In the beginning of my non-monogamous journey I would spend endless hours with fellow adventurers trying to verbalize the nature of attraction I experienced with different people and the qualities of connection available with them. Ever since these early days I have observed and explored these further in encounters, engagements, and moments of relating that had the feel of meaningfulness. 

And I celebrate every new nuance or version I am experiencing. Appreciating the gift of novelty and variety life presents me in its unceasing generosity.

You become just one more thing screaming for attention; your attractiveness will pass unless you spark the more enduring kind of spell that makes people think of you in your absence. ~ Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction

A Recent Experience

As I came across the above quote the mystery of a recently experienced attraction began to reveal more of its occult nature.

I had felt an intense attraction and feeling of peaceful and blissful alignment in meeting someone, inciting a desire for intimacy and connection. Which they only sparingly allowed for, never opening enough to allow me to feel truly connected and in flow with them. That masterfully played into and triggered old patterns created by neglect, rejection, and abandonment in my earliest years.

And I am aware that it is these inner dynamics that make walking away challenging, not the attraction or a deeper feeling of connection and fondness for the complex beauty of them. In reflecting and gently liberating myself from this ‘disconnect’ I am gaining awareness of subtle layers to the attraction that had drawn me into it.

Once I shone the light of awareness the faux overlay on reality aka projection, created by this pattern to keep me engaged, starts fading and makes the emptiness and potential for harm embedded in it visible to the mind. It no longer blinds me to their turning away from bids for connection or cold/frozen facial expressions (rejection), their self absorption and lack of regard for me as a sovereign being, the manipulative nature of their sparing expressions of care (control), their discomfort with emotions, repression of them, and the tell-tale oscillation between aloof numbness and powerless over-identification with emotions, resulting in victimhood and feelings of (misdirected) resentment. 

And as my internal glamour fades and wounded parts of me try to fervently to hold on to the illusion of connection, their system responds by revealing more of their coiling darkness through more starkness, coldness, absence (the opposite of presence in a spiritual sense), and the lack of attempts at kindness (end of manipulation). Until it eventually express in casual abject cruelty (feeling defeated and angry).

That being the final wake-up call alerting even my most delusional and wounded aspects to the fact that love is not available here, just more pain.

“One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy.” ― Alain de Botton

My mind is drawn back to the initial feeling of attraction, dissecting it, over and over, to lay bare its nature. Reminding me that to understand means to begin to transcend. To name means to disempower. To analyze its pattern means to know the weaknesses to be exploited in service of healing. Yet it leads to not much but the most superficial avail, this experience is born out of the subconscious, which the waking mind cannot enter nor ever truly know. It is awareness alone that can enter, illuminate, and transform unknown rooms within the palace of being.

As the relating was happening and I was mesmerized by trauma, I had wondered why this attraction never had the power of creating a gateway for love, and why it ceased to be present in the physical absence of them. A phenomenon that baffled me and yet managed to get lost in feelings of exhaustion and a need to reenergize after encounters. Why did I feel good in their company and only became aware of serious depletion after encounters? What malarky was at play here?

“I was always attracted not by some quantifiable, external beauty, but by something deep down, something absolute. Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I liked that certain undefinable something directed my way by members of the opposite sex. For want of a better word, call it magnetism. Like it or not, it’s a kind of power that snares people and reels them in.” ― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun 

Attraction of Deprivation

There is a type of attraction that is more powerful and blinding than any other, one that pulls me under into the realm of unconsciousness and trauma. The entrancing toxicity of the sirens call of deprivation changes the state of mind and body, the familiar feel of one, who gladly withholds emotional flow and vulnerability, controls relating, and avoids intimacy is an embodied invitation to healing to me. A heady attraction meant to render all shortcomings in the other, dysfunctionalities of dynamics shared, and the poor way it makes me feel and show up – though visible and known, confoundingly inconsequential, i.e. until it has done its work and I have entered the process of awakening and liberating.

It has been a while since I have encountered this dark gem of an attraction, enough time to let me forget its pattern and nature to a degree that made me susceptible enough to its lure.

And it is the foundation of deprivation and its function as a blesson (lesson and blessing) that rendered this attraction incapable of rooting in love. The lack of emotional flow, which felt painful and confusing, was at the core of the blessing ensuring that extrication from this would be easy and gentle on my heart. After all it generally is the emotional bond that makes it hard for my heart to let go, in its absence my heart aches in a different and less harrowing way. It ached with the pain of exclusion, letting go of an illusion, anguish over the legacy of pain inflicted long ago, and the sadness about the abuse being visited on the one armoring and hardening their heart as well as others. 

