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What Do You Need and Desire?

Dear Creatrix,

How are you today?

Over the last week, we started to look at our current situation, when it comes to love and relationships, and we tried our best to let go of what’s been holding us back.

Self-love is key when it comes to being able to give and receive love, so I will give you a reminder to be loving, kind and gentle with yourself in each of these lessons.

We will have a whole chapter on self-talk and mindfulness soon, but it takes lots of patience and practice to really get all negativity and criticism out of the system, so it is good to take any opportunity to start practising.

On Friday, we saw why jealousy and comparison are not helpful if we want to change the way we live, or live happier and more fulfilled lives.

And we saw that jealousy is not just about being jealous that a partner might like somebody else better (which really is insecurity) but that we can also be jealous of a person’s life in general, as a way to distract ourselves from creating the changes we seek.

One other misconception we might have, is, that it is very easy to think that once we find the right partner things will change for the better.

Or if only our partner changed and became more attentive and attuned, we would feel better and things would change for the better.

That once we feel loved and supported, we will also be able to work on these other things that we are avoiding now.

But the key is, to figure these things out now.

Our (ideal) partners have their own things to work through, so if we want to build a strong, loving and caring, balanced and lasting relationship, we have to work on being balanced and tempered, well-resourced ourselves.

And for that, we need to know how to take care of ourselves, so we can communicate our needs with our partners and can also resource ourselves when we need to.

Just imagine, the next time something comes up, and you see a fight or disagreement unfolding – about something that might have come up regularly in the past – and you can simply breathe, say you need a time-out to collect yourself and then come back to discuss things from a place of feeling resourced in yourself.

That way you can enter with an open heart to figure out, together with your partner, what might have caused the situation and what you can both do to handle things better in the future.

No hard feelings, just life being life.

There is this beautiful world called entanglement, that I think comes from Buddhism.

The word describes the state we’re in when we get mixed up in other people’s business – which we generally do all the time – until we figure it out and free ourselves.

When we make sacrifices to receive love, we are entangled, and I’ve never ever seen it work out in a good way.

Have you ever thought:

“I do this and that and yet, what do I get from you?”

“I’ve been sacrificing my needs, to make you happy, yet how do you reward me?”

Or whatever your experience might be.

Maybe you were also on the receiving end of this.

But if we do something to get something back, it’s never actually doing something for the other person, it is because WE want something and don’t dare to ask for it.

Just let this sink in for a second and see your actions that way.

When we look at it plainly, using these kinds of patterns or strategies, means that we are trying to manipulate someone or even pressure them into something we want – not interacting at eye level to find out what both sides want.

The other person usually notices this, consciously or unconsciously, and reacts with rejection – because no one wants to feel pressured or obliged to give love as a return for a deed or a sacrifice.

Entanglement is basically everything we see going wrong in interpersonal relationships.

We will also come back to this in the lesson on non-violent communication.

But we can already begin to fine-tune our awareness here.

When we think that someone makes us feel something, or that we feel a certain way because someone has treated us this or that way, then, from now on, we can recognize that this can never be true.

No one is in our head, our thoughts and feelings are ours alone.

On autopilot, we might react a certain way, but if we don’t want to continue that way, we also have the power to change it.

Once we begin to become conscious and aware, we can influence our thoughts and reactions and through that also our feelings, and it becomes our choice to decide how much power we want to give another person over our feelings.

Photo by Lukáš Dlutko on Pexels.

We know now, that if we don’t feel loved, it is because we don’t love ourselves enough and can start with ourselves instead of expecting the almost impossible from someone else.

If we don’t feel seen or heard, it is because we don’t show ourselves or express ourselves so that we can be seen or heard, and we need to work on that.

If we feel we have too much responsibility, then we need to step back and allow and open the space for others to step up, even if it is difficult.

But whatever it is that bothers or upsets us – it is in our power and responsibility to change, and the same is true for our partners.

We can blame other people for everything, but again, it does not change anything.

It’s only when we begin to change and do the work that things will change for us as well.

So if we are looking for love, we have to first figure out what that means, feels and looks like for us to us and then find and practice it in ourselves.

Once we have found this, know what it feels like and how to give it, it will most likely come to us automatically as well.

If we want to feel love, true love, unconditional love, it might take some practice because we have very few role models, and are not always used to giving things freely and without expectations or ego-hopes attached to it.

It’s a process, that is most likely not going to happen in a day.

In some wisdom traditions, desirelessness is what people are looking to achieve, and I thought about this a lot over the last few weeks when preparing this chapter.

I think that in the way we live now, we can’t jump from not knowing our desires to desirelessness.

We first have to uncover our desires, to see that they are illusions too, to eventually overcome them and be enlightened.

But we suffer as long as we don’t even know what we want and need because then we have to accept and deal with everything that other unenlightened people put out there.

So we take some steps.

To move from where we are to the next stage that makes us feel better and more empowered, and so on.

And the first step is to get in touch with our desires and wishes and admit to them, and then learn to communicate them.

We can also become aware of the way we typically react in certain situations and the roles we play and slip into, and take responsibility for our words and actions (we will look at that in an upcoming lesson).

And we can see what we need to feel so resourced and full of love so that we don’t feel like we can only give love out if we get something back (this is an ongoing practice).

In this lesson, we are going to begin to explore our desires

To get a little help with this, we can look at our astrology charts and see what it says in terms of relationships and connections there.

And we can also have a look at our Wheel of Colours which I find incredibly helpful and illuminating for this.

In your Wheel of Colours you can look at where you have the colours white (relationships), yellow (love and trust) or red (passion) and also at field 2 (collaboration) and field 7 (protection) and field 9 (how to live together peacefully).

They will each give you a great idea of things you need and can bring to your consciousness to make everything related to giving and receiving love, feeling supported and safe a reality.

You can also ask yourself the following questions:

• What do I need to feel seen or heard in a relationship?
• When have I felt really loved and supported?
• What do I need to trust someone?
• When do I feel someone is trusting me?
• How can I honour their trust?
• How can I find out what I desire?
• How can I find out what another person desires?
• And how can we meet and make each other happy?
• What do I need, to feel safe to share what I’d like to share?
• What questions have I not been asking myself to fully express myself and be my true and authentic self?
• What questions have I not been asking my partner(s) to get to know them and understand what they wish for and desire?
• What do they need to feel safe?
• What do they need to feel loved, seen or heard?

Once we are more clear on these things, everything will get easier.

So take your time and really do an honest enquiry, I will do the same and share my answers with you in the next lesson, even though I have to admit I find this quite scary.

But I also know that when fear and resistance come up, it’s a sign that we have a great opportunity to grow here.

I hope you will manage this challenge of radical honesty with gratefulness for what you have, compassion for yourself and all feelings and fears that might come up, as well as pride for facing your fears and becoming more conscious of your needs and desires.

And really remind yourself that you are not just doing this for yourself.

The more clarity, confidence and connection you bring into your life, the more of that you will share with the world and create the ripple effects we all need to live together peacefully.

Taking the time to honestly answer these questions is not just a gift you give to yourself.

Your love, compassion, understanding, satisfaction and clear communication are a gift to everyone you interact with and the only way we can change the world for the better.

So go do your work and will do mine, and then we can meet again in the next lesson.

❤️ With this, I wish you love and joy and happiness.

I hope you enjoy your growth and have a great start to the week.

Love,
Verena

Creatrix school – Chapter 07 – Relationships

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