June 15, 2023 by Rick ~ Thrivingnow

Who Holds The Key… To YOUR Love?

by Rick Wilkes

What is it that opens your heart to that yummy, warm, essential feeling of being loved?

This past week I’ve struggled more than usual. It has seemed that some essential emotional nutrient was… missing.

We all know that without the right dose of chemical nutrients like Vitamin C, calcium, and iron, our body suffers. We absolutely must consume these nutrients in the proper balance in order for our body to work optimally. When we’re deficient, we start craving.

Cravings get a bad rap. They are blamed for overeating. They are blamed for addictions and destructive behaviors. Yet, the pain we feel when our foot is falling asleep is useful, right? It lets us know: It’s time to move! Cravings do the same. They let us know that something essential is missing. It’s time to “do something” to get it! The pregnant woman who craves dill pickles with ice cream is a perfect example. There’s something in that combination that her body and baby need, so what was previously “gross” is now “gotta have it.”

I watched a documentary about a man that survived weeks in a raft. Luckily, he had a way to catch fish. At first, the fish’s flesh was what he ate… filet of grouper. That’s what (meat-eating) humans do, right? We eat the flesh and toss out the organs, skin, and skeleton. What was interesting is that after a short time, he was attracted not to the flesh but to eating the eyes (for their water content), liver for nutrients, the skin, the bones! Indeed, he went from eating the filet ONLY… to tossing the filet and eating almost everything else!

In the absence of essential nutrients, our body rewires itself for survival. In this stress-induced mode, we set aside what is optimal (or even acceptable) and switch ON a sense of URGENCY to get what we NEED… what we NEED NOW. Our behaviors change in response.

And you cannot tap away or talk away a craving when it is based on the lack of an essential chemical nutrient. Period.

This applies to essential EMOTIONAL nutrients, too… emotions like acceptance, deserving, worthiness, affirmation, appreciation, gratitude, hope.. and LOVE.

We as human beings all need to feel LOVE to thrive. Period. You cannot tap away or talk away a craving for love. Indeed, our NEED for love ranks right up there with our need for oxygen and water. Humans can go up to 40 days without food. Yet, after a short time without love (hours? days?) we become emotionally more and more fragile, irritated, and “not ourselves.”

And this is where our cravings get chaotic and confusing. I believe it is because we’re born with a craving for external love akin to our craving for external milk. External love with our parents creates bonds that will get us all the other things we need… like food, protection, and affection.

Our primitive craving for love thus shapes our behavior. If we’re getting love unconditionally, just for existing, we accept ourselves just the way we are. If we are NOT getting all the love we need to thrive, we start scrambling. We will try being loud and demanding… or submissive and quiet. We will shut down aspects of ourselves… and emphasize other aspects just to please THEM. We as children will do whatever it takes because “external love” is essential to our very survival.

We surrender the keys to our emotional health and well-being into the hands of others. 

That makes sense when you are a child, doesn’t it? Babies cannot survive on their own. But it hurts (and rightfully so I believe) when you are of age to survive on your own (teens and beyond) to hand over the keys to your emotional well-being to someone else… no matter how wonderful and amazing they are.

Which brings me back to my struggle over the past week. Over a period years, my body-mind had gotten acclimated to a particular external activation of love feelings. This source (my romantic lover) had always been consistent, available, and abundant in her loving expressions. Her voice on the phone each night before bed, her text messages, happy smiles, and warm cuddles had become reliable EXTERNAL keys that activated certain powerful feelings within me… feelings that had become core to my daily experience of an Abundant Love Life. She’s always made feeling like a Great Lover so easy! I deeply appreciate her for that.

But because of a new job and travel and other life changes, those external activations were reduced over the past seven weeks, and they were not available at all the past days. Cravings!

I consider myself very emotionally resilient. Yet, this evoked far more distress than made sense! I’m surrounded by loving people… my partner Cathy in Thriving Now, my beautiful friends, my kids, my Guides and Teachers, my amazingly open clients and team members…  WTF was going on?!?!?

And this morning at 3am, my clarity finally arrived. Years of consistent EXTERNAL validation had lead me to forget where I put my OWN set of keys to feeling like a Great Lover of Life. To me being such a great lover is about appreciating, savoring, and expressing Great Love. Sure, there are actions that flow from feelings of Great Love, but it is the VIBRATION that matters. It is the feeling within me that matters! All my loving actions spring forth from those internal feelings.

While it is wonderful to have a person or people in our lives who have an EXTRA set of keys to activate those feelings… our emotional stability, strength, and resiliency comes from knowing how to use our OWN INTERNAL KEYS to activate GREAT LOVE.

It was fascinating to me that as soon as I realized I was waiting for “external validation” and did some permission tapping, my own sense of Great Love shined once again. I see myself jingling a shiny set of keys to my heart… MY set of keys. I see my loved ones having extra keys, and that feels a lot sweeter than waiting on just one specific person to turn me on.

I’d also like to thank my team members. We’ve developed a group now that radiates deep love and acceptance, and the group also provides a Circle of Support so we have a lot of people to remind us if we forget where our keys are. I love what we have co-created together, all of us. We have an amazing group, with room for more people who truly want Great Love in their lives. If you’d like that, too, we’d welcome you!

https://www.thrivingnow.com/team

Now let’s do some EFT Tapping:

Karate Chop: Even though I knew as a baby I needed external love and bonding to survive, I choose to give myself that validation now.

Even though a part of me is willing to do ANYTHING to get external love, I’m tapping into the core of Great Love that already exists within me.

Even though I relied on her/him/them to activate good feelings within me, I hold my own keys to Great Love… and I’ve decided to turn myself ON… right HERE, right NOW!

