Friday, August 27th, 2010

Spirituality and Sexuality

Can there be devotion AND desire?  Can sexuality and spirituality coexist?  Could perhaps fully embracing both devotion to the spiritual and desire in a sexual sense, each draw you deeper into the other?

"Drop this antagonism toward sex. If you ever want love to shower in your life, renounce this conflict with sex. Accept sex blissfully. Acknowledge its sacredness. Acknowledge its benediction. Go on searching deeper and deeper into it, and you will be amazed that the more you accept sex with a quality of sacredness, the more sacred it will become. And the more you are in conflict with it, as if it were something sinful and dirty, the more sinful and ugly it will become. "

~ Osho

Osho, in case you are not familiar with him, was also known as Rajneesh, an Indian guru, whose ashram still exists in Pune, India, a place I've been several times. Although there are plenty of quirks about Osho, the Ashram and his teachings, I do love his perspective, so similar to Vedic Tantrism.

Tantra, for most of us, conjures up Sting having sex for eight hours at a time.  Not a bad image for some of us . but Tantra isn't only about sex.  It's actually a larger philosophy, and views on sex is one part of that larger philosophy.

Vedic Tantrics were the odd-balls of India, sort of like the mystic Sufis were to Islam. (Think poets like Rumi, Hafiz and Lalla). Vedic Tantric philosophy espouses that there is nowhere to get to, in your spiritual seekings.  There is nothing to transcend, no place to work hard to be let into, if you are good enough, right enough, pure enough, etc.

They assert that there is nowhere you could go that isn't the divine.  You are the Divine. The Divine is having a human experience through you.

Sure does take a lot of pressure off to constantly struggle and strive to get somewhere else besides here, in order to be finally OK.  Whew.

They also say that anything you repress or resist has power over you, and so they  dive into the things they are resisting or repressing, like sex. One of the only spiritual teachings to INCLUDE rather than exclude sex, i take off my hat to the Vedic Tantrics.  Spiritual doesn't have to exclude Sexual.

The best thing I could wish on any of you, and certainly myself, is to have "love shower in my life" as Osho says.  Here's to your showers of love!

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Is Polyamory Wrong?

From this site:  http://tcritic.com/archives/polyamory-is-wrong/

What do YOU think?

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

What is the color of Love?

When I was little, my dad could never keep our toothbrushes straight.

So as not to keep using mine or my mom's, he created a color-coding system. Red for Roland (my dad), Blue for Beverly (my mom) and Yellow for LiYana (that's me).

OK, yellow for LiYana was a stretch, but they didn't make Lavender toothbrushes in 1979.

And the color coding system stuck, and went for things other than dental care, like jackets, pens, folders, etc.

My wonderful father passed away almost two years ago. About 10 days ago, on Father's day, I picked my head up out of my computer (buried as I was in the details of an all-consuming launch), because I realized I couldn't call him to say hi and acknowledge him for his fathering. And I missed him.

One of my coaches suggested (and please use this if it resonates with you!) that I find a sign or object for my father to let his presence be known, even that's he's passed. So, every time I see Red (like a bird or a valentine or lipgloss), I think of him.

It felt a little funny to be working away on a Sunday AND on Father's Day, but this launch must go on. No turning back and all that.

Hard or as much as I work, it's vital to me that each thing I do, whether a client session, an email, or even mundane details, be done with Love. Love and care and good ju-ju, it all gets in there. You can feel it.

And so it felt like a mini omen to get an email from my mom, later that Father's day, telling me some things she remembered about her beloved husband of nearly 40 years. She signed her email, "Red for Roland, Blue for Beverly and Love for LiYana."

Well, Dad, thanks for showing up in things like cardinals, fire engine lipstick, and my favorite crimson shirt. And, Mom, I guess instead of Yellow, it'll be Love for LiYana from now on.

What, after all, is the color of Love?

