by Rebekah Freedom | Apr 20, 2019 | Relationship
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Getting what you want by being yourself is metaphysical and takes more than self-help to do it.
Sometimes we let talking about things be the action we take on realizing our dreams. How many of us want more money, a good relationship, or amazing health? We go all “Self-help” about it: ask questions, sign up for programs, buy exercise equipment, read more books, and yet keep repeating the same behavior year after year.
If you read that last sentence and started to feel bad, welcome to self-help shaming. The following questions are examples of pressing pain points that keep us seeking for answers outside of ourselves:
- Are you stuck?
- Do you want a 6 figure business?
- How do you get your ex back?
- Are you dating a narcissist?
The answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes…but I can’t, shouldn’t, and I don’t know how. Then we feel like shit for feeling something about how life is being reflected back to us. It’s self-help hell.
Pause and reflect on that.
How do we get out of self-help hell?
Access a better feeling. This means your intentions and priorities are in harmony with who you are. The greatest expression of yourself comes by being responsible for who you are. A lot of don’t know how to access who we are so we just talk about what we want instead.
Having something means being responsible for the thing you have. However, the anticipation of having something can register as pleasure in the body. That means that having a relationship that works takes work. Talking about having a healthy relationship feels good in theory.
Theory is different than practice. We are entering choppy waters because the idea of being ourselves and actually being Self requires facing ourselves.
Getting married and taking vows means facing our self-imposed limitations and fears. Getting something means losing something else.
So, where does the realizing of our desires happen? How does that $50,000, healthy relationship, happy family, and strong body show up?
What clues are we given that point us in the direction of our purpose?
Feeling like a piece of shit because you are not rich like everyone else is a clue. Getting mad at all the couples showing public displays of affection is a clue. Feeling desperate to lose weight, live somewhere else, or have better sex is a clue. In short, resistance is a clue.
The thing we are not willing to look at has everything we want inside of it. Pain is not actually painful. It’s resisting pain that causes stagnation in our lives because we often choose distraction to cope with it.
In relationships it sounds like, “If he would just change then I could feel better and we would be happy.” Guess who isn’t willing to change or face themselves in this situation? You.
Pain is a message that what you want is here and waiting to be developed through relationships.
Guess how we deal with not getting what we want? We keep looking outside of ourselves to get it. We blame the relationships in our life for not performing as they “should”. Then we look at how everyone else is “doing it”. We return to mimicry as a default apparatus all the while feeling lost inside of our lives.
Talking about it, collecting information on it, and all this motion covers up the deep empty feeling that we may never be enough. So, we acquire more, get more ambitious, and spend our lives running away from ourselves.
We plug into a path and go through the motions. Then we witness how other people are “doing” on their path and start to feel envy. “Why is that asshole a millionaire?” “Why does some whore have so many followers on Instagram and I have my PhD and can’t get my business off the ground?” “Why me?” “Why not me?” “What mindset coach do I need to hire?”
The path to what you want is the same path that reveals who you are to yourself.
What does that mean? It means the path to who we are isn’t linear. It is a spiral. Another way of saying this is, “As above, so below.” “As within, so without.” In simple terms, you are not valuable unless you assume you are. Results are reflected in our relationships and results are revealed in the demonstration of faith.
I act as I am. Who I am magnetizes what I want to me. That’s faith.
This can be confusing.
So, let me say it plainly. I asked for $50,000 to show up right away. I’ve asked for that for the last 5 years. What I didn’t do was feel good about having that money. I didn’t want that kind of responsibility. 50K was met with the feeling of being exposed. Somehow, having a lot of money meant I couldn’t hide behind my habits. I would have to change some core part of me. So, I doubled down on doing the same thing–looking outside of myself for the answers.
That is where this article is coming from–I felt shame about having money so it was easier to talk about it. So, welcome to the moment of revelation.
I felt shame about everything I’ve ever had in my life which meant I was looking to be rescued from life by money, a man, or sex. The change happened when I took responsibility for what I have. I am a creative force of nature and a child of god like everyone else. So, I am god in form. That means I am responsible to realize what I already have–the ability to create my life rather than be rescued from my life.
How did the shift happen? Intelligent conversation with people anchored in love. It wasn’t done through self-help.
Self-help is meant to make you feel bad about yourself and keep you seeking for your value. It’s a treadmill.
The moment you have something means that you lose something. Having a shit ton of money also means your time will be traded in service to the inspiration. There are spiritual laws working through us and the only thing that blocks us is getting in our own way.
