I am becoming gratefully aware how blessed I have been in my life to have preserved and protected the fertility of my inner landscapes and to be surrounded with glorious gardeners of their inner scapes. Not only glorious in their landscaping but also as knowledgable guides and co-adventurers in exploring their and my inner world. 

Thankful for friends, soul kin, and select family members, who generously shared of themselves and their rich inner lives and magical lands. For loving beings generous in their heart’s flow of emotional and affective energy, who express words of affirmation and appreciation with ease and grace.

Living in this abundance and free-flow blinded me to the degree of importance and value which words of affirmation and an unencumbered flow of emotional energy, self revelations, and sharing hold for my wellbeing. And it is in their absence or stark limitation that I realized more about my state and deeper needs for emotional fulfillment and wellbeing.

Holding space for an ever expanding silence in relating, for cumulating reductions or cessation of emotional flow, I experimented with my nervous system and its ability to adapt to a state that was akin to what wounded the child I once was. And to my delight I realized that I can handle this silence, which once would have triggered abject existential fears of abandonment, and be with myself with love and nurturance. An unexpectedly great opportunity to teach my inner child that I am stronger and more capable today and no longer need to fear these experiences.

Once these lessons were learned and the child adapted to this new self state my thoughts turned to the question if I am willing to be in relationships with a minimal and controlled flow of emotional and verbal connection.

I could balance the lack by anchoring deeper into inner abundant flows and by releasing the wish for another to share the opulence and abundance I have cultivated and am habituated to share. It could be an interesting way of relating that may show me colors and textures never gleaned before, which would be a lovely gift.

Inquiring into my heart I felt a deep sadness and feeling of lack which drained it from being the vibrant and joyful portal it usually is. Making it clear that my heart NEEDS to be in a free flow of emotional, spiritual , physical and mental energy to feel balanced and thrive. It has lived through so much neglect and scarcity in the first half of my life that it doesn’t deserve to enter that field of suffering again. My heart deserves to thrive in the love and flow we have created within and cultivated with other aligned souls.

I am very protective of the wounded aspects in me after having unconsciously abandoned them for way too long. I promised myself to be a loving mother, father, protector and guide to all of myself, no matter how hard it may be or how others might feel about it. I will no longer abandon or neglect myself for another’s comfort or wellbeing.

Sadly there are barren landscapes in others, forbidding and reduced to stark rock and ice formations, which induce in me a deep sadness at the intensity of isolation and painful feelings of coldness. They may be not of their (conscious) making yet these can be weaponized and deployed against others who ‘dare’ to seek connection, intimacy or closeness. And regardless if these patterns play out consciously or unconscious they rarely miss their mark and hurt an open heart, especially one that has been traumatized with the same tools of unlove in its early years.

No matter how much I love you I will not allow my heart to be cut by your unconscious icy landscapes, which is why I will boundary up and step away from engaging. 

Like our wise green blooded kin, I shall turn towards sunshine, towards warmth and everything life-affirming. I will joyfully thank you for redirecting me and turn my awareness and energy towards connections rich and juicy with aliveness, flow, affection, transparency, and consciousness. There is no need to dabble in scarcity or impoverished life-averse spaces when lushness and abundance are what I bring to the table and  what my heart desires.

I bow in gratitude to life, the great guru, for illuminating another subtle dark layer in the subconscious and for gifting me corrective experiences to cultivate embodied knowing.

Art: ‘Let’s Dance With The Dark’ by kelogsloops

The post Choosing Flow appeared first on Venuskind.

Slowing experiences down to a crawl, sending them through new layers of inquiries into subconscious perceptions, subtle projections, and distortions. Acknowledging meanings of my creation and the feelings these cause, observing feelings about the caused feelings. Analyzing and clearly naming defensive behaviors and their underlying stories or fears. Giving the subconscious visible and tangible form to observe, know and play with consciously. Adding new layers of awareness to the original meanings and watching them transform, reframe, and create new feelings which no longer create internal conflict or blockages.

Aspects that were vague come into focus and are more susceptible to transformation through new data and the compassionate and loving gaze of consciousness.

