Sunday, October 21, 2007

You! You are magnificent and special!

Julia and I were talking a couple of days ago, and she mentioned something which, this morning, triggered in me a desire to capture here the essence of what she said.

I had just gotten home from work, and as is often the case, our little boy dachshund wanted the chance to chase a chew toy down the hall a couple of times. That's pretty much his limit: if he goes after the toy twice, I know he has had enough of that game and let him go back to relaxing in his mom's office.

Each time he would bring the toy back, both Julia and I would praise him as if he had just found a combination miracle which cured all disease and made all humanity get along forever.

Once he was done retrieving, she said, "How cool would it be if someone would praise us that way for all the normal things we do in life? What if, when you got to work, people were waiting to praise you with a huge smile on their faces, just for showing up? What if, when you stopped for a red light driving home that day, someone 'Wooohooo!!'ed you for stopping when you were supposed to?"

While we just laughed at the time and went on about our end-of-the-workday routine, the idea stuck with me.

I don't propose the sort of out-of-proportion praise we talked about, but what if we all made the effort to say 'thanks' only two or three times a day more often than we already do?

From a relationship standpoint, are there chores or tasks or favors your partner takes on for you which you have come to take for granted? Can you find the places in your daily life where an extra, heartfelt 'thanks!' would fit? If you can, then express it in the moment. If you cannot, then step back and consider where you have gone astray. We all have huge areas where we can be in gratitude, and it is part of our sacred journey to acknowledge them. And, it serves the person in gratitude every bit as much to say thank you, as it does the person to whom it is said!

In the spirit of this idea, I wish to thank my beloved wife, Julia, for her generous praise (and honest appraisal, as I am a nut) in her post here yesterday.

Thank you, Julia, who married a nut and sticks it out anyway!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Happy YDBMFAWYYD Day


My husband is a silly, silly man. And a wonderful one. He brings me roses for all the major occasions such as YDBMFAWYYD Day.

This Saturday morning, I awoke to find that he was gone (he had told me he'd need to be at his office assisting with a project this morning for about an hour), but he had left me a kitchen sink full of 2 dozen of the most gorgeous red roses I believe I'd ever seen! (The roses, still swaddled in florist wrap, were carefully placed in a saucepan of water to keep them hydrated until I arranged them.)

There was no note with them, but I found an email announcing that these gorgeous flowers are for "YDBMFAWYYD Day." I could not find this on my calendar.

Upon his return from the office, he revealed that YDBMFAWYYD Day is "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore WAIT! Yes You Do!" Day. Sigh...I married a nut.

It has, indeed, been awhile since he came home with flowers for me--something I didn't even realize till today when he told me what day it is. But that's okay--he tells me and shows me in what high esteem he holds me (the man is very clear I'm the queen!) in so very many ways every day, it's not like I need the roses to know. However that is NOT said to discourage him from acting on his flower-buying impulses--just to say they are just icing on a very voluptuous cake of affection! (Okay--so we're both a little nutty--a perfect fit!)

Friday, October 19, 2007

Our own relationship story (part nine)

Here is the latest installment of the now-ten-year-old story of how Julia and I found each other and became a couple. For those of you who are new to our blog, please note that the earlier parts of the story are in the earliest posts to the blog. The parts are numbered so you can read them in sequence if you wish.


----(Julia's story)

Now that the way was made clear for us to be together from the standpoint of no relationship complications, I suddenly felt something entirely new to me: I had attracted a completely available man! And that meant I needed to be completely available to him! Yikes! That both exhilarated and terrified me at the same time. But by this point, I was so in love with Rick that I knew I'd do whatever it took to work through my fear.

The first obstacle that arose--if you can even call it that, based on my determination to plow through anything that might be in our way-- was location. I was in North Carolina, and he was in Colorado. But there was no doubt where we'd need to be if we were going to bring this relationship into 3-D, real life. Because Rick had young children in Denver (at the time, the four girls were 5, 7, 9, and 11 respectively), and because I would not possibly stand for him being an absentee dad, nor would he, I would be moving to Colorado.

For some, the chance to move to Colorado would have been a dream-come-true...but not for me. Unlike so many folks I knew, I had never felt deeply called westward. I had never been prone to romantic notions of the West, nor attracted by the supposedly more spiritual vibe present west of the Mississippi that I had heard much talk about. Yes--at one point, several years before, I had considered a possible move to Santa Fe because of it's arts community (at the time, I was very focused on my collage work), but was very torn at the idea of leaving the lush, verdant Southeast to live somewhere dry and brown. My longing was for somewhere even greener, even warmer, even more humid--I could feel the tropics calling. When I had an astro-locality reading around that time, the man reading my chart was very adamant that I would have way too many challenges in Santa Fe to be happy. In fact, he advised, I needed to stay away from that longitude altogether as my Pluto IC line ran right through it, connoting some place that would be highly transformative but in painful ways. Guess what other city is on my Pluto line? Yep. Denver. At the time, I had vowed to stay clear of it!

As my connection to Rick deepened before he had cut things off with "Susan," I had even rationalized the impossibility of us getting together and consoled myself about his unavailable status because of the Denver "problem." But there was another vow in place that superseded the declaration to avoid Denver and vicinity. I had long ago made a solemn pledge to Spirit that I would go wherever I was called to be, no matter what or where, as long as I was very clear it was my God-Self guiding me there. (This was before I had overcome the notion that spiritual sacrifice was a necessity!) And I was definitely feeling the call to Denver.

So, in my mind, choosing to be with Rick meant choosing to live in Denver. Now, remember--we had never seen each other in person before, but we had already entered so deeply into the space called "Us," there wasn't much question about continuing to follow the energy. As I pondered these things, one thing became clear: I had no choice. Okay--I had a choice, techically speaking, but according to my heart, I had no choice at all. Thus, I composed the following email to Rick:

======================================================

There is something important that I want you to know...I am not telling you this in order to push the river, only that you will know what is going on with me. Do you remember the following melodramatic pronouncement cut and pasted from an October 28 message?

======

"I want to tell you something which helps me come to terms with the
parameters of our relationship. Yes, there's your committment to Susan.
But there is also something in the back of my mind that adds to my
understanding that our being more than friends at a distance is probably
not destined to be. You live in Colorado. You have children who are
important to you who live in Colorado. I have, at least at this time,
next to zero interest in living in Colorado! My aim is to be in warm
places--tropical would be nice--and the thought of living somewhere
where there are blizzards in October and more in May, sounds like a
recipe for terminal depression to me! So if we ever got together, we'd
have to have the kids and their mother move wherever we were! Since that
sounds a little impossible, and since you are in love with and have
plans with S, I know I'd better forget about any possibilities
other than the one we are exploring now. Love and friendship at a
distance! (See how adept my mind is at finding ways to assure my heart
of what can be, what cannot?)"

======

Well, just so you'll know, I would rather be in a blizzard and warm with you than in the blazing hot sun on the beach anywhere, without you. Because that would be much colder. No more artificial barriers. Just so you'll know.

======================================================

Recognizing that Rick and Denver were a package deal, and most likely my destiny, it was time to set up a trip to Denver to meet my destiny face-to-face. And so, I began to research deals on airline tickets.


----(Rick's story)

Just as Julia mentions, there is both exhilaration and big-time fear that strikes when you are no longer pushing against anything! It reminds me a lot of being in a tug-o-war and having the other side suddenly let go of the rope.

My own feelings at that time were mostly about how we could make this dream a reality. It was funny that, as we both spoke of it being time to be in the same room, finally, we got off the phone and *both* began looking for flights.

I never even considered that Julia would want to come to Denver, although it is certainly logical that she would--as she says, this is where we would be living for a number of years.

But, doesn't the guy make the first trip? I thought so, and so did Julia's dad!

Both of us got a big surprise when she announced the grand plan, and she was flying to Denver.

This time between when my earlier relationship ended and when Julia's flight pulled up to the gate in Denver was excruciating. In fact, the gap in time between each of our trips was too painful to be believed!

We simply ached when we were not together. We ached before we had ever been together, but it was only worse once we spent a few days with each other.

I won't go further than Julia went in this chapter, so I better stop now. I will, though, end with an email quoted from November of 1997. Our comments are interspersed, with the person speaking noted at the beginning of each section:

-----
J: So, so much to say--so, so little energy to say it! There are a few
things I can say that GIVE me much more energy than it requires to say
them. The first is, I am so very, very thankful to have found you. I
spend a part of every moment thanking God for this miracle--this
miracle, not only of US, but of YOU. You are truly a miracle to me.

