Have The Relationship You Want

One of my favorite books of all time is Tom Robbins” “Still Life With Watercolor” – and I just found this piece by him in a box with memories from some of the seminars I attended over the years:

From Tom Robbins:

“If you need to visualize the soul, think of it as a cross between a wolf howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark molasses.But what it really is, as near as I can tell, is a packet of information. It’s a program, a piece of hyper spatial software designed explicitly to interface with the Mystery.  Not a mystery, mind you, the Mystery. The one that can never be solved.

To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to More…

I loved this article – when I read your comments, I’ll write more about this.

For now – Sink In – no matter what you’re feeling…and let the good feelings flow with the sad feelings, the easy ones with the difficult…let it all be felt, because THAT’S where your POWER is!

Love, Rori

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2011/06/why-being-broken-in-a-pile-on-your-bedroom-floor-is-a-good-idea-julie-jc-peters/

 

I’ve been waiting awhile to publish this – I wanted to make sure I really had something here that would be meaningful and helpful for you to love yourself even more.

Over the years, I’ve discovered some healing modalities that have worked for me – to the point where I consider these people angels and that they have immeasurably improved my physical, emotional and mental life.

I’ve narrowed my list down to the top 5 healing practitioners who’ve influenced my life (not in any order):

1. Matia Brizman – Chinese medical doctor

Her world-reknowned specialty is healing Interstitial Cystitis, which is an auto-immune disease closely aligned with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Celiac, Hashimoto’s thyroid, and nearly every immune issue you can think of.

She’s a genius, true and simple, and a tireless and lovely woman devoted to her clients.  If you’re in Los Angeles and need help with any of this…let her office know I sent you. http://www.bomamed.com

2. The Feldenkrais Method

This you can find in whatever city you’re in – just google “feldenkrais your city here.”  Here in Los Angeles, I take class and private sessions with Ellen Sevy, Bridget Quibedoux, and several others. You can find Ellen at http://informotion.biz/

Everyone who teaches this anywhere in the world (and you can find a teacher even in the smallest town) is amazing.

You’ll become more graceful, more mindful, softer in every way, more aware of your body and your mind and heart, and you’ll heal your physical ailments – including back and hip and arm and assorted aches and pains.

Feldenkrais teaches you to move with total mindfulness. You pay attention to your body in new ways and start to feel like a whole – moving all together – instead of pieces and parts moving separately.

3. Dr. Nathaniel Elkins – NUCCA Chiropractic –

Dr. Elkins is the only NUCCA chiropractic practioner in Los Angeles – and he’s an absolute, total doll. Find him here (his clients call him “Dr. Nate”) http://www.nuccala.com/

I credit him and the gentle technique of NUCCA for a huge amount of physical healing for me. In September of 2009 I couldn’t walk. My leg had seized up, I was seeing everyone – MRIs, chiropractor, massage therapists, acupuncture, Pilates. Even if I tried to walk through the pain – my leg wouldn’t hold me up – it would give.

The diagnosis was arthritis in my hip referring pain to my groin – but Feldenkrais and NUCCA proved that assessment quite wrong.

Now I can walk, run – keep up – and whenever I tweak myself, I go back to Feldenkrais, Dr. Elkins – AND

4. The McKenzie Method.

I’ve known about this for ages, and so has everyone else.  And yet – you’ll be hard put to find a doctor or chiropractor who’ll use it on you, or teach you how to do it – because then they’d be out of a job.

Just get Robin McKenzie’s book – “7 Steps To…” from Amazon, do the 4 exercises it shows you – fix the way you sit in your car, in chair, at the movies (I put a rolled up blanket in my UPPER back and then lean over it, keeping my back curved at all times.

I can now drive without pain, sit without pain…and I do my McKenzie faithfully several times each day.

5. Ron Blair – Spiritual Counselor.

Ron is a practitioner at Agape Spiritual Center in Culver City. Rev. Michael Beckwith (from The Secret, yes…but he’s so much more than that)…) is Agape – and it’s a wonderful place.

I met Ron when my friend Virginia Feingold Clark took me to a Course In Miracles class there one Sunday last year, and I’ve gone to class every Sunday I can since.

Long ago, I was blessed to have an amazing “guru” in my life (who almost no one’s ever heard of ) – Dr.Donna Girard – who laid the basis for all the work I do.

Her work is still ground-breaking, unimaginably creative, and so deep. She was, for me, a true mystic. She’s gone now…and when I found Ron, I had that same feeling that I’d met someone who not only can tap into what’s really important in this universe, but can teach others to tap into it.

Ron’s in Los Angeles – and you can reach him here: rondblair@yahoo.com.  If you google him you might see him in some interviews – yet he’s extremely low profile. Being with him for 2 hours in class, and as long as I’d like in private sessions has deepened my own work, and shifted my life to even more peacefulness, fun and happiness.

If what you’re looking for is a spiritual teacher – he’s what you want.  I don’t know if he works by phone, but I imagine that would be fine with him.