If you ask for something you are saying, “I’ve taken responsibility to receive and nurture my desire into experience.” Let this be the foundation of your understanding:
You don’t get what you want, you get who you are. We face ourselves in every relationship we have.
The only way to get to who you are is to have relationships. The way to getting what you want is knowing who you are. So, relationships are the path to getting what you want because they teach you who you are.
This means that we need mentors, spiritual teachers, and advocates in order to grow into our life in an intelligent way. The method to realization is conversations rooted in spiritual principles. And revelation comes when we arrive into the moment of seeing we are what we have been seeking. That’s love.
To experience deep levels of peace requires commitment to our own process. The process is what changes us. Not many of us understand this and again it takes being engaged in a conversation with someone who can offer real guidance to achieve levels of love, peace, and bliss that register as heaven on earth. Everything else is just talking about becoming someone.
Be it to have it.
by Rebekah Freedom | Feb 7, 2019 | Relationship
Getting Down to Business
ENROLLING IN BREAKUP REHAB
Everyone breakups
Not everyone gets Breakup Rehab
Breakup Rehab was born of the need to support individuals recovery from addiction to their last failing relationship. The mission is to uplift the person working with me. You can waste time in life and that’s not what life is for–it is to be lived and lived well!
Who Benefits from Breakup Rehab?
Having done this work for 5 years, people who are deciding to breakup/divorce and who are in transition points in their relationship get the most out of Breakup Rehab. More specifically, a newly divorced wife who depends on wine and yoga classes to “keep it together” has a stellar chance of thriving when adding Breakup Rehab to her life (BTW she won big in the alimony round).
Also, people working in the medical field, family law, tech, and stressful corporate jobs also find immediate relief after enrolling in Breakup Rehab.Market research is out as if this program helps hippies or not—I’m competing with rose quarts and tarot cards after all. And this isn’t some bull-shit glossy program. We go deep.
The Power is in the Process:
Breakup Rehab is a 1:1 counseling program that happens over six months with one 90 minute call every other week. In that time we work on healing the hurt, remembering our power, and connecting with God as we understand her/him. The benefit of the program is simply–FREEDOM.
Who do you know that could benefit from this healing program?
Tuition is discussed in the initial consultation.
If you or a loved one is suffering from heartbreak, resentment, regret, fear, loathing, and has come to believe love isn’t possible for them—Breakup Rehab will change all of that.
With love,
Rebekah Freedom
rebekahfreedom.com
303-917-7226
“The only thing that truly costs us our lives is hesitation” ~CM King
by Rebekah Freedom | Feb 2, 2019 | General, Relationship
I’m a liar, thief, cheat, bully, and manipulator. I admit it. And as I reveal that side of me, I’ve upset a lot of people. It takes a true warrior with heart to bring shadows to light, and transform them.
In the last week I have had two people respond to my social media posts by telling me, “You should not be giving relationship advice.” The first person argued that only people with PhD’s are qualified to make money as relationship counselors. The second person responded to my Facebook Live about the instinct to murder by saying in essence, “Those who need help themselves should not be relationship counselors.”
I agitate people because I say things “you are not supposed to say.” I realize that being a Breakup Specialist and charging people for counseling might seem exploitative. “You are taking advantage of people in a vulnerable position.” People who are in pain because of loss are vulnerable. People who struggle with low self worth are vulnerable. People who are hungry are vulnerable. And a primary focus of marketing, that I didn’t invent, is “put pressure on their pain point.” However, there is strength in our vulnerability and paying for help is a very vulnerable act. Investing in help changes people let alone the conversations we have that provide non-judgmental perspective.
I also recognize that I am still healing.
I have killed off my meaningful relationships time and time again.Sometimes, destroying things makes me feel alive. Does it make me less qualified as for my position as a “healer”? Maybe. But, more than this, it challenges my commitment to be transparent, stay congruent, and speak the truth.
I share all of this to say, that the first sign we are on a right path or path with heart is resistance.
We learn disapproval of our behavior early in life through parental conditioning. This then forms into survival strategies such as suppression, compartmentalization, and projection. As we grow up alongside care-givers, abusers, and teachers we practice different versions of these strategies until they turn into our identities.
It’s important to note that when you come to a crossroads in your life where you commit to a new way of being–more open, transparent, more focused, and go against what you have known; it registers as a risk. What I’ve found to be true is deep commitment to personal growth is met with both internal and external opposition. It’s as if the laws of nature are asking, “Are you sure you want this?”