If you want to take another peek at this launch I've put so much Love into, you can Love it up here:

http://www.radiance2010.com/liyana

"Love is all around you like the air, and is the very breath of your being." ~ Barry Long

To Love, LiYana

PS: If you are moved to, send this on to other women who might like a little more love and radiance!

http://www.radiance2010.com/liyana

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Divine Dating

ASCEND

A Five-fold Path for Divine Dating in the 21st Century

Published in New York Spirit Magazine, Summer 2010

By LiYana Silver

Have you ever wondered if dating is a modern form of torture, an iron maiden slowly squeezing the last breaths from our hopeful hearts? Is the dating pool a mass of muck and mire to be paddled through in hopes of reaching the far-off shores of our ideal relationship? Or could dating be a transcendent experience, a meeting of gods and goddesses in shining, soul-opening moments over cocktails? Could dating be divine? I consulted four other relationship experts who offered some heavenly answers to these worldly questions and revealed a five-fold path that can illuminates our way.

Dating. It ain't what it used to be. The entire rulebook of courtship seems to have changed. The hows, wheres, whens, whats and whys barely even resemble those of our parents or grandparents. The internet is just over a generation old, drastically influencing how and where we meet people. How do you know when is the right time to call, to have sex, to stop dating other people? What we do on dates – and why – is also open for interpretation; are you looking for a soul-mate, life-partner, mother-of-your-children or a no-strings-fling?

If my ten years of private practice as a relationship coach have made anything clear, it's that relationships are truly complex. However, the recipe for lasting love calls for five vital ingredients, and four other expert dating coaches echo my findings. So, what are these five ingredients; what is this five-fold path we help our clients walk, amble and saunter along? It's a concept, an acronym and a memorable verb; and it's what most of us wish we could do on yet another agonizing date: A.S.C.E.N.D. A is for Appreciation; S for Self-awareness and Self-care; C for Communication, E for Ending the war of the sexes, N for Negotiation; and D for Divine dating.

But let's start with what we would like so much to ASCEND from shall we? Why is dating such a misery, a drudgery and an ongoing opportunity for dashed hopes and painful rejection? Mama Gena, Queen of Pleasure, and founder and facilitator of the Womanly Arts Mastery Program, and author of Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts says it's due in part to our abundant expectations, as well as our baggage and past disappointments that we haul around with us from date to date. Our poor partner has to attempt to overcome our history of unmet expectations, hurt feelings and broken heartedness in only a few short hours.

Jordan Harbinger is a dating coach and teacher with The Art of Charm, which offers men primarily the skills of natural charisma, body language, presence and being their authentic selves without apology. He points to our – and especially men's – prideful egos as one of the main pitfalls to pleasurable dating. With our attention on how the other person is perceiving and judging us, and how and if we are measuring up, there's little room left to be present with our date. Add to that our fear and shame about admitting we've got a lot to learn about dating, relationship and social dynamics. We feel like we should already know how to be great on a date, amazing lovers and fantastic communicators. We truly need that relationship education that almost none of us actually got.

In addition, dating and mating rituals are far from clearly defined. Is he supposed to call on Wednesday for a date on Saturday? Is she supposed to text midday and demand a steamy meeting later in the evening? Reid Mahalko is a bi-coastal sex educator and coach for relationship self-esteem and sexual self-confidence. He chimes in, reminding us that although we often manage to find decent people – which used to be reason enough for our parents and grandparents to make a lifelong marriage work – that is no longer enough. We need to learn to, as Reid puts it, "date our species." We expect more out of our relationships than ever before; sure our date needs to be a decent person, but we also expect to meet our emotional, intellectual, financial, familial spiritual, social and sexual match as well.
Hollywood's leading love and relationship expert Lauren Frances, who counsels A-list celebrities and mentors women around the globe in creating what she calls "legendary love affairs," adds that the fundamental underlying obstacle to enjoyable dating is our lack of clear intention. Why are we dating, to what end? What do we want to get out of courtship? Until somewhat recently, dating was a means to the endpoint of marriage, which created a lot of psychological safety.

Many of the women I work with experience what I call "Groundhog-Day Dating." Like Bill Murray in the 1993 movie who awoke day after day destined to repeat the same painful patterns, so it is for many of us in dating. We inherit these relationship ruts from our families of origins and our culture. We are often perplexed that our hard work and good will does nothing to shift our attraction to the "wrong" person over and over again. We KNOW what to do, but we don't.

So, now that we know how and why dating sucks so bad, how do we start to have a blast instead? We A.S.C.E.N.D.

