True Joy or 20 minutes to speak up

Are you tired of your spouse - or yourself - reacting to something that you/he/she did way back? Like in “Last summer you went to movies without even asking me if I wanted to go with you. That really hurt!”. Sometimes something apparently small can push a big button - and because it’s just a small thing (or for any other perfect reasons) you decide to swallow the reaction. But then, it doesn’t quite work this way - you can’t get it out of your system, so it comes up again: days, weeks, months, perhaps even years later. So here you are, the two of you discussing your past: “But you should have…” “But you didn’t”… “But you…but… but!” - feeling like you’re caught in a bad, old dream and you can’t wake up. So what to do?

The ultimate way is to take a step towards awakening from bad dreams once and for all. To approach situations like these in a radically new, liberating way - the Busting Loose way. To start walking on your path to True Joy. To start creating relationships in a radically new way. Which by the way you can do, regardless whether your spouse will join you on such path or not.

Or, if for some reason you don’t feel that this is where you want to go, at least not right now, here’s a “It’s now or never” strategy that you may find both challenging and refreshing: I’ve just seen a couple sharing this in a Danish documentary: They have made a “contract” with each other: “If you have a reaction to something I do or say and you don’t bring it up within the next 20 minutes the case is closed!”. Meaning, speak up now or you’ve got to deal with it on your own!

Now this comes from a mature, loving couple that’s totally committed to each other, so it’s not that they don’t care. On the contrary, it’s because they support each other in sharing and expressing themselves honestly and authentically here and now, rather than hiding “stuff” and then let it germinate (or rot :-)).

I’m sure you and I could think of plenty of other ways to approach conflict and communication in relationships but right now I’m only interested in these two, so right now this is what I’m sharing here. Because only right now really counts!

Creating relationships on Twitter

I’m very fond of Twitter - when it’s used with moderation. Twitter is just another way of creating relationships and at least some of what I wrote about creating business relationships on Twitter does apply to other relationships as well. It does of course depend on who is following you on Twitter (or Facebook for that matter): it is just family and friends or does it include “strangers”? Who is it exactly? Are you aware of it?

Now it’s not my style to invite you to analyze your friends and acquaintances and that’s not what I’m suggesting here either. I’m just suggesting that while joyfully Twitting away you give a little thought to who you are talking to. In the end you’re talking to yourself, no doubt about it. But besides that?

Don’t analyze it but keep in your awareness that there is someone on the other end - it just could make your communication more interesting! Just like it may be more interesting to talk to someone on the phone or next room, rather than talking to yourself. Or maybe not? To everything there is a season I guess…

The season and the reason for this post has something to do with my own experiences: Loving being inspired, informed and entertained in unexpected Tweets (140 characters each), and letting go of anyone on Twitter who keeps on telling me what they’ve got for breakfast, lunch and dinner, what time they got up and went to bed, and sharing with the entire world something that is really only meant for one special friend on their list of followers.

Just like in real life it does make sense to adjust your communication to the kind of relationships that it is part of. With this in mind I’ve created 3 different Twitter streams: One for spiritual inspiration in general, one for my busting loose friends and one for spiritual business/marketing. You might want to do something similar - and enjoy meaningful Twitter relationships from there.

Spiritual relationships and gatherings

I just returned from a mind-blowing, or rather heart-blowing retreat with a bunch of wonderful Busting Loose people (or Phase 2 Players) in likewise beautiful Sedona. It was one of my life’s most wonderful experiences of the spiritual essence of any relationship: namely experiencing the other person as yourself, as another aspect of you, telling your story, sharing your feelings, your thoughts, your experiences as seen from another point of view so to speak.

Experiencing this - the oneness, the ultimate connection with not one, not two but a whole gathering of “like-minded” people is beyond words. It’s True Joy!

When I returned home there was a message waiting for me, from Spiritual Singles about a gathering that I’m sure can feel just as wonderful - and also become a way for you to create new spiritual relationships in your life. If this is something that you’re interested in, you’ll probably want to

1. Join Spiritual Singles who sponsor and invite all members (at special discount :-)) to
2. Mount Shasta’s 15th Annual Wesak Celebration and Spiritual Singles PARTY May 8-10, 2009. As you can see this year’s theme is Embracing Unconditional Love.

Here’s a quote from the invitation by Jill Crosby - owner and founder of
Spiritual Singles: “It’s just amazing to me how being in the DIVINE FLOW brings about so many beautiful synchronicities. I am really enjoying how flowing (not thinking or planning, just flowing in the NOW) is constantly bringing about wonderful people and experiences. I’m so happy and grateful for everything, including YOU. (…) I truly wish you the BEST moment ever, moment by moment, by moment…. ENJOY everything NOW and remember that this is all created by us. It’s like having our own personal holodeck (for you trekkies like me) all of the time, or being The painter of our own canvas of life, yet trusting and allowing your higher self to do the guiding (or directing). To me, it’s beyond manifesting. I don’t have to “try” or even “create” much when I am truly in that Divine Flow….I just ALLOW everything to BE and FLOW. I’m sure you are experiencing this too, so I just wanted to share a little about what I’m enjoying so we can celebrate and be grateful together as we all move from ME to WE and remember our ONENESS. Always sending you sooooo much LOVE!”

Do looks count? Ask Penelope

After having written a few articles on the subject (”Do looks count?”), and while my love for my own and any other “looks” keeps expanding, it was quite interesting - and fun - and sweet - to watch Penelope today. Well, to begin with it was a bit boring too - but boy, am I glad I gave the movie another chance.

Because, even if at first the movie appears like just another Beauty and the Beast story (only with the girl in the beast role for a change!), don’t let yourself be deceived by that first look! This movie will surprise you more than once, turn things around for you in a way you may have not expected, and make the connection from an adventure to your own life clear and direct. This is a rich movie with more depth than you might suspect.

The song by James Greenspun that you’ll hear at the end of the movie will give you a clue. It’s called Your Disguise:

“Alone in your mind, waiting for the sun to shine
Alone in your mind, waiting for the sign that its time
To break free from the words that hold you down
To escape from the feeling you are lost and can’t be found

Don’t hide your face, you cannot erase
The pain that stays in your eyes
Lay down your guard, show them who you are
Behind your disguise

You run far from home, think you’ll make it on your own
You run fast and slow, but never seem to know where you’ll go
To break free from the words that hold you down
To escape from the feeling you are lost and can’t be found
Lost and can’t be found

Don’t hide your face, you cannot erase
The pain that stays in your eyes
Lay down your guard, show them who you are
Behind your disguise, your disguise

Don’t hide your face, you cannot erase
The pain that stays in your eyes
Lay down your guard, show them who you are
Behind your disguise, behind your disguise, your disguise”

Do looks really count?

Do looks really count? This is a question that you could discuss forever, and I have absolutely no intention in suggesting any objective answer! I’d like to stick to what really counts - and that’s how you feel about your looks . Because in the end - and I’m going to share with you a couple of interesting stories to show it: Other hardly see your looks as such. Rather, they mirror how you feel about your looks!

In fact, there’s no such thing as “your looks as such”. I know that every time I look into the mirror it tells me a new story. “Beautiful…”, it says. And the next moment: “Too big…”. And the next moment “Big and charming!”. And the next moment… It changes all the time! — because I change all the time as well as my experience of myself. Do you think it’s different with other people? (You’re welcome to take that question literally and reply in a comment below )

The first example that I want to mention is this: I have a friend, who is not just slim - she’s skinny, even underweight - or rather, that’s how she looks to me! . On a freezing day in December this friend and I met for a cup of coffee in a charming outdoor restaurant in Copenhagen. There were special lamps and blankets there to keep us warm, and we truly enjoyed it. Until, after a while, my friend said “You know, I’m starting to freeze now”. At that point I felt comfortably warm, so my immediate thought was “It’s because our bodies are so different”. So I said , with a smile: “Well, you don’t have this nice layer of fat all over your body like I do - I guess that’s what keeps me warm”. You’d never guess what her answer was: “What do you mean?! - we look pretty much the same, you don’t have any more fat on your body than I do”.

Now, let me make this very clear: she’s not anorexic or something like that and she wasn’t being polite either. She simply expressed how she experienced me - because that’s how I experience myself from within! From within my body feels pretty much like “any body”. I don’t experience myself as overweight or inhibited by fat (although I used to just a couple of years ago).

So do looks really really count? If they do, then it’s just a way to play the Relationships Game with each other. For example, when my ex announced that he wanted a divorce, he created like a list of “good reasons” to leave me - including my looks at the time. As soon as I moved out my looks changed - and several other things that were on the list as well. It was quite amazing in that I didn’t try to change anything - I was just doing my busting loose work, as usual. So it became very clear to me that I created these “problems” as a way to stop a relationship that wasn’t meant to last.

So again, do looks really count? They do - in the sense that everything in your human experience counts — it is part of the journey, part of the challenge, part of the fun. Your journey is exactly as it’s supposed to be - and that goes for looks too!

By the way, there isn’t any specific “busting loose from the body game” or “busting loose from relationships game” book or course, but that’s not a problem either. Take the Busting Loose From The Emotions Game or the Journey to The Infinite home study course and you’ve got everything you need to transform your experience of yourself - including your looks!