In your love life, you may have noticed yourself acting out a repetitive pattern that leads to relationship problems. Despite seeing this pattern, you find yourself compelled to continue acting that way, and getting the same |
results. The reason that this is going on is because the romantic blue print is guiding this action, and this blueprint is in a blind spot.
So, what are the steps to rewriting your romantic blueprint, and hence your romantic fate?
The first, and most important step, is to uncover your romantic blueprint. A great way to do this is sit down with a piece of paper and write out the patterns in your relationship history, your beliefs about relationship, what your relationship future looks like, etc. Getting it out concretely on paper is important (conversations about it can be very useful but miss the physical element).
I remember, before I got in relationship with Alicia, I noticed that my relationships had progressed only to a certain point. I was OK at dating, I was pretty good at boyfriend/girlfriend, but committed just wasn’t really happening for me. So one day I wrote down all the girlfriends I had had in my life (about 10 at that point) and then, because it was there in front of me, it hit me like a bolt of lightning…in my mind I created something wrong with each and every one of them. Part of my blueprint was a belief that there is something wrong with my romantic partner. (See the post titled Getting over my relationship hang-ups for more detail on this.)
Part 2 of this entry will tell you what to do with your blueprint once you’ve uncovered it!
Tags: blueprint, relationship problems, romantic fate
Posted in How to relationship, Personal Growth, Relationship, Romantic Blueprint | 4 Comments »
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
About 10 years ago, before I met Alicia, I remember having an intuitive hunch about myself. The hunch was that something was off. What gave me that hunch was that I had been in relationship with some incredible women, but none of the relationships had lasted. I realized that it had something to do with me, that it was a relationship problem, or hang-up, of mine.
| Before this hunch I really thought the relationships ended because they weren’t right for some reason. I thought there was something wrong with each of the relationships, and even each of those women. When I actually listed the qualities of each woman, I saw that I had been so critical of each of them that I somehow found something that made her the wrong person, and justified to myself not being involved, and in some cases even being superior. I realized this hang-up was really costing me in my relationships and my love life. |
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I also saw that this hang-up was defensive in nature. The women in my past really had been incredible. They were gorgeous, funny, lit-up, and I had been blocking them from coming into my life. I saw that this defensiveness was covering up an underlying sense of being unlovable. Underneath it all, I really feared that each of those women were unavailable for loving me. This complex thought pattern was really dominating my relationships and love life. It was part of my relationship blueprint which was not working for me.
Identifying this part of my blueprint, and the consequences (the lack of relationship), left me with a bit of a sick feeling. As I felt into this feeling, through a meditation practice we teach in the Pleasure Course called “corework,” I began to notice a deep sense of vulnerability. As I felt this vulnerability more and more fully, the sick feeling of worry began to lift. It felt like a weight rising off of my chest and shoulders. In that moment of feeling, I could see my future opening up. A quality of enjoyment and pleasure started to come into my experience.
It was this process of fully feeling through the emotions behind my hang-up, moment by moment, that really put me in a place to love and commit in my current relationship with Alicia. It is relationship advice that I would recommend to anyone with a relationship or sexual hangup.
Tags: blueprint, emotions, meditation, Personal Growth, relationship advice, relationship problems
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | 53 Comments »
Sunday, July 4th, 2010
The launch party for Erwan Davon Teachings was the most fun I had ever had at a party. Everywhere you looked the most incredible people were having so much fun.
It was a party of enlightened people!
And they were all turned on!
The Pleasure Course that led up to the party was the best ever. I have to give the credit to the team and participants for playing full out, and really bringing their relationship lives to the next level. The Demonstration of extended 15 minute orgasm on Sunday was the height of the experience. I was so moved during it.
Again, I say thank you to the whole community around Erwan Davon Teachings for launching this new phase in style.
Tags: happiness, having fun
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 27 Comments »
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
Relationship is the most common place intense emotions come up. The emotions are usually very sensitive, and can be the source of many relationship problems. Here is the best way I’ve found to handle them, broken into six steps:
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The first way to handle intense emotions is to create space for that emotion. Basically this means, don’t ignore the emotion. There is a tendency to turn away from and avoid the intensity of feeling that comes up for us when we relate to another person. Now, this also doesn’t mean address it immediately and irresponsibly with the other person as soon as it comes up. Really it means simply allow the experience you are having. Don’t run away, don’t obsess, just let the emotion be.
The second thing to do is admit what you’re feeling. This doesn’t mean you need to do anything about the emotion, rather it simply means face that you are feeling that way, acknowledge that you are experiencing this emotion. |
The third thing to do is to express the emotion constructively and artistically. For example, if you feel angry and do a collage about your anger, it allows you to get your hands around the emotion, to see it and taste it. By simply doing something with your emotion that is not avoidant, the experience will start to lift and open.
