So, what does healthy grief look like?  It is you staying home and sulking for days, weeks, or months, continuously?  Is it you yelling, slamming things, or crying once for a half hour, saying “glad that’s over” and then moving on?  Is it you deciding that you must not enjoy anything in life ever again because that would be mean you didn’t really love the person you’ve lost?  Nope, none of the above.

In healthy grief, there is no set minimum or maximum amount of time that you can predict it’s going to take.  You are an individual; let no one tell you how long or how short your grief “should” be.  In addition, there is no set way that your grief should look. Your grieving will be just as unique as you are.  Plus, your grief this time around is not necessarily going to be the same as it was the last time.  You have grown and changed since the last time, and this person you’re letting go of is this one, not any other one.

Below are a few guidelines for you:

1. In general, it is important that you allow yourself to feel what you feel when you feel it, whenever possible. This may include any of the five core feelings, but most likely fear, anger and sadness, when it relates to grief.

2.  Be aware that most feelings only take a maximum of fifteen to twenty minutes to be felt.  It is only when you add that drop of drama, such as feeling sorry for yourself, or idealizing the lost person (only remembering the good things) that it can go on and on.

3.  How does one feel feelings?  I know this may sound crazy, but most of us have been taught how to avoid feeling all negative feelings, not how to feel them.  Basically, you just notice the body sensations of the feeling that you’re having and “be with”, stay tuned into, them  until they change to something else.  You can breathe, cry, or do whatever comes naturally, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or someone else.  If you stick with the feeling, before long you will either start to feel another feeling that needs to be felt, or you will start to experience some relief in the form of a calmness or even happiness taking its place.

4.  Sometimes people get stuck.  You may think that you are “supposed to” be feeling a certain thing (ie., sadness) but you’re not feeling much at all.  At those times, you may be able to jump start your process through activities such as writing about some aspect of the relationship, watching a movie that may trigger some feelings in you, or looking at some photographs of you and your loved one.

5.  If you are grieving over the loss of a relationship and want to be friends with your ex, that’s great, but realize that you will first need a separation until both of your grief processes have either greatly progressed or completed.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can go from being lovers one day to friends the next, or that you can be there to console each other about the loss of your relationship.

6.  Speaking of that, DO reach out to friends and relatives who are supportive of you, but also balance that with time alone.  Trying to cope by scheduling every waking moment with a social activity is just another way of choosing not to grieve.

7.  Remember that your grief will not last forever even though it may feel like it’s going to, and that the only way to “get over” something is to move through your grief.  There is no way around it.

If you have been following these guidelines and you don’t see yourself gradually getting back to the normal “you”, consider seeking the help of a therapist or life coach.  Sometimes professional help can facilitate a process that you are lost or stuck in, with a minimum of pain.

You may be thinking you have pulled it off.  And maybe you have.  But I am convinced that the great majority of the time, one or both of y0u will get attached to the other person. Maybe you weren’t attached, but the other person was.  Maybe you didn’t even know that the other person was because he or she did such a great job of not showing their vulnerability.   Maybe you were attached, and you didn’t even have any awareness of it yourself.  Or you knew it deep down inside,  but never dared to admit it, even to yourself.

Think about it in terms of what I have said in the past about Synergistic Energy Exchange.  When you have sex with that other person, you have S.E.X. with that other person.  You are literally exchanging energy with that other person.  Connection is inevitable.  So it makes sense, in that respect, that there is no getting around it.

Swingers already know this.  That’s why some of them have  a policy that they will only hook up with another couple once, and then they move on.  They are consciously choosing not to get attached.

So, what?  What is the point of all this?  Is it that no one should ever attempt to be friends with benefits?  It is not up to me to say what others should or shouldn’t do.

I guess the point is awareness.  That we all be aware of what we are choosing.  The heart is not really safe when it gets involved with another person.  The idea that friends with benefits means the heart won’t be affected is an illusion.  There is always a risk that you will get hurt, or that you will inadvertently hurt another person.  And that in itself is painful.

Many times in the past I have been known to say that I don’t care.  That having an open heart and feeling pain at times is how I choose to live, rather than the alternative, which is the half-living option of having a closed heart.   And I do stand by that.

But only the person making the choice to get involved, whether it be friends with benefits, or getting into a new relationship, can say when it’s the right time for them.  Ask yourself the question, is this a time in my life when I want to open my heart, to make myself vulnerable?  There’s nothing wrong with saying no.  Maybe you just got out of a relationship, haven’t even grieved the loss yet, or have some other major emotional event going on in your life.