As a caveat, in the western world we are programmed to think that people who have wealth are also people of virtue. In fact, they just have access to large-scale creative expression as well as massive destruction. An example of this is the oil and gas industry. As the saying goes:
“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” Luke 12:48 (King James Version.)
In my life it sounds like, “You should not be doing what you are doing.” “You are dangerous.” “You are causing harm in people’s lives.” I’ve let this stop me before. I quit trusting in my own authority. And people do get hurt when we finally stop being who they have known us to be or something that doesn’t fit into the “safe” version of what we should be.
The true test isn’t in overcoming resistance, but in being persistent. Resistance only represent the end of one thing–a minor death. The true sacrifice comes when we are deliberate in our motion forward. The “can’t”, “won’t”, “shouldn’t” messages that arise both internally and externally must be met with focus and determination. It is not determination of the mind, but of the heart.
Life-force-energy congregates in this middle place. It takes energy to have your shadows exposed. Often we fail to change in the middle place and run back to what was familiar. But, if we lean into the heart, we will find the bravery to be with the transformation, and the courage to persist.
Then, there is a moment, where critical mass is reached and there is no going back. The message of the heart has found its way into the world. It may be presented as a whisper at first, but over time, with practice it becomes more consistent.
New authority is established. The journey of rebirth from a child crippled by an outgrown system gets purified through overcoming resistance, gaining life force energy by being persistent, and the heart’s full expression anchors in through consistency.
The phrase that sums this up the most is, “We are all walking each other home.” And, in my experience, it’s the ones who provide resistance that are really showing us the way to walk our path with heart. Bless the test and walk on!
by Rebekah Freedom | Sep 22, 2018 | General, Relationship
Comprehending Mental Health
Is mental health a luxury?
What is mental health?
Life-coaching isn’t mental health.
Mental health is both an noun and a verb. It is also how we describe someone’s internal operating system (E-IOS). Ironically, much of mental health has to do with emotions, which are housed in the body. The field of psychology–the cross section of philosophy & biology–is where we learn how to study and treat mental health issues.
An advanced degree in the field of psychology equips an practitioner to better support individuals who have experienced rape, drug addiction, trauma, and those who suffer from mood or personality disorders. I am not a clinical mental health practitioner.
I hold a Masters in Counseling but I am not a clinical counselor not a marriage and family therapist. I am registered as a minister of the Universal Life Church . The purpose of services rendered may prove to be therapeutic but are not intended as therapy; rather as coaching, mentorship or facilitation of personal goals.
A vision-board session with a life-coach doesn’t treat mental illness. Having a better grip on how to schedule your day can be useful to a lot of people but does not help to manage OCD behavior. I can’t say this enough–LIFE COACHING IS NOT THERAPY!
Therapists are held to a code of ethics. The most prominent being that therapists have duty to keep what is shared as confidential unless the client plans on harming themselves or someone else, which then means psychotherapists have a duty to report. We cannot have dual relationships. For instance I couldn’t have my landlord as a client. There’s a long list of ethical guidelines psychotherapists must adhere to including getting supervision. Client privileges rely on the bedrock of ethical practices.
My Bias Towards Untrained Life-Coaches
The billion dollar wellness industry has a virus inside of it. There is a fine line between providing support and reinforcing disease. “Well that’s just your story.” “Do you work.” “Go inside.” Bla bla bla. Defining your goals is a mental act and the primary focus of life coaching. But, when aspects of the field of psychology are co-opted and diluted it opens the door to exacerbate anxiety & depression through subtle layers of comparison.
Humans seek completion. We like homeostasis and when we are not in that state it is due to stress. I can’t speak for everyone but when I see “have a six-figure” coaching program—it makes me feel like shit. Specifics aside, a lot of us are nervous wrecks because of the cycle of coaching programs and self-help garble that has flooded the “wellness” space. The seeking of healing can injure seeker.
Without being too philosophical about it, it comes down to everyone staying in their lane so for the sake of validity. What needs to be treated is actually being treated.
Comparison is the thief of all joy.
Clinical issues: Addiction, Abuse, Anxiety & Depression
Public figure Simon Sinek talks about millennial’s addiction to their phones and has predicted a rise in suicides & depression which we are now seeing. The suicide rate is skyrocketing with a strong correlation to social media as the catalyst.
