Have The Relationship You Want

I asked my friend Lisa Steadman, who’s an expert on breakup recovery, to write a post for us, and here it is:

Lately, I’ve become singularly focused. I want to help as many women as possible heal their hearts by the upcoming holiday season.

Why is this so important to me?

Because I know how energy-depleting life can be when you’re suffering from an extended case of the breakup blues.

And I also know how uplifted, energized, and empowered you can feel when you step out of the pain of the past and into your hopeful future.

Five years ago, I was in the extended throes of my Big Breakup, a misery so intense and addicting that I chose to stay stuck for a good year. During that time, I woke up to the painful truth that I hated my job, where I lived, the man I was involved with, and, in general, my life.

Not only that, but my body started breaking down. I developed tendinitis in both forearms, the kiss of death for a professional writer.

Between the emotional pain of my breakup, the physical pain of tendinitis, and the bondage of my impossible boss, I wanted to give up. I wanted to shut down.

If there had been a reboot button on my brain, I would have pushed it. Repeatedly.

But there wasn’t.

People often ask me how I found the strength to go from grieving the loss of my dysfunctionally addictive relationship, living in a condo I hated, working at my once dream job turned nightmare, in daily physical pain to the life I now lead…

Happily married, living in my dream home, with a fulfilling career as a relationship coach and best-selling author.

Here’s my simple, honest answer…

The day came when staying stuck became more painful than the idea of changing and moving on.

I can’t tell you the exact day when it happened. But it did. And within months of awakening to my truth (that staying stuck was worse than letting go and moving on), I quit my job, went cold turkey with my ex, rented out my condo, and moved to my dream neighborhood. Within a year, I met the wonderful man who is now my husband. I got my first book deal. And I started coaching women on how they, too could walk away from the pain of the past and into their beautiful future. Woohoo!

So back to my singular mission. As I look at the calendar and see that there are just four months left in 2009, I realize that anyone suffering from a broken heart has two choices right now:

- Buckle down, face the pain, and walk step by step through their healing journey
- Or hold onto their ex for dear life, stay stuck, and feel completely lost, miserable, and alone until New Year’s Eve (and into 2010)

It’s as simple as that.

And my mission is equally simple.

If you’re ready to walk away from a life that no longer works for you…

If you’re tired of heartbreak being your best friend, and instead want to step into hope, healing, and happiness…

If you want 2010 to be the incredibly blissful year you deserve, not yet another year you suffer through, because there’s no reboot button on your brain…

Then I urge you to join my mission. Heal your heart by the holidays by following these simple steps:

1. Exorcise your ex from your online and off-line life (completely!)
2. Recruit your Boohoo Crew to support you through 2009 and into 2010
3. Practice self forgiveness daily
4. Create new rituals for yourself so that you’re NOT constantly thinking I wish what’s his name was here…
5. Take your focus off of what’s next for your ex and instead put it on your own hopeful, happy, fantastic future

Lisa has a great free newsletter, and has an 8 Week Heal Your Heart TeleClass coming up. If you’d like to find out what Lisa can do for you…just go here: http://www.lisasteadman.com/breakup-bootcamp. Her promise is that by New Year’s Eve, you will have gone from Boohoo to Woohoo! I’ll be interviewing Lisa for January in my Relationship Expert Series (January is pretty much National Breakup Month…), and I know she’ll be able to help you.

Love, Rori

I just got this in my mailbox (I love these Notes From the Universe – you can get yours at www.Tut.com).

Resentment, anger, and impatience, Rori, all have their place. Actually, they’re absolutely priceless, revealing to those who feel them that there are still a few pieces of life’s puzzle they’ve overlooked.

Tallyho,
The Universe

Rori, they’re gifts, like everything else.

This is just so the core of what we’re doing…instead of judging everything and clamping down and trying to “improve” and “get it right” — we just treat everything as a messenger, as a gift – and use EVERYTHING to FEEL GOOD.