Top of the Head: I lost track of my keys!
Eyebrow: But I do have the key to love within me.
Side of the Eye: I was never taught…
Under the Eye: Nor was I given encouragement…
Under the Nose: To love me…
Chin:
To accept me…
Collarbone: To celebrate me…
Under the Arm: Without an external reason.

Top of the Head: It’s my heart.
Eyebrow: It doesn’t require anyone else to beat in rhythm.
Side of the Eye: Perhaps it doesn’t need anyone else…
Under the Eye: In order to experience… 
Under the Nose:
Being a Great Lover of Life.
Chin:
What a novel concept!
Collarbone:
Can’t wait to try it out for myself.
Under the Arm:
It feels good to grow up and feel my adult power this way.

Top of the Head: And it’s a bit scary.
Eyebrow:
I have been tuned to “getting” love for so long.
Side of the Eye:
Today I am tuning to Allowing Love.
Under the Eye:
Allowing myself to be Activated.
Under the Nose:
Encouraging the use of my own KEYS.
Chin:
And not waiting on anyone… or anything… outside of myself…
Collarbone:
Anymore.
Under the Arm:
It’s okay to feel AWESOME… just because I am.
Top of the Head:
I give myself permission to feel Great Love, right HERE, right NOW.

Take a deep breath.

I hope that you’ve found this helpful, and we encourage you to forward it to friends. If you have feedback, we’d love to hear it. Leave your comments at the bottom of the article here …or on our Facebook page: https://www.thrivingnow.com/facebook

Our two coaching products that have proven so helpful for activating self-expression and love are:

Breaking Out of Your Shell
https://www.thrivingnow.com/breaking-out-of-shell/

Creating Connection

And like I said before, our Thriving Now Team offers a safe space to be with your powerful emotions, even the distressing ones, and get guidance and support in a fun, friendly, love-filled atmosphere.

https://www.thrivingnow.com/team

If that’s what you have been looking for, we hope you’ll join us.

  • Jeanmaurie says:

    That brought tears to my eyes ((((((((((RICK)))))))) I know it is an external cyber hug but it is meant spiritually and soulfully too.  I am so grateful for you in my life.  Love, Jean

    • I read your message yesterday while travelling, and could SO feel the heart connection we have, Jean. Thank you… I’m feeling SO good.

  • Very timely – exactly what I needed this morning.  Thank you, Rick, for sharing.

  • good at giving.  Never occured to me that I can receive & give love to myself too.  Thank you, needed this.

    • Yes, we can. I’m so honored to have connected to you this way, Ming Wei. Thank you.

  • Thank you Rick that really helped me

  • Bernadette Couture says:

    Thank you. I NEEDED that. Blessings

  • Dave Bryant says:

    Woo hoo, Rick.  This is your best, most insightful and soulful writing to date.  and apparently all from just noticing WTF is going on, listening/waiting for guidance and THEN SHARING IT WITH US.  Thank you.  I’ve forwarded it to a long list.  

  • “I was never taught… Nor was I given encouragement…To love me…To accept me…To celebrate me…Without an external reason.”
    These most powerful words are the reason for so many problems in our life..
    When i read this, tears came into my eyes and i started tapping immediately!!  had to go though it about 4 times until i reached a big zero!!
    thank you Rick!!

    • Bless you, Miriam. It means a lot to me to hear specific words that reach people. It helps me to tune to my tribe. Happy love… and acceptance for no reason what-so-ever!

  • I love the way you framed this…perfect timing for me and then perfect for a client today. Thank you for the way you put all the pieces together…It does feel so yummy when we’re able to give ourselves permission to fully receive feeling safe and loved…

  • lotusrose says:

    Perfect timing for me also. And so beautiful and touching. Wonderful tapping script too.  
                 
    If you are not in love, you are lonely. If you are in love, really in love, you become alone. Loneliness is sadness; aloneness is not sadness. Loneliness is a feeling of incompleteness. You need someone and the needed one is not available. Loneliness is darkness, with no light in it. A dark house, waiting and waiting for someone to come and kindle the light. Aloneness is not loneliness. Aloneness means the feeling that you are complete. Nobody is needed, you are enough. And this happens in love. Lovers become alone — through love you touch your inner completeness. Love makes you complete. Lovers share each other, but that is not their need, that is their overflowing energy.

    Oshi

  • Slavoljubka says:

    Dear Rick, thank you for opening your heart, it gives me the feeling that I can be even more safe and free to open me. Your story helped me a lot. It came to me how I deal with separation from someone who I love much. When somebody who I love leave me on some way, I usually feel like he takes me with him, like the whole of me also is gone together with that person. And it huts and I feel pain.
    And now, I was imagining how that person all the time was giving me back The keys of happiness , but I didn t want to see it, and on that way, I was refusing to take it back to me.
    After your story, I see that it s all right to say- goodbye-, when somebody is gone.
     You cannot force any kind of love, with your lover, with your friend, with your collegues…Love is free, love is the greatest gift that we are given…
    So, I was imagining how that person, which has gone from my life, didn  t take me there,  where he went, and it gives me very good feeling of staying here where I am.
    Also, I imagined how I m taking back my keys of happiness from his hands, and saying, – Thank you very much for giving me my keys back. I was missing those keys a lot, and I suffered a lot for it…It s time to say goodbye to you, and to go on with my keys. Thank you for keeping it all this time, I m willing to take them now.-
    Thank you Rick for your gifts , I appreciate it a lot. Love from Ljupka

    • That was beautiful, Ljupka. Really beautiful. I’m so glad we’ve gotten a  chance to touch each other this way. Much love, Rick

  • Rick,

    Truly BEAUTIFUL and touched my heart…thanks for continuing to ‘pull back the veil’…I love the mirror.  Love, Lorelei

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