I invite you to share your own experiences of having friends with benefits.  (Remember that you can share anonymously by making up an email address just to blog with us here; I know some of you are shy!) Have you been glad you did it, or regretted it?  Did you learn anything from the experience?  Would you do it again?

Well, what if you did that all “just” for yourself?  Plan some self-pleasuring time.  Make it luxuriously expansive, like say set two hours aside for it.  Prepare yourself by bathing or showering, shaving, whatever you would normally do to prepare for a hot date.  Put on some lotion, perfume, or cologne to make yourself smell really good too.  Have the room you choose to use ready ahead of time.  Tidy it up.  Get some lube and put it in an easily accessible place.  Put some music on if you like.  Perhaps buy yourself some flowers, or chocolates, (men like these things too) burn a candle or two, maybe some sage or incense to purify the energy. Create a sacred space for your self love.  Shut all your electronic devices off so you won’t be disturbed.  Remember, make it just the way you would want it to be with a partner, only this time the partner is you.

Start with some sensate focus touch.  Sensate focus is a term originally coined by the famous sex researchers, Masters and Johnson.  The technique was developed to help couples with intimacy problems become more aware of the needs of themselves and others through focusing on the sensual experience.  It is not designed to turn anyone on.  And it’s still a lovely thing to do for yourself and a great precursor (self-foreplay, if you will) for the main self-pleasuring event.

Lie down naked on your back. Start with some sensate focus touch at the top of your head.  Gently run your fingertips from the top of your head down to your neck.  Do it several times and extend the touch to your upper chest.  Continue on in this way, very slowly, focusing on the texture of your skin and hair, felt with your fingertips, and the sensations you are experiencing in the rest of your body as a result of the self-touch.  Touch yourself with love.  Put all the love into the touching of yourself that you would with your most perfect and beautiful lover. Make your way down your entire body this way, not skipping anything, but not lingering anywhere either. I know there will be places it’s tempting to linger, but wait! Go slowly all the way down to your toes.  (You may want to bend your knees for this part temporarily so you can maintain your reclining position.)  Now revisit the parts that want more touch-perhaps your breasts (if you have them), nipples, belly button, until you get back to your genitals.

Time to break out the lube.  Very slowly and gently rub a generous amount of lube all over your genitals.  Allow yourself to do this in a sensate focus way as well, just for now observing what your body feels like under your fingertips, as if touching yourself for the first time, and noticing the sensations of that experience.  Slowly play with increasing sensation by varying the speed, rhythm, and pressure of your self-loving.  If you feel like you are getting close to orgasm, perhaps slow down a bit, temporarily.  You are not in any hurry.  Or stop touching yourself there altogether for a moment.  Let the pleasure build this way.  Again, keep in mind that you are loving yourself through this act.  Orgasm is not necessarily the goal.  You may or may not orgasm.  Some people I know have never had an orgasm by themselves.  Others have never had an orgasm period.  Orgasm, as delicious as it is, is not essential for self-loving.

When you are done, lie back and bask in the glow of your love of yourself.  Appreciate yourself for being you and for being willing to love yourself in this way. Sigh.  Eat a chocolate.

Why do adults try to shame kids out of self-pleasuring?  Because they themselves have been shamed about exploring their own bodies as children, and therefore seeing their kids in self-pleasuring mode brings up their own shame and embarrassment.  To stop their discomfort, they try to squelch their kids’ natural tendencies early on.  And then our kids will grow up to do the same thing to their kids.  It’s a cycle.  How about we break the cycle by starting with a new word for masturbation?

Have any ideas for good substitute words or phrases?  Please write to me if you do.  For now, how ‘bout we call it self-love, or self-pleasuring?

Do you engage in self-love?  It’s not just for horny teenagers.  It’s also for horny adults.  Even for adults who are having sex regularly.  I know, some people think that if they’re in a relationship and they’re still engaging in self-love, it’s a sign that all their needs aren’t being met, in other words, that the sex isn’t good. I seriously question the validity of this line of reasoning.

