It's vital for mindful acts of emotional and spiritual intimacy to steadily develop as a daily practice for healthy sex. To that end, Center for Healthy Sex has created daily meditations to help you reach your sexual and relational potential. (You can subscribe for free here.)
Even momentarily concentrating on healthy solutions rewires psychological patterns to receive and share healthy sexual love in the present. Here are three meditations with the themes of disappointment, karma, and reciprocity for you to ponder and practice this week.
Meditation 1: Disappointment
"Though lovers be lost love shall not." -- Dylan Thomas
Expectation is the springboard for disappointment and displeasure, especially when our desire to control what we aspire to gets wrested out of our sticky fingers by life and frustrates our dreams. A life lived in fantasy or in the throes of love addiction is tragic because it keeps us from ever having our feet on the ground solidly enough to be embodied and present. Constantly pursuing perfection steals the gift of what's in front of us right now on the altar of our life. How often have you fixated on an ideal way you wanted your partner to behave or look, and were so disappointed when they showed up, instead, as themselves? Clinging to your reigning fantasy blinds you to the infinite richness and texture of real human beings and leaves you an emotional pauper. Standing in reality with a willingness to accept the bounty that comes your way is the only antidote to disappointment.
Yet no matter how hard we try, we're often captivated by that cultural set up for disappointment, the "happily ever after" story. From childhood, we're told that once we find our soulmates, we'll skip down the aisle of marital bliss onto easy street. We uphold this myth with fervor, even in the face of the failure of half of all marriages. Holding the possibility that love can last forever while recognizing that it, like everything alive, will change over time liberates us from the unrealistic, childish hope that people will be different than they are. When we accept that beautiful and extraordinary moments come when we least expect it and are most surprised by it, this allows life's true magic to happen. To accept -- more, to be glad -- that reality rarely mirrors our fantasy or expectations paradoxically allows great possibility and less disappointment every day.
Daily healthy sex acts
- Make a list of the last five times you were disappointed. Is there a pattern wherein you set yourself up to have a "bad" experience? What part do you play in your disappointments?
- Being in relationship with other human beings guarantees that we will be regularly disappointed due to human fallibility. Do you allow for human error, or do you expect perfection, trying to control others and outcomes?
Meditation 2: Karma
"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours." -- Wayne Dyer
Do you ever feel misunderstood? Perhaps your parents or partner don't always understand your actions or intentions. Count your blessings! People might ignore your virtue or genius, but they also ignore how selfish, envious, manipulative, and objectifying you are at unseen times, thankfully. The next time you feel misunderstood, consider it karma for all the times you're lucky you were.
It's easy to get upset when life doesn't go our way. But if life actually went the way of our spinning thoughts and conflicting motives, we would really be a wreck! Karma is the cumulative impact of our actions returned to us, and helps us develop this complex tool called human consciousness. The concept of karma might evoke being judged by some omniscient, omnipotent entity, but that's not karma, that's punishment trauma from childhood. A moment's contemplation convinces that our actions ripple in us psychologically, neurobiologically, sociologically. We carry their weight and chatter of them to others through our body language and the way we perceive and perform. In this manner, we are the judge, jury and executor of our karma.
The word karma derives from the Sanskrit word for action. We can't change the actions of cause and effect, but we may cause new effects at any time. When we bounce a ball against a wall with a certain force and at a certain angle, it will inevitably bounce back in a matching reaction. This is cause and effect. However, we may run forward and catch the ball, and this new, corrective action demonstrates how we might affect our karma. But how may we become more aware of the force and angle of our habitual actions? How may we know what actions to take and their karmic results? One way to change karma is to face it.
Daily healthy sex acts
- Examine your actions. List five actions you took today, and the energy and intentions you gave them. Were your actions, energy, and intention aligned? Realize that energy and intentions count as karmic actions.
- You can always invite right action into your life. You might share daily challenges with a trusted ally, therapist or sponsor and request direction. You might sleep on a problem and let intuition guide you, rather than simply react. You might follow a spiritual path through study or attendance. Today, pick one problem in your life and practice the tools to help you realize the next right action.
Meditation 3: Reciprocity
"How happy the lover,
How easy his chain,
How pleasing his pain,
How sweet to discover
He sighs not in vain." -- John Dryden
Most would agree that reciprocal affection -- two persons knowing themselves through each other -- is the Holy Grail affirming the self, the other, and the all of life. For life takes on meaning only through reciprocal interaction with the world. To a fishmonger, all things reek of the sea; to a teacher, life is a lesson. What we do is what we know, and how we interact is what returns our way. Reciprocity symbolizes inner and outer worlds matching up in synchronized harmony. The art of existence is to give and receive, see and be seen, and the quality of love as echo and mirror assures us that we have a genuine presence. But those who grew up with a caregiver who was physically or emotionally absent may feel more than this normal desire for reciprocity. They may experience a compulsive urge to accomplish the one, elusive thing they imagine will finally get those absent ones -- or anyone -- to connect with them.
If someone in your life doesn't reciprocate, there are two reasons. First, if your right-sized need for validation was denied in childhood, you will involuntarily recreate the same circumstances to correct it. Know that you get second chances so that you may change the art of your interaction, not so that others might finally treat you with the loving respect you deserve (and you do deserve loving respect). And there's another reason for unrequited regard: You must be able to receive, to be emotionally available. How many times do you deny or minimize others' genuine kindness? Life is a mirror that reflects your actions -- including your thoughts -- right back at you. People reciprocate exactly in proportion to how you treat yourself internally. Show yourself love, because you have enough love to reverberate for eternity and draw all the reciprocal connection your heart desires.
Daily healthy sex acts
- Reciprocate your beloved's love on as many levels as you can -- in actions, words, body language, vocal tone, and spiritual blessing.
- Think of those you attract to your life. What within you might they be reciprocating? Often when we work on our issues and surrender selfishness, people who don't reciprocate our truer selves ultimately leave our lives.
- Be an echo of an echo today. While it's healthy to take have an original presence, it's a useful practice to be able to reflect others. Today, focus on your capacity to reciprocate in all your interactions.
For more by Alexandra Katehakis, M.F.T., click here.
For more on conscious relationships, click here.
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