Enjoy the Art of Kissing

Time we share together in intimacy creates a sense of togetherness and stimulates individual growth in many ways. It came as a surprise to hear it said, “No one has ever wanted to do that with me,” over something as simple as sharing a bath.

I’m reminded often these days of the simple things, the rare moments that are meant to last, that help loving couples remain loving couples for a lifetime. Just as we lend our individual talents to our careers, so to do we need to lend our effort toward developing our ability to connect with our lover.

The Lover is You

In our sweetest moments that we have experienced and created, quite often the sweetest is that which includes a deep connection with another. This is only possible from that space we occupy ourselves as the lover. It is the moment, the elusive experience, that can be experienced when effort remains wholly in this moment. Full attention upon the experience of the self, and in relation to the other. Even with eyes closed, that full attention both ‘sees’ and ‘feels’ the others presence, mood, and experience dancing with themselves.

Special Ways

Everyday tasks often disappear quickly when two or more pairs of hands join in the effort. Working and playing side-by-side, opportunities for silence, golden moments, intimate thoughts suddenly shared, and simple jokes abound. Sharing the load, the contributions of each other to the experience of the whole life shared is enjoyed more, and the union strengthened.

Preparing and cooking meals, cleaning up afterward, dividing tasks by strengths and preference, the workload and fun times are proportionately balanced, and we rarely tire. Even sharing the messes, there becomes a knowing element to the connection shared, and laughter endures.

The Kiss

Is this a lost art? To take the time to kiss, to hold that quiet and reserved space, whether face-to-face, cheek-to-cheek, lip-to-lip, or tongue-to-tongue, there is a pleasure to be experienced by pausing for more than a few seconds to just sit and feel the closeness and sounds of each other. Gentle grazing touches that electrify amidst sporadic pauses. And you know each others soft-spots enough to take it from here.

Bathing

Food and Water are two basic fundamentals of life. We’ve covered the food portion, and surprisingly many people didn’t consider there being a water portion. The quiet gentleness that can be experienced with bathing is a singular pleasure that never grows tired for either man or woman. Whether we bathe together, or bathe one another, the experience of each adds a dimension of intimacy that pleases on so many levels.

Rare Moments to Last

With so much positivity to experience, this special relationship stands firmly upon a mutually respectful friendship that understands life and living. “We’re in this together,” we each say, holding hands, and each other’s gaze. I wish the same for you.

Tama’s Musings

The Secret to Healing: Feel the Pain

When we are on the path of creating the work and life we love, we will encounter pain. That’s a given. Yes, we will follow our bliss, and then rejection, fear, and confusion will find out where we live. How we deal with the pain will determine our success and joy. But most of don’t love dealing with pain.

Recently, I had a fit of insecurity, a bout of self-comparison, and then a melt down. It’s the same sorry broken record that plays again. I don’t want this pain to return. It has come so many times to my house and broken the dishes and kicked in the walls. But when it comes I feel as though I have little say. All my years of therapy and spiritual growth, and even teaching, seem like postcards from a foreign land. I know that this “pain is optional.” But in the moment, it’s the only dish on the menu.

Ironically, I am at a beautiful retreat center when this experience happens. There are ongoing workshops on meditation and healing taking place. I pause by a still pond. Barefoot meditators walk by me, smiling with peace. I want to trip them as they pass. I am not well, I tell you.

Heal my mind, I pray to any God who will listen. Take these thoughts away. I say the words, begging and demanding. I stomp my foot like a princess calling upon the powers of the heavens as though they are disobedient maid servants. Nothing happens. Evidently, I cannot even pray right in this pain.

“Try focusing on something positive,” I demand of myself. It’s almost embarrassing how much good there is in my life, and how I choose to lie down on a bed of nails instead. Seeing this makes me feel worse. There are children starving in Africa, and they’re probably singing, says my suddenly “spiritual” inner critic. Now I’m in more pain, thinking how wrong it is to be in pain.

That night, I talk to Nancy, a woman I have just met. She is a healer by trade. But more than that, she is a healer by the way she looks at me. Her face is as open as a window in springtime and her eyes have seen it all, yet look at me with burning interest. I feel the air slow down around her. I swear she is charming the molecules into sacred space. I start telling her about my situation, strategically inserting only the details that validate my cause, and make me look pretty good, not at all like the ragged and hostile character at her table. I ask her how to deal with the pain of the situation.

I am hoping she will give me some mantra or insight to make it instantly disappear. I am hoping she has some kind of talisman tucked up her sleeve. I am hoping she will say something to prop up my wounded, terrified ego, maybe something like— you’re obviously a rock star who deserves better treatment. Or better yet, here let me waive my magic wand, and don’t worry, just for you, I’ll waive my fee. Or worst case scenario, but still fine with me, I expect her to say, I know a woman who can tell you which mother in which past life did this to you. I know a guru, a therapist, a lobotomist, a drug dealer, I’ll get you connected. But she says none of those things. She says something I am not expecting. When I ask her “What should I do?“—she says quietly, “I guess there is nothing to do— but feel the pain.”