The Hidden Seed 

But this time had something special, a spin if you like, to not only draw me in but make me stay long enough in the experience to dislodge and purge more of the old pain and confusion while seeding something unexpected. A little treasure hidden in midst of the murkiness, the seed of a lotus meant to grow and transmute this mud into beauty.

A ‘usual’ wound-mate or trauma bond would not have made me stay long enough in the encounter, a novelty had to be thrown into the mix to keep me coming back in curiosity and fascination with this unknown dimension of experience. 

And what could be more powerful than initiating the unlocking of a dimension of physical connectivity I have never experienced before. Not lust, not emotional connectivity, not spiritual highs but a clear and expansive sense of total physical safety and openness with another. Something that has almost an addictive quality to the parts of me, who lived thanks to early sexual abuse in an ongoing protective stance and vigilance until this encounter.

It is hard to let go of the first one feeling safe enough to let these guards down, open up, breathe, and open to pleasure as I have never before. To let go of the opportunity which allowed me to open up and play where the most painful abuse of innocence and pleasure had happened has been a feat for this wounded aspect of me. Especially as it did so without falling into the darkness of victimhood.

But this is a moment that speaks to the level of integration, loyalty and love in my tribe of selves. Their compassion and love for each other allows this wounded aspect to let go, trusting the guidance and love of the other selves who seek disconnection on the basis of self compassion and love. The other selves commiserate with the aspect and its feeling of loss, while being committed to creating new experiences of this flavor in healthier and more loving connections to come.

I sense the activation in this experience, the beginning of an unraveling of this aspect of my embodied experience. An opening of what had been contracted in fear and self protection for decades. An opening that allows awareness and mind to work in connecting these aspects with my core, the core that lives in indelible trust in and alignment with life. To strengthen inner reconnection and enlivening of what was once severed. 

Well played dear universe, I see what you did there!

“If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

This is But a Beginning

I know there are many layers and blessings in this experience, much more than my mind can make sense of or put words to right now. As time goes by, and the transformative and expansive effects alchemically change my perceptions, more insights and revelations are sure to follow. This is one of the gifts that keep on giving when met with open-hearted awareness.

A new cycle of unlearning and learning has begun with the ending of this encounter. Walking away activated the process of rebirthing and reworking deep inside, it has summoned a network of beloveds to come closer and share in this journey, and opened the floodgates of love and emotional flow. It took a conscious choice to open wide, counter-instinctively, and intentionally create more present, vulnerable, and raw exchanges with beloveds, new connections, and random encounters. 

And I keep hearing my indifferent self remind me ‘what is wounded in relating, heals in relating’ whenever I feel like contracting. She is reminding me to choose flow over protection, authenticity over playing to social scripts, and heartfulness over cold intellectuality.

I am hearing the clear call of intuitive guidance as it directs me towards new adventures and experiences while awareness is redecorating and making some of the unknown rooms of my palace of being conscious. I shall joyfully follow the bread crumb trail of Soul and Self in our magical game of embodied mystic adventures.

I bow in gratitude and promise to keep opening myself to novel attractions. 

Art by Unknown

The post Alchemizing appeared first on Venuskind.

Accountability

The aspects I want to share pertains to how I currently respond to the needs or neediness of another.

Still not fully comfortable with neediness, which expresses through a victim narrative or whiny tonality, I find myself struggling to calm myself and dig deeper for compassion, as I am triggered to reject and and turn away from the experience. Realizing that the desire to distance myself from the emotions and expressions of the other is no longer solely rooted in conditioning but also in service of a primal knowing. A knowing that engaging with and entertaining such energies feeds the victim/whiny aspects in me, which I no longer wish to feed or strengthen, to the contrary.

And as I take full accountability of reacting in a poorer way than I would like, I am acknowledging the need to use better tools and practice being with energies I am integrating without a feeling of or being ‘tainted’ ,aka ‘contaminated,’ by them. In reflecting deeper on that, I became aware that I already can do so in connections that have a certain emotional depth and fluidity. Pointing towards the relationship of feeling emotionally disconnect, resulting protectivity, and the fragility to such energies. An obvious relationship, but as so often, not something I was conscious of in the moment. This needs some repetition and deepening of knowing to ensure access to it when I feel insecure or triggered.

Choice

A more novel aspect to that is the spaciousness I have gained in how I want to respond to another’s need in the moment.