Starting with Appreciation is key. Deceptively simple and often overlooked, appreciation in and of itself it doesn't always solve complex issues or turn the date around, but it paves the way. And without it, the date – and likely the rest of the relationship – is headed downhill. Appreciation is afoot when you relish the experience of the date itself, approve of your own self, and acknowledge the human being you're on the date with – even if not the right man or woman for you. "The more you honor your own journey and appreciate every step you took, the more you will draw toward you the best experiences," says Mama Gena.

The second step of the five-fold path is Self-awareness. Get on intimate terms with what you want, what makes you happy, what thrills you, your deal-breakers, the things you can't stand and even those things you think you don't deserve but secretly hope for. Knowing want you want is sexy. Get really clear who and what "your species" is – as Reid Mihalko instructs – so you can see if you are on a date with them! This second step also includes Self-care. The date starts before the date; the more you invest in making yourself delicious, the more you both will enjoy yourselves. Mind follows body and body follows mind.

The third ingredient in your delicious dating recipe is Communication: words to sweetly break the ice, to gracefully extract yourself from an uncomfortable date, to get you started appreciating the human being you're with. Be kind, be interested in this person. Rather than judgments, focus on finding commonalities and connecting on an emotional level.

Fourthly, E is for Ending the war of the sexes. In case you didn't notice, there is a sea of misunderstanding separating us from true partnership. When we know men and women truly want (nope, not just to get in her pants or to get at his credit card), we can actually begin to have a sweet dating experience. In our heart of hearts, women want most to be seen, to receive enlivening attention, and to be noticed afresh each moment. See her, hear her, notice her, for real. Guys want to be appreciated, respected and supported in their purpose. As a teacher of mine once said, "Be happy and blame it on him."

Lauren Frances reminds us of the fifth step, Negotiation. Dates, she says, especially first ones are mainly for "romantic research and checking for compatibility coordinates. If you are marriage-minded, ask your date if he or she believes in marriage – and listen very carefully to the answer. If he or she balks, you've done a great job of uncovering a serious relationship incompatibility. You WANT to scare the wrong suitors off! Harmony in relationships comes from an alignment of "mutual romantic intention.'" I always say it's more a question of sorting through all our options than desperately hoping for this one to be The One. They can be a truly great person, but not a right fit for you. If you are not clear where you are going, it's hard to get there.

The sixth ingredient is D for Divine Dating, where all these five steps have been leading. To turn an ordinary dating experience into a transcendent one, begin with no expectations, while holding strongly what you deeply desire. Stay present; feeling seen, heard and truly appreciated are the things of falling in love as well as lasting love. Continue to not taking anything personally, especially on first encounters. Make sure to make the date somehow meaningful, so none of your time spent with another person is ever wasted time. Although you may want a coach to help access it, remember that you have all you need inside. Although you may need a course to remind you, notice that on the other side of your insecurities is the truth of your magnificence.

Not every date will result in a happy ending, but each can be an affirmation that you are showing up for your love life fully and you are taking the right actions. Become more committed to your divine dating experience than feeling bad about your failures. Develop a point of view about your partner that is loving, even if he or she isn't a fit for your relationship intentions. Who you are in every moment – including swapping stories over margaritas – is who you are in life and in love. Says Mama Gena, "We are each responsible for bringing the recognition of our own divinity, which allows us to see it in the other."

AND …. don't forget to leave a comment! What's your experience with dating in the 21st Century? Divine? Dumb? Desperate? Delicious?

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

Is Lasting Love Humanly Possible?

You might not suspect this about me, being a relationship expert and coach and all, but it's important stuff to know:

I truly messed up every single relationship before the one I am in now. Really. Lying, cheating, shaming, blaming, getting bored – I did it just about every way but right.

Over the years, I started asking, is it me? Is it them? Why was I so stuck in a rut, destined to painful, short-lived relationships?

Fast forward 10 years, and I've learned a thing or two – or actually three – that I've gathered together in one workshop.

If you could turn the dial of your certainty in lasting love, would you turn it?

If there was a formula for shifting painful patterns, elegantly and respectfully, would you want to experience it?

If there were three keys that could completely change your relationship destiny, would you want them placed in the palm of your hand?