Part of me wants to say, “Come, again?”

But the wise part of me, the one that instantaneously recognizes truth, wants to giggle and toss jellybeans at her feet. That part understands and claps its hands.

“Feel the pain,” she says, and she says it with the kindness of a thousand years like water that has loved a jagged rock and smoothed it into shining. Her healer’s voice surrounds me with spaciousness, as though she can wait forever for me to take in this message.

I feel her recognize my sorrow and suddenly I recognize it—and I recognize that it’s okay to feel sorrow. I don’t need to deny it or make it wrong or try to sweep it off my doorstep and scrub away its shadow. The moment she says “feel the pain,” I feel as though the broken sorrows of the whole world are laid before me, the raw hearts of everyone, everywhere, meeting me in this single moment with knowing. Somehow we’re all in this together, and I would not make them wrong for anything—and, finally, I do not make myself wrong either.

This is what whispers to me in her words: stop running and come in out of the rain. Wrap your little girl in a warm woolen blanket. Let’s put on a pot of soup. Forgive your ego, your frightened one for its tirade, for demanding the moon as proof of being loved, for needing things to be otherwise, for taking offense because the wind blew a certain way—not your way. Take those tight shoes off. Why, you’ve been running away from your truth for so long, you must be tired. Here, let’s soak those feet in lavender oil.

The moment Nancy said, “feel the pain,” I didn’t feel lonely or separate from my life anymore. I felt as though I could be in this exact moment, in this exact state of mind. I felt as though she was asking me to allow God, the Eternal Lover of the Present Moment, back into my heart. I felt as though she was reminding me of my Real Nature, a presence so beautiful and vast, it could sit with pain of any sort, frustration, anger, betrayal, and welcome every wasp, spider, or aphid into the garden. She was asking me to give myself over to the medicine and instruction of this moment. Suddenly I realized I didn’t need Spirit to take away the pain. I only wanted Spirit to sit with me while I felt the pain. I needed to sit with this part of myself. I needed to hear her story, not to fix it, or agree with it, push it away, or try to change the circumstances that caused it. I needed to sit with this frightened part of myself. She needed to be heard. She would know how to go forward from there.

In the past, I have envisioned the Presence of Love sitting down by my side. It’s the Holy Spirit, Jesus, Buddha, the Hebrew Shekina, or the spirit of ten thousand sequoia trees. Strong Love sits beside me. Strong Love sits behind me, before me and above me and below me. Strong Love can contain anything. Strong Love can absorb the sting. Strong Love doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

In the end, pain opened my heart to myself. It’s always that way. I feel the love of the Universe when I feel my own love. I feel that love when I stop running away from any part of myself or any experience I am having. I am willing to feel the pain. I am willing to feel my love. I am willing to feel my life.

This month I invite you to sit with yourself in the middle of a feeling that is uncomfortable. Feel the pain. I hope you can hear me whisper this to you, with the love of the ages in my voice, a strength and gentleness that wraps around you. I have faith in your ability to heal yourself. I have faith in your ability to contain and absorb and dance with the truth of exactly where you find yourself in this moment. I have faith in all of us.

With my love and blessings,

Tama

©Copyright 2009 Tama J. Kieves. All rights reserved.

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Love is the first item at the top of the list, as it always seems to be a central core to what gets discussed. However, this gets to it from a different angle. Your worth fighting for.

Love starts at home, we all know and understand this, even if we don’t all come from perfect homes. Heck, as adult parents, we judge ourselves pretty harshly too. In spite of all the failings and misery, we have it in us to overcome and still love them, accepting what is and that we will never change them.

Love starts at home wants you to look closer to home. If all the money in the world evaporated, the buildings, the cities, the conveniences, and all the things we identify ourselves with, what’s left? What home remains that you still occupy no matter what is happening, or where you are?

Love starts at home is starting with you. You are worth fighting for.

When things aren’t always going right, and you’ve become accustomed to bridging peace, or any other behavior that allows you to remain in a place that is unhealthy for your well-being, or your growth, you’ve got to start at home. The change happens, you reach in so you can reach out; in healthier ways.

Just a little random thinking tonight.

Have you ever realized how wide open love requires you to be for its fullest experience? I only just found out myself. It’s a tremendous challenge.

My heart is aching, and has been all day. In truth it has been aching longer than that. Events are pushing it to the max. I don’t know if I can take it.

To be in a state of love… despite what is happening. Can you do it?

At this moment, I don’t know what to do.