The issue I have with untrained life coaches is that a sparkly media campaign that talks about Law of Attraction often attracts people who are in crisis. Life coaches are not trained to help people in crisis. The code of ethics specifies that psychotherapists do not practice outside of their scope or field of expertise. Yet, life-coaches, psychics, and healers often violate this ethical code and don’t refer out to a better suited practitioner.
Granted one of the skills the we learn as psychotherapists is the power of actively listening to or clients without an agenda. Is a life-coach able to do that? Yes. But what if that client talks about raping someone, or having been raped, or the intent to harm themselves? Is a “discovery call” where coaches are trained to “focus on the pain point” going to point the client in the right direction? It’s possible. But what often happens is that the life-coach has only a few tools to address a huge systemic issue and are in over their head.
It’s not that every person with a psychology degree is equipped to work with mental health clients. We can only take our clients as far as we have been ourselves. This means that the practitioner must be invested in their own help and healing. We must continue to educate ourselves so that we can know what clients we can and cannot work with.
Mental health is dynamic and cannot be managed by the tools that life-coaches use. This being said, many mental health practitioners choose to refrain from taking a licencing exam and therefore practice counseling under the umbrella of life-coaching.
What does all of this have to do with Mental Health?
The DSM is the primary resource that catalogs mental health disorders and courses of treatment. To paraphrase, a disorder is a set of behaviors that are maladaptive. There are two types of mental health disorders—personality and mood.
Anxiety and depression are the most common mood disorders. Narcissism has gotten a lot of airtime and is the most popularized personality disorder.
Disorders like schizophrenia, where people hear voices, can sometimes result in individuals killing or harming someone else because a “voice” told them to. Individuals who get an advanced degree in psychology such as a PsyD are equipped to treat people with mood and personality disorders. Life-coaches aren’t.
As a person trained as a clinician but who also incorporates psychic information into my sessions, my consent to treat form clearly states:
I understand that the purpose of services rendered may prove to be therapeutic but are not intended as therapy; rather as coaching, mentorship or facilitation of personal goals. I understand that Rebekah holds a Masters from Naropa University but is not a Licenced Psychotherapist but rather a Breakup Specialist who focuses on relationship & addiction issues.
*I am registered as an addiction counselor in the state of California.
What I offer can be labeled counseling or consulting. However, I am not a licenced psychotherapist and operate under the title of Breakup Specialist. Many people with masters have chosen to practice like this for various reasons. People seek spiritual counsel from me and I can consult on addiction issues.
As a client seeking help it is best to distinguish between if he or she needs emotional guidance or if they only need facilitation to achieve a specific goal. If anxiety, depression, addiction or abuse are a factor then working with a person with a Masters or PhD or PsyD in Counseling is the best choice. For a simple pep-talk, life-coaches are better suited.
A Note on the Origins of Life Coaching:
Thomas Leonard, an American financial planner, is generally acknowledged as the first person to develop coaching as a profession in the 1980s and the history of life coaching today really starts with him.
Leonard observed that his clients, though emotionally stable and hardly needing therapy, wanted more from him than just the usual tips on how to invest and safeguard their incomes.
They wanted help in their lives better and planning and achieving their goals.
( Retreaved September 22, 2018: https://www.lifecoachingprofessionally.com/history-of-life-coaching.html)
The Bottom Line of Mental Health
If people cannot afford my services I still offer a free session to make sure a person in need is resourced. I often charge students and past clients a fraction of my listed prices because it is important to me they are properly supported. It is ethically and morally important to me that I direct individuals towards the people that will best support them. What I have to offer isn’t always the best fit.
I also wrote the book Breakup Rehab (available on Amazon.com) to make the tools I share in my spiritually focused private practice accessible to everyone who reads (English). It is not on audio because reading this information is an important part of the therapeutic process.
The point is that therapy is good for what therapy is good for and life-coaching is good for what life-coaching is good for. Ethical practices keep clients safe. It is best to refer people to Psychology Today to find a therapist that takes insurance or best fits their needs. At the end of the day our well-being hinges on who we learn from and making sure we have the correct mentors for our life circumstances.
Thank you & Be Set Free!
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by Rebekah Freedom | Sep 4, 2018 | General, Relationship
Don’t be sold a river of lies. Healing is truth.
Healing has taken on a new identity in early 21st century. We have known doctors as healers. We have known tribal medicine men as healers. We have even known nature as the great healer. But, now their are individuals who are none of these things calling themselves “healers”. In fact, there was a time that I described myself in this way because it seemed to articulate a skill set I had accumulated.