Really — we have to see all this as a “party.” There is no other way to look at our lives without falling into despair, and despair is hardly ever productive. Even when there’s pain and weirdness…accepting it, going into it, discovering the messages and lessons in it, going deeper, deeper, deeper…that’s the way to total happiness.

Love, Rori

I’ve been holding onto something for weeks. I don’t want to broach the subject, don’t want to get started. I’ve given up Mother’s Day to the mothers who’ve come before me, I’ve given up evenings of reading to work, and I’ve given up some dreams I’d forgotten for the real of everyday.

I’m not even sure where I am now. It’s like floating in-between what I thought I wanted, what I really want, and what I have. It’s like a dance from the pets to the daughter, to the husband, to the computer, to the clients, to the kitchen, to bed.

And where, I ask, looking in the mirror, toothbrush in hand, is my heart?

Where is it sitting while the files pile on the desk and then get put away, while the dog eats and the dish gets washed, while the Scrabble game sits unfinished late on Sunday?

And whose heart is it anyway, this heart of mine?

I breathe into it, this cave dwelling heart of mine. I breathe out of it. I sit down. Well, I think….and then I realize this isn’t at all about thinking.

I could live and die a thousand lifetimes of thinking and not know anything.

I can sit for one moment and feel what I feel and know everything I need to know.

Yeah, there’s a fabulous party up the hill tomorrow night. And I’d rather be here writing. Yeah, there’s a newsletter to be written, and I’d rather be at a fabulous party. Confusion, Lies, the Opposite of Peace.

Your lists can talk to you. The messenger can be anything, and the message is what you’re willing to hear.

Try this:

1. If you’re in disarray, things everywhere, in overwhelm and confusion, feeling lost and tugged on from every direction, stand in the middle of it all and stop.

Just stop cold. Go to absolute stillness.

2. Imagine all the energy circling around you, all the voices, the items on the list calling to you, your heart wanting to go one way, your mind wanting to go another.

Hear them all, feel them all.

3. Expand the energy you can handle by holding your arms out to the sides.

Imagine your energy from your fingertips expanding out so that you can literally touch the walls.

Now imagine expanding even farther, so your fingers can touch the streets in both directions. Breathe in through your heart and out through your heart, and now…

4. Drop everything into your pelvis.

Like a lead weight, drop all the voices into your pelvis while you’re still feeling as if you can touch the streets.

5. Now imagine you can touch the ocean on one side, and the mountain on another. Keep breathing.

6. Feel your boundaries as a steel cord going down from your backbone into the center of the earth, or a flower with roots going down into the earth.

7. Smack your foot into the floor and say “I’m grounded.”

8. Now ask yourself what would feel good.

If the first thing that comes to mind is walking off to the beach and leaving everything on your desk, go do that in your imagination.

*Go to the beach. Lie in the sand. Feel the sun.
*Lie down on the floor if you want to.
*Experience the pleasure of the beach.
*Fall asleep on the floor, feel the sand between your fingers. Take your time. Breathe.

9. Now ask if there’s anything else that would feel good.

It might be something from your list. Cleaning the house, straightening your desk, writing letters, returning e-mail. One thing. Whatever comes up first.

If the first thought feels bad, discard it.

10. Let the voices from all directions speak to you, and the next idea that feels good, do it. Just get up and do it.

Now, here’s the trick. While you’re doing it, if you feel yourself going back to overwhelm, racing mind, all that, do the same exercise over. Stop. Ground Yourself. Imagine the cord or the flower roots and all that energy anchoring you in your pelvis, imagine it holding you to the earth. Imagine your fingertips touching the ocean on one side and the mountains on the other.

And keep doing what you’re doing.

Stay with what you’re doing — whether it’s about paper and the computer, or doing your nails, or taking a nap.

Every time your mind takes you somewhere that doesn’t feel good, reel it back in, drop it to your pelvis, and go where it does feel good. If you’re sorting mail, and images of a fantasy weekend with an imaginary lover pop up – by all means enjoy it!