It isn’t that I don’t know what to do with what I’ve learned. I’m beginning to understand, to love freely. It holds no hostages, no bonds, no burdens. It simply gives.

I get this, I do. Rationally, I get stuck on outcomes for dreams of a more stable and simple life. Is there such a thing? Irregardless, I’m faced with a choice: Surrender, or Run.

Run, I keep plodding through it. Surrender, I could fly. Have I the courage? All I need to do is let them all go; just love.

What else of my life, my past needs to be let go?

Recently asked what I liked about someone’s personality, other than things that are useful to me, I found myself coming up against a rock and a hard place. The very act of liking anything and anyone brings a sense of joy and wonder to a thirsting soul seeking satisfaction. Disliking does quite the opposite. How does a question such as this get answered with any level of honesty?

I read once on a list of Life Priorities once where the top item stated: “Choose the right partner. This one choice alone will determine 95% of your success and happiness.” I cannot emphasize enough how truthful and relevant such a statement is, in spite of all our romantic leanings, and desires to make-things-work.

Toxic workplaces have higher levels of absenteeism, and higher levels of mental health claims. Do we expect we would fare any better in a relationship that is proving toxic? So the question now causes me to turn to who would inquire about what I like about them, besides what is useful, and wonder: Why would you want to hear the answer ‘Nothing’?

Don’t get me wrong, we all have mediocre qualities we all could do-with or do-without and we’d barely notice. But that’s a big difference than the intent behind the question. In a personal and intimate relationship, the values, behaviours, traits, characteristics, and so forth, are either compatible and healthy, or they are not. Attraction happens based upon these things exhibited during a courtship. Over time, the real everyday behaviours, traits, and characteristics show up.

In every relationship between two partners, an agreement is formed in principle that there will be a common ground for respecting each other. How this looks in action often leaves parties struggling to feel that they are being respected 100% of the time. As well, none of us is ever perfect as we keep growing and changing.

It’s a give-and-take, and an ebb-and-flow, as it is with life. The better we are at following the give-and-take, whether it represents a short-term or long-term commitment, the better success the individuals will have, and therefore the better success the union has as a couple.

What do I like about anyone that is not useful? When I like, liking is useful. It does things inside me, like when you smile. Like when you whisper in my ear. Like when you giggle when you’re being silly. Or like when you’re laughing heartily at my jokes. Liking someone is useful. Don’t you think?

I’m in Love in a very different way than I’ve ever experienced before. It is not a kind of love that feels all that comfortable to be with. I ache and have these very unusual bodily experiences… not quite muscle ache, but something creeping in the muscles. It’s a tension that comes with this Love. You may wonder what this different kind of love is.

Self Judgment and Criticism

People are often very good  at chastising their behaviour, their short-comings, their failures, and faults. The more times those bricks get heaped down upon you the load gets greater. I know that I used to be able to shrug them off a lot more easily when I was younger. Life hadn’t introduced me fully to itself yet.

Loving Others

Connecting with others to feel the warm energizing embrace of love fills a deep lacking void that has been empty for many years. For all those failures and shortcomings, the self-flagellation starves the individual from its very own personal source to Love. It’s stopped off, choked up, and with that starvation gasping for love, as soon as it encounters a warm sense of healing balm, it throws itself into a temporary fix that will soon implode upon itself.

Take  the Pain

The biggest reason this happens is due to how easy it is under some circumstances to simply slide into that deep pit and stay there without any ability to actually “SEE” the way clearly to getting out step-by-step. That’s really stuck! There’s lots to re-learn, and more to experience. The uncomfortable truth is the body does experience aches as the mind re-awakens fully with consciousness and awareness of the full reality. This is outside and beyond the self-pity-pit. It’s gonna hurt – Stay with it.

Consider this – the pain you feel is Love coming back.

Switching Gears

The pain in the body in part I’ve found to be related to the energy of a future that has not yet manifested. It is manifesting, and it begins through choice. As I said, it’s going to hurt when you encounter the fallout of the temporary fix. Don’t run from it, walk with it, stay with it. Things shift in what is observed in our thoughts, mind, choices, emotions, etc., and the new choices will be seen and felt strongly. It’s such a strong pull away from what was comfortable that it will create physical discomfort. Stick with the vision, you’ve felt the clutch engaging the new gears!

This Different Kind of Love

This different kind of love is focused on you now more fully. When you’re present with it and see, you notice it is standing tall and looking forward at an exciting and brilliant life that is being lived. This life glitters with gold in comparison to the old reality. This life is the life that was started way back. It’s back on track. This different kind of Love is definitely about you.

The Switch For Me

It’s been a tough road along some bumps. Being in the personal development field I was devastated to find myself broken. How could I be broken? I kept hearing the joke “those you can DO, those who can’t Teach.” This became an uncomfortable space that soon became comfortable. It was a catch-22 of self-analysis that created a vortex that sucked me in and kept me there. Little did I know, I was driving the boat.