Until now my nature and conditioning didn’t even allow for a pause and reflection if I want to show up in the way the other needs or asks me whenever I saw or sensed they were in pain. It was as if pain disabled any thought of myself and put me into a self-sacrificing autopilot or trance state of giving my all. Now I am allowing self love to enter and transform this hereto unconscious layer of relating in me.
This trauma reflex is also why I had such a hard time understanding, and respecting, people who could turn a cold shoulder in the face of another’s moment of need or pain. I still see that as an unpalatable thing but the emotional charge has lessened dramatically thanks to this insight and spaciousness entering this contracted aspect of self.

Discernment

Faced with someone whose idea of support consisted of making myself into a receptacle (or ‘dumping ground’ as my protectors would call it) for their narratives and emotions without asking question for clarity nor commenting in any other way, allowed for another insight.

Something in me balked at their expectation, mind you this was not a request to me but an expectations dripping with judgement. Which is why I celebrate my resistance as an expression of progress in setting self loving boundaries.

Their expectation was reminiscent of something I observed and verbalized in my mid twenties about the dynamics of relating with men. I felt they used me as ’emotional landfill’ as they would come to me and dump their unresolved shit to then saunter off and enjoy their new-found lightness in pretty much total disregard of me. A lightness bought at the cost of my emotional balance and energy. Infuriatingly they remained ignorant of the fact that they have dumped their emotional shit on me, necessitating me to carry the weight of it as enabler of their avoidance. Yuck! Thankfully another murky pattern I have patiently worked my way out of. Which is why I did not show up in the way they wanted but in a way that was aligned with what I know to be healthy for me and caring for another.

I am expressing ever more clearly a resounding NO to subtle ways others (un)consciously try to avoid doing their work, non-consensually dumping their load, and abusing my willingness to support another. Even if someone is in pain, or pulls on my heart-strings I am no longer blind to the pattern of turning me into a complicit in their self-disempowerment and avoidance of taking full responsibility for themselves and their experience of life. I am putting an end to my part in this dysfunctional dynamic pattern. And I cannot express how happy it makes me to see the expansion of this transformative process.

It makes it worth having had the low vibe experience that allowed for these insights and reflections.

Sovereignty

If it really needs mentioning:
The final say on if and how I support someone lies with me. Even though I am inviting you to share your requests, and open to negotiating with you what and how I can offer – No one gets to decide how and where my energy is invested apart from Self, Spirit and myself.

Trying to manipulate your way to controlling my behavior and self expression will get you one thing only: The end of relating as I walk away.

I remain fully available to growth-oriented relating based on sovereignty, freedom, humor, playfulness, self knowledge, compassion, and love/consciousness. And when I speak of growth, I am using the term in a deeply spiritual definition of the willingness and capacity to face, acknowledge, love, and integrate one’s shadow and learn to do the same with the shadow of the other. I am fully aware that this is calling for the master class of relating, it takes a ton of courage, resilience, responsibility for self, self knowledge, and willingness to vulnerably and openly share your internal world to allow another know and feel you in your light and shadow. And I am fully willing to learn to fail better in this way of relating and learning with another, to deepen in awareness and discernment, to become better at repair and gentleness with self and other… to go through all highs and lows of this path as long as we meet on this ground.

This is my baseline for relating.

Meet me there or watch me move on to better aligned experiences and beings.

Photoart by Zac Cannon

The post Relational Insights appeared first on Venuskind.

“It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery,
rather than to choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness
that would last the rest of our lives.”
~ Marianne Williamson

For a long time I have been perceiving things along the lines of this quote, believing it to be a primarily a question of individual courage if someone walks a path of self discovery and self work.
But the years of the pandemic have illuminated this and allowed me to perceive and reflect on it in a more detailed way.

There is a lot more to this ongoing choice of self discovery, and there is a distinct difference between those who will keep choosing this path and those only willing to follow it up to a point, until it causes too much discomfort or begins to undercut too much of the beliefs and desires of the ego.

Paths

Sure it takes courage initially to follow the call of the soul, to listen to the voice insisting on change and a different way of being. That could be already achieved by comparatively small and superficial lifestyle changes, changing our diet, choosing yoga and mindfulness practices. This is how far most will take it, and they will benefit in ‘functioning’ better in a sick and exploitative system. And that is all they wish for.

Some will take the path of psychology and delve into certain aspect of its insights, get help and work things out to the degree that they feel balanced and well enough to engage with life in a new and less painful way. Some adjustments are made to beliefs and perceptions with the focus being predominantly on helping the personality better navigate life.

Others will move into esoteric and occult teachings and belief systems, incorporating those beliefs into their daily lives and practicing relevant rituals. They might also strive to be more loving and compassionate, molding the personality, without delving too deeply into spiritual self discovery and the work and changes arising from it.