If you are in San Diego on Sunday, June 13th, my colleague Matthew Blom and I will be joyously offering you all that – and more!

Change Your Relationship Destiny
The Three Keys to Lasting Love

Sunday, June 13, 2010
12:00 – 6:00pm
San Diego area, CA

(For both women and men, in partnership or out)

What's in store for you?

Read below and/or watch the video:

http://www.love3point0.com/destiny/

You will experience:

* How painful patterns are formed, and the three keys for shifting them (right at the workshop!)

* The #1 element, without which all relationships fizzle, but with which they thrive

* How to be seen, heard and appreciated by your partner – and maintain that on-goingly

* That some of your problems may not actually belong to you!

* Knowing that lasting love is humanly possible!

* How to communicate in ways that bring you closer, rather than dig you deeper into conflict

* Experience the formula for untangling painful patterns, updating your emotional inheritance & creating lasting change

http://www.love3point0.com/destiny/

Space is extremely limited – there are only 28 spaces.

So do act quickly!

These are the three keys that allowed me to create the relationship I am in now – seven years strong and sizzling, with our marriage in a couple months!

These are the three keys that allow me to communicate with grace and ease, to deeply appreciate my partner and myself – and to course-correct when I get challenged.

These are the three keys that give me the certainty that lasting love is, absolutely, humanly possible.

That link again, to claim your space and Change Your Relationship Destiny:

http://www.love3point0.com/destiny/

I look forward to seeing you there,

LiYana

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Steps for a good relationship: installing love

I am thrilled to share with you this very insightful piece on:

Instructions for Installing Love on the Human Computer.

Tech Support: Yes, how can I help you?

Customer: Well, after much consideration, I've decided to install Love. Can you guide me through the process?

Tech Support: Yes. I can help you. Are you ready to proceed?

Customer: Well, I'm not very technical, but I think I'm ready. What do I do first?

Tech Support: The first step is to open your Heart. Have you located your Heart?

Customer: Yes, but there are several other programs running now. Is it okay to install Love while they are running?

Tech Support: What programs are running?

Customer: Let's see, I have Past Hurt, Low Self-Esteem, Grudge and Resentment running right now.

Tech Support: No problem, Love will gradually erase Past Hurt from your current operating system. It may remain in your permanent memory but it will no longer disrupt other programs. Love will eventually override Low Self-Esteem with a module of its own called High Self-Esteem. However, you have to completely turn off Grudge and Resentment. Those programs prevent Love from being properly installed. Can you turn those off?

Customer: I don't know how to. Can you tell me how?

Tech Support: With pleasure. Go to your start menu and invoke Forgiveness. Do this as many times as necessary until Grudge and Resentment have been completely erased.

Customer: Okay, done! Love has started installing itself. Is that normal?

Tech Support: Yes, but remember that you have only the base program. You need to begin connecting to other Hearts in order to get the upgrades.

Customer: Oops! I have an error message already. It says, "Error – Program not run on external components." What should I do?

Tech Support: Don't worry. It means that the Love program is set up to run on Internal Hearts, but has not yet been run on your Heart. In non-technical terms, it simply means you have to Love yourself before you can Love others.

Customer: So, what should I do?

Tech Support: Pull down Self-Acceptance; then click on the following files: Forgive-Self; Realize Your Worth; and Acknowledge your Limitations.

Customer: Okay, done.

Tech Support: Now, copy them to the "My Heart" directory. The system will overwrite any conflicting files and begin patching faulty programming. Also, you need to delete Verbose Self-Criticism from all directories and empty your Recycle Bin to make sure it is completely gone and never comes back.

Customer: Got it. Hey! My heart is filling up with new files. Smile is playing on my monitor and Peace and Contentment are copying themselves all over My Heart. Is this normal?

Tech Support: Sometimes. For others it takes awhile, but eventually everything gets it at the proper time. So Love is installed and running.

One more thing before we hang up.

Love is Freeware.

Be sure to give it and its various modules to everyone you meet. They will in turn share it with others and return some cool modules back to you.

Customer: Thank you, God.

CREATOR, aka, Tech Support: You're Welcome, Anytime.

(YOU: Don't forget to leave a comment!)