But, after years of being a counselor, I’ve learned something very important about what healing is, where it comes from, and what identifying as a healer does.
What is Healing?
The best way to understand what healing is is to understand what it is not. Much of what we learn comes through contrast. Further there are various aspects of healing just like there are different genres of music. The one thing healing has in common, no matter the genera, is that it is something that is facilitated. But, we often mistake those who facilitate healing as the source of healing. This leads us to the first thing healing is not.
- Healing is not unique to one person or place. Rather the belief, singular or collective, in that person or place connects a person to Source. Restoration of life-energy heals.
- Healing is not a method. The body can be supported in healing itself. I can be influenced. But the orchestration of healing resides at the edge of scientific understanding as much of healing remains a mystery.
- Healing is not a reference to being broken. Healers are people who remind us we are whole. Yet, much of what gets sold in the “healing game” perpetuates the story of being broken and incomplete coupled with the promise of perfection.
- Healing is not a place we arrive. Healing is dynamic in that multiple systems are working in concert that results in a vessel that can house and display maximum potential. In simple terms, chi flows through the body with ease.
In regards to the types of healers that exist in this world there are nutritionists, life-coaches, business strategists, counselors, medical doctors, spiritual mentors, medicine-men, herbalists, witches, and dulas to name a few. The continuity between the various healers is they all bring perspective to a part of our humanity that requires renewal of life-force energy.
Where does Healing Come From?
Among many titles, life-force energy has been called chi, prana, psychic energy, spirit, and love. What both Western and Eastern medicine has taught us is that LFE (Life Force Energy) can be diminished through stress or stagnate and manifest as disease. Many of us live with degrees of death our bodies. Some of us quicken our death process through the use of drugs or by reinforcing the imbalance of addiction through our maladaptive behaviors.
In my line of work as a Breakup Specialist, I see the hope of being brought back to life through relationship result in relationship death. The common advice given to a person going through a breakup up is to “Love yourself.” But, in a culture that directs us towards narcissism as a survival strategy, there can be a defining quality that turns loving oneself into denial.
This is best demonstrated in the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason.” A veneer of positivity can be placed over that which is rotting and decaying. It’s true that ashes are created from burning wood. Energy requires consumption. But, consumption without renewal results in isolation and even annihilation.
Ironically, life-force energy is renewed when we sleep, when we are still, when we observe our thoughts and feelings and come into connection with presence. We often view life-force energy as a body in motion or as taking action that results in creation. Creation comes from innovation and innovation comes from having the space to assimilate our internal and external ecosystems.
They say extroverts are renewed through being social and introverts are renewed through being alone. Life-force energy dies off in the extreme. A pulse consists of contraction and expansion. One without the other results in death. This is true of the creative process, of getting into and out of relationships, and of navigating the survival realities of existing as a human.
What is a healer?
Those of us who help optimize survival are called healers. Each healer will define himself/herself differently. Some healers treat surface issues and can manipulate the aesthetic of a circumstance. Other healers attempt to get to the root of the issue. Either way, many of us mistake healers as authorities who have dominion over our bodies, emotions, and minds. Healers can be thought of as perfect, flawless, or blameless. But, this is not the case.
Speaking only for myself, I can say, I am far from perfect or the like. I’m constantly playing with boundaries, amending values, and shifting my priorities because, like my clients, I am learning how to survive as a human.
One of the areas I see healers centering their work on is that of “Purpose.” It seems that when a mind organizes around a purpose there is a greater feeling of satisfaction. But, this can work like placebo as well in that believing having a purpose will equate in being happier.
Many healers capitalize on this notion. We focus LFE to transmute thought into form. A healer can be a teacher in that they impart a skills set to someone, which in retrospect is labeled “purpose.” We do what we believe we are capable of or even “have” to do to survive.
In actuality, a human who is fully alive and truly resorced is limitless.
It’s been said the most potent force on the planet is a human in action. We can conceptualize limitlessness as someone who is a billionaire. They are highly resourced.
But, even billionaires require healing because there is an irony in being limitless. Healthy humans do better by being able to depend on a consistent source of support. Attachment theory calls this the “Dependency Paradox.” The more we can rely on another person the more innovative and independent we will be in our lives. The more we can trust in life.
So, a healer, is someone that provides consistent and reliable support in a way that facilitates interactions which augment the flow of LFE. We bring people back to life.
Who Needs Healing?
There is a paradox the is central to the person seeking healing–it’s already inside of them. No story better represents our journey of healing than that of the Wizard of Oz. We need to walk our yellow brick road. Since we are all doing this, there is nothing special about it. But, instinctually we all want to fit in and stand out at the same time to different degrees. The times we want to stand out but are ignored creates a riff that can make us feel like the cowardly lion. The times we want to fit in but are rejected can shut us down so we feel like the tin-man. And when we neither fit in or stand out we can feel like the mindless scarecrow.
Yet, somehow, those parts of us band together undergo a life-journey filled with various characters. The responsibility of those seeking healing is to allow it. It’s not just important to be loved but to also let love in. Healers remind us how to do this. Those being healed remember. Simply, there are those who remind and those who remember.
Those needing healing can be struggling with addiction, disease, mental disorders, or spiritual possessions. The inability to create, maintain, and have healthy relationships is at the heart of everyone’s need for healing. I’m no exception. Hurt people hurt people. But, hurt people stop hurting others and start healing when they are connected to truth.
How do we Heal?
People can main-line Self-Help like crack cocaine. Self-help is largely fractured but just as there are many roads to Mecca, so to area there many avenues to truth. Truth is offensive to many of us. It’s not very sexy in that it’s unadulterated . Truth does have a freeing quality to it because it restores life.
We heal when we realize we are not alone. It only takes one positive person in our lives to make us feel healthy and effective. We heal when we feel like we have something to contribute. And the truth is we all do. A hug is a contribution. A breath. A smile. An idea. A life lived as art changes us all. The most impactful art is raw and true. It is channeled in someway through the body that turned thought into form.
Healing comes from getting out of our own way; our justifications, explanations and expectations. We revisit truth time and time again through our interactions. We find what truth is not and then discover what it is. We visit strategies for survival that bring us closer to truth. We dance between the boundaries of being limitless and creating boundaries in order to be the most expressed version of ourselves.
Truth gives life.
We all have a trauma story as part of our human experience. It’s odd that we think we will go unscathed in life and just how shocked we all are when injury–emotional or otherwise–occurs. Healers have been directed to treat the “wound”. I invite us all to ask, “What is the wound?” “Why must we treat it?”
The man who rapes, maims, kills, or is the source of destruction still breathes the same air that the most pious man breathes. Both men have can be caged by their minds. So, what makes one man act like an animal and another behave as a saint? Is it the wound? Or is it that one man has been renewed through the transformation of his mind?
We all have been assigned an animal that exists below our necks–our body. That body is animated with LFE and directed through impulse. Impulse can come from either instinct or inspiration. The delineating factor between the two is the individuals associated with the wound.
A healer draws truth out of the shadows, which, then gives the person receiving the healing the chance to evolve instinct into inspiration.
Each of us will require healing at the dawn of transitions in our lives such as divorce, breakup, disease, career change, becoming parents, as well as being forgiven for our sins. Bow to the guru within. Allow the healing in. Be human.
For assistance on your journey book your free introduction session now:
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by Rebekah Freedom | Oct 5, 2017 | Relationship, Uncategorized
Excerpt from:
DISCERNMENT IN RELATIONSHIPS AND CONSCIOUS RELATING
If you feel like you are going to fall in love with someone, hold yourself back, keep your eyes open. This is a very important learning and very necessary for you to become mature and wise. To be swept along by impressions and infatuations, to allow yourself to be seduced by others, to be overtaken by beauty, wealth or charm is such a form of self-betrayal. It is such a dangerous involvement. It has such profoundly difficult and unfortunate consequences.
You have to be very careful here. Who you associate with and how you associate with them has all the bearing for your life and the kind of life you have and the opportunities you have. Likewise, do not become sexually engaged with anyone unless it represents a real partnership for you, for sexuality is a commitment by its very nature. You may think of it as a casual involvement, but emotionally it is never casual. Your relationship will never be the same. And if it cannot fulfill itself at a greater level, it will be disappointing, and that will generate resentment and failed expectations, disappointment.
You can not always just be a friend with someone who was once a lover, for you have crossed a threshold where you are pretending to be in a real relationship even though perhaps you never were. Sexuality is wonderful with the right person and damaging with the wrong person. Never treat this lightly. Never think of this as a casual, recreational kind of involvement. To your body it is the real thing. To your emotions it is serious because it is consequential.
Here you may have to hold yourself back and learn to restrain yourself, or you will give yourself away recklessly, hopelessly and cause great damage. And as a result, you will never know what is really true within yourself.
Read the full article Here