I am gaining more clarity about what exactly triggers my survival patterns and have more choices in responding to them from a more congruent, integrated, and whole state.

Now I see why for the longest time the words of people too afraid to take a stand, have boundaries, express their principles, beliefs, and opinions carried little weight in my perception and feeling. Their praise often weak and inconsequential, their words feeling strangely empty and not worthy of attention. Lack of integrity and self love translates as a lack of truthfulness and trustworthiness to me.

How can someone who doesn’t love, stand up for themselves, live in true integrity or wholeness?
How can someone like this be trusted as a friend or more?
Will their capacity to abandon, betray, manipulate and lie to themselves not inevitably become the way they relate with me?

The child in me was surrounded by many incongruent people and could not have survived without several survival patterns. Yet survive she did- and has grown stronger and wiser from struggling with incongruences.

It feels great to have new tools to dismantle the mental and emotional residues of this aspect of past trauma. Intuitively guided and paced I am unpacking patterns ready for change. Teaching myself new practices to resource myself well for these inquiries and seedings of more congruence. Congruence, I have always sought and appreciated wherever I found it, even if expressing in ways I do not concur with.

Incongruence, even when expressing values and perceptions I share, has always set off my warrior into a protective or hostile stance. My senses are acutely attuned to picking up on incongruence, as my system sees it as the hallmark of the worst of relational harm and pain I experienced. Even if I do not comment on it, I pick up with ease when the spoken words are in conflict with the body language or the frequency of another has the distortion of contradictory or conflicting stances expressing concurrently. I might not interpret their meaning correctly but I do sense the lack of congruence, which takes away from my trust in the person and lets me take their words with a huge grain of salt. Thinking to myself I shall believe your words when I see them in consistent embodied action.

Now I also realize that incongruence was not addressed and healed in most NVC practitioners I have met. It might be helpful to get some there eventually or serve them in gaining a practice of empathic relating. Yet it misses its point to me when the underlying incongruences of the person stay invisible and unaddressed. And the formulaic approach- using another layer of artifice to rectify what at its core is an artifice just does not resonate or make much sense to my being. Don’t get me wrong, I support people’s choice in their tools of growth even if it does not resonate with me. As long as they abstain from attempts at coercing or manipulating me into lifeless artifices and what feels like stilted inauthenticity to me, I am good.

Now, I get to choose how I want to meet incongruence.
Do I even want to respond to it, and if so how?
Do I ignore it, while noting the incongruence, and move on with my life?
Do I engage in a process of making the incongruence visible to the other?
When is it appropriate to do this emotional labor, for and with another, and when is it better, for both of us, to bow out?

To do this emotional labor means to open myself up to deeper intimacy with the other.
Do I really want more intimacy with that person?
Will said intimacy cost me down the road?

Currently I do not see the need for depth of intimacy with everyone I like or love.

Which is surely owed in parts to aspects of my being who are avoidant and see intimacy as potentially dangerous, or as burdensome when intimacy is expected, coerced, manipulatively invoked. Yet there is another aspect to it for me. Time and social energy are limited in my human experience and I like to consciously choose where to invest these in alignment with my purpose and evolution. Social contracts among humans make intimacy into a sort of contract of fulfilling other people’s expectation or needs whenever they arise or hazard harming the connection by not being available for it.
For the past years I have only selectively been willing, and resourced enough, to be in deeper intimacy with people- selective on the people and the moments I am open to it. And it has done me a world of good to be deliberate and deny automatisms of habit or social constructs. I am not ready to give away this hard earned spaciousness and freedom without prompts from Spirit or seeing true value in doing so.

This is a period of stepping into a novel chapter of life for me, new skills want to be gained, integration and cohesion want to be upgraded to level up to what comes next. Not everybody can be a part or witness of this process, only select energies are supportive or aligned with this becoming.
Healing needs it protected spaces, growth needs conducive surroundings, expansion needs spaciousness. Some parts of the path need to be walked alone, some fellow travelers cannot accompany us on new paths as they have diverging paths to walk.