I share these people with you (though there’s a huge part of me that wants to keep some of them a well-kept secret known only by me and a few others) because I want you to have what I have – even BETTER and MORE than I have. As much as you can hold!

Love, Rori

I just got a letter from Elise basically saying about this about her husband…

“Rori, He didn’t pay attention to me…we argued…he said he wasn’t a good husband and I deserved better, then he slept in the other room…I hate him. I deserve better. I am just upset Rori…I feel my husband is so selfish…he’s so in love with his friends…. I’m depressed and confused and needy. Elise”

Okay- I know if I could talk with both Elise and her husband – that would be best – but since we only have Elise to work with…I’m going to talk directly to her:

Elise, you’re going to have to make a choice.

Either you’re going to mentally and emotionally stay with this marriage and work through this rough time in the most creative and great way possible – or you’re going to bail and divorce him.

There is no middle place here – pick one. More…

Here’s my favorite Valentine’s Day post, and let’s do it together – I’ll love me and you love you, and we’ll not have expectations or ideas about the MEANING of this “occasion.” No man enters into this. It’s just between me and me and you and you, and let’s see how that works!

Okay – Valentine’s Day can thrill us or torture us. We can pretend we don’t care, or we can go into a funk, or we can enjoy what we have if we’re in a relationship or have a good date, or we can make Valentine’s Day a day of love for US.

We can make it a spa day or a manicure day, or a lunch with ourselves day, or a lunch or movie with our girlfriend’s day, or a sit home with a More…

Can you scare a good man off with your anger? Here’s the beginning of my never-ending answer:

If you’re expressing your anger, and NOT making him wrong or responsible for it, and NOT punishing yourself for it – you cannot scare any kind of man you’d want to be with.

You can only make him love you more.

And – if you’re treating yourself horribly around your anger at yourself, or if you’re attacking HIM with your anger – you may make him want to shut down and get away.

Depending on his background:

If he’s conflict-avoidant because his parents scared and upset him with constant fighting when he was small and he regularly ran away and hid – he’ll close up and want to run from conflict.

If his family was all about fighting and verbal attacking was part of the environment and he was included in the free-for-all – then he’ll get angry and punch back verbally (or physically) – and think that’s normal.

If he was the peacemaker in an angry family – he’ll try to explain what happened and calm you down and keep the peace.

If he’s an extraordinarily conscious man, he’ll quickly recognize that this isn’t personal, that you’re having issues inside yourself and throwing them at him – and he’ll clearly say to you that he hears your anger and understands it, but that he won’t tolerate being attacked or talked to that way – and to “Please observe the rules of non-violent communication by using the “I” formation.”

That said – you’ve GOT to get your anger up and out to the surface!

You’ve got to hear it inside you, you’ve got to acknowledge it, got to love and embrace it – and you have to learn how to SPEAK it!

And you have to learn how to do all this when it’s happening – or as soon as you can “catch” that it’s happening.

This is the work.

There are many ways to work through anger – Byron Katie’s “The Work” is one way – asking yourself if what you’re thinking that’s causing your anger is “true” – and my favorite part of her work – “Who would I be without that thought?” or my version I say to myself – “Who would I be if I wasn’t thinking that thought?”

Another way is to simply embrace whatever it is you’re feeling, encourage it to speak to you, encourage it to feel heard by hearing it, and then simply saying out loud what the voice is saying to you – as the “you” that’s consciously aware of the voice of anger and how it’s talking to you.

“I’m feeling angry at myself. I’m feeling angry at you. It feels like a lump in my heart and hurts right here…”

Essentially – It’s Not So Important What’s Going On That’s Made You Feel Angry, That’s Triggered You To Anger

That’s most often just stuff to be worked out, negotiated – logistics.

The most important thing to blossom a relationship into real, deep intimacy, is to be able to speak about your feelings to a man.

The honesty and openness and terrifying baring of your feelings – even your soul sometimes – is a great act of trust.

Trust of yourself – and trust of him, too. Trust of the “law” of how things are – that speaking the truth is the great healer.

I received a letter from a client who suddenly realized how angry she was.

Rage-filled, actually, and how she found herself banging pots and stomping around and berating herself and her man while she stood alone in the kitchen.

And how quiet and scary he got saying to her that he’d heard her banging around and being so angry.

She spoke to him truly, honestly, and quite brilliantly – which was a huge breakthrough for her.

I wrote her:

Pamela – I think you’re brilliant – I know it must not feel good – but everything that happened and everything you said was as great and therapeutic and appropriate as I could have coached you to do and say.

I’m thrilled to see you letting some of this huge anger out to the surface, and then be able to talk about it the way you did.

I don’t think you can scare a man off like this…you did NOTHING to attack him – you did some therapeutic noise-making, and you can frame it like that – that you’re taking acting classes soon and are working on getting out old bottled up stuff so you don’t accidentally ever take it out on anyone else, especially him.

Anger is so often about grief and the frustration of it — this is a process for you – and for him, too.

if you can work with your fear about letting all of this come out, and relax and frame it hopefully and as a great step forward, and talk about it like that – I think it can only enhance your relationship.