The fourth thing to do is Corework. This is a type of mediation we teach in the Pleasure Course in which one goes to the core of what one is feeling, one confronts one’s experience. Opening with a spiritual practice liberates negative emotions, sooths and calms excited emotions, and enhances positive and turned on emotions. Just as the third step deals with the emotion artistically, this step deals with it spiritually.
These first four steps have been getting into the emotion, really feeling it. Now one is ready for the fifth step: communicate. This step is fifth because one really wants to spend a lot of time being with one’s emotion, feeling it thoroughly, THEN you want to communicate. When we instantly rush to communicate what we’re feeling usually we end up dumping or projecting, and we end up dealing with the trigger of the emotion rather than dealing with the emotion at its root. Embracing and feeling the emotion thoroughly before communicating really makes communication possible.
Finally the emotion can be released. This step actually isn’t something you do actively, it is something that happens naturally if the above steps are taken. If one feels the emotion fully, then shares and communicates, the feeling will release.
To bottom line it, the best relationship advice I have is: do not shy away from the intensity of emotion. Intense emotions will always come up, whether on your first date, in a new relationship or you have the most established and healthy relationship. Go into them, embrace them. Even though this is the opposite of what we usually think to do, you’ll find your experience lift and open.
Tags: communication, emotions, meditation, relationship advice, relationship problems
Posted in How to relationship, Personal Growth, Realization, Relationship | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, May 18th, 2010
The most important quality a partner can have for an exceptional love life is willingness to grow. Is a partner open to personal growth, are they open to change? They may be great already, and are they willing to expand, are they willing to take it to the next level? If they are, the relationship has a quality of adventure, of newness and freshness. If they’re not, the relationship starts to become stale. People start to grate on each other, people loose that vibrant quality, and people’s sex lives go down.
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All of us have patterns, and these patterns generally start to dominate once the novelty of a new relationship wears off. If you come across one of those patterns and it’s not working for the relationship, you can bet that if the person is not open and available for growth that pattern is not going to shift. If they are open to personal growth, you know that they’re going to address it, that it can change. |
This gives the relationship agility, a type of absorption. The relationship gains that soulmate quality, getting better and better, and allows us to overcome those patterned parts of ourselves that inevitably arise in any healthy relationship.
This is not only how to pick a relationship partner, it’s how to be in relationship. In fact it’s the most important way to be in a relationship. Whether you’re on the first date or thinking about marriage, if you and your partner are open, then the world is your oyster. Any possibility for sensuality, communication, intimacy, love, and friendship is available because the relationship isn’t stuck.
If you ever find yourself not open to growth, simply re-open to personal growth. If a prospective partner isn’t open to growth, invite them to be open to growth. Wherever you or someone else is at, the great news is: openness is always available.
Tags: important quality, openness, Personal Growth, pick a partner
Posted in Finding a partner, Personal Growth, Relationship | 1 Comment »
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Each of us has a template or blueprint we operate from in our romantic relationships or in our attempts to get into romantic relationship. The problem is that most of it we made up or inherited between the ages of 0 and 15. The other problem is that it lives in a blind spot and is rarely examined, updated or even seen! The good news is that it can be explored and updated. It’s like tennis or golf… you can always update your game, but first you’ve got to see what game you are currently playing (that is your romantic blueprint). Maybe it’s a great blueprint, maybe it isn’t, either way expansion and more fun is always possible, leading to a great healthy relationship!
Tags: blueprint, relationship advice
Posted in Personal Growth, Romantic Blueprint | 1 Comment »
Thursday, October 1st, 2009
Feeling good is critical to well being. Part of taking care of yourself is really feeling good, and pleasure is a very big part of that. It is more important than ever before to take loving care of yourself, to have pleasure, for both a woman and a man, as a regular part of your life, because it deeply nurtures and strengthens you. Given the challenges that we each are each facing, we need to take better care of ourselves now more than ever before.
Tags: Health, pleasure, sexual pleasure
Posted in Health, Personal Growth | Comments Off
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
There are 5 steps from reaction to personal growth. They can be accomplished independently or simultaneously. This is the process of “feeling through.” First one feels one’s “shell” (one’s outer identity); then one feels the emptiness of the shell (this can feel like a deficiency, or something missing); then one feels the spaciousness (a type of “positive” emptiness). Being “emerges” next or is rather seen to be the fundamental “material”; and finally, embodied Being is… obvious… non-dual, spiritual and real.
