Have The Relationship You Want

This is my eletter for today — wanted to print it here, too – in case you’re new to me and just found me here on the blog…

I have a New Year’s Resolution for us all this year – and that resolution is: NO MORE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS!

It just feels all wrong to me.

A “Resolution” seems like something I’d write down for myself to do – or TELL myself to do – that I just DON’T WANT to do.

Like never eating chocolate. Or walking a certain distance or exercising a certain way every day.

The moment my brain hears that “have to” attached to the “resolution” I can FEEL it grating in my mind.

I feel ANNOYED.

And yet, there are so many things I want for myself that I want to find some way to mark them down and get them for myself.

Does this sound familiar to you?

So, what is it YOU want?

If you’re like I was when my relationships weren’t going the way I wanted them to, what you want more than anything is to love, to be loved, and live in “Happy Ever After” forever.

You’ve made “Resolutions” and plans, and suffered and tried to make things happen.

After years of trial-and-error, I finally DID get what I wanted – Happy Ever After. And so can you.

And I’d like to get it for you so much FASTER than the years it took me.

So, if “Resolutions” don’t feel right – what would work better?

One of my favorite words, the one that gets me into an easy, receiving, and yet active and just plain good-feeling place is the word “Intend.”

If I “Intend” to do something or have something, the feeling of it is more than a wish, and yet not a real “have to.”

It just means, if I so CHOOSE, I can do that thing or have that thing.

And the nasty voice in my head stays much quieter when I “Intend” instead of “Resolve.”

New Year’s Eve, about 3 months before my husband proposed, was not a happy time for me.

In fact, at the stroke of midnight, dressed up in party clothes and hoping for a lifelong commitment to come out of my then “live-in boyfriend’s” mouth, what I got from him instead was the “I’m not ready” speech.

Instead of “I love you” and let’s get married, I got “I’m not ready.”

I remember being devastated, furious, and half- crazy with confusion.

All I could think was “What do I do now?” Hardly a great time for a resolution.

What I “resolved” at that moment was “To get him to commit to me,” and all that did was push him further away for about a month.

When I finally realized that what I was doing to bring this man – a man I’d been SO SURE of – closer to me and closer to wanting to commit to me, I tried something different.

Instead of “resolving” anything, I just told myself that I’d be OKAY. No matter what.

I see now that I’d “set an Intention” to be “Okay.”

It wasn’t a huge statement to make to myself, but it was all I could manage.

And it was enough to get me started in the right direction.

It got me to Intend to DO some things for MYSELF that would help me be – not just Okay – but sensational, terrific, thrilled, happy, and married.

So, let’s try this new Tool for New Year’s: THE FUTURE LETTER

Instead of “Resolving” to get your relationship on track and do what it takes to get him across the finish line or to find that special, perfect man who’s right for you, let’s make it as if it’s really, already happened!

Let’s write a Future Letter to ourselves.

Here’s how:

Get out a piece of paper, or on your computer’s fine.

Date this letter one year from now – New Year’s 2010.

You’ll be writing this letter to yourself (or write to ME if you’d like – I’ll read it and hold the space for you to have this fabulous year you’re going to write about)…so you’ll start with “Dear (your name) or Dear Rori…

Now, think of exactly what you want for yourself in this next year, and exactly how it’s going to go – EVERYTHING you want.

Write about money – write EXACTLY how much money you want coming in every month, where that money will be coming from, and EXACTLY how you’re going to spend it.

Don’t be stingy with your imagination here – make it a LOT of money, but something your brain will see as DO-ABLE, not just a fantasy.

Make it a high salary for someone with your kind of job, and make it a job in an environment you enjoy…

Make it up so it feels GOOD.

And then write about all the LOVE, ROMANCE AND RELATIONSHIP you want to experience in 2010.

And let’s set another rule here for that – let’s make it about the BIG PICTURE.

Instead of making it about the boyfriend you have who’s causing you pain now, or the man you have a crush on who isn’t paying you enough attention now, or your husband who’s going through some hard times and making your life unhappy now – let’s make it about what would feel GOOD.

How does that look for you?

Make it about a man with a movie star face – not a specific man, but imagine how it is he holds you – how he touches you, what his face looks like when he smiles at you.

Imagine getting attention and love without WORKING for it.

Imagine getting great sex AND friendship – all together instead of just one or the other.

Imagine feeling respected and loved, and imagine feeling SECURE and COMMITTED.

And as you’re imagining all this, now comes the IMPORTANT PART:

I want you to imagine that this has ALREADY HAPPENED!

You’ve dated the letter a year from now, so I want you to write about all this great stuff as if you’re looking BACK at how it happened and how it felt while it was happening, and how it feels NOW to have EXACTLY what you want.

Write about other things, too.

Write about the FUN you had – perhaps you went on a vacation with your wonderful man.

Perhaps you got a financial bonus from work, or your business took off and got so much more successful, or you got the job you always wanted.

Perhaps your self-esteem took a huge leap and you can see how your confidence has been building over this year you’re writing about.

Perhaps a phenomenal man just dropped from the sky, knew you were the one for him right away, and it’s been heaven-on-earth ever since.

Perhaps you were surprised, out-of-the-blue, by a proposal for the totally committed relationship you’ve always wanted.

Perhaps all health issues have cleared up, all depression’s gone, and you can look back over this year and hear your own self LAUGHING.

I’m going to write my own letter today, and paste it on my office wall to remind me every moment that this is the life I EXPECT to have in the coming year – because this is the way it has – in my letter – ALREADY HAPPENED.

I’m going to write about YOU, and how you’ve had an incredible year, and how you’ve found a magnificent, committed relationship so fast, and how amazing it feels to me to know I’ve helped you in some way, and that we’ve been able to talk, you and I, through your emails and my eletters and programs.

This might sound like a fantasy exercise, but the truth is – our brains don’t know the difference.

If we tell ourselves that something is true – and especially if we WRITE it down – our minds believe it just as if it IS true.

That’s how we all mow down our self-esteem by telling ourselves icky things about ourselves.

Our minds believe the icky thoughts, and then our confidence goes down the tubes, and then those things we only TOLD ourselves were true start to LOOK true in our lives.

If we tell ourselves we don’t deserve any more love and commitment than we’re getting right now – we tend to attract and be attracted to men who WON’T be giving us the love and commitment we want and actually DO deserve.

If we tell ourselves we don’t deserve any more love and commitment than we’re getting right now – we tend to push away any love our man DOES want to give us, and then everything in the relationship gets worse.

And why do we all tend to do this? To sell ourselves short and undermine our own success?

Because we’ve been TAUGHT to do life this way. We’ve been told things like “Don’t get your hopes up.”

And we’ve been told that having dreams and believing they’ll come true is “stuck up,” and being “conceited,” and that we need to “get over ourselves.”

We’ve been told we’re “lucky” to have a man.

That good man are “few,” and that good relationships are “hard.”

We’ve been taught to have low expectations so that we don’t disappoint ourselves.

Even when we catch ourselves imagining that something will turn out great – we stop ourselves.

As if believing in ourselves and that we can have EXACTLY what we want in life and in our relationship isn’t the right way to think.

And all that is just WRONG.

The TRUTH is just the opposite.

The more you believe in yourself, the greater your chances for having what you want.

We all know how awful it feels when we have high hopes for something that doesn’t work out.

Like when we REALLY like that man we went out with and can practically see ourselves in our wedding dress, and then he never calls again.

When these things happen, we sometimes blame not only ourselves for not sewing up the man – but we blame even the DESIRE for those things.

As if it was the WANTING of those things that made it all go bad.

And that’s NOT what happened.

What helps make things go bad is the “vibe” we create around our wanting of that thing – and when that vibe starts to feel like desperation and need – like “I have to have that man or I’ll die,” or “If he doesn’t call again, I’ll be destroyed,” THAT’S how we can sabotage ourselves.

So, what the man who’s been dating you for days, or weeks, or months or years “gets” from you can be either your HIGH opinion of yourself, along with your DESIRE for the part or for a relationship, or your LOW opinion of yourself, along with your NEED for the part or for HIM.

And which one do you think is most likely to get you what you want?

So with this Future Letter, you’re telling yourself that: Not only is it OKAY to dream BIG and want what you want, but that dreaming BIG is the WAY to GET what you want.