If a man could be scared off that easily – your life with him would be sheer misery.

Promise him you’ll always tell him the truth so he’ll never have to worry about guessing wrong…

Next time you feel that mad at yourself – go as quickly as you can to FORGIVING yourself, embracing, all that – it will help.

Our emotions and experiences need to take a back seat to our innate, natural larger view of existence. And yet – we can’t get to this big, “spiritual” place where we feel connected to everyone and everything that exists anywhere until we’ve first discovered and made grand peace with our emotions.

Love is where it’s at – and it starts within us.

Loving yourself no matter what is a bigger idea than it sounds. Letting the icky stuff be heard and seen is what we’ve spent our lives and energy PREVENTING happening – and now I’m asking you to LET it happen!

Step-by-step, we become who we really are – and the thing is – each step of the way, we have NO idea what the next step will look like!

It’s easy to get so scared of the unknown next step that we hold ourselves in harness – and then get angry about the ropes and straps tying us down.

Love, Rori

If there were no villains – and no one to blame (not even ourselves) – what would that look like?

Everyone who writes romance novels knows that to write a good heroine, she must be “flawed.”

She must be human. (Even if she’s a magical goddess.)

Human in the sense of being complex and deeply layered, and yet understandable and relatable.

Are you trying to make yourself perfect?

And more on this “villain” business: What would it FEEL like to have no one (even ourselves) to blame?

I know for myself that it feels “all at sea” sometimes to have no one to point the finger at.

It’s like coming up with a whole new vision of the world.

Without a “villain” – there’s no “right.”

There just…IS.

What do you do with your anger when there’s no one (especially yourself) to lay it on?

Love, Rori

I’m sitting here on the ground among thousands of individual rock sculptures made by thousands of people to honor the spirits of this place in Sedona.

It’s a “vortex” – and I would love to say that I could feel the change in energy as I walked further and further into it, but I sort of felt moved by the whole walk.

Is there a place nearby that you could walk to that you can feel is a “sacred space”?

Love, Rori

I have so much fun doing these interviews, and they always turn out WAY beyond my expectations, getting me involved in deep, personal discussions that turn up new Tools, new concepts, new ways to see things that can help each of us to have more love than we ever thought possible.

This one with Bobbi Palmer, coming up this week, is fantastic (and Bobbi totally walks her talk – she’s the living proof that her techniques work, and she tells us all about it in the interview).

If you’re interested in hearing Bobbi and I, just go here–>>:

Here’s a great guest post from Bobbi:

“Want to attract and start dating a confident, grounded man who will enhance your already great life?

The best way to do it is to act like a lady. Yes, that age-old scenario is still true: masculine men are attracted to feminine women.

Men want to know that they’re contributing to our lives. When a man cares about you, making you happy is his mission. If you don’t allow him this gift, chances are he will not stay. Or, if he does, he will give you what you ask for: nothing.

When I conduct workshops and talk to clients about this, women want to know exactly what being feminine means. Am I supposed to let him do things for me that I can easily do myself? Am I not supposed to disagree when he says something I think is wrong? My answer is yes…sometimes.

I know what they’re getting at when they ask these questions. These are strong, independent and smart women.

The last thing they want to do is to act like some helpless 1950′s Mad Men-style female. They’ve been working all their adult lives NOT to be that woman.

I understand their fear. But it’s not this stereotype of a woman that men today are looking for.

Being in your feminine means many things, but none of them have to do with giving up your power.

In fact, it IS your power.

Femininity means being open, kind and positive.

It means receiving gracefully and giving generously…not of material things but of your heart and your genuine self.

It means being his biggest fan and letting him feel that his efforts to please you are appreciated and welcomed.

So, yes, sometimes being a powerful, feminine woman translates into allowing a man to do things you can do for yourself and letting him be right…even when you think he’s not.

I found a fantastic example of this when talking with my hair stylist:

Sharon is a few months into a relationship with a spectacular man. They met online, started dating and have a drama-free, lovely relationship that’s moving rapidly toward marriage. She told me this great story, which is a perfect example of choosing to use your feminine power.

Sharon and her boyfriend decided to take a last-minute trip during a holiday weekend.

He told her he would plan it all and was very excited about the opportunity to do so.

After a couple days she got a text from him “So sorry sweetheart, but I can’t find anywhere to go. All sold out.”

She wanted to take a trip, so she instantly went to her computer to find a hotel.

Then she stopped.

Even though she was confident she could find a place, she decided not to. He was so excited about doing this for her and was so disappointed he couldn’t.

Sharon knew that if she was able to, he would feel embarrassed and…well…emasculated.

Sharon chose to forgo a little getaway in exchange for maintaining the loving and nurturing relationship she has developed with her devoted man.

Now that is a feminine woman holding on to a wonderful masculine man.

With Love, Bobbi

To find out more about Bobbi – to take her free “Man-O-Meter” test and read everything she writes (SO helpful!) – just go here:

http://datelikeagrownup.com/over40.