R: I will treasure this email as long as I have sense enough to know
'treasure'. You, my love, GIVE care, and I take it with a grateful and
loving heart.

J: The next energizing thing I can say is, THANK YOU for being who you are.

R: Thank you, dear Julia, for KNOWING who I am.

J: And one more thing. I love you more than I will ever in a million years
have the words to say. But you know that.

R: And I know I will spend every moment, at some level, appreciating and
honoring you. You are, to me, all that I can be, all that I want to be,
and all that I AM.

J: In the morning, I will need to deliver Meals on Wheels so I have got to
try to get some sleep. I will email you whenever possible--its just if I
don't get one off to you before I leave, you know I am sending you
cosmic emails aplenty on the wavelength. And, of course, I will send you
one immediately upon my return.

R: Hug somebody for me. I'll be there when you do.

J: Good night, good night.
Your woman

R: Whenever you doubt yourself, I am here.
Whatever it takes, just ask.
Always, my woman... ALWAYS, right now...
I am your man.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Our own relationship story (part eight)

Part eight of our story. Again, the story begins with the earliest posts to this blog, so you may wish to read from oldest back up to the newer ones.


----(Julia's story)

So…as I left off last time, Rick and I were finally both on the same page with the knowing that we were in love and being powerfully drawn together, and Rick was knowing that he needed to break it off with…we’ll call her “Susan” (not her real name). For him, it was really something terrifying to contemplate, as he had never broken up with anyone before. I, on the other hand, had a track record of breaking things off with men. Since the breakup of my first marriage, and learning the lesson of how much better it feels not to lie to yourself or to stay in a relationship where you’re not fully able to be yourself and have the kind of emotional intimacy you really want, I’d never been inclined to stay in any relationship that was unhealthy. By the time I found Rick, I had lots of practice at taking my leave from men. So I was a bit perplexed at what the big deal was for him! But he is a very kind-hearted guy, and didn’t want to hurt Susan.

I was eager for him to go ahead and do the deed, and, despite his trepidation, he was ready to just get it taken care of, but she got sick, and asked him not to come see her, much to Rick’s chagrin, so his breaking up with her had to be postponed for a few days. In the meantime, we talked a lot about things, and I coached him to be lovingly honest and to visualize it going well. When at last (okay, it was only about a week, but a week at that point felt like months), she sent word that she was ready for him to come see her, I arranged to be at a girlfriend’s house so that I wouldn’t drive myself crazy wondering about it. I was really nervous for him, and prayed that she would take the news well and not be too hurt. Here is part of our email exchange from that day, Nov. 21, 1997:

===

Rick:

I thank you for loving me, for being so open to my love, and for helping me see who I am capable of being.

Julia:

I am so pleased with the progress you have made toward making tonight's duty clean, clear, and loving. I can feel your confidence and strength.

Rick:

I'm pretty relaxed about it. For setting out to do something I have never done in my life, I'm surprisingly relaxed. All the visualizations and the talks we have had, as well as asking Spirit to be with me during this time, have made me as ready as I can be.

Julia:

This is a blessed mission--a critical part of us becoming completely US without any unclarity to sully our union. As you know, (my inner child issues aside) it has always been somewhat of a cloud lurking in the background of this thing we call US, and after tonight, it will be cleared away, the integrity of US, complete.

Rick:

I'm about 15 minutes from leaving for the Springs, and you know just what I need. The weather today--first the clouds coming in, then the sun peeking out, now the wind whipping up a bit, reminds me of the many possible outcomes tonight. All of them have one thing in common, and that is the very clarifying you refer to above. I look forward to that clarity and will hold the importance of it in my heart.

Julia:

I am very glad that you understand that your being clear and being true to yourself (and to US) is ultimately a blessing to her as well. That will help you withstand the parts where you will see pain in her face. Temporary pain in exchange for her freedom to create something more appropriate for her. Growing pains. I will keep her particularly in my heart tonight.

Rick:

I pray that she is able to feel the truth of this concept, as well. Growing pains... that will stick with me and come back when I need it, too. Thank you for your willingness to feel for her tonight!

===

And off he went. I expected it to be late when I heard from him, but was surprised when he called me a very short time after I knew he would have gotten to her house.

“It’s done,” he said, and proceeded to tell me that she had pretty much figured the whole thing out, and was expecting what happened—or at least, was prepared for it, and was not eager for him to hang around and hash things out, so she asked him to leave, which he did gladly. I was so relieved! I had braced myself for him to be really upset, with a possible report of her being really upset as well, but as it turned out, the whole episode was kind of anti-climactic since she had already intuited that it was over.

And then again—it was a spectacular moment, as we were finally free to be together! I’ll stop here, and let Rick tell what he remembers of it from his perspective.


----(Rick's story)

As you read in Julia's entry, we worked for days on my confidence and my own visualizations of an outcome that was clear-cut and, at the same time, done with feeling and honesty. There is no doubt in my mind that the week's delay was designed with my own preparation in mind. Spirit runs an efficient operation, you know!

I hopped in the van and drove the 60 miles or so to "Susan's" house. It was in the fall, so it was dark by the time I got there. When I walked in, she greeted me, but I could feel that she well knew things weren't the same.

We began to talk, and it soon became apparent that we were both aware that I was now heading down a different path than we both had thought only weeks before. Then, she confessed that, although she had the table set for dinner and had food ready to cook, she also had gotten my stuff together for easy transport. She was ready to go either way, depending upon what happened when I walked in the door.

Having spent a number of weekends at her house, there was a small collection of my stuff that had accumulated. I now discovered it carefully boxed up in her spare bedroom.

We spent a short while talking, but neither of us wanted to draw the scene out any longer than necessary. It wasn't a bad scene at all, but it was an uncomfortable situation. I had arrived that evening intending to hear her out for as long as she wished to talk or ask questions, or even rant if that was what she needed to do. I was surprised when she was done within a matter of minutes, and we decided it was time for me to leave. I loaded the few boxes of stuff into my van and headed back to Denver.

Of course, relief was the major emotion I felt on that drive back. I was glad to have had an honest and heartfelt conversation with my friend, and I was glad to now look forward to deciding with Julia where we were heading. One major complication for us had been dealt with, and I felt it had happened in a way that was gentle and honest.

Within a day or two, my friend did write me, asking some questions. I wrote her a long return message, and she was able to accept my answers in the spirit I offered them: I had never been dishonest with her, I had simply been struck by lightning when Julia came into my life. It was my own inability to see the truth of it for a few weeks that delayed things. It was important to me that my friend asked those hard questions of me, because I knew she deserved to hear what was in my heart, and we really had not come to closure the evening I was last at her house.

In less than a month from that night, Julia was flying to Denver for our first face-to-face meeting. By that time, we had exchanged thousands of email messages, and we had spent hundreds of hours on the phone. I don't believe two people could know each other any better within a couple of months while never setting eyes on each other.

We did have a small miscommunication happen when it came time to finally get together. I was making plans to fly to North Carolina at the same time as Julia was planning to fly to Denver. Fortunately, we did not end up in a real-life sitcom episode and fly simultaneously to opposite cities!

More to come…

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Our own relationship story (part seven)

Here is the next installment of our story. For those of you who are new to this website, please note that the story begins with the earliest posts on this blog. So, you might want to read from oldest to newest. The installments are numbered in the title line.


----(Julia's story)

Today (as I write this, it's November 7, 2005) is the 8-year anniversary of a major turning point in Rick's and my early relationship (see the last installment to see what happened), so it seems fitting that I’d finally get around to adding a chapter to the “soulmate saga” today. This time of year, I’m inclined to go back into my files of “Rick mail” and enjoy that magical time again through our writings. He and I both kept every email that passed between us—and, in fact, we keep all the emails we exchange to this day!

As I read the ones from November 7th, 1997, (there are 13 from that day in my files—we were prolific!), it brings back the memories of how my willingness to sacrifice our relationship in order to be in integrity brought such immense energy and clarity and power. At first, even though he’d admitted he’d rather be with me, I was encouraging him to deal with his relationship so that if it was meant to continue, they could continue with integrity. Here are some snippets of our exchange that day:

----
Julia:
Yes, OF COURSE you would rather be with me—for now I am the part of you you like the best about yourself. But sooner or later the "uutsy" parts of our relationship—the stuff which reflects what you like least about yourself—is bound to show up. Maybe this is the beginning of that period as I seem to have "lit up" a space in you which you did not want to look at--the part that is afraid of honesty's power to affect others.