So tell it all.

Make it like a script to a movie about your year that you’ve ALREADY SEEN.

Make your movie a triumph of personal power and confidence.

On the day you date this letter – January 1st 2010 – make it so it’s all already happened.

Look back on 2009 and see all the steps you took to make it happen, all the Rori Raye Tools you used and how they worked for you like magic.

See yourself HAPPY every step of the way.

I’ll be writing my Future Letter tonight, and would love to read yours, too.

Remember to make it GOOD! And remember to write it as though it’s all already happened, just the way you want it.

Love to you, and the next time we talk, we’ll both be living in this great, new, beautifully imagined and ALREADY SUCCESSFUL new year.

Love, Rori

Here’s a comment from la la land that brought up how we fight our emotions and actually cause ourselves more pain…and how to get out this endless cycle…

“Rori, i suffered all night because i resisted a feeling. again.
this time it was my oldest friend the jealousy train. i hate feeling that so i resisted as much as i could.
this hurts. [just like resisting pain when giving birth] well i must acknowledge it to go past it, so here it is:
i felt jealous about the ‘action’ he had when i came home: email, telephone calls etc.
before i left he kissed me in such a powerful way [i melted]. on my return he ignored me completely and was exited and overworked about someone else [a lady friend? his ex? his work? he doesn't tell].
i felt like a total loser, i tried to do my own things repeating to myself take your focus off him, focus on yourself. it didnt help.
i lost into not sleeping all night, not knowing how to go past what i felt. i did not let go and sinked, i feared and resisted, and the monster grew and grew. my vibe in my head was so loud my husband said he felt like the alarm clock was ringing but he couldnt turn it off. where did i go wrong?

today he left for few days. i want to feeling message the event to get it over with, any tips?

Here’s my answer:

There’s so much in this comment.

First – about pain. la la land’s metaphor about giving birth, and resisting the pain making it hurt even worse – is SO right on!

There’s a whole field df medicine devoted to pain relief without drugs…I have a book myself…it’s a process of relaxing into the feeling…bit by bit by bit. it takes focus and will and determination. That’s why in childbirth classes there are actually techniques involved that you practice doing.

The Bradley method, when I had my daughter 20 years ago – was all about this.

Most people were doing Lamaze techniques, which focused on breathing and other ways to reduce or tolerate the pain – but the Bradley method was just about sinking INTO it. It was about flowing with the pain, and continually focusing on giving love to the baby working so hard to get out.

Emotions are the same this way…there’s some truth working to get out, and we resist it, because it hurts in the process. If we surrender to the pain of the birth of the emotion…we sink into it…it flows so much faster and more smoothly. (Of course, like everything else, it’s not a perfect analogy –there are always unusual circumstances…but let’s just say as an IDEA, and as an image for you to work with – this works.

What happened for you, la la, was actually monumental, and I want to wrap my arms around you, and encourage you to embrace yourself 24/7.

You NOTICED what was going on. You KNEW you were fighting. You TRIED to not fight.

Now…here’s where my Tools come in handy.

it’s easy for someone like me to say…Don’t fight your feelings. Surrender. Sink in…

But the DOING of it requires going against everything you know, everything you believe, everything you’ve ever done, and everything your own body wants you to do and is frightened of NOT doing.

That’s why my baby-step Tools.

Next time you feel yourself stuck on the Jealousy train, or the obsession train, or in a whirlpool of thought – and you just know you’re resisting a deeper, painful feeling….use Tools.

You can start by – Touching objects.

*Walk around the room.

*Feel textures and surfaces and get into the sensation of things – soft, hard…feel the way your HAND feels touching these things.

*Go outside and stare at a leaf for awhile…trace it’s lines carefully and make it an experience.

*Imagine yourself in a bathtub, and play with the imaginary water.

There are so many ideas you can come up with on your own…and so many tried-and-tested Tools in my programs – starting with the Sensual Meditation from the ebook would be helpful…so you don’t have to sit there and battle it out with yourself.

There are things you can DO – heaven knows we’ve all used the contents of the refrigerator and the ice cream bucket for this in the past…now use Tools that help you.