And then there are those whose soul’s are willing to immerse themselves more fully into self discovery in this incarnation. Who will seek many different sources, or maybe just one, and utilize them to go beyond the personality, to touch on the Self, to let it rework their being. Those who will go through all the challenges, pains, and losses it takes to make the personality and mind take the backseat as the Soul/Self take the lead. Those who learn to ‘step out of the way’ as the forces of life change them and their life, who are willing to unlearn all that they have been taught, to experience the mystery of life unclouded by the misperceptions and deceits of ancestors and the cultures and conditioning handed down to them.

Insights

From where I am at in my journey and knowing I realize how little these paths, and how far we are capable and allowing in walking them, are dependent on the traits of the personality or the resistances of the ego. That which is decisive lays at the core of our being at the Soul level of our being. It is there, where the choice of experiences and learning for this lifetime are made, not in the mind or personality – those only get to rationalize them after the fact.

The complexity of factors that have to come together to create an ongoing and truly evolutionary trajectory of growth is more aligned with the mystical teaching that separate and individual agency is an illusion and that as ‘all that is is affected by all that is’ life, including personal choices, is a collective unfolding.

Which has taken away the wish to ‘help others know and understand’ and replaced it with a knowing of their understanding perfectly well for their soul path and intentions. No need to interfere or wish for change. And if it puzzles me, I may try to inquire into their perceptions and inner trajectory to make sense of their beliefs and behaviors, but it no longer is necessary beyond teaching me lessons needed to for my own becoming.

With it the burning desire to find others, who know more than me or have explored differing paths, in order to expand my knowledge has mellowed out. I still enjoy deep and expansive exchanges on philosophical, cosmological, energetical aspects of our experience. But exchanges focused in awe and delight in the mystical unfolding of life have taken their place and leave me charged up with delight and joy like the earlier never could.

There is no longer a need to judge another’s path or confront them about it. Instead there is an experience of a loss of interest and willingness to engage with certain dimensions of consciousness. To engage with these feels like constricting into a limited and painful way of perception and engagement with life, a form of self abuse, and wasteful of my energy and time.

You would think that it makes for a lonely existence but in fact it has made being rich in what feels like another dimensionality. Which in turn seems to feed a sense of wholeness and wellbeing I have not yet felt in this level of calm imperviousness. And it seems to open to a kind of encounter with the being, or is-ness of others, which provides a reciprocal level of luminous nourishment for the Soul which is very different to what used to feed the ego or heart.

Emergence

What is emergent is what I call Self-sufficiency, being whole unto Self, deriving everything needed from Self – regardless if through this being, another, or cooperative energies. To rely solely on the Self means releasing all attachments to things perceived as a security in life (jobs, homes, family, friends) and leaning into the spaciousness the detachment creates. A spaciousness that can be mistaken for emptiness and therefore scary to the personality/ego. In time and with persistence the fears eventually melt away and so does the interference of the personality with experience.

What follows is what we can taste in a lesser form in moments of ‘flow’ – pure being. Zero point consciousness in embodiment. Which in turn is but a beginning of another multidimensional adventure in embodied consciousness and experience.

Art by Unknown

The post Self Discovery appeared first on Venuskind.

“Manifestation can only be satisfying and truly effective when it arises out of the Being state of consciousness”
~ Eckhart Tolle

I have been contemplating for the past couple of days how manifestation techniques change with the expansion of our access of consciousness and self-integration work.

As we progress less and less of our willfulness and physical doing is called for in the earlier stages of manifesting, and in the later stages the mental and physical effort needed is much smaller than when we set out on our journey while new skills and efforts are called for.

And in our progression we are called to exert effort in new ways and skills. We are called to expand in patience, in trust and to cultivate our ability to sustain consistent BEing in our everyday life.
It takes effort to train ourselves to be present and gently pull our minds back from dissociating, catastrophizing or escaping the reality and fullness of the moment in other avoidant ways.
It takes effort to face whatever emotions and sensations arise and to feel and emote them in healthy ways that allow us to BE lighter and hold less obstructions to the flow of life energy through our being.
It takes discipline, gentleness and self love to find and sustain stillness and open-hearted listening to the guidance of consciousness at our core.

It is in this silent communion with Spirit in our higher heart-mind where our most potent manifesting capacity resides. And it is also here where our discernment is crystal clear on how little we truly need to manifest as all we need is already here.

Photography: La Danse by Alyz Photographies

The post Manifesting appeared first on Venuskind.