22 Feb 2013

Intimate-Compassionate Conversation and Shadow

by | posted in: Compassion, Compassionate Conversation, Conflict Resolution | 0

Entering into intimate/sexual space with others requires an awareness in communicating our thoughts to others without shaming or blaming the other.  It also requires a compassionate effort in receiving others communications which are directed towards us that may not be complimentary or feel good.  How we choose to express ourselves and receive feedback has an effect in how we develop intimacy in our relationships.  What happens when we communicate something to someone and it winds up hurting their feelings or even triggering an old wound in them?  What do we do when we are receiving a communication that hurts our feelings or triggers an old wound in us and winds up hurting?

want_to_be_heardOne of my deepest and most intimate relationships is challenging me in all of these areas.  I get concerned that no matter how much I wordsmith my words they will be received in a way which will not be heard the way in which I intended…and it happens time and time again…I think that is only human nature and nature of language.  I have no control over how my words will be received by someone else, no matter how hard I try to put the right words together to convey my thoughts.  My heart needs to stay open when I face into a difficult communication, keep my armor down and be as vulnerable as I can in my expression.  Then what happens?  Sometimes what happens is what I’m saying triggers a defensiveness, hurt feelings or an old wound where my communication is not received as the open hearted communication in which it was intended and something else was heard in my words which I did not intend.  It’s a beautiful and challenging place where conflict meets compassion.  The choice I choose to make is NOT to go into a place where I feel I must continue to get my point across, rather, to hold the other in their hurt feelings and triggered space.  For me, being able to hold others in their hurt, anger, disappointment and resistance is more important than to hammer home my point.

Being able to sit in others’ triggered or hurt feeling space after my communication not being heard the way I wanted it to triggers an old pattern that lurks in the shadows of never being heard by my family when I was a child.  This feeling of never being heard has been so ingrained in me over and over again during my formative years.  The thing is, I know the history of that wound, have sat for hours and hours in therapists offices working through that wound and yet it continues to show up time and time again, especially around the ones I love the most.  What I realized, is that by knowing this core childhood wound I can choose to respond from a compassionate and powerful place instead of going into a place of defense or blame scenario.  I don’t want to be responding from a wounded place and understanding the pattern and history helps me make the choice to stay in the relational with others even when I’m not being heard in the moment and being triggered by it.  I want to take full responsibility for my feelings or how I got to those feelings in the moment, so I do not default to the lowest common denominator of myself.

I am a person who loves to explore the shadows of my inner psyche and continue to find a great deal of personal awareness in doing so.  It has opened up an intuitive side of me which allows me to see inside someones possible shadows which keeps them stuck in their lives.  I’m working with my own self worth, shame and guilt shadows in my own life and have been willing to take INSPIRED ACTION in order to move through them by recognizing where these issues have come from and what I have to do to not react from those wounded places.  When I work with people, whether it’s in my personal life or my professional life, I always encourage them to do their own shadow work to make the changes they want to see in their lives.

The question I am sitting with is this…Does the understanding of our core wounding help us understand and deal with the feelings that come up in the moment so we can respond from compassion and not an angry or defensive place?  Or, does understanding our core wounding not matter as long as we can make the choice to respond from compassion and not our hurt feelings?

My current belief is that by understanding and accepting these childhood core wounds we can respond from our adult compassionate side and not from our defensive childhood shadows that keep us out of the relational process which we desire more than anything in our lives.

16 Feb 2013

Non-Ejaculation Practice For Men

by | posted in: Ejaculation Control, Full Body Orgasm, Premature Ejaculation | 0

to-control-premature-ejaculationAfter a conversation with a beautiful new friend last night I became aware of how important it is for me to share with the world my practice of non-ejaculation and the reasons I choose this practice. This practice started when I was a teenager. The desire to be the best lover for my partners and be able to provide as much pleasure that was available drove me to this discipline. I remember trying to delay my ejaculation as long as I could with lovers so they were able to experience the most pleasure in our lovemaking. I knew I needed to practice this outside partner engagement and began doing so during my self-pleasure practice as well. I never felt I had a problem with premature ejaculation and I realize in our culture it is something men struggle with. There are proven healthy techniques for ejaculation control which have potential for healing men that struggle with premature ejaculation.

When I first found my sexuality at a young age, I loved the feeling of my ejaculation and like most young boys got attached to my ejaculation practice and the oxytocin hit that it gave me. Just like a drug addict gets hooked on the feeling the drug produces, I got hooked on the oxytocin hit. I think this is natural for young people, both men and women, as they begin to explore their sexuality from the basis of a purely biological standpoint. There is also a distinct separation between orgasm for women and for men. Women have the potential for a wonderful experience that can lead to orgasm after orgasm, and men, on the other hand typically have the one ejaculation orgasm and then are known for falling asleep. Of course not all women are multi-orgasmic and not all men fall asleep after orgasm, I just had to give a voice to the stories. As I grew older, I realized that my habits around my ejaculation practice were not serving myself and my relationships anymore. I couldn’t “get it up” like I used to several times a day and wanted to experience something else in my sexual life.

As I grew up and out of my teenage years and my twenties, my relationships with lovers and my body changed. I started to notice what it was like to carry an erotic “buzz” or “charge” in my body by not ejaculating as regularly as I did when I was younger. In addition to the amazing energy I felt in my body, this practice was also full of discomfort and my own self created drama and I was not sure why. The only thing I can come up with is a purely biological explanation. As men, we are genetically programmed to spread our seed in order for the world to be populated with our first rate genes. Going against that biological drive and programming and holding my ejaculation brought up much resistance, emotion and discomfort. Lot’s of internal dialogue telling me how different I was which had the potential of separating myself from connections and keep me in isolation. I was not going to allow my negative self talk to dictate my desires.

I had no idea what else was out there and what I did know was that I wanted to change my relationship to my sexuality so I can experience more pleasure. Then I had an “awakening” of sorts. I was at a workshop and experienced what it was like to be in a highly aroused state for an extended period of time and not ejaculate. During that time I experienced what it was like to have full body orgasms and not ejaculate. The feeling in my body was so incredibly pleasurable and exciting to experience and I wanted to learn and experience more. This began my journey into the realm of Joseph Kramer, The Body Electric, Sacred Intimacy, Tantra and Sexological Bodywork. I was hungry to learn all I could with the intention of bringing my fullest self into my relationships, into my life and ultimately into the world.

ejaculation_control_techOver time, the relationship I have to my ejaculation practice continues to change and morph regularly. I have experimented with days/weeks of masturbation without ejaculation, days/weeks of partner engagement and partner sex without ejaculation and even up to 90 days of non-ejaculation. The 90 day practice was not in attempt to be celibate, I was sexually active with myself and my partner. At first I experienced LOTS of discomfort as my body tells me to do one thing that my mind is not in agreement with it. I still experience this dilemma while the discomfort has lessened over time being in this practice. What’s different today is the discipline that I choose to engage in and practice in my life. When I am in the practice of non-ejaculation I experience a fullness of presence in my life that I’ve not experienced before. I am able to be highly present with people in my life in such a way that let’s them know how much I care about and love them, a relentless non-distracted energy.

What I’ve also noticed is that when I choose to ejaculate after a period of non-ejaculation, I’ve experienced a significant decrease in my energy and presence for my life. I’ve been left feeling sad, depressed and with a lack of motivation. In order to be with the possibility of these feelings I decided to develop a ritual around the conscious decision to ejaculate in order to honor myself and the amazing gift I’ve been given to be in my body, this discipline and being able to make the choice.

After hearing all of this, there will be some of you concerned about what you might find on the internet claiming that not ejaculating is detrimental to my health. There has been no American Medical Association, scientific or medical studies that says it is unhealthy to be in a non-ejaculation practice. In fact, what I’ve learned is that the practice of ejaculation control through breath and muscle contractions is the healthy way to go should someone choose to go that way. However, it is not healthy to place pressure on the pelvis, genitals or anywhere on the body to control ejaculation, it must be done through conscious breathing and conscious muscle contraction/release to be a healthy practice. As you can see in this image, the natural control technique has the highest percentage of improvement over time.

My belief is that when men get into a non-ejaculatory practice they develop more of their ability to be with what is, getting less attached to taking a “right” position, they become less goal oriented, become more present in their bodies and develop a fullness of presence to be with themselves and their relationships. I’ve developed a passion to work with men develop this part of themselves through conscious work around sexuality which keeps me moving forward in my practice and my work with others.