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Women Own All The Vaginas

Next week, I'm interviewing a guy who literally wrote the book on Why Men Do What They Do.  Seriously, he wrote a book called Women Own All the Vaginas: Why Men Do What They Do.

If that book title didn’t singe some hairs off your raised eyebrows, then I don’t know what!

Are you as curious as I am to get the inside scoop from Richard Nocera, hairdresser, businessman, author and educator?

Women, men – this is not to miss!

Interview with Richard Nocera, author of Women Own All the Vaginas

Free tele-class interview
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
5:30pm Pacific time; 8:30pm Eastern time

To hold your spot and register for this fr*ee interview, use
this link:

http://www.love3point0.com/richardnocera/

I’ll get Richard expounding on:

* Why men life, distort and avoid true feelings

* Why men cannot keep a lifelong pledge of 100% monogamy

* Why heterosexual men need to come out of the closet and talk about how they actually experience their sexuality

* 29 uniquely interwoven characteristics that make a man a man

* Healing your past and becoming sexually honest

* Men have no Oprah!

* And you’ll be able to take the quiz and find out “What type of man you are.”

Mr. Nocera’s forty years of experience – owning and operating a chain of hair salons located in Boston’s exclusive western suburbs – has given him unique insight into human nature.

As a confidant, he listened carefully while both men and women talked about their mates, their desires, their vulnerabilities, their disappointments, and their secrets. His personal life experiences, coupled with 25 years he spent in therapy, propelled him to write his book, Women Own All the Vaginas: Why Men Do What They Do.

I’m delighted to be interviewing him next week!

That link again to hold your spot and register for this fr*ee interview:

http://www.love3point0.com/richardnocera/

This is gonna be a live one! I hope you'll be there.

And if you have thoughts on Why Men Do What They Do – or if women really own all the vaginas, leave a comment!
Best, LiYana

Saturday, May 1st, 2010

Renew You

This whole year is about two things for me:

1. Connecting with other women kicking major butt and making women's lives more juicy, balanced, fulfilled and delicious. (and passing on to you what I'm most excited about and aligned with).

2. Doing my work with love, ease, delight and spaciousness. It's good for me, and most importantly, I know that juju will get into everything I pass along to you – each email, tweet, class, session or workshop.

With that in mind, you can get started with this very cool program my friend and colleague, Andrea Ramirez is putting together. (We know each other from when I was a Holistic Nutrition Practitioner and I'm presenting a class, "Bringing Sexy Back: Decoding Desire, Attraction and Connection.")

Check it out:

Give yourself the gift of “me time” next month and join 13 energized, insightful women — all experts in helping women live passionate lives — for the Renew You 2010 Teleseminar Series. And I'll be presenting a class as well!

The featured experts are best-selling authors and nationally renowned nutritionists, trainers and coaches. Scheduled topics range from achieving optimum health, creatively managing your mo*ney, preparing great food, having better se*x, enhancing your natural beauty, creating meaningful relationships, and much more. When you register you’ll receive a detailed program guide to all of the teleseminar events.

Best of all? This world-class event won’t cost you a thing.

Click here to get all the details and register, the fun begins on May 4th!

Your comments are welcome below – and feel free to re-tweet about this.

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

What I Wish Someone Had Told Tiger Woods

This was published a while back in New York Spirit Magazine, but I thought it deserved re-posting. Timely topic!

Post your comments below…

What I Wish Someone Had Told Tiger

By LiYana Silver

Are you really surprised Tiger Woods was cheating on his wife? Were you surprised Bill Clinton, Jude Law, Leann Rimes, David Letterman, Jon Gosselin, Mark Sanford and Hugh Grant were? We shake our once-again disappointed heads over yet another public figure or leader who has proven to be a cheater, liar or hypocrite, but why exactly are we so surprised and disappointed? Of course it can feel like a betrayal when someone you look up to, a mentor, leader or teacher, turns out to have cracks in their morals. I’m not saying that all public figures, celebrities and leaders are cheaters, liars and hypocrites – I’m saying MOST OF US are cheaters, liars and hypocrites.