The key here is to follow the trail of what feels good.

If you work with this, things will get done. Why? Because you’ll be spending less time resisting it and more time accomplishing or enjoying it.

The messenger can come from anywhere. Now you get to discover what the message is by allowing it in.

Love, Rori

When the weather gets hot, I wilt. Too much to do, too little time. Too little energy even if I had the time.

And then, sometimes, who wants to? Can`t sort priorities, because everything is in the “important” and “urgent” columns on my to do list. There are even new entries, scrawled between the lines, with little stars next to them.

So where is love?

My husband knows how to kick back. My daughter knows how to be so immersed in what she adores doing she hardly notices the “have-tos” lying around, waiting to get done. And here I am, standing, lost, in the middle of the living room, confounded by my choices — torn between working, working, working, eating, sitting, reading…doing and hardly a blip on the screen – not doing. Even meditating or stretching is “doing.”

How do I get out of this — not tomorrow, not after trying to do everything — but right now, this second, before the possibility in the moment passes?

I stop. Yep, I`m still standing. But now I can breathe. I can see. Still can`t think straight, because so much is buzzing around inside, but I can see. I can see that I love my daughter, I love my house (messy as it is) I love my husband (relaxed as he is), but I don`t much love me. Or, at least, I`m not much acting like it.

Yeah, the dog needs washing and walking. Yeah, the papers are piled high on my desk. Yeah, it`s Sunday and I should be having fun or taking a nap. Yeah, I should be having sex. Yeah, I should be cooking so I can eat without leaving the house. Yeah.

A cat passes through my legs. I look at him. Then the dog follows. Oh. A furry procession of messengers. What`s the message they bring? Be the Kitty, I teach my clients. Purr. And yet, at this moment I don`t even know where to sit. Cats don`t purr standing. Oh….yes they do. Yes they do. And so I do. I purr.

I stand there, and purr. Too embarrassed at first, I just think the purr. Then I hum. Then I hum some more, louder. No one even looks at me. Then I hum from my heart, and everything changes.

All the mess, and all the lists fall into place. The priorities arrange themselves. I ground myself into the floor, into the core of the earth, by touching the floor with my foot. I`m already there. The room looks like love.

That`s all it takes? A moment of purring from the heart? I suppose you could call it a small chanting, an “Om.” To me it`s a purr of contentment, of being present, of speaking to the air around me that I`m ready to love, ready for love.

Try this:

1. Wherever you are, whatever you`re doing, if you feel overwhelmed, tired, burned out, confused, disappointed, stressed – go there.

Be in and with the stress and overwhelm for long enough to acknowledge you feel it. (Pretending you don`t feel yucky never works – stay away from that if you can.) Acknowledge that the list exists, the time is short, you wish things were different. Go into how you feel long enough to feel it.

2. Now take a breath. No big deal, just a breath to start up your breathing again.

3. Now touch the floor with your foot to let yourself know you`re grounded in the earth.

4. Now lean back a bit, open your hands to the room, the air, the person in front of you, the list on the desk.

5. Let all the buzzing in your head drop down. Let it drop like an apple from a tree. Let it drop into your pelvis.

6. Now relax every muscle of your pelvis. Relax from the bottom up.

7. Now purr.

Imagine you`re a kitty out in the sun, and purr from your heart. Breathe in and out through your heart, and purr. And then…

8. Look for the next message.

It may come from your head, your heart, your friend, your lover, your child, your dog. And it may come from the person walking behind your car when there`s no one else in the parking lot. Or the person reaching for the same soup can you are, when there`s no one else in the market.

Look at the messenger. Purr.

Ah, but what`s the message? Well — you have to ask yourself that question.

You have to turn to the person standing next to you and wonder (maybe even speak out loud) What`s this about? How is this person here, standing next to me in an empty market? You may or may not get an answer, but that`s not the important part.

The important part is to look at the person, the cat, the dog, and notice them.

The important part is to Ask Yourself.

Love, Rori