I know you all will help here…if you have my programs, throw out some Tools that have helped you from them…Like the

*Driving the Car Tool from Commitment Blueprint or the

*Jet Plane from the Toolkit.

Sometimes breathing works great, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes focusing on allowing the feeling to come up works, and sometimes it intensifies the resistance.

This is why the Tools work — they’re completely different.

Your body and mind doesn’t relate a Tool in which you relate to a silk flower or a dust ball on the floor as threatening – and that’s why they work…

Let me know what works for you for sleepless nights and anxiety…and we’ll have a resource page here.

If you know the program you got it from, let us know that, too. I’m working on a “curriculum” of Tools and what they’re for from all the programs…until I put that together…let’s put the help out here any way we can…

Love, Rori

I’m feeling this now, and so I wanted to write it down quick and see if what helps me helps you…

Sometimes you just feel…sad. You feel it deep in your bones.

It can almost be a lovely, poetic feeling. And if you work it in a way that works for you…you can almost feel it shimmer, in and out, with appreciation for just being here at all, and a bit of joy when you notice your surroundings in a clearer, crisper way.

Sadness has a way of making things …crisp.

For me, the trick of being with sad is as much about what I stop doing as what I do. I know, most of all, that if I resist, if I pull back, if I stuff down, if I ‘m busy and need to get on with things and so I push my sad aside to keep going and put a smile on my face I don’t feel, or a quickness in my walk I don’t feel – my sad gains energy and speed and everything gets skewed and distorted and tense.

And that’s how I usually notice my sad…I notice what my resistance to sad looks like. If sad is a sort of general feeling – generalized like anxiety and dread – where it’s just a feeling, and you have to search around in your brain for the source and the trigger..I like to keep it there. Soft and general.

The moment I try to figure out where it’s coming from…it changes. sometimes a good-feeling change, sometimes an intensifying, bad-feeling change. I’ve noticed that if I simply ask myself what I’m sad about …sometimes the answer is…well…I’m missing this…missing that, a little grief, a little sorrow…a little guilt, a little anger…and that can be helpful.

If I move to — he did this and she did that, and why did they do that? – then I lose it. I lose that lovely sense of FEELING something, and I’m in my head, where the marbles are bouncing around and nothing gets rewired correctly or sifted finely, or tuned up.

The first thing is that long ago I made an intellectual decision that my feelings are important. In fact, that my feelings are the crucial part of me, they are my compass, they are the clue to what’s going on with me. I’ve agreed with myself on all levels that my feelings and sensations are the way my body and heart and mind and the world, too – talk to me…and that it’s my best means of communication with everything that’s important.

From there…I can work through things, analyze, figure out, WITHOUT BLOCKING the constant clues my emotions and sensations are giving me.

I’ve decided that my feelings and sensations never lie. That they are the pathway between my waking life and my dream life, between my consciousness and my subconscious, that they are what makes me like everyone else, and what keeps me in touch with everyone and everything else.

I’ve decided that they are holy. Sacred.

And that they are not the FINAL DECIDERS of my ACTIONS…they are simply the bond that holds me together and connects up my spirit to my humanness.

So – I never disparage my feelings. I always go to them. I use my emotions as the check and balance system for my thoughts and actions.

So Here’s how I am with my sad:

1. I feel something slowing me down and fogging my body. It feels like a film over my happiness, like a weight on my heart. Feels like a stone somewhere in my torso. A stone that turns the rest of me to stone, slowly. I can feel the creeping of stone in my body. OR

I feel myself hyper-vigilant. I feel my neck and my throat operating at full speed, like they’re the only parts of my body I’m aware of. The only parts of my body I’m in touch with. The only ones working. They’re taking over for the rest of my body, which I now notice is numb because I don’t want to feel. I’m thinking, hard…and then I notice that my shoulders hurt.

They ache from effort, and then they ache from Sad.

That’s when I know I’m blocking a feeling I don’t want to have. I’m trying to get on with the show in the wrong order. I’m about to be one of those actresses who “indicate” a feeling” instead of feeling it and letting us see and feel it, too. I’m about to be “perky.” “Upbeat.”

2. I stop whatever I’m doing.

If I’m walking the dog, I stop. If I’m typing, I stop. If I’m thinking, I stop. If I’m exercising or stretching or meditating, I stop. If I’m cooking or washing dishes or in the shower and soaping up – I stop.

