Sassy,

Trust your gut, what you say makes sense to me. Remember hooks have barbs. 🙂

With warmth,
Matt

K,

Thank you for the kind words about my writing. I think the reason I come across as clear minded is a mix of meditation, fantastic teachers, and taking my own advice. 🙂 As far as the beauty in the words, it wouldn’t feel right to try to own them. I breathe in a post, and breathe out whatever comes to heart. My hope and wish is it helps spark love and peace in whomever reads them, but I do my best to stay out of the way and just let whatever seems right to be said.

You seem to be very intuitive, and I appreciate the “pausing to reflect” quality, and agree. It reminds me of the hermit, who travels into the cave to protect the tender shoots of her blooming awareness. Its very self nurturing to pause to aim! Especially as we begin, and are still strengthening our mind/body connection. However, we are always deciding, and “big arcs” are certainly worth consideration as you describe. I meant more “breath by breath, what now” type jumping boldly from within.

Don’t forget to integrate the “ah ha” moments into a direction. Sometimes we can become addicted to insight, and seek deeper wisdom for the brightness of the revelation. Said differently, as we distill the patterns of reality we can become drunk with joy, which then quickly fades. Reinvest the joy into momentum, and spiritual development happens! 🙂

Finally, consider that perhaps there isn’t a solid “Kristy” in there to discover. We’re a mix of constantly changing and growing preferences, desires, skills, thoughts. Kristy is a blank canvas, which is constantly renewed. So as Doc Brown said “Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.” Namaste.

With warmth,
Matt

K,

Its good to hear that you’re waking up to the drawbacks of over indulging in being entertained by the dreams of others! It can be a little disorienting at first, and feels almost like a crisis… “Who am I? How do I find my path to joy?”

Most people don’t believe how simple it is, and make life far more complex than it has to be. It really distills into a simple aim, in my opinion . Live from the heart with the courage to jump. That’s it. The rest you learn on the path.

The way I see that statement moving from philosophy into a practical direction is the way we engage with our decisions. For instance, you wake up, perhaps do some meditation for stable mindedness, and open to the day. Then, where you go, whatever situations you’re in, look as deeply as you can at the possibilities, and when an inspiration to say or do something arises, take a breath and dive in.

What happens in my experience is that the actions which bring suffering to our mind and body fade away with time, as the heart becomes more wise. For instance, if you see huge plate full of cookies, even if there is curiosity in the mind what it might be like to eat a whole mess of cookies, the heart will say “nah, unneeded”. So, we take courage that our heart is right, and we jump away from the cookie as a source of nourishment. Or, if it hasn’t learned the lesson, we eat it and feel the pain of over indulgence. Then next time we see the plate, it is simple to turn away.

Or, if the thing we’re seeing is something or heart wants to do, the thing will sparkle… such as catching a glimpse of a guitar at a garage sale you happened to see when your heart said “how about a walk?”. On and on it leads us from lesson to lesson, and we find joy and wisdom.

One thing that can help keep the heartsong alight is by looking for ways to help other people. One of my teachers said that generosity is the energy of joy, so as we act kindly and generously to people (including ourselves through self nurturing) the heart gains strength and becomes louder for us.

Its a magic journey, and even though there is some pain as we encounter attachments, such as hopes we have that were unfulfilled in the past or don’t bloom in the future. But what does bloom is beautiful, and the fragrance of compassion uplifts the heart.

With warmth,
Matt

Zenhen,

I am happy to share my experiences, because as difficult at some moments have been for me, there has been a tremendous amount of love and light. Adding to the love and light is the only thing that makes sense!

Your experiences sound very normal to me, and quite encouraging. It makes sense to me that your boyfriend would enjoy being penetrated, and my wife and I have done that. As I healed, the motivation diminished for it, because the beauty and connection that arises when I penetrate her is far more fulfilling for both of us. For me, it was a gateway of sorts, a method for me to find acceptance in the pleasure of the body. It comes down to associations in the mind, and perhaps you’ll find the same thing.

Consider that when I was young, pleasure in the body was accompanied by shame in the mind. So when I was being penetrated, a split arose. Penetrating a woman didn’t bring about the shame, but it was still influenced by it. When I was first penetrated by a woman, there was a lot of shame. However, the stability and healing I had with me as an adult gave the shame somewhere to go. Said differently, when i saw that I enjoyed it, she enjoyed it, and it was mentally sexy as well as physically sexy, the shame untangled. It left me feeling insecure, but I was able to talk about it with my partner.

From your side, I wonder if strap on sex is easier for you to get into because the associations aren’t the same. For you, being penetrated was interwoven with hurt feelings, which perhaps makes the different expressions of sexual connection more simple, easy and safe. This could also explain the reason his body responds differently to different styles of lovemaking.