Rick:
It does not change what I know. That is the piece of my being afraid that I did not say on the phone last night. You are doing your best to help us get to a more stable, more buddy-based place to be, and I'm swallowing my tongue because I don't want to spoil the plan. Don't worry, I will do everything I can to be your buddy. I needed, this morning as I read your note, to say this, though. You are everything I never knew I always wanted.

Julia:
I say this without fear you will think me conceited: I know that I am that to you. It is one reason why it has been frustrating for me that you had not, until last night, expressed any real doubts about your relationship with (girlfriend’s name). It is too big a piece of reality to keep pretending about. It must be a factor in how you proceed with her, not that it needs to split you apart, but it is something which you need to look at about yourself and for yourself so that you can bring the truth of yourself into your relationship with her. And with me.

It was good to hear you admit that you feel scared about (girlfriend’s) insecurities—I want you to be real with me—which is tantamount to being real with yourself. I am hoping that you will always remain honest with yourself and true to yourself when it comes to (girlfriend). It is the only way to help her. Loving her, but not giving up who you are to cater to her insecurities is the only way in the long run. You don't want to spend your life trying to convince someone of something that has to come from within her—that she is worthy. If she is not up to being really, really honest, then she is not--your relationship is not—what either of you need.

Rick:
I know. And, more than anything, I'm scared of the hurt. Not for me... somehow, pain and I became so well-acquainted in my late teens and early twenties that I know I can handle it. I see too much hurt... too much pain, and my name right out front on the marquee: Pain, starring Rick Hamrick. This has always been the hardest thing for me to do: do what is right for me, knowing that it will hurt someone else. Instead, I try to avoid the infliction and take it on, myself.

Julia:
Wow. He tries to be a super-hero. "I can withstand the pain! I will protect all from their feelings and their growth opportunities so that I won't have to bear the pain of seeing their pain!" I know you see the bogus-ness in that. The ironic part is their pain is going to be their pain in the end, just all saved up for them in a huge wallop instead of in manageable doses they can deal with as it comes...

If your relationship is really going to work past the first blush of discovery and fascination and infatuation, you had better--both of you--be ready to give it all up at any minute in order to let the Truth have its way. That, in my opinion, is the only way your (or any other) relationship has any chance at all of being a Big-Love caliber relationship—which I know you are VERY capable of and ready for—at least that is my projection in the matter.
----

Indeed, he was ready. I will share how we got from the “Julia as buddy/relationship coach” phase, to the “We have GOT to be together” phase in the next installment.

How true the old saying is, “If you love something, let it go free. If it is yours, it will return to you...” I certainly found that out on Nov. 7, 1997. It’s one of the most powerful lessons I ever learned. That, and that taking a stand for the truth—for integrity—is a gigantic frequency booster! I was one joyful woman that day! While I was coaching him about his relationship from a very clear space, I knew deep in my heart that he was my soulmate and that ours was "Big Love."



----(Rick's story)

While Julia goes for the higher vision of what we were up to at this time in our relationship—and I was right there with her much of the time—there was still one little problem to be dealt with: I was in a relationship, even if by this point in the evolution of our (Julia’s and mine) relationship, I absolutely knew where I belonged. It wasn’t with the person I was with at the time.

I’ll admit right here in front of anyone who wanders by that the prospect of ending a relationship simply frightened me no end. Let’s face it, I was in my 40’s by the time Julia and I met, so it’s not like I had not already had a good many years of being in relationships with women. Here’s the key, though: not once in those 30 years of relationships had I been the one who decided it was over. Never.

There was a moment in my life when I was in my 20’s and talking with my best friend, when the realization hit me that I had not been in a relationship with a woman that I had instigated! I did manage to figure out that side of the relationship cycle—after all, that’s the fun part, when you first meet someone and decide you want to get to know each other better—and become active participant instead of leaf carried wherever the current goes. At some point we all have to reach a level of maturity where we are, at least at the human level, driving our lives some of the time (please note that this entire soliloquy is not coming from my Higher Self for the most part, but from my small, human, duality-living self, and that’s okay. I’m talking about a time in my life when I was much less able to stay with something higher for very long).

So, as Julia quoted in her description of that time, we had reached a point where I was professing my love for her, and she was steering me to complete what I was doing with integrity, whether that meant finding a way to remain with the person I was in relationship with, or finding a way to come out of it ethically and responsibly.

Not so coincidentally I have come to know, my then-girlfriend had been sick for a few days and had insisted that I not drive down to see her and help her (I’m a pretty good nurse, able to heat a can of soup or fix some dry toast without hurting myself or wrecking the kitchen, and able to comfort those in need without losing patients [sorry…it came out of the keyboard that way so it must be God making a joke]). While I was certainly willing to drive down (she lived 60 miles from me) and take care of her, she was quite insistent that I not do so.

Here we were at this pause in everyone’s life who was intimately involved with this little drama: my girlfriend sick and not wanting to see me, my soulmate (Julia) declining yet to accept the love I was fully committed to offering her until she did, and me wondering what the heck I was doing in the driver’s seat! At that moment, I knew why I had let events take their own course so many times in the past: it beat the heck out of steering when the road was unfamiliar and had no guardrails to keep things headed in the right direction. Scary? You bet!

No doubt, regardless of how much I knew of it at the time, there was Higher Wisdom at work in this case. There always is, if we are willing to be quiet and hear the soft persistent voice speaking from our hearts.

All was in readiness finally. Julia was coaching me to act in integrity, my girlfriend was finally willing to have me come down and have dinner with her, and I was preparing for an experience I had never had in my many years on the planet.

I’ll pick up from here when Julia is next inspired to continue the story!

Our own relationship story (part six)

Back to our own story...

----(Julia's story)

When last we left off, I had recognized that continuing the rapidly developing, not-just-platonic relationship with Rick was wrong, wrong, wrong in light of the fact that he was already very involved with a woman, and I had committed to myself not to be involved (again) with an unavailable man. Overcoming—at least temporarily—the powerful narcotic of love and desire, I had finally snapped out of it to the point that I realized I needed to stop what seemed to be a runaway train of deep emotion and powerful romantic feelings, and somehow either transform our relationship into a purely platonic friendship, or break off all contact. I also, lovingly but firmly, laid down the law about not being fully honest with his girlfriend. We could not continue to disregard the potential for hurt to her. Like a splash of icy water in the face, taking a stand had broken the spell for me.

Wow! I felt so much better! Though I did not know how this was going to work, standing firm for integrity felt powerfully right, and I had faith that I would somehow find a way to break free. The persistent mild nausea I had been experiencing for weeks cleared up instantly as I stopped trying to con myself! That sickly feeling I had been tolerating and pushing down in my consciousness—the all-too-familiar, bad feeling from being in love with someone that was not available, just evaporated. You know, selling out yourself is never, ever going to set right. You may get used to the way it feels, and you may be able to convince yourself at some level that it’s okay, but truly, you can never really feel but so good when you are lying to yourself. And the truth is, if you don’t have complete integrity with YOU, there’s not a chance of having a healthy relationship with someone else. Rick and I had talked a lot about integrity, and while it seemed that it was vitally important to both of us, what it came down to for me was that if you don’t have integrity in one area, you just don’t have integrity overall. Part of what I had said to him in the "cold splash of water" was that he'd need to tell the girlfriend about our relationship, or we could not even be friends. So I went to bed that night feeling better than I had in weeks, knowing I’d done the right thing, and that I would be rewarded by God for the sacrifice (see the last installment for that reference). And, sure enough, first thing the next morning I got my gift! Here (slightly edited to leave out parts that won’t make sense to you) is the first email exchange of that day:

(Julia) I think we shifted something. I feel different! I feel better in a strange way--even if it is nothing but the honesty of coming to terms with what was really happening, it freed something up. I hope you feel better, too.

(Rick) I don't feel better, but I do feel more focused on who I am and where I'm headed... What is hardest for me (here I go again, into the "NO!! DON'T SAY THAT!" place) is the clear realization that I would rather be with you...You are doing your best to help us get to a more stable, more buddy-based place to be, and I'm swallowing my tongue because I don't want to spoil the plan. Don't worry, I will do everything I can to be your buddy. I needed, this morning as I read your note, to say this, though. You are everything I never knew I always wanted.

----

From here, things snowballed, and as Rick and I got more and more honest with ourselves and each other, taking a stand for openness and integrity on all levels, it became clear that we were willing to do whatever it took to be with each other. I will share some of what that entailed in the next installment.