I stop looking for things, stop figuring things out, stop everything.

3. I listen.

Sometimes I listen to the sounds of life outside my head – the breeze, the leaves, the dogs, the children, the cars, the airplanes, the music from cars, the buzz from machines and the hum from my computer.

Sometimes I listen to my body, inside. Sometimes it’s yelling something that sounds like a plea to me. Sometimes it’s screaming “Watch!” Sometimes it’s screaming “Here!” Sometimes it’s screaming “No!”

Sometimes it’s my head – trying to drown out all the other sounds, trying to get my attention, trying to win something, trying to stop the process I’m sinking into because it has it’s own agenda to “protect” me from growing or changing or feeling.

4. I allow myself to circle and bounce between all the voices, all the sounds. I let it all “fuzz out.” I stop the spinning of my brain and the thinking stuff by not focusing on it…I still let it scream if it wants to.

I don’t fight anything.

I don’t choose a reality. I allow myself to sink into a place of “unreality” – where nothing is certain, nothing is sure, and nothing is right. This helps me stop analyzing and using my brain. Plenty of time for that later…

5. I open my eyes.

I look around. I look down, and up , and around. I feel where I am in space, how I fit with everything around me…and in the process…I start to notice things. I notice how the sounds are connected up to the visuals – the trees actually have shapes. They are actually alive. ..

6. I feel…

I just let it all settle into my body and my heart and let things pop up and out. It’s like a shimmering feeling for me…(please let me know what it feels like for you…)

And now the feelings start to “morph.” When I notice that a tree is alive…I feel something different. The sad morphs to a connected feeling, to a moment of happiness, then back to sad, then…to…and suddenly, sometimes I’ll feel that underneath the sad is something else – like rage, or guilt, or fear…and then pictures come into my head, and then I start to want to explore with my brain, and then I start to analyze…and so I go back through the steps:

I stop, I listen, I open my eyes, I feel…and then….

I start to feel…bored.

Bored with my sad, with my rage, my fear…and I can feel my body get all…well, “antsy.” I start itching to DO something. Something FUN. So..

7. I Channel…

If I’m walking, I’ll start to hop or run.

I’ll go touch a tree and stretch my body on it, talking to it…

I’ll write down an idea, clean a drawer, brush my teeth….

And…I do this all day long if I’m in a place where sad keeps popping up…and in transitional times, when things are changing, even when things are getting BETTER – Sad likes to come up. I like to think of it as a way of saying “Goodbye” to old things. We don’t always even know what those things are, but our bodies and hearts do…and we’re always saying good by to one moment and hello to another.

I like to feel this sense of movement, from one moment into the next – and there’s just no way it can’t be “sad” sometimes. For me, being with my sad is just a part of being with me, and that’s how I get to feel my joy, my bliss, my pleasure, my pink-flushed face from good feelings and knowing that my body’s got a rhythm I can listen to.

That rhythm, that movement, that willingness to feel – is how I stay out of “stuck.”

Let me know how this works for you…

Love, Rori

My brilliant and incredibly emotionally stable daughter Gemma has been struggling, undiagnosed, with hypoglycemia for years and years. We thought it was migraines…and that was bad enough – but it was never that bad, and we never had sweets and cookies around our house, so she always ate fairly well.

But things change. Sometimes, when things go out-of-balance in our bodies – hormones, the good bacteria/bad bacteria balance – things get worse. This summer it all got worse for Gemma, and now, with a real diagnosis, a couple of books and the brilliance and fortitude that is Gemma (and the help of my Chinese Medical doctor) she’s reversing the downward spiral, taking control of her life and her body, and regaining her body’s balance – and the balance of her blood sugar. She’s getting well, and becoming an expert at hypoglycemia and weathering the roller-coaster of recovery from the hypoglycemia roller coaster at the same time

So, when I talk with a client or read a letter, the first thing I think of is that delicate balance of our physical selves and how easy it is to create all kinds outcomes based on what our bodies are doing inside. How our minds and emotions are so keyed into the rhythms of our bodies. And the other way around, too…

We can so heal ourselves in so many ways. Studies are done now about how happiness effects our health. How laughing cures. How we are so profoundly effected by the level of happiness and health of our closest friends (not family – but friends, isn’t that interesting?). And how illness, no matter how subtle and barely noticeable, can affect our moods and energy.