20 Jan 2013

There Is No Conflict Between What You Want & What The World Wants

by | posted in: Ask For What You Want, Conflict Resolution | 0

There is a conversation in my men’s circles around speaking your truth without shame or blame and asking for what you want.  I believe there is an innate desire in men to take care of the people around us, in our families, in our work, in our relationships and all around us.  We become care takers to the people that mean the most to us by being generous with our love, our money and all of our resources before we consider what it is that we want and actually put our desires out there as we are generously offering our love and assistance to others.

Ask for what you wantWhat then happens when we don’t speak our truth, our desires and what it is that we actually want for our own lives?  There are lots of possibilities…one possibility is that we stray from the people who mean the most to us because we get afraid of speaking our truth.  Fear kicks in and tells us we will never be able to get what we want even if we ask for it because of how past history played out.  Shame could kick in and tell us that what we want is so far out of the ordinary that the only response from others will be rejection.  We might look for our desires and needs to be met elsewhere in secrecy and in betrayal to the others whom trust us the most because we want to avoid the difficult task and facing into the mystery of what might happen after we speak our truth.

I stand in my own difficulty of speaking my truth and asking for what I want at times.  Especially in the face of losing BIG love…I honor the difficulty of stepping up to the plate to speak my truth.  If I speak my truth will you still be there for me or will you shame me for what I want?  Will you take on my truth as a criticism of yourself and get defensive, leaving me feeling unheard?  Will I be left alone and abandoned?  Will I continue to fear the potential damage which could result from living my life the way I want to by speaking my truth and what I want?  Will I continue to allow fear to rule the roost?

I will re-commit over and over again to speak my truth, without shame or blame, because what I want for myself and what the world wants…there is no conflict.  The only conflict is the story I create in my own mind which keeps me separated from the world and feeling alone…which keeps me from becoming the man I want to become…which keeps me from expressing and receiving the love that I already know is out there in me and for me.

 

5 Jan 2013

Embracing Change Through Loving Well

by | posted in: Embrace Change, Loving Well | 0

I want to start this off by dividing change into two categories. First is the change that we put forth in our lives, consciously and willingly. Secondly, there is the change that happens in which we do not take an active role in producing. I love it when I want to change something in my life and it comes to fruition, like a job/career move or remodeling my home, but when I got laid off from a job or my roof starts leaking, putting change in action which I have not started in the forefront, I can (and do) get upset about it.

change_model
Change Model

The easy part of the conversation here is the desired change and the change we put into motion in our lives. It can be so good and lovely and at the same time scary but we are in charge of it. We only have to deal with ourselves and our own emotions. How can we stay in this continual transformation process through all the emotions, positive and negative? Having compassion for ourselves when the times get difficult is a key part of this personal change process. Staying with the discomfort because the only way to the other side is “through”.

Let’s add the next element…relationship. We love the people that are in our lives and want to support them in their journey on this planet. Our lives revolve around relationship, we come together in relationship..familial, work, love, friendship and develop a desire to love and support the other in their own personal growth, which means change. One of my teachers, Marc Gafni, defines love as ‘The consistent commitment to the growth of the other through regular and spontaneous acts of giving”. How can we love the people in our lives when they are growing/changing and at the same time triggering something and threatening our egoistic self? It can be a difficult situation when we feel the other person pull away from the way things are and desire something different in our relationship. The story is changing, the path is rerouting and fear wants to move in.

let_life_have_youWhere does this fear come from? The fear shows up in both our personal desired changes and the changes that happen around us. Ego annihilation is knocking at the doorstep and we forget how much we want to love these people in our life when they are changing the parameters of our relational agreements. How quickly we forget what the definition of love meant (as mentioned above) when our self protection mechanism is activated because our ego wants to keep us safe from the potential loss of our true self. So we give in to protecting ourselves and forget our commitment to loving well. My friend Carrie said it perfectly…”The core to growth is really facing the idea that something can some how be annihilated..in truth..our perfected natural true self will never be touched…its amazing to grow with that”.

I invite everyone to embrace the change in our personal lives and in our relationships, and facing into the difficulty this change could bring. The earth and the human race on this planet is constantly changing and the only real option is to encourage, support and surrender to it. So face into your fear because you cannot lose the nature of your true self and, most importantly, remember your commitment to compassion and loving well!

1 … 35 36 37 38 39

Leave a Reply