----(Rick's story)

The time in our relationship that Julia writes about was one of the most roller-coaster-like times I can recall over the entirety of my life. In fact, one very long email thread was even called that: “On the roller coaster with you” was a message that went back and forth, each of us adding to it, for days.

Just as she says, we discussed the fact that our relationship had reached a tipping point. I had discussed Julia with my friend (the person I was involved with at the time), but I had not been completely forthcoming. Truth be told, it was hard to know what to say, since I had no idea where Julia and I were heading. I knew my head was spinning, and my feet weren’t touching the ground all that often. Still, I managed to remain blind for a surprisingly long time.

Once Julia wrote the email message that she quotes, I knew I had to say what was in my heart, and that was that she was (is…will be!!) the person I wanted to share my life with. In the paragraph she quoted from my answering email, I borrowed a line from a Matthew Perry/Salma Hayek movie called “Fools Rush In” (no, I didn’t think about any possible parallels between the movie title and what real life was busily working through us at the time!) which seemed so appropriate at that moment: Julia is, truly, everything I never knew I always wanted.

We spent several days going back and forth, both via email and on the phone. Within a couple of days of the exchange Julia quoted, as we were trying to figure out if this was a buddy deal, a blooming love deal, a soul mate deal, or exactly what we were up to, we had made progress. I wrote this November 9th, 1997:

----

I ask nothing of you, knowing you give me all of you

I do not seek you out, knowing you within me

I believe you to be exactly who you are

I know, more than anything, your love


----

Two days later, Julia wrote this:

----

There are no words for what I am feeling now.

Just resting in the warm glow, accepting the terror,

welcoming all into the Love we are. Everything is

in divine order. Everything is unfolding exactly as

it should. I am ready for each moment, in each

moment, with you.

----

When I look back at the sheer volume of beautiful, and beautifully written, heartfelt heart-full-of-love messages we exchanged, I am still overwhelmed to the point that my eyes tear up. No inspiration matches that of Love, when that glorious energy is flowing at full speed through a human being! We were in the midst of establishing a bond that we saw pretty quickly was a precious and fragile entity unto itself, one we would protect with every ounce of our beings.

Still, back in the life of the earth-bound person I was when not emailing or talking to Julia, there was much to be done, both emotionally and as physical action. How do I work out the fact that I was falling for Julia in a huge way—and was finally able to admit to myself that this was the case—while at the same time having feelings for the woman I had been seeing for some time?

The answers were on the way, and we soon had them.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

The gritty parts, too!

As Julia and I tell the history of how we got together almost ten years ago, we have heard from some who have read the entire story that they see us as some kind of amazingly inspirational and magic couple.

I think, honestly, that there is some truth in the belief that how we found each other was magical. It was certainly a time which inspired great gushes of Love flowing between us and through us!

At the same time, we don't want to mislead anyone. We have been together now for ten years, married for more than eight years, and we don't pretend for a moment that every day has been nothing but sweetness and light.

Here's what I will say, though: even in those times when we have had something come up which interfered with our clear communication and flow of Love, we faced whatever it was, we worked through it together, and we came out the other side of those times still as dedicated to each other as we ever had been.

Sometimes--rarely--that can involve shouting and anger. More often, it involves tears and hearfelt expressions of confusion or doubt. We have learned the importance of respectfully disagreeing. We can be on opposite sides of an issue without it pulling us to pieces.

Mostly, we will be reporting on how we make things work, and when we are inspired to detail a real-life episode which was not completely pleasant, we will.

This post, though, is just to let you know we are not saints or miracle workers. We are two people who love each other a great deal and are interested in sharing how we are able to handle life's challenges and remain on the same team. And, we are a couple who feel a powerful inspiration to share what we have learned! So, here we are.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Our own relationship story (part five)

Continuing our tale of finding each other, told in two voices...


----(Julia's story)

When I left off last time, I revealed the roots of the confounding pattern I had of being with unavailable men. And I told you how diligently I had worked to transform the pattern, yet I was staring it in the face AGAIN, and this time, right out of the box after eight years of holding relationship at bay! Yes, I was in love with my email buddy, Rick, who was committed to another. The “funny” thing is that I had all the physical and emotional symptoms of being in love, yet this time, I did not have that vaguely guilty feeling that it was wrong that had always been present before. No, the feeling I had was not at all vague—I knew it was wrong to be having an affair with someone who was not available, but I could not seem to stop the feeling of being on a runaway train. It felt more like destiny than anything I’d ever experienced.

“NOT FUNNY!” I said to God In Me. This was not right. I tried to summon up the will to bail out of the friendship, but it was as if I were somehow bound to follow this thing out. Meanwhile, Rick and I continued our constant emailing and calling. I got used to the fact that there were times when I would have to wait for a reply, as he spent two nights a week with her (she lived in Colorado Springs and he, in Denver). Sometimes I’d hear from him while he was with her; sometimes, I did not. I did my best to detach during these times, yet I found myself less and less able to pretend that I was just a friend, and that of course he’d be spending time with his beloved and it was all the same to me. Finally, it hurt so much, I called a moratorium to our correspondence, and told him that I just needed some space. What a relief! It felt MUCH better to simply not expect to hear from him at all instead of hoping he’d manage to slip an email in to me while he was with her. Though I was happy to hear from him once I called off the moratorium—and I heard from him within minutes of doing so—I knew it was only a matter of time till something had to give.

Though I tried to be more aloof, my heart just simply would not let me. At the same time, I was feeling more and more conflicted. Our calls and emails continued to escalate even further, and “I love you” was how each of us always ended our phone calls. The rationale: Friends say “I love you!” All my close girl friends and I say “I love you” when we close a conversation, and Rick and I were certainly close at this point…nothing untoward about that, right? We talked about so much—hours a night on the phone. We emailed continuously—beautiful, poetic emails, and clever, mundane emails—long, long series of emails with many different “threads” going at all times. And always there was a spiritual communion going on. We were so closely matched spiritually, it was uncanny. In fact, I had not even believed a man existed that would be on the same wavelength with me in that way, and it was too, too exquisite to simply reject because he was “already taken.” After all, we had decided that our relationship was just getting me ready for my true love, who was surely on the way. (Yeah. Right. Boy, oh, boy—I think we created a new definition for love being blind!)

However, the pain of being the “play girl” and not the one “stirring the pots on the stove” (see previous installment for an explanation), was becoming acute, and what I had tried so hard to deny was finally in my face in a big way, and refused to leave. At last, reality bit hard and I knew without a doubt, we had been in denial and that this relationship had to end. I could not be “the other woman” ever again. I would no longer dishonor the Truth of Who I Am that way. No matter how much it hurt, I needed to cut it off—or transform it. And before that could happen, both of us needed to be clear about what was happening. In fact, there were three of us that needed to be clear. There was another being involved who didn’t even know what was going on.

On the night of November 6th, 1997, I told Rick that it was imperative that we be 100% honest with ourselves, with each other, and with his girlfriend. I told him that we needed to back off and be just friends, and if that wasn’t possible, we needed to cut off the relationship completely. More importantly, I told God-In-Me that I would give up my relationship with Rick, but I expected something really spectacular as a reward. You see, five years before, I had agreed to euthanize my beloved little boy dog, Buddy, who had been run over and was painfully clinging to life, and God had told me “I will never ask you to give up something precious to you without giving you a special gift in exchange.” (Sometime I’ll tell you that whole amazing story, but suffice to say I did, indeed, receive an amazing gift after I let Buddy go, interestingly, on November 6th, 1992!)

Giving up my relationship with Rick seemed a huge sacrifice, so I said to God In Me, “I’ll do this, but I expect a BIG damn gift!” And I got one, but you’ll have to wait for the next installment to see how it was delivered…


----(Rick's story)

Just as Julia was determined to take the path of honesty and authenticity, I was confounded with finding that path! The first thing I needed to figure out was, where did I want to go? Then, how can I walk that path, the one I wanted to walk, and do so without it being a hardship on anyone else?

By this point, the evening of November 6th, I was no longer in doubt about my feelings. I knew that it was Julia with whom I was to be. The mystery, at that point, was how to get my life to match my understanding! Or, if my life was not to match my understanding, what the heck was I to do?

My friend in Colorado Springs was owed my honesty, and Julia seemed determined to be my platonic buddy. Problem is, I knew that things had to change, and I had no idea how that was going to come about.

In the next chapter, we begin to first come to understand, out loud to each other, who we are to each other. Julia was quicker than I was to realize who we were to each other, even as she was doing her best not to push the river, so to speak.