Hear me out. According to the Associated Press, 90 percent of Americans believe adultery is morally wrong, yet between 25 to 50 percent of married women and 50 to 65 percent of married men admit to having affairs. And since not all of those cheaters are married to each other, the numbers of those engaged in infidelities increases dramatically, affecting 80 percent of marriages. Picture a room of 10 people; between 2 to 8 of those people are or have been cheaters. You might even have to count yourself.

We cry for monogamy in morals, but our actions say something very different.

As hard on everyone as infidelity is, cheating deserves a closer examination. Cheating is defined by the context it is set in and the rules it breaks, not by the action itself. In one context, having a knife plunged into your abdomen in the middle of the night by a strange masked man could be a very bad thing; yet in another context, if you are suffering a burst appendix, you are wildly thankful for that surgeon’s scalpel. By one set of rules, copying out of the textbook in an exam is blatant cheating; in an open-book test, it is accepted and encouraged. It’s not the necessarily act of having sex, intimacies or emotional connections with people other than our partners that is inherently the problem, it’s the secrecy and dishonesty as well as the unexamined rules so many of us strive to live and love by.

We take for granted that monogamy is the gold standard for relationships, and when we can’t manage it, we blame ourselves – or our partner. But we could stop and consider a third option; that perhaps there’s something outdated or ill-fitting for some of us, about the structure, confines and pressures of monogamy itself.

I’m not letting Tiger, Bill, Jude – or those fictional 2 to 8 of 10 folks in the room – off the hook for cheating, lying, deception and infidelity. Dishonesty is a tragedy for everyone. But does everyone who has an affair do it for the sole purpose of breaking up a family or betraying the trust of their loved ones? Are all cheaters callous cads, letting wanton selfish desires take precedence over the sacrifice and self-discipline that is often necessary in loving relationship? Are a majority of us simply just rotten, bad people?

With deep respect to his wife and family (and an additional wish that he not have his personal life scrutinized by the public), let’s also look at what Tiger, our token cheater, was going FOR, not just what he managed to mess up. It’s a powerful force; call it freedom, lust, limerance, infatuation, love, difference, otherness, intimacy, desire, or thrilling newness. For as long as there have been partners to cheat on, we humans have risked loved ones, jobs, careers, nations, our lives – and endorsements – for this force. It’s powerful, enlivening stuff, of which it seems we’d jeopardize just about anything for a taste, and which is as much a part of our humanity as is our integrity and honesty. It deserves to be dealt with head-on, with a healthy dose of respect.

Has monogamy outstayed its evolutionary welcome? Is the solution for long-term, committed partnerships and marriages to open up? Is the solution to keep doing the sexing-with-others we seem to be doing, but to stop lying about it? For some, certainly, but polyamory (the practice of having honest, consensual, loving, intimate and/or sexual relationships with more than one person) isn’t a panacea. Some monogamous relationships become stronger after infidelity exposes the cracks to be worked on. A few of us who cheat are of the narcissistic or pathologically disordered sort. And some people are stuffed into monogamy that shouldn’t be, whose perfect expression of love and commitment is to many, not just one. The lifestyle and love-style of non-monogamy may or may not be suited to Tiger and his wife, but the questions and considerations that must go into creating an honest, responsible, consensual open relationship most certainly would have helped them. There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer; but there are some important questions to keep asking.

Tammy Nelson, author of Getting the Sex You Want, states that nearly 80 percent of partners are complicit in their partner’s infidelity, whether they explicitly knew about it or not. Maybe they don’t expect their partner to betray their trust or have explicit knowledge of the affair, but on some level, they know. We don’t get pneumonia out of thin air – we have to first ignore our sniffles, our sore throat, our cough that won’t go away, our fatigue and the pain in our chests. Likewise, most of the time, we do know when our relationships are faltering, dulling, and closing to intimacy. We ignore the worsening symptoms and are ill equipped to do much to restore connection, passion, honesty and life to our relationships. Most of us have little or no means to deal pragmatically, intelligently, carefully, consciously – and even joyfully! – with the massive contradictions that make up any relationship.

