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!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
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
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!
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.
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
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
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