I will posit a guess that it has more to do with your feelings of safety and involvement than his sexuality. For me, when my wife and in are not sharing a space of togetherness, because one or both of us are spinning in our head, the sex is not nearly as good. She doesn’t orgasm, I don’t stay erect, our rhythm is off… any number of things. Said differently, it is the openness of our root chakra that keeps the sexual fusion alive, and if one of us isn’t open, the fusion fizzles. Does that make sense?

In response to the shame that arose as you began, that is painful, but also wonderful. It means its healing in my opinion. I see it like pressing a sponge that is full of danky water. When we squeeze it, muck comes out. We see it, surrender to the way it is just old associations cleansing, then let it go. You took off your blinders, the suppression mechanism, by being deeply intimate and open, and so his pushing into you was clearly contrasted! See how that makes it easy to let go? How the shame truly, deeply and completely doesn’t fit now? How there is beauty in who you are, in who he is, in the sacred joining of your bodies… and then the odd and unneeded burden that was placed on your shoulders way back when.

And that’s just it. The shame fades, as long as we don’t hide it or hide from it. Its just a feeling that isn’t needed anymore. We’re safe, its awesome to have sex, and our history only means we’ll have to wring out the sponge a few times. Each time, the emotion is less sharp, until it is only a gnat buzzing. Then we capture the gnat in our hand and set it free. It kept us safe from even more confusion, but when we release our pain back to god, sex, in all its forms, becomes sacred once again.

With love,
Matt

Sophie,

In addition to Zenhen’s heartfelt and wise words, consider that friendship isn’t something given or received, its something that is shared. As a recovering codependent, it makes sense that one might go from giving from a place of self sacrifice to a place of self nurturing. As we pull back and shift our relationship to our world, it is important to self nurture. “How am I nourishing myself with my actions.”

This is healthy and stable, and produces the joy you’re describing. When we are authentically nourishing to ourselves, we develop a deep self love. From the stability of that self love, we can let go and dive back in, and become authentically nourishing to others. Friendship, fellowship is the result. It doesn’t matter if it that love is returned, because the friendship arises on our side, deepens our feeling of connection to others, and their response is not that important. Said differently, as we pour our love into others, friendship arises on our side. When they are ready, they join us in fellowship, and friendship is the connection that is shared in those moments.

Finally, do you pursue connecting with others? Go on platonic dates where you share your passion and zesty view?

With warmth,
Matt

Danielle,

A few things came to heart as I read your words. You pose that romantic and youthful question “if you will, I will”. That made me smile. How false is that! Perhaps “I do. Do you?” He certainly sounds like he loves you back, but there is a growing concern in me that there are some codependency patterns in your connection to him. If he has some unresolved pain, and seeks to resolve it through drinking, that can quickly trigger “caretaking” in you. If you are trying to put all of the power in the relationship into his hands, that is the codependent half of the addict/codependent paradigm. That road leads to chaos.

Nip it in the bud, I say. You said you were trying to let go of resentment and confusion he causes. He causes? He has confusion, and you have confusion. You two don’t cause confusion in each other. Your confusion is your own. You become scared, pull back, don’t ask him questions that are on your mind, and then become resentful that he doesn’t read your mind, which builds even more fear? Do you see how that’s a loop? Its as though the two boats blame each other for causing their own rocking. All that really does is remove the feeling of empowerment, as though the other holds the key.

You seem strong and courageous to me. Consider that we all feel fear, and courage is what arises so we can do what we are afraid of. There is fear, and we act from the heart anyway. There is fear, and we pick up the phone anyway. Do you see? There is always going to be failure in life, there will always be fear. We step through them with as much grace as we can, but we keep stepping.

With warmth,
Matt

Danielle,

Any time we love someone, there is the fear of being vulnerable. They may not love us back, they may lose interest, they may get hit by a bus. If we get swept into the what ifs, we quickly lose our way. Consider picking up a copy of Brene Brown’s books, or check out her Ted talk “The Power of Vulnerability”. I think her style and wisdom may strike you well.

For me, I have been in that situation many times. I approach a person, with only love in my heart, intuition and hope, and say what comes to heart. In my marriage, it has always been well received. With others, I have gotten burned. However, I don’t regret. When we follow our heart and do our best to express it, where would regret stick?

What I see is a girl in love, and scared to open up. That’s normal and reasonable. But what’s really the worst that could happen? You already love him, so if it doesn’t work out there will be pain. Might as well take a deep breath and jump. You may go splat on the ground as he spurns your affection. However, you may find your wings and fly.

Just try to be transparent. Say what you feel, think and see. Express your fears, your hopes. He is either fertile or not, and you’ll never know if you don’t try it!

That being said, also make sure to take care of yourself. Be gentle and patient, go for walks alone, follow your hobbies and interests. Its too easy to neglect ourselves when we get caught in the whirlwind of romance, and neglecting our self is a sure way to quench the inner fire. Said differently, loving yourself isnt a state of being, its a momentum of consistent self caring.

With warmth,
Matt