It was only until relatively recently that marriage became about chosen love, soul mates, joint happiness and mutual sexual fulfillment. For most of its history, marriage was a political or survival strategy. You got your love, happiness and great sex where you could, if you could. Never before has marriage – or long-term partnership – looked like we want it to look now. Never before have we lived as long as we do now: the average span of “until-death-do-us-part” used to be about 10 years, and now our unions could last upwards of 60. Never before have we expected daily domesticity, child-rearing, financial decision-making, social and familial compatibility to merge seamlessly with erotic, sexual, intellectual, intimate, religious and spiritual fulfillment. Never before have we placed such pressures on one person to satisfy all of our needs, a burden too big for most of us to hold.

We are hard-wired biologically to be attracted to multiple people, as long as we have a pulse and hormones flow in our endocrine systems, and this doesn’t magically go away when couple up with just one. Often the closer, more comfortable, familiar and cozy the long-term relationship gets, the less the sexual spark, attraction and erotic fire. Desire, longing and arousal are fueled by newness, otherness, and even a bit of the unknown. It’s hard to find newness in a partner you know completely and it can become harder and harder to want something you already have.

Ever a realist, I’m not excusing infidelity. Ever a free-thinker, I’m not saying open relationship are always the answer. And ever a romantic, I’m not convinced that enough love, enough effort, enough faith – or the vows of marriage – can inoculate us from the very real contradictions of all relationships, let alone those facing the specific pressures of the 21^st Century. We grow and change, and our world grows and changes, at alarmingly fast rates. The question becomes how can our relationships grow and change with us? Like buildings in earthquake zones, the structures of our relationships desperately need to be retro-fit for flexibility, pliancy and pragmatism – and right quick.

What sits before us all, and what I wish had shown up on Tiger’s agenda, is that now more than ever we have the opportunity to embrace the paradoxes of partnership – and they are many. The alternative to asking the hard questions of ourselves and our lovers is to bury our heads in the sand, and wonder, outraged, when cheating, lying or infidelity – or the general decline of our relationship – rears its head and makes a statistic out of us.

Albeit not for the faint of heart, there is absolutely a path for the survival and thrival of loving, committed, honest, fulfilling and sustainable relationships. What it takes is indeed humanly possible: a commitment to loving, openly and honestly; to having freedom and commitment under one roof; to the care and feeding of the partnership; and to seeking a third option when there appears to be none. Rather than defaulting to sexual exclusivity, it takes choosing powerfully monogamy or non-monogamy. It takes welcoming the enigma of relationships in the 21^st Century. There’s no one right way to do it, except to choose YOUR way with open eyes and heart. What will your right way be?

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Open

I go to these really hard, sweaty yoga classes where the teacher will get us into some insane pretzeled-out pose and then keep us there for what seems like an inhumanely long-ass time. I even get up really early, out of my uber yummy warm bed and go willingly to this madness.

If an alien were to visit, it might think it a touch odd to see all these folks like me brushing sleep out of their eyes and contorting themselves on purpose. And perhaps ever more odd to see them staying in the contorted spots rather than heading back to bed.

Why, you might ask, just like the alien might ask, do I keep going back?

The theory is that when we consciously place ourselves in challenging situations where we have to practice opening, breathing and loving through and into the difficulty, we are then better equipped to do it for real when life throws us the big doozies.

The theory can backfire, however, if we, in the midst of the hard time (the long pretzel-hold, the anxiety attack, the insomnia, the broken heart), clench down, zone out, resist or grit our teeth to get through it any way we can.

The reason I keep going back to these early morning challenge-fests is that there is something powerful and palpable about, as the 13th Century Persian mystic poet Rumi puts it, "not moving the way fear makes you move."

In the midst of challenge, to love. Rather than contract, to open. Rather than hold the breath, to breathe deeply and allow oxygen to carry some lovin' to our red blood cells, on the conduit of our breath.

"As if you were soaking in an ocean of love, relax open your throat, heart, belly, and genitals to receive love's saturation. Lovingly melt your heart and body open as the fullness of this moment. "

~ David Deida

When we decide to notice it, we are indeed in an ocean of love, even during the contorted pose, the anxiety attack, the insomnia, the broken heart.

So, if you'd care to join me this week:

Open.

Don't endure something that's bad or damaging to you; but do practice opening into the ocean of love, even when you want to throw something at your yoga teacher.

And definitely, let me know your thoughts and comment below – now or after you Open!

Enjoy,

LiYana