Best Kind of Love

This space I started with describing and talking about in the post is a truly strong point of view. It is clearer than any perspective held in your life under any other circumstances. It yields tremendous strength and power that can sustain you in any circumstance. It will attract more of what you want than any Law of Attraction visualization can ever give you. This Love is that which acknowledges you, and ends all further belittling. It lifts you up. It holds you strong.

Know Your Self and Love Your Self

Value Your Self

They walked and came to a place where grew a tamarisk tree, and about the tamarisk entwined a vine holding many bunches of grapes.

The old maidservant said, “Behold this tree, of what value would it be were it not for the vine? Would it have any value except as firewood? And what of the tree to which it clings, would it not straggle along the ground, laying in the dust to be crushed underfoot by any passer-by? It would be a helpless thing unable to raise itself up, a barren creeper bearing no fruit.”

“So see what benefit comes from their union and learn wisdom.”

“Is not the tree named as a man is named and the vine as a woman is named?”

“We who are old see lessons in such things and in learning from them gain wisdom. The young are loath to even read to their benefit from the book which is always open before their eyes.”

Maybe it is because I’m a Virgo, maybe it’s not. I notice the little things all the time, typically having to do with social interactions among people whether in groups or not. Where my observations are even more pronounced is when I’m an active participant rather than a casual observer. Ouch! I’m sure we’ve all had some of those.

Our closest relationships, our most meaningful relationships, would be the relationship that has the most meaning in our hearts. It’s where the little things are blaring and glaring when they’re swept aside over concerns and worries of the mind, instead of relished and nourished when the connection, solace, and intimacy are sought to feed the soul. Sigh.

Ladies and gentlemen, are you remembering what is important in your day-to-day life? Take stock and express yourself in positive ways toward those who have meaning in your world. Yep, that’s what I’m gonna do from now on. I need reminders too.

Not a day goes by without remembering you. What it feels like to be next to you, to hold you, to see you smile, to hear you laugh, and even more, to look into your eyes. Feelings that are so beautiful to experience, to hold in the moment, that to let go needs my total surrender. I struggle every day, and I smile.

Lately, my thoughts have returned to relationship dynamics, or more accurately, spontaneous insights have popped up. One day, ownership and the resistance of many to be called another person’s property. I understood, and also understood more.

A committed personal relationship to you feels natural to me, though I struggled. With the following insight, I surrendered into the beauty of the gift. Ownership is voluntary: Ownership is not the right of the other, it is the gift of the giver, and the receiver to respect and cherish. Only with my permission do I give my body totally to one person. Only with my permission do I dedicate my life partnership. Only with your permission will you receive it. This insight brought a sense of peace toward relationship, and a sense of safety and security to give myself to you. That insight resulted in a wonderful feeling to experience.

Why one should be strong enough to let go…
Originally uploaded by winterdoll

We are all different. We are all the same. Whereas you have uniqueness that manifests through the expression of your values via your behaviours, attitudes, intelligence, and creativity. At the root you seek love and yet, experience resistance to the fullest expression of love. I have been wrestling with the complexity of love for a long time. What I have discovered has astonished me.

You ache deeply in your heart for love in your life, hoping for fulfilment through another and yet, that love begins with self. The expression of that loving energy, central in your being must be released fully to embrace yourself, your gifts, your life, and your interactions in the world. That fullest expression and sensation is an expansion within that feels like the chest is being torn asunder. It is suppressed because it is difficult to contain and that is important to notice. It is not meant to be contained.

Love is to be expanded and allowed to flow out. In coming to terms with this, allowing the discomfort of such a raw emotional power pressing outward from the chest, it will become familiar and less uncomfortable. It’s powerful and passionate force will fill up your life with meaning, purpose, and fulfilment. It is the contender. It is the purpose. It will bring the manifestation of all that you are and are here to be. It will draw the right circumstances, people, and relationships into your life that will enrich your experience.

That fullness of love is vulnerable and it causes you to fear. But the fear is a prison preventing the very thing that you desire; the deepest experience of love and the fullest life you seek to enjoy. Being vulnerable comes with the full emotional range of grief, pain, and disappointment that comes from loving others. People will continue to be human and err. Rather than shut-down, embrace the pain and love the hurting inner child of innocent love. Forgive, not just the trespasser but also that inner child. With forgiveness offer love and through the pain watch it subside into comfort. Continue to bring life through love and forgiveness and witness the power to transform lives; yours and those you impact.

Spirit is Love and when Love begins to show between two – you and other – what will you want to do with it? Do you have courage? Can you remain open and vulnerable? Can you discover the strength in the power of love that sustains you – sustains both? I hope you can.

I care a great deal about you – more than you may ever know. We are one.