Relationships
by Diane McCann

My belief is that until you learn to love yourself 100% and do the forgiveness on your parents, you can never be 100% fully in a relationship! If you love yourself 50% then that’s all you’ll receive back.

Recently we completed our 55th Man’s Inner Journey for men and what blew me away was the “most valuable learning,” from their perspective, was ‘to love themselves more and let go of the past.’

These men were beautiful, their emotions were at times heart-achingly raw, yet they were open to the possibility of allowing themselves to feel. I listened to stories that touched me deeply and wonder how some of us even survive childhood to get into a relationship in the first place! I see the same thing with women.

It’s so important that as humans we learn to process our emotions – todays and yesterdays – in order to be fully present in the now. If we choose to stuff those emotions down, then they will explode one day… either in anger or sadness or disease… because they have to go somewhere!

To be able to be fully aware and conscious of ourselves and what we feel and what other people’s words evoke in us is a Gift but often hard to handle. So we put up barriers and we put on masks and we think that’s who we are, when in fact most of us are vulnerable, scared little 3-5 year olds doing our best to pretend that “we are fine”.

In our Tantra course I see couples who cannot even look each other in the eyes – even after 20 years of marriage. It’s like a foreign land, these beautiful eyes looking back, yearning for that intimacy…it is not broken down into into-me-see for nothing)… yet many don’t want to be seen and don’t know how to look.

And many wonder why their relationship holds no joy, or passion or “life force”.

Without eye contact our hearts begin to wilt and shrivel; often then our need for lovemaking diminishes and then the cycle of sharpness/nagging enters our languaging; sometimes ending in divorce.

So what’s missing in the world of relationship? Well connection is first and foremost and that doesn’t occur from genital to genital! It can only occur from eye to eye and then the connection goes into the heart, which, like a bulb given sunshine and water, can blossom and open. Without it lonely people in relationship are so often swayed by kind words and eye gazing from others who turn into lovers!

All any of us really want is to be “seen” and felt and heard and loved in order to grow in our courage to re-open our broken, smashed, hurt, damaged hearts (even if we don’t know they have been). No one else can do that for you though so you need to examine your life through the microscope of truth. Are you really willing to do the work to heal the past and live in the present. If you are and you’re in a relationship then just sit quietly, no kids, no music, no wine, just two beings together and gaze into each other’s eyes and really see what you see there. Observe, don’t judge. How much of you are you letting be seen? Who do you need to forgive is another question to ask yourself. John Bradshaw the world’s leading family therapist says he believes all families are dysfunctional in some way so start with your parents and yourself and expand from there. We all do the best we can with the tools we have and generally it is not enough to live a life that thrives on all levels.

The result of doing the work on yourself is peace, calm, joy, ease, no drama and of course love!

Worth it? Absolutely.

Diane McCann facilitates The Goddess Within seminar for women and together with her husband Robert, facilitates Man’s Inner Journey for men and Tantra for couples. www.beyondtheordinary.net.au They can be reached on beyondtheordinary@internode.on.net or by phone on 08 8248 1281