Maybe somewhere down the road I will be open for this depth of intimacy with incongruent people without a need for congruence on their part? I quite like that evolutionary idea…

Until I get there I shall side-step external incongruence and its draining effects on my wellbeing, while attending to transforming inner incongruence into greater integrity, wholeness and balance.

Image by Venuskind

The post Congruency appeared first on Venuskind.

What is transparency in relationships?

Transparency means to be open, honest and truthful.In the context of relationships, it is vital to the evolution of the partnership. It shows trust in our partners and our ability to be vulnerable and let someone in to what we are experiencing. Without transparency, there is no sharing and it shuts down growth.

Lack of transparency or openness can cause issues in relationships. Deflection can occur which gets us nowhere and keeps us trapped in a never ending cycle. Keeping someone in the dark and treating them like they have no right to care or to information breaks down communication and leads to the erosion of the partnership.

Why is transparency in relationships so important?

Transparency is important as it sets the depths in which the partnership is able to penetrate. If there is constant deflection, avoidance, excuses, or games there is no way to move deeper. Trust is broken. Communication becomes impossible. The party that is being deflected stops trying. Intimacy is shut down. It closes doors and builds walls. The relationship is effectively frozen.

Relationships are never easy, but they are built for two. If you’re constantly having to beg for someone to let you in, it’s time to walk away. Yes, sometimes we have to spend time alone to figure things out or deal with things. It’s important to have space in relationships in order to figure that out. But if someone is always leaving you in the dark or deflecting when you try to reach out, you need to decide if this is the kind of relationship that really nourishes you. Open, honest communication is vital for the continuation and expansion of relationships. Without this cornerstone, the pillars crumble. The more we open, the deeper we are able to go.

The truth is some people are happy in the shallow end of the relationship stream.

They don’t want to travel the intricate levels of the spirit. They don’t want to open up or have a soul deep connection. And no matter how hard you try to pry them open, you can’t. The important thing in these situations is to acknowledge your own need for greater depth and move on to something that provides that. You deserve someone who is open and willing to let you in. Life is too short to spend begging for someone to open up to you.

~ Ara Campbell

Photography: ‘White Gauze’ by Robert Mapplethorpe

The post Transparency in Relationships appeared first on Venuskind.

Attachment to the inner attracted the outer.

Preference for emotional and spiritual intimacy attracted mere mental and physical intimacy. 

Preference and attachment to anything creates the experience of the contrast and thereby cultivates suffering. Such is the price of choosing to play in duality and separation consciousness.

Stepping back, releasing attachments and preferences, moving into equanimity and freedom from cycles of self-perpetuated and co-created suffering. I no longer am available for these games born of unconsciousness and conditioning.

And who would have known? Releasing attachments and preferences creates spaciousness and a vast vista of possibilities, which let what once was desired fade into obscurity. Conscious reality is a force of merciless destruction and indomitable truth and beauty.

I bow in gratitude to all the teachers and catalysts who helped me learn these lessons, blessing you and your gifts, no matter if they came dressed as joyful or devastating visitations.

I am complete yet remain forever unfinished.

Photography by Lopamudra Talukdar

The post Completion appeared first on Venuskind.

She looked at him. “First you have to learn how to FEEL into her”, she replied.

“Well then teach me. Isn’t there a type of tantric massage I can learn to do that?”

“No sweetheart” she said, “you can only learn to feel into a woman by feeling into your own inner feminine.”

“My what? …How?”

“Every time you feel lonely you rush outwards looking for company. When you feel sad you rush outwards looking for entertainment. When you feel horny you rush outwards looking for sex…

…and every single time you rush outwards you neglect her- your inner feminine.

Inside you there is so much depth but you have never entered. There is pain you have never held. There is desire you have never witnessed. There is pleasure you cannot even in your wildest dreams imagine.

That is the She.

She lies within you, neglected and betrayed. Unheard and unseen and abandoned again and again.

She cannot open, blossom and shine unless you listen to her.

She cannot awaken until you are present with her.

How can you even think you can just open a woman outside of you when you have not opened the She within you?

There is a vulnerability and depth yet to be matured within you. Yet you are hoping to open a woman?

You think you can enter her yoni when you have not entered your inner realms? The most you can do is stick your physical body part inside her!