So – let’s get back to our “no sugar” challenge – prompted by this short P.S. to a letter I just received…

“”…PS I need to work on eating healthy if you have any suggestions. Can’t stay away from the sweets no matter what I try. I know a lot of other women have this problem especially when our relationships are crashing. 5’3″ – 145 lbs.”

Okay – is this a problem for many of you?

Because sugar is POISON. Forget the pounds, forget how you “look.”

Let’s even forget about the general term “health” – because that means something different to each of us.

Let’s frame this sugar thing into something that’s meaningful for each of us – specifically and uniquely.

For me – sugar means pain. Literally. My bladder starts to burn, my head gets foggy, I slump. Even an apple not eaten around protein can do this to me – because my system is already so sensitive. So – sugar is about beating up my sensitive self.

When I look at it that way – it’s no wonder I’ve been able to stay away from sugar (even fruit) for years now. Pain is a stronger pressure on me than the pleasure of tasting sugar. (I’ve also discovered that SMELLING cake, cookies, even fruit does the trick sometimes, when my system is a bit out of whack (weather, hormones, seasons can do that to any of us…) and I’m craving it (not very often, thankfully).

In my wonderful interview with Rose Cole a few months back, we talked about the link between sugar and hormones and depression…and that was a wake up call for many of you – and the way Rose framed that was helpful. So if your pain is depression, and not physical aches and pains (though depression can be a physical achey thing, too…) – that might be enough of a motivation for you.

But here’s the thing – most of us are so USED to pain, so comfortable with emotional and physical pain and discomfort – that we feel WEIRD without it! We feel odd being in a pleasurable place. Some of us have so seldom even EXPERIENCED pleasure, pleasure itself isn’t much of a motivator for change.

Sometimes it’s avoiding the pain that’s the motivator.

Thing is – WE ALL WORK DIFFERENTLY! We all work off of both avoidance and pleasure. We all respond to both “carrots and sticks” – the carrot being the dangling pleasure reward, and the stick being the feared pain and humiliation.

But – most of us respond PRIMARILY to EITHER a carrot or a stick.

If pain was a constant in our lives, we are confused all the time, because pain FEELS like BOTH a carrot and a stick. In other words, emotional pain feels like the way a reward is supposed to feel. Pain feels like love. Because that’s the association we grew up with.

If you had a lovely childhood, you might respond mostly to carrots…following the good feelings more naturally, and not worrying too much about the bad. And so…when you get snockered by heartbreak or physical pain…it’s so foreign to you it can do you in. You feel like you can’t cope.

So – whatever our backgrounds – we developed SKILLS!!! Some of the “coping” skills we learned, though – are killing our love lives.

For instance – if people were always trampling on you emotionally, you learned to hide your feelings. Even from yourself.

Your emotional status might have led you to comfort food – to sugar, and then your physical system got screwed up, too.

So – sugar might be not only your poison, but your drug.

It’s hard to imagine something as seemingly innocent as a cookie or a slice of cake or dish of ice cream as the wrecking ball of your love life – but sometimes it IS!

So – let’s get back to the no-processed-sugar for a week challenge – and let me know how you feel. If you’re experiencing emotional and energetic ups and downs, you think it might be linked to food or to your body, and you’d like to talk with Gemma about all the research she’s doing and how she’s handling her recovery, and how you could do it, too, right along with her…you can email her at GemHarp@hotmail.com… (You can see her photo and all she’s doing at http://GemmaLevine.tumblr.com.) Perhaps, if this sugar thing seems to be something you’d like to work with,  I’ll put in a category here – we can do support and accountability…

I’ve been very happy without sugar for a very long time now (only eat a bit of fruit, and always followed by protein – I know that’s debatable by many dietary systems, but when you’re dealing with blood sugar – that’s crucial in my book) – and so perhaps we could trade some recipes (Rose Cole always has great sugar and gluten free recipes around on her site…) and support each other to break old patterns and eat for our health.

Love, Rori