Tags: Being, Personal Growth, realization
Posted in Personal Growth | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 1st, 2009
Both! Realizing oneself as Consciousness, God or whatever term you like is always an immediate realization. At the same time there are things a person must move through to “achieve” realization with any consistency. I call them the 3 knots: behavioral (tendencies like being angry or succumbing), psychological (feeling unloved, etc.) and spiritual (the root sense of separation). Personal growth requires transcending all of these. We all have moments of immediate enlightenment whether we realize it or not, and these knots certainly can be transcended or felt through instantaneously. But, at any given moment it may take some time to do it (say meditating for half an hour). It also takes time, usually years, to develop the habit of consistently and quickly feeling through these knots. I call this practice “Corework.” So enlightenment is both instantaneous and gradual… a paradox… like life! Fortunately, once through personal growth one has powerfully and consciously realized “who one really is”, that enlightenment lingers in the background of one’s everyday life, more or less present. One can then address consistency. I call this process Enlightened Living.
Tags: enlightenment, Personal Growth, realization
Posted in Personal Growth | 26 Comments »
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
A woman recently asked Alicia and I if it was O.K. to be turned on before doing “Corework” (the type of meditation I teach and practice). We answered with a resounding “YES.” The woman asking was glad to hear that, and explained that her meditations went that much better! She was dealing with the underlying belief that if something is easy or pleasurable it is somehow not right or not valuable. As far as we are concerned, the easier and more pleasurable the better! This is very different from avoiding or distracting oneself from what is occurring emotionally, circumstantially, physically, and so on. “Being profoundly with what is” is the basis of Meditation and is where one finds the inherent joy of Reality. If you’ve got a turned on life and that is what there is to be with, even better!
Tags: meditation, sexual pleasure
Posted in Personal Growth | 3 Comments »
Sunday, June 1st, 2008
Understanding, structure, and practice are the 3 components of personal growth and living an enlightened life. Understanding is insight into the transcendent nature of everything, including oneself. This restores the magic and mystery to life. Structure is having your life set up to remind you of this understanding (a statue, events in your calendar, a mentor, etc.). Practice means actually living it moment to moment. It is not practice toward something. Practice is throwing yourself into what you have realized through understanding and are reminded of by the structure of your life. Practice is moment to moment forever.
Tags: Being, enlightenment, Personal Growth, schedule
Posted in Personal Growth | Comments Off
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
You could divide Enlightened Living into two parts: Enlightenment and Living. The “Enlightenment” part is about realization, understanding, and personal growth. It is knowing “who you really are” beyond your personal separate identity. This is sometimes expressed as Consciousness or God or Reality. The “Living” aspect of Enlightened Living is about commitment or intention or practice, walking the walk, actually living that Realization day to day. Although daily practice or commitment or intention are often viewed as strategies to get to Enlightenment, it is not so. In Enlightened Living they arise together. They are two wings of one bird.
Tags: enlightenment, Personal Growth, realization
Posted in Personal Growth | 4 Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007
How often are we depending on and expecting our love life to make us happy? Or anticipating that when we get into “that good relationship” we will be happy? Of course, romance and relationships can bring tremendous sexual pleasure and joy, but do they fundamentally make a person happy? If you talk to people about this, like Alicia and I do everyday in our coaching practice, you might find (and probably already know) that people associate as much, if not more, difficulty with their love life as they associate happiness with it. Even though we may admit this, people generally find themselves putting the burden of their happiness on their current love life (or anyTHING really… money, job, health, and so on). Or we find ourselves living in hope that a future romance (or anything) will bring us happiness. When we inquire into the true source of happiness… really an Unconditional Happiness… we can relieve our love life and relationship partners of carrying this burden which they can’t fulfill. When we locate this Unconditional Happiness through personal growth, we can actually bring it to our love life, making our romance, relationships and sex that much more joyous and pleasurable. We’ve all tasted this Unconditional Happiness, but we never found it in anyTHING… perhaps we found it in “things as it is,” as Suzuki Roshi used to say in his Zen broken paradoxical English.
Tags: happiness, Personal Growth, pleasure, sexual pleasure
Posted in Personal Growth, Realization | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
How do you have pleasure now… fun now… happiness now… instead of waiting for it to turn out someday? The normal progressive and linear approach of seeking and searching for happiness doesn’t work… have you noticed? Happiness is always around the bend, somewhere in the future! What works is the actual realization of the state and condition of happiness. It is the realization of who you really are behind all the mental chatter. This type of personal growth is a spiritual process. This realization can then inform and guide your life, and this simple yet radical approach relieves you of the chronic and frustrating approach of endlessly trying to achieve happiness through producing results, whether in your career, relationships, sex life or any other aspect of your life. Paradoxically, living happily and pleasurably will naturally produce far greater results in all areas of life… including having a better sex life!
Tags: better sex, happiness, Personal Growth
Posted in Having better sex, Personal Growth, Realization, Sex | 1 Comment »
