Posts Tagged ‘Personal Growth’
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
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
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, November 9th, 2011
How to relate with another human being optimally
Cause and effect are optimal roles to take to maximize connection and pleasure with another human being. If we can give and receive well, then we exist, not only in harmony with others, but also in love, cooperation and ultimately union with them.
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To give we become upright, strong and loving. We release our attention on ourselves and attain a great sense of freedom and release. We hold our partner in our mind and our hands deriving deep satisfaction in their joy and pleasure. |
To receive we must surrender, open and be vulnerable. We expose ourselves first to ourselves then to another. The heart releases and we are held. A place deep within us is nourished and pleasured.
In our extended orgasm practice we take the roles of cause and effect to create optimal sensation and orgasm. We also bring these roles into deep touch so that we can calm and heal our emotional bodies.
In taking these roles we optimize our connection with each other and overcome, perhaps, the greatest challenge of life.
Tags: attention, extended orgasm, Personal Growth, relationship advice
Posted in How to relationship, Relationship | 4 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 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, July 6th, 2011
Everyone is challenged sexually. If you open to this and your sex life becomes a place to develop intimacy, a place to learn and grow, then you have a perfect sex life and will experience it as such. In other words, then you will experience it pleasurably.
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If your goal is some type of perfection in terms of the way your sex life looks (to others or yourself), an ego goal, then you will not experience your sex life pleasurably. That is always an experience of sexual scarcity, no matter how much sex you are having and no matter how that sex goes.
Alicia and I have a perfect sex life not because of the 30 years of research into sexuality, extended orgasm and so on, but rather because we embrace our sex life as a place to grow together and experience new heights of pleasure together.
Singles often (secretly) find their sex life wrong because it rarely meets the quantity and quality that they would like. Couples (secretly) almost always have the same issue! |
If on the other hand you embrace your sex life, lean into it, use it as a place to learn and grow, instead of judging yourself about it, then you will find it perfect… and it will grow!
Tags: 15 minute orgasm, better sex, openness, Personal Growth, sexual pleasure
Posted in Having better sex, Sex | Comments Off
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 »
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 »
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 »
Sunday, August 8th, 2010
One of the keys to getting connected when engaged in sensual contact is to begin the sex act connected. This is because you’re not likely to get more connected than you started. During a sex act, the act may become more sexual, it may deepen, things may open up, but because of the intensity of sex, if you’re disconnected from the person from the start, you’re likely to drift more into your own separate space amidst all of the emotions, thoughts, and body sensations that sex is.
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Last Monday in the Oracle of Life and Love, someone asked how to be vulnerable. We told him that the bottom line is to take risks. This really is the path way to getting connected with someone. You get connected to someone by risking yourself, by being intimate with the person, and relative to sex, you want to start from this platform. Taking risks may look like telling the other person what feels good, asking for something, sharing how you’re feeling or asking the other person how they’re feeling. |
For me personally, deepening my relationship with Alicia both sexually and non-sexually is often a process of feeling through a sense of withdrawal, a sense of separateness, which stems in part from being an only child. The risk for me really is not to withdraw, and instead to feel through the desire to separate and really reach out and be physical.
To wrap up, you can get connected by taking risks, by being open, and by being vulnerable with the other person. And in sex, get connected first. It could take five minutes to get connected, which could look like having a five minute conversation with the other person, or it may take only a second, just giving a little wink. Either way, if you start connected, sex can really be incredible.
Tags: better sex, communication, Personal Growth, vulnerability
Posted in Having better sex, Sex | Comments Off
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 »
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 »
Sunday, May 16th, 2010
Greetings everyone,
Over the past six months we have developed a new plan, which I am happy to say, has now come to fruition. We are re-launching and rebranding Beyond Education and changing our name to Erwan Davon Teachings, which will now be located at ErwanDavon.com.
| Over the past 17 years, I have helped thousands of individuals and couples in Bay Area and San Francisco with relationship advice, romance information and how to find love. It has been the ride of a lifetime for my wife Alicia and myself. It didn’t matter whether people were coming to me to talk about marriage, wanted to start a new relationship or even were interested in something as touchy as the female libido, we have loved supporting people in their love lives. |
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Studying and teaching the skills of how to love, how to have a healthy relationship, seduction, and even teaching clients how to extend orgasm and other advanced sexual techniques, has opened a world of pleasure, not only for the people I serve, but for myself as well. It really is an honor that our teachings have become a valuable resource to so many in taking their love life and relationships to the next level.
Personal growth almost always happens simultaneously with a person’s love life improving. I think the emphasis that I have always placed on personal growth and development set the foundation for the increases in romantic love that people have reported. A firm platform of support in personal growth and relationship help has then enabled us to be very effective when supporting people in their sexual and sensual lives.
Some have now branded me as “San Francisco’s Relationship Expert.” While I am humbled by this title, I love and value the opportunity to serve people in such a potentially rewarding area of life. The success I have had is a testament to the thousands of clients who have improved their relationship lives with us over the last almost two decades. I want to express my gratitude to all of the incredible people with whom I’ve had the chance to meet and work.
Feel free to look around our new site. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.
Tags: Personal Growth, relationship advice, relationship coaching
Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments »
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 »
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 »