First of all, where did we get the notion that one person is supposed to satisfy all of our needs?  Oh yeah, we’ve created that ourselves too with our societal messages.  But let’s look more deeply. It’s entirely possible that you are very happy with your sex life and yet also at times enjoy self-pleasuring.  Variety is the spice of life.  Sometimes you may be in the mood for Italian when you go out to a restaurant.  Sometimes you may be in the mood for Chinese.  It’s no different with your sexual appetites.  Sometimes having sex with your partner may be what you want.  Sometimes it may be having sex with yourself.  There is nothing inherently wrong with either one.  Both are good.

One caveat: if you are engaging in primarily self-pleasuring or exclusively self-pleasuring, and deep down you know it is because you don’t want to have sex with your partner, that is another issue.  It is still not bad or wrong to be self-pleasuring, AND you may want to look at why you don’t want sex with your partner and what you’d like to do about that.

So I have presented some of the reasons why self-love is not bad.  Why is it good?  It boosts your immune system.  It boosts your self-esteem (have you ever heard of someone having low self-esteem at the moment of orgasm?).  It is mood-enhancing.  It increases your testosterone levels, whether you are a man or a woman, which raises your libido.  It lets you know, or reminds you, what you like so that you can better communicate that when you’re with a partner.

When was the last time you engaged in self-love?  Now that I’ve (hopefully) gotten you in the mood for that, stay tuned for my next blog in which I will make some suggestions for how you may create a beautiful next experience of self-pleasuring.

What IS important is that when that crossroads presents itself, which it will several times each day, you ask yourself these questions:   Do I choose love or fear?  Which way do I want to go now?  You always have free will.  Sometimes you may choose fear.  That is okay.  I do recommend that you choose love, though, as often as possible. At the very least, make your choices consciously and not by default.  Recognize when the choices present themselves.  How would you know?  Is it a body sensation that’s tipping you off?  Maybe you have a gnawing feeling in your stomach or a fluttering in your chest.  Body sensations such as these could indicate that you’re at such a crossroads.
Let’s take a few examples.  Your partner has cheated on you.  You want to rebuild the trust, but it’s a challenge for you.  You don’t want to get hurt again.  You are lying in bed with your partner when suddenly you have an overwhelming surge of positive feelings toward him or her.   Do you choose to go with the feelings and express them verbally or with your touch, or do you contract in fear, thinking that maybe you’re just not “ready” to go there yet?

Let’s take a totally different example.  You are sitting in the living room with your partner.  You have the thought that it would be nice to make love.  Then you remember the last time you made love, and it wasn’t that great for you.  Your partner has put on weight recently and you were kind of turned off by it.  You don’t want to repeat the experience.  Do you decide to continue with your impulse, opening your mind and your heart to the possibility of creating a different experience this time, or do you freeze in fear?  Maybe it’s better, you think, to just watch tv than risk another disappointing sexual encounter.

Or, you are single and dating.  You had a first date with a new person last night.  You enjoyed yourself tremendously, and you had the thought that he or she could be “the one.”  You think about calling to say what a great time you had and to ask about getting together on Friday night.  But then you hesitate.  You’ve been hurt  before.  You’ve been rejected.  Maybe (s)he’ll think you’re a “stalker” for calling too soon.  Should you express your feelings and desires, or hold back?

Here’s one more example.  Maybe you’re in a long term relationship.  Something is bothering you about your sex life.  It’s not as exciting as it used to be.  Your sexual routine has become-well, routine.  It feels like you’re just going through the motions.  You’ve thought of saying something to your partner, but you don’t want to open up the proverbial can of worms.  Maybe you should just let it be.  Maybe this is just what happens when you’ve been together with someone for a while.  Or, do you choose to risk being uncomfortable, stepping into the unknown out of love for yourself and your partner, because you believe you both deserve the best sex life possible?

These are just a few examples of how the choice between love and fear can present itself in your relationships.  People say there are many other feelings besides love and fear, and there are.  These are just the two opposite ends of the spectrum.  Begin to look at the choice points that come up in your own relationship, and make a conscious choice to move in the direction of one or the other.  Notice what you create with your different choices.  If you choose love, it may seem hard at first, but you also may be surprised at what you can create with an open heart and an open mind.

Now this may all sound great (or not) to you so far, but here’s where the problem comes in: she wants him to be passive in all areas of their life except one, their sex life.  She still wants him to take the traditional masculine role of being the sexual aggressor.  Only the trouble is, she has emasculated  him so much by this time that he doesn’t have any sexual aggression left in him. Well, to put it more realