Sex, Love, & Relationships
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Is how you want to Love… typical?
Cathy and I are not typical… and so what? You are not typical, either. Have you ever rolled your eyes at some of the notions about “what it takes” to have awesome relationships? For me, I needed a way of seeing love as co-creating a life that is thriving, delicious, and an eco-system that nourishes…
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Craft Your Lovescape, Not Just Your Relationship Status
We understand that a physical landscape can be designed. We choose trees, paths, water, color, privacy, and places to gather. We rarely apply the same consciousness to the emotional landscape in which love happens. A lovescape is larger than whether we are partnered. It includes friendship, affection, community, spiritual resonance, play, truth, sensuality, family, and…
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Intimacy Needs Presence, Not Instant Access
Humans generally thrive with connection. Yet the primitive brain can turn intimacy into a series of urgent tests: reply immediately, prevent disappointment, reveal enough to keep the bond, hide enough to avoid being hurt. Technology amplifies the confusion. A message can arrive at any moment, so availability starts to feel like an obligation. Guilt says…
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Expectations Are Resentments Waiting to Happen
Unspoken expectations can feel so obvious that asking seems unnecessary. When the other person fails the invisible test, resentment arrives with a complete case. An expectation becomes more relational when we turn it into a request, an agreement, or a personal choice about what we will do. What Changes When We Listen More Closely The…
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Mother Yourself Without Denying What You Did Not Receive
Every person was mothered into the world, but not everyone received the safety, delight, protection, or emotional availability they needed. A mother may have loved us and still lacked capacity. She may have carried trauma, rigid rules, exhaustion, addiction, illness, or demands that made real attunement difficult. She may also have caused or allowed harm…
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Rejection Does Not Explain Your Worth
When someone leaves, declines, moves away, or cannot love us in the way we hoped, the mind searches for an explanation. Shame offers one quickly: they saw the truth about me. A relationship ending contains information about the other person’s capacity, timing, preferences, history, and the fit between two lives. It does not contain a…
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A Little Less Shame Can Restore Perspective
Deep shame narrows attention. We see one interpretation, one feared future, and one version of ourselves. Even a tiny decrease in activation can reopen cognitive flexibility before the whole issue is resolved. This is why progress may first appear as a new question, a less absolute sentence, or the ability to imagine that another explanation…