We reach for relationships because we long for many things. We long for acceptance, affection, companionship andappreciation. We want to be seen. We need to be heard. And so, we reach. We reach to form relationships so that these beautiful needs, our beautiful needs can flourish. We reach so that we can know love.

How do we achieve this? How do we create the kinds of relationships that fuel our lives? How do we cultivate deep connections? It begins with us. It begins with our willingness and our ability to create a deeply connected relationship with our self.

Acceptance experienced from another is born out of our acceptance for our self. Appreciation from the ones we choose to love has it’s genesis in our appreciation for ourselves.

In fact, the more we are able to meet our own beautiful needs, the more the people in our lives have to build upon. When we refuse to meet ourselves within our own heart, when we starve ourselves of our own love and attention and companionship, our loved ones – no matter their commitment to us – are rendered powerless.

In order for us to feel their love, it has to have fertile ground upon which to fall. That fertile ground is tended by us. That fertile ground is our responsibility.

When we take beautiful responsibility for our own beautiful needs, when we become stewards of our own inner relationship, a space gets created for the relationships in our lives to actually begin to move in powerful new ways.

So how do we get from here to there? Read more…

Of the many astonishing, mind blowing, soul expanding gifts that love, romantic love, provides, these days I am reveling in love’s ability to show me the deepest parts of myself, the parts that were forgotten or ignored – the parts that didn’t really learn how to love, to receive love or to give love … convinced they wouldn’t ever really get love. Oh sure, these are not the pretty parts of myself and true, in the wake of love, I’d rather bask in the glory of my amazing smooth-sailing self (ha!), but in this moment, I am also understanding that unless I tend to these shadowy-er, less developed aspects of my emotional self, then my experience of love will forever be relegated to the fringes of my life, the shallow wading pools of experience and I won’t be able to truly stand in the beauty of what my heart so deeply longs for. And so after my most recent brush with love, I drummed up a little bleary-eyed courage and a whole lot of desire and I faced myself as if for the first time. I did this because I wanted to understand. I did this because I wanted to finally know who I was so that I could become who I am. I did this because I want to know love in the way that I dreamed was possible.

We are all familiar with the joys of love. It’s what has us reach for it time after time. The need for love is in our DNA. We require it to live. Love provides deep connection. It holds promise. We put a lot on love. We fill it up with all sorts of hope and possibility. We do this because the returns can be so wonderful. We do this because we are called back to the table to sit with love until we get it right and we answer that call because we intuitively know that there is something powerful waiting for us. But what are we to do with the pain love seems to sometimes deliver? What are we to make of the devastation we feel when love “goes away?” Recently this happened to me. It was stunning. Literally. Read more…

Dare to set your relationship bar high.  The benefit of doing this is really twofold.   First it calls you to become the person who can be a partner in as well as nurture and flourish in that level of relationship.  Here’s how it works: as you reach for your partner and that relationship, you reach for yourself.  As you grow towards that relationship, you grow into yourself.  It’s almost as if that desire, the desire for love is a cleverly designed strategy for you to become your most glorious self.  Secondly, you get what you envision.  So if you’re going to envision a relationship, why envision something half-ass?  Why not imagine the most outrageously fulfilling relationship you can picture?  The worst thing is you’ll actually become this amazingly delicious and balanced version of yourself.  And who the hell doesn’t want that?                                                                                              

When envisioning the ideal relationship, I like to imagine it in its parts and as a whole.  First imagine who he or she is.  Get as detailed as possible.  Honor and respect all of your preferences.  As important, include who your partner is emotionally; how he is with you, strangers, problems, old people, children, pets, change, uncertainty, disappointment – the whole shebang.  Now pause and remember that what you long to discover in another is also what you long to embody in yourself.  Hmm…  see the power of a bar set high?  Next imagine you; how and who you are in this partnership.  Raise the bar on yourself.  What surprises you about who you’ve become?  Explore all of you as you explored all of him.  Thirdly, explore the two of you.  Who are you as you two move through the world?  Who are you in bed?  How do people respond when they are around you?  How do you handle problems, disagreements, successes, confusion?  Read more…