Beginning November 7th, we embarked on a journey of only a few weeks which brought us to meeting for the first time, face to face. But that part of the story is still a few chapters away!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Our own relationship story (part four)

Continuing with the recounting, here is the next part of Julia's and my tale. First, though, a clarification brought about by a comment.

A fairly unfriendly commenter (and one who did not leave any evidence who they are--it seems that anonymity is the realm of the cowardly critic) made mention that Kenny and Julia Loggins are no longer a couple. Quite true. Fortunately, the value of a message is never dependent upon the messenger's life, the ups and downs we all experience, or the outcome of one marriage.

The commenter decided that Julia and I are kooks, as are Kenny and Julia Loggins. In talking with my Julia about it, we decided it was good company to be lumped in with.

We now have this blog set to moderated comments, so if you do add a comment, I'll okay it as quickly as I see it.

Now, back to the story...


----(Julia's story)

So I met this nice guy with the videotapes on the Unimaginable Life forum, and we struck up an email conversation. I knew he was special right away, and wished he weren’t already taken, but I was happy to have him for a buddy at least. I figured any man who could simply make it all the way through such an intimate book as UL, not to mention, proclaim himself commited to conscious relationship, and was so devoted to his girlfriend, had to be someone I’d like to be friends with! It took only a few days for our email exchange rate to ramp up to 6-8 per day each way. We talked quite a bit about his relationship, and about my moving toward one. There was something really special about our chemistry, though, and it sure felt different than any platonic friendship I'd ever had, though I knew that's all it could be.

Around this time, I decided to try out an online dating service, and had several guys contact me based on my profile. I liked most of them just fine, and enjoyed emailing with them for the most part, but found myself FAR more excited to see a message from my buddy Rick in my inbox than one from any of them. When Rick asked if he could call me so we could hear each others' voices, I was so excited, you would have thought it was a fancy dinner date with Mr. Right! When I heard his voice on the other end of the line, I spontaneously had the thought, that’s my guy—he sounds like "home." (Danger, Will Robinson!) His voice was so familiar and so soothing to my soul, I just knew that he was “mine”—and yet, he was deeply committed to his girlfriend and their relationship. I knew this because we had talked about it so much. So I decided that he just sounded like the man that was coming into my life—the one I knew intuitively that I was magnetizing and could feel coming closer. I figured when “the one” showed up, he’d sound just like Rick. (I guess you could say he did!)

I can’t name the minute it happened, but it soon dawned on me that I didn’t just like this guy a lot, or love him as a friend—I was in love. Holy moly—in love with an unavailable man. SHEESH! That frustrating pattern had reared its ugly head AGAIN, and I can’t tell you how irritated I was and betrayed I felt when I realized it. I thought that the universe was having a big sadistic laugh at my expense, but I sure didn't think it was funny. I had worked so hard to break this pattern, but there it was, despite my best efforts to consciously move past it. I didn’t tell you the whole story on that before, but suffice to say that in addition to staying out of relationships with men for 8 years, I had also worked with it intensively in therapy and made it clear to the universe by my actions in other powerful ways that I was done with that pattern and willing to do anything to transmute it.

Let me backtrack a bit, and tell you what I discovered about the origins of this pattern of being involved with all manner of unavaialble men. I found this out in the therapy that I had worked with for many years called the Results Method, which was based on Thymo-Kinesiology. I started it in the early-to-mid ’80s with Margaret Fields Kean, who was the originator of Results, and when Margaret moved out of my area, I started seeing Mary Mooney (trained by Margaret), whom I still see to this day when I am in Raleigh. (If you are in that area, I highly recommend Mary—email me if you want her contact info.) Anyway, what we found out by doing an age regression is that it all started when I was a little girl, waiting for my daddy, whom I adored, to come home from work everyday. Late afternoon after work was my time with Dad, who would walk in the back door, pick me up, carry me into the kitchen where Mom would be fixing dinner, hug and kiss me, tickle me, and hold my arms while I turned somersaults by climbing up his legs and flipping over. And over. As many times as he would let me. It was always a thrill—and never lasted long enough. You know how kids are—it’s never enough. Just when it was really getting fun, Dad would run out of steam and tell me that was all for now—which always disappointed and deflated me. Then—and this is the critical part—he would turn away from me, and go and hug and kiss my mother, and they would talk about the news of the day and the important matters of life, while she stirred the pots on the stove.

What I learned from that was that I was the girl that men liked to play with—until they got tired of it—and there was someone else that they discussed the real things of life with. So that’s why I had created the same pattern over and over—while it hurt, it was what I was used to. I was comfortable being “the other woman,” and the one the guys loved to play with before they settled down and got serious with somebody else. (I also learned that I had internalized the notion that “just when things start getting good, they’re over.” But that’s a different soap opera…) But I had cleared all that and was ready to be the one at the stove stirring dinner—or so I had thought. So why, right out of the box, was this cropping up again? What was I going to have to do to move past it? The answer is pretty cool. But it will have to wait till another installment!


----(Rick's story)

While Julia was stewing over my seeming unavailability, I was beginning to notice that, when she would tell me about a few men she corresponded with thanks to her experiment with online dating, I was secretly wishing that they would all prove to be duds, at least in the sense of her finding any of them attractive. My problem was one of denial, and I mean the big-time, can’t-see-the-forest kind of denial, when I tried to explain those feelings to myself.

Julia had sense enough to feel the love growing between us, and I was silly enough to think it was a special friendship and only that…sure, blind-as-a-bat Rick!

I finally knew for sure that Julia really was the person with whom I belonged, and who belonged with me, soon after she decided that our situation was just too unsettling, confusing, and too much sending her off of center. She declared a moratorium on our communications—which by that time meant dozens of email messages a day, and frequent, hours-long phone calls—and it just about killed me.

I was still seeing my Colorado Springs friend, still doing my best to remain loyal to a vision I had which was already scratched and warped beyond repair like a badly mistreated cheap mirror, and still trying to see Julia as a really good long-distance friend. It hit me when I was driving back to the Colorado Springs house from the grocery store early one weekend morning. I thought of some little piece of life that tickled me in the moment, and I instantly wanted to tell my special someone about it…and realized that the person I wanted to tell was Julia, not the Colorado Springs friend.

That was my turning point as I look back. Everything that transpired after that point followed the new path I glimpsed for the first time that autumn dawn.

Right that moment, though, I had a problem: Julia was not willing to communicate with me. That problem’s resolution and more about the next few steps on our joint path will be retold soon!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Our own relationship story (part three)

Taking up where part two left off, Julia and I continue to tell the story of how we came to be together.


----(Julia's story)

When last I posted an installment in my soulmate saga, I told you that, on my trip to buy an espresso maker to help ease the loss of the only coffee shop in the small town where I was living, I also bought a copy of the book, The Unimaginable Life, by Kenny and Julia Loggins. Whereas I had been somewhat reticent to buy it at first, once I did, I gobbled it up in less than 24 hours! It’s the story of the first seven years of their relationship and it is VERY intimate and revelatory. If they held anything back, it wasn’t much. The book chronicles not only the rapture of finding and experiencing what they termed “Big Love,” but also the radical honesty and “personal housekeeping” involved in tending a conscious relationship.

For one of the friends I recommended the book to, it was too intimate, too “embarrassing” to read—for me, it was like manna from heaven! This was the level of relating that I had always wanted but hadn’t ever manifested. I craved the chance to explore that level of intimacy with someone who was totally invested instead of the men I had manifested to date—if you recall, I had attracted a slew of unavailable or otherwise unsuitable men. For the eight years prior to discovering the book, I had been holding men away with a psychic barrier. I had convinced myself that I would need to grow spiritually to the point where I would not repeat the mistakes of the past; would not attract another unavailable man; would not recreate the dysfunctional relationship patterns that had lead to such pain. What I understood from reading The Unimaginable Life is that the way to achieve what I was longing for was not to try to perfect myself as a way to protect against hurt, but to embrace relationship as a spiritual path, and be willing to risk whatever it took to walk the path with a partner—a mirror.

So, as I said, I devoured the book immediately. I started it the night I came back from buying it and the espresso machine, and was finished the next afternoon. When I turned the last page, I said to the Universe, very clearly—but not without some trepidation—“I’m ready to grow spiritually in a relationship.” Just moments afterward, I went online to the Kenny Loggins website, and checked out the Unimaginable Life forum. There was a message posted there by a guy who was offering a videotape of Kenny’s and Julia’s appearance on Leeza. I found myself emailing him to see if he still had a copy. Now this wouldn’t have been odd except that, not only did I not particularly want one, the two VCRs in our house were out of order, having been struck by lightning! And yet, I was asking this stranger for a copy of the tape. Hmmm…I just figured it was Sweet Julie (my inner child) experiencing the "me, too" syndrome. Since he was only asking $5 for a copy to cover the cost of the tape and shipping, it seemed like a harmless indulgence. I quickly received an answer back saying that he’d made 10 tapes and I’d gotten the last one.

I emailed back, asking where to send the money, and commented on how reading the book had opened me up. He replied and said it had been meaningful to him and his partner, too. Here is the third message I sent:


Dear Rick, I'm excited! Thanks so much and let me know about expenses... I am happy to hear that you and your woman are resonating with the book. It gives me hope that there are men out there who "get it"!!! It could just be that there is one somewhere for me! For the first time in years, I feel myself opening up to allowing another person into my life. Reading *The Unimaginable Life* was like an initiation. Until "he" shows up, the book is calling me to an even higher level of accountability in my relationship with myself--which is obviously a prerequisite for surviving and finding true intimacy in relationship with another person. Funny, I have been "working on myself" for so long...guess it just never ends--but maybe it can be more FUN! Light on the path,
Julia
*****************
(Do take note of the message’s addressee…)

Next installment soon!


----(Rick's story)

I, too, was enthralled with The Unimaginable Life, and once I discovered the forum that was then available at Kenny Loggins’ website, I had a place to feed the deep urge for connection. It is not a matter of finding fault at all that my Colorado Springs friend didn’t share the vision I had of a life lived in service. It was me trying to see her as the female half in a relationship where she didn’t belong. Guessing who really did is not too difficult at this point!

The forum, really more of a message board, consumed a good bit of my free time for some weeks. Kenny and Julia Loggins were doing publicity appearances in support of the book, and I learned they would be on a daytime talk show. I decided to tape the appearance.

That day happened to be the day that the Queen of England chose to finally speak publicly on her family’s sorrow over the very recent loss of Princess Diana. As a result of her speech, much of the talk show I wanted to have on tape was preempted. I did get part of the segment when Kenny and Julia were discussing their relationship and what they believed they had to offer as insight into the nature of relationship, but I was saddened to see that much of the show simply was not broadcast that day.

Over the next couple of days, several people on the forum mentioned that they missed the airing altogether. I was willing to make copies of the video tape I had, but I also knew I needed to set some limits. I had no interest in becoming a permanent tape-copying fixture of that virtual community. During my lunch break from work, I walked to the nearby big-box electronics store to see what was available in blank tape.

I thought I’d probably get five and be done. That day, though, there was a great deal on a pack of ten blank tapes, so I decided I would be willing to invest that much energy and time in furthering the cause Kenny and Julia were living.

The next step was to post a message on the website that I was willing to make copies of the Kenny and Julia talk-show appearance. Within minutes, I had several takers. Figuring in the cost of the mailers I got from the post office and the postage itself, my outlay was roughly $5 per tape. That was all out-of-pocket expense, as I was making the tapes for free. Once I began the process of creating the copies, I also decided that I would mail the tapes as they were finished, and leave it up to each individual to honor the pledge of sending $5 after the fact. I was glad to see that most did.

I had committed almost all of the tapes by the time Julia became aware of the offer. As she pointed out, she actually got the very last of the ten tapes. In fact, it was only minutes after Julia asked for the last one that someone else asked, as well. I stuck to my self-imposed limit and turned that person down.

With the other folks who bought tapes, my correspondence was limited to “please send me your address” and their reply. Something about Julia’s response, though, caught my eye. The very email she included in this post was the one that hooked me. I had to learn more about this person!

Since we had the Kenny and Julia book as a topic of conversation, as well as the tape I had made for her, I asked after her experience watching the tape. Now, I had been very careful to note in all my conversations with the people who sought that tape that the show was only partly captured. It was not a total loss, but it was not the complete show. I’m sure it had to have been a couple of weeks after I sent the tape to Julia that the topic came up again, and she pointed out just what she mentions in this post: she had no working VCR in her house!

While she also said she intended, some day, to take the tape to a friend’s house to view it, she didn’t show much enthusiasm for that task. I decided she was a nice lady with a view of life that I enjoyed talking about with her, but she was definitely flaky! Why did she ask for the tape if she didn’t have any plan for watching it??

Ah, Spirit. You have to have a sense of humor to be in the lives of us human beings!

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Where to start?

There are many friends I have come to know, particularly over the past five weeks, who I only know by their typed words which I have read on their blogs.

It is striking that some of the most intelligent, attractive, and fun women I have met are single and not necessarily loving it. These are people who are powerfully living their lives and not bemoaning their fate at all, don't get me wrong in that regard. In fact, some are completely at peace with being alone or raising a child or children by themselves. On the other hand, I don't think most would turn down the chance to meet someone compatible who could become more than just a friend. Maybe not today, because some of these amazing women (I’m sure there are guys out there in the same position, I just have not met them) are intentionally taking a break from the relationship arena to refresh their intimacy and knowledge of their own inner life and soul, or to determine what path they want to walk next in their lives.

In building this blog, Julia and I will focus a great deal on the dynamics of relationship and how understanding these dynamics can make life so much easier for couples and for the other people in their lives. That doesn't mean, though, that we won't also be writing about how to get to the point that there is a relationship in the first place. That’s my topic this morning.

In the early posts of our own story, Julia makes mention of the fact that she was unavailable for any kind of relationship for about eight years right in the early prime of her adult life. It was a conscious decision she reached after experiencing a pattern of finding men, but only ones with other attachments which made them unavailable.

Literally the day before we met, she opened her arms to love and declared to the universe her willingness to try again.

We have come to believe that this is very much a Law of Attraction kind of action. For those of you unfamiliar, the Law of Attraction is fairly simple to describe: what you put out to the universe is drawn to you as if by a powerful magnet. If you exude kindness and have a gentle nature, you will find people around you who are kind and gentle. If you are crabby with the world all the time, you will find yourself in traffic jams, helped by rude customer service people, and generally living a life designed by your crabbiness to enforce it.

Of course, one can discuss the Law of Attraction and its applications for years--Jerry and Esther Hicks have been doing so for close to 25 years now, and there is no end in sight to their Abraham seminars. Julia teaches it, particularly in her "Raise Your Frequency" talks and forum. So, while the explanation is enough for the purposes of this post, this is a topic rich with information to be mined. If you have not already, find a resource you are attracted to and resonate with, and learn more.

If the Law of Attraction is so simple to describe, at least at the rudimentary level, why do so many of us find it hard to use what we know? That's a much tougher question to answer, but the short version is, we simply are not able to get out of our own way to allow what we dream, the space to come into our lives.

We're all too busy trying to force things to be the way we want them--that's a critical word, 'want'--instead of doing what works, which is to feel the emotion you know you will experience when you have whatever you are busily driving away by coveting it. If you can broadcast to the universe, "I love living my life exactly as it is, and I have everything I could ever desire, including...[insert your dream here]" then you will find your desires practically falling out of the sky in their rush to match the frequency you are broadcasting on.

What we do instead is to send out the message that we're lonely, have low self esteem, and don't feel worthy of meeting someone who would be the perfect match for us. The universe, just as it always does, returns to us exactly what we are claiming: more opportunities to feel lonely, more chances to see ourselves as being unworthy, and people who have similar personal issues coming into our lives. There's a powerful reason why people seem to attract the same mismatches into their lives over and over. They are causing it to happen!

Here's a key part of breaking out of this pattern. Practice allowing. It is so easy to do that we find it very difficult. Practice sending out your message that you love having your desires met with perfection, and then get the heck out of the way. Let go of the string so that energetic message can fly wherever it needs to fly to do its job. Allow the universe to do its part of the manifesting process.

We tend to get all caught up in how our desires could possibly be fulfilled, and that's not where we need to focus. The universe, Spirit, God-in-me, whatever you choose to call it, is responsible for lining everything up so it falls into place. That cannot happen, though, if we are busily getting in the way!

What Julia did ten years ago is a great example. She had spent years denying the universe any opportunity to create and bring to her a partner, yet when she opened her heart and said, with full conviction, "Okay...I'm ready now" the universe brought me into her life in less than one day.

From my side of it, I had spent years denying my own worthiness and suffering because of it. For me, it was about two years of gradually learning to value myself before I was ready to be the answer to Julia's call. After those two years of preparation (and I only call it that in retrospect--I had not the slightest clue about the adventure I was about to become part of), it took Julia and me a matter of only a few weeks to come to grips with what we were for each other.

To the heart of the matter, if you are ready to have a partner enter your life, then announce it loud and clear! Stand with your arms open, and tell the universe that NOW is the time, and you are ready to meet this person. Then, let it go. Don’t peek around every corner, wondering if that’s the person right there, walking up the sidewalk. Instead, go on with your life. Live it fully, do what you love, and let things unfold for you naturally. Feel the comfort in your bones that you have done the only thing necessary to make this happen for you. Continue to put out the call that you are fully prepared for love, and allow it to come to you. The joy that such a call brings is exactly the frequency the universe recognizes, and responds to.

If you are inspired to go to places where you have the chance to meet single people who might fit the bill, go for it! The secret is, don’t force it. There’s nothing wrong with putting yourself in places where it is easy to meet people, as long as you are not giving off a vibe of the hunter or huntress. Again, inspiration can guide you. Be you, do what you are inspired to do, and let the magic unfold on your behalf. Julia is very adamant that allowing is not the same as lazily expecting miracles while you sit idly by and let life go on without you. Not at all! But your actions should be inspired ones, not flailing about without any purpose. If you feel a boost in energy when you consider going to a church potluck or out to the friendly neighborhood watering hole with a buddy, that’s your cue. Inspired action comes complete with motivation and energy to accomplish the action already built-in!

If you have thoughts or comments, please feel free to add them. We intend this to be a community, and it will be one where we learn right along with the folks like you who stop by.

Love,
Rick

Friday, September 28, 2007

Our own relationship story (part two)

Continuing the recounting of how Julia and I came to be together, here is part two. If you want to skip ahead, you can read the entire story if you go to Julia's blog and enter "soulmate saga" into the search box.

Here, I will continue to add another part of the story every couple of days.

So, on with part two!

----(Julia tells her story)

From just after Christmas of 1990, to early 1998, I lived in my parents’ home in Lexington, North Carolina. They were there approximately 6 months out of 12 and I was there alone 6 months out of 12. During that period is when Recreating Eden was begun in earnest—though I didn’t at that point fully recognize what it was that I was undertaking. It was quite a time of solitude--a challenge for an extrovert like me! I should mention that Lexington is a small town of around 16,000, and not exactly a social mecca, or home to a gold mine of men that might have made suitable partners for me, even if I had been interested in coupling up at that time. Even Winston-Salem and Greensboro, where I worked in a holistic center and taught classes, didn’t yield up any promising partnership material for me—but then, as I said, I was wearing invisible barbed wire and a “Keep Out!” sign.

I might have gone nuts in Lexington, what with living alone, if I hadn’t discovered The Whirling Dervish, a coffee and gourmet shop, where I went every day, at least once, for a cappuccino and a bagel, and for much needed social interaction. The people who owned it, Betsy and Larry, became good friends, and people from the town I might not have gotten to know otherwise became my buddies, too. It was a bit like Cheers, but on caffeine instead of alcohol. Yes—The Dervish (so named because Betsy grew up as an expatriate in Turkey), saved my sanity.

The Dervish never really made much money, though, and after a few years of struggling by, Betsy and Larry finally decided to let it go. Now, you'd think that would have been devastating news, but for some reason, I did not react the way you might have expected. No—I somehow took it as a sign—a sign that my time to move on was at hand. That might not seem so unusual, except that I did not have a clue how I was going to pull it off. I simply did not have the financial wherewithal at that point to move. But oddly, I knew that moving was, indeed, what I was preparing to do. How? No clue. I remember walking my dachshund, Luna, in the lovely old neighborhood a block from the Dervish on a September afternoon soon after they announced it was closing in a couple of months. It was warm and golden—a perfect early fall day—and there was a breeze blowing that had the tiniest hint of chill in it, like a promise of what was to come. I can feel that breeze and hear it rustling the leaves in the big oaks on First Avenue to this day. It was more than a breeze—it was the winds of change. And I knew it even then.

I’ve said many times that your Spirit will use your personality to get you where you need to go and do what you need to do. Well, mine used my love for cappuccino to get me where I needed to be to find what I needed to find. Since the Dervish was closing and there were no other sources for espresso drinks in Lexington at the time, I decided I’d need an espresso maker if I were going to make it through with a minimum of withdrawals from the Dervish. So I headed to Winston-Salem to check them out and, to make a long story a little less long, ended up striking out at the gourmet and home stores—I thought $200 was a little much and their cheaper models were sold out. So, it was suggested to me that I try the new super Walmart. I’m thinking, "No way will they have espresso makers there!" but I let myself be convinced and went. What a Walmart! The price check girls were on roller skates, the place was so vast. And yes, they did, indeed, have an espresso maker—a Mr. Coffee for $40. So I got it, along with a frothing pitcher, and wandered around a bit before being sucked into their book department. There, I found what was then a new book by Kenny Loggins and his wife, Julia (nice name!) called The Unimaginable Life: Lessons Learned on the Path of Love. Yes—that’s Kenny Loggins the singer. I felt a powerful attraction to the book, but I was a little torn at first. You see, I’d had a crush on Kenny since 1983 when I sat on the front row of one of his concerts in Japan and wasn’t sure I wanted to read about his love affair with his wife! I had been the only Caucasian in a sea of Japanese, and I was tall, blonde, blue-eyed and wearing a mini-skirt to boot! He paid a LOT of attention to me, singing to me, and even looking me in the eyes and leaning over the edge of the stage to throw me a sweaty towel at one point, which, thankfully, a teenage girl snatched out from in front of me. I say thankfully, because really, what does one do with someone’s perspiration-soaked towel? But I digress.

I did buy the book. And the rest is history. Of course, I will share that history with you in the next installment!


----(Rick tells his story)

While most of us are less than thrilled about it sometimes, change is often the harbinger of something fresh and new: it seems to me we are reborn time and time again as we move through our lives.

In my case, I had become involved with a sweet lady from Colorado Springs in the summer of 1997. It was the one and only time I ever made use of any sort of dating service. In this case, it was match.com, one of the first such websites to come into existence.

I was checking out match.com just as my soon-to-be friend was about to decide to pull her info off the website for lack of appealing results. I saw her ad the last day it was to be visible.

We met for lunch a few days later, which was not a hard thing to do--I have lived all of my adult life on the south side of the Denver area, she lived on the north side of Colorado Springs, so we were only about 45 minutes apart.

After a couple of more substantial times together, we gradually fell into a pattern that had me driving down twice a week to Colorado Springs to spend time with her and her son, a delightful young man just beginning high school. I would hustle back to Denver early Sunday to spend the day with my own four daughters.

The exact circumstances of discovering the very same Unimaginable Life book that Julia mentions have faded into the past, but it was typical of me that I did not immediately buy a copy of the book once I learned that it existed. Once I had heard about it and had some idea what the book was about, I went to my local branch of the Denver Public Library--easily one of the best library systems in the country, for which I am grateful over and over because I constantly have one book or another on hold, am waiting in virtual line for my turn to check out a book or several, or am turning in two or three books I am finished with--and filled out the little slip to request that the library buy a copy.

It was my first experience asking the library to procure a book I wanted to read that they did not have. It was an empowering event, that's for sure, and one I remembered years later when I asked the library to buy a copy of another book: Recreating Eden. The latter event was all about the same thing we are about at this website: getting the word to as many people as possible about a path to participation in this time of great change for all of humanity, the world, and the universe. My earlier experience, though, was about getting a book in my hands that I was not willing to buy sight unseen. I have been accused of being cheap. I prefer the appellation, ""careful with his money."" (if you think I'm bad, check out my dad!)

A couple of weeks later, I got a notification that the book was in. I rushed to the library after work, checked out the book, and proceeded to devour the contents over a period of a few days.

Once I had the book for a week or so and fell in love with it, it was an easy decision to buy a copy of my own. The book is a powerful statement of how love--or as Kenny and Julia called it in their book, Big Love--transforms. They met at a point in their lives when both had been through painful times and lived to come out the other side (isn't that the story for all of us of a certain age??), and the book chronicles the time in their lives when they became friends, lovers, and partners through their letters to each other, through the songs Kenny wrote at the time, and through Julia's beautiful poetry.

Both Julia and Kenny contribute to the discussion of Big Love and how it can heal. Heck...it can't help but heal, if you just let it do its job. Their lessons on radical honesty--on laying it all on the line every day with your partner so you don't end up with lots of junk in your relationship that fogs the connection between you--were eye-opening for me. For way too long in my life, I was a ""go along to get along"" kind of guy. I was always able to adjust or accommodate. What I knew nothing of was the stored pain I had accumulated as a result. When you get too good at stuffing your pain inside, you can completely forget it even exists. Boy, was I there!

My friend in Colorado Springs bought her own copy of the book, too. We often compared notes on particular sections of the book. For the most part, though, we didn't really practice the tenets of the book. Instead, we would just hang out and be together. Having a level of comfort with someone that allows for just being, not having to be *doing* all the time, was wonderful and restful--and educational. To some extent, we have become so much a "you are what you do" nation. That attitude doesn't leave much space for growth of the soul. I began to learn that you are always becoming who you are about to *be*. "Doing" is an activity or action, not the definition of the heart of a person. Growth on the inside comes most readily when there is space in your life to allow it. Allowing...that's one crucial concept!

I was a bit bothered at a deep level that my friend didn't seem all that enthused when I would talk about how we had a mission in life to help people. Like me, she was involved with computers at her job, and her interpretation of my vision was that we would form our own computer consulting company. I had mixed emotions about that idea which mostly revolved around my need for a considerable and steady income to provide for my daughters, but I could see how her idea could be a bridge to completing the vision I had.

In her case, the vision wasn't shared. Our relationship, though, was such an important one for me. When my marriage ended, I was at rock bottom emotionally. My trust of my own ability to create a healthy relationship was at about zero. Thanks to my friend in California, and later my friend in Colorado Springs, I learned that an important part of relationship is to own your part of it. When both partners are fully present and engaged, the connection is transformational: it's healing, and it is a verdant place where growth naturally occurs. If, instead, you are molding yourself to fit what little space is allotted to you in the relationship, it is draining and can suck the life right out of you.

Over the period of time from when my marriage became irretrievably broken to the time when I met Julia (more to come from her on that topic, I'm sure!), I was blessed to know two wonderful people who were my mentors in regaining myself. Neither was consciously playing that role, but I have found that my most powerful mentors often aren't. Both of these women healed parts of me that were vital to have fully activated for the time to come.

And, for that part of the story, you'll have to tune in again!

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Our relationship

Julia and I have been together for about ten years now, which is an interesting fact. We considered ourselves "together" before we laid eyes on each other in person. Why? We had spent many hours with each other via email and by daily, hours-long phone conversations. The odds are great that we knew each other better by the time we saw each other for the first time than most dating couples can claim after a year of dating.

In setting up this website, one of our intentions was to tell our own story. It is a story we have told before, using Julia's blog as the vehicle. In that case, we told it one chapter at a time over many months. Here, we will tell it the same way, but we will condense the timeline. Given that the entire purpose of this new blog is to discuss relationship dynamics and how to make one work, it only makes sense for us to get our story up and visible over a shorter timeframe.

Today, we begin at the beginning. I will post another chapter in the story in a couple of days.

----(Julia's part of the story)

After my comments about “looking for love” in my last blog entry, someone wrote me today and asked how I met my husband, Rick. It’s a really cool story, and will take more space than I’m going to allot to one blog entry, so I’ll tell it in installments!

First, I’ll start with a little background. I was married for the first time when I was 23, to someone who was just not right for me. He was my first earth-shaking love, and it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that we were just not suited for each other, no matter how much we loved each other at essence. I kept the voice inside that was trying to tell me that well-muted for a number of years, until finally, it could not be denied anymore. Our relationship lasted about five years total, but our marriage, only 15 months. Interestingly, I had severe migraine headaches during exactly the period of time we were together. Once we split up, the migraines only came back once, and again, it was when I was not being honest with myself.

I have deduced that migraines are common occurrences when you are lying to yourself about something important—when you are not heeding your inner guidance. Not saying that’s the only cause—just that it seems to be consistent with my observations of myself and others. I learned somewhere that when the frequencies of your left and right brain hemispheres are different, it can cause migraines. Kind of makes sense with my theory, doesn’t it? Anyway, while I was crazy about my first husband, and he loved me a lot, it was a serious mismatch. I’m sure there was a karmic component to our being together, and I still feel a bond with him, but it was a powerful move in the right direction when we split up. I’m happy to say that, even though we made lousy partners, we have a nice relationship now, and he and his wife—who is very cool—have both read Recreating Eden and bought copies for friends and family. I hope to see them when I’m in North Carolina this spring.

After my marriage, I had quite an active social life, and it took me a number of relationships to see a pattern emerging: I was always magnetizing unavailable men. My first husband had been unavailable emotionally. I had another boyfriend that was still hung up on his first love and wasn’t available—actually, make that 2 boyfriends hung up on lost loves. And there were the ones that just weren’t that into me, and the one that, when things got to the deep-heart intimacy stage, freaked out and pulled away (now that’ll do a number on you!). There was one that worked on the pipeline in Alaska and was only around for two weeks of every five, and then there were (I’m sad to say) the married ones or engaged ones, or otherwise involved ones. If a man was unavailable, I was like a magnet to him. And, in many ways, that suited me fine. It was easier to be involved with a man that was unavailable. That way, I didn’t have to commit (This was something I wasn’t cognizant of at the time, but that I figured out in a later analysis). And I’m a “keep my options open” type—a “P-type” in the Myers-Briggs personality inventory. Being involved with unavailable men suited me—but only sort-of. There was a deep longing in me for true partnership—a longing to be with a man who would consider me the “love of his life,” and with whom I could build a life. Continually being involved with unavailable men did little or nothing for my self esteem, and I felt guilty about the relationships with men who were involved with other women. But for some reason, I kept creating relationships with the old pattern until one day, I just said “ENOUGH! I refuse to keep doing this! I will not be in any relationship at all until I can break this sick pattern!” And the universe took me at my word.

Eight years passed in which I did not have so much as one single, solitary date. I had erected a psychic barrier that was so powerful, I not only didn’t attract men, I did not come across one man that I was even vaguely interested in! It was as if that part of my life was utterly non-existent. And for someone who was still attractive and that had always had lots of interactions with men (as you may have surmised by my partial list of relationships above) it was quite a phenomenon to live such a life of relationship abstinence.

But all that was going to change in 1997…

I’ll tell you more of my relationship saga soon!

----(Rick's part of the story)

It only seems fitting that the story be told from both points of view, so I will chime in and take the story from the beginning to the same point that Julia has, this time from my perspective.

My first marriage was later than Julia’s: I was 28 when I got married in 1982, two and a half years after I returned home to Denver after four years in the Air Force. My first wife is the mother of all those step children you hear about now and again in Julia’s blog.

By 1995, our relationship had soured to the point that it was simply a matter of time before it ended. We separated in 1996. I then embarked on what I now see as the gradual opening of my eyes and raising of my vision. My own sense of self had been badly damaged—or, more likely, was badly damaged at the time I got married—and I needed time and relationships based more on esteem for ourselves first, and then what we could each bring to a relationship. A lovely woman who lived in the mountains east of Los Angeles and I had a relationship that lasted about four months and several trips to that beautiful part of California. We are still friends today and email each other a few times a year. Our relationship was an important step for me, because we treated each other as equals each entitled to the nurturing we could offer ourselves, and then to the magic we could build together. The magic, as it turned out, was more imagined than real.

In mid-1997, I met a woman who lived in Colorado Springs, and we were very close for a few months. I now see the value and meaning in having known this person (we are not in communication today). It was during my relationship with her that I began the long climb out of the pit of very low self-esteem I had fallen into over a period of years. She was such a loving and giving soul, and she was very healing for me. Again, though, the magic wasn’t what we both thought we saw at first. When I would talk about what I envisioned as our future, she was kind about it but clearly didn’t share my vision. I was still seeing her when I met Julia. At this point, I will let Julia take the story forward and add my comments when she does.

Friday, September 21, 2007

Welcome!

This is the newly born home of the blog shared by Julia and Rick Hamrick. It is our intent to tell our story of loving relationship. We will share how ours was created and how we maintain it, as well as sharing what we have learned over the years of working together, playing together...loving together. We know we can help.

We encourage you to join us in this pursuit, as we will do our level best to answer questions posted as comments to our blog entries! In each answer, you will find both Julia's and my perspective. Maybe we will agree. Maybe we won't! We know each other to be loving, kind, intuitive souls who have great willingness to help people find what we have found in our relationship, so even when our answers differ, it is pretty likely that one of them will resonate with you. Go with that answer.

Rick Hamrick