There is no trick. No tool. No technique.

If you “do” anything at all merely give up your actions, stop following your desires. Pause a moment and find what’s at the ROOT of your desire instead of losing all your focus on the object of your desire.

The roots will lead you into an inner world so vast you cannot believe it’s there. Vast underground caves FULL of treasures.

But you must choose.

Choose to go down and in for once, instead of out out out.

Then my dear, then… after developing a loving relationship with your inner She…. THEN you can open a woman. You will not even have to ask how.”

via: Shashi Solluna Tantra

Photography: Unknown

The post How To Open A Woman appeared first on Venuskind.

“One of the biggest fallacies in our society is that people fall out of love. Love changes and shifts, sure, but people fall out of respect, intimacy, and trust. They don’t fall out of love.”
~Christine Arylo

Photo: Drop by Alex Stoddard

The post Falling out of Love appeared first on Venuskind.

“Good relationships trigger the hell out of us without trashing the relationship; great relationships trigger the hell out of us while deepening the relationship. And the best relationships use whatever happens, however difficult or disheartening, not only to deepen the relationship but also to awaken us beyond it.

What does not work in a relationship (assuming that neither partner is abusing the other) is what can make it truly work—especially in the sense of giving us sufficient jolts to alert us to our trances, consensual and otherwise—but only if such difficulties are approached by both partners as opportunities rather than problems. Not easy, not easy at all. After all, this asks that we venture from the shoreline into some really big waves. We might then strengthen or more firmly anchor our bond with our partner; or we might finally see that we are not right for each other, no matter what we do; or we might start new practices together; or we might recognize that the depth of our love will sustain us through all, or that it is not enough to keep us together; and so on. No guarantees.

We may think it would be great to be at our edge—which is where growth primarily occurs—but actually being there is not necessarily much of a picnic. In fact, it sometimes may be so unpleasant, so scary, so hard to stomach or handle that we find some convincing alibis to do otherwise—such as literally leaving the relationship, withdrawing from it while still in it, or keeping it relatively superficial.”
~ Robert Augustus Masters, Transformation Through Intimacy

Most shy away from making their relationships part of their spiritual journey.
But those who choose to engage in conscious relating know of the challenges of being at our edge with a partner and of its spiritual gifts when we surrender to the alchemy of the Beloved.

Photography by Robert Fass

The post Good Relationships appeared first on Venuskind.

“Something changes the moment you decide you’ve found a person you are ready to reveal parts of your soul to. Something stands out and makes the moment unique. A profound multidimensional clarity resembling a piece of carefully gathered stardust; As if you are whispering “finally” and your eyes fill with light and spontaneity. As if you do not care whether your heart will melt or crumble in the process because your brief courage undoes your tremendous fear of disbelief. You live for these moments; For you are, maybe for one second or more, sweetly forced to surrender yourself to unconditional intimacy. A moment of psychological reward smashing all self-imposed disciplines founded on terror. This is all you need.”
~ Anaïs Nin

The above is mostly a flash which is followed by a reverting to a guarded relating as long as we have not invested ourselves extensively in self and shadow work. Until then we are cowed by “self-imposed disciplines founded on terror” which curtail our ability to open and meet our lover in vulnerability.

Once we have done our work and meet a beloved who has done so as well the discarding of our guarded stance and protective patterns becomes the gateway and foundation of deeper intimacy, trust, openness and expansive love than we have ever known. Our hearts and souls long for the freedom of this type of relating which is why we exhale “finally” when we dare to step into the unknown with our beloved.

Unconditional intimacy is especially challenging for those who carry relational trauma and at the same time it is the most transformative of healing experiences we can ask for. It might take a few attempts at opening and subsequent constrictions until our nervous system adapts to this new experience by switching from fight and flight to rest and digest. Our bodies need to experience repeatedly that it is safe to be vulnerable and trust our beloved before they relax and lean into this new experience and are receptive to the ensuing elation and connection.

May all of us meet loving beings who allow us to open fully and may we be the same to others.

Photography by Braden Summers

The post Soul Revelation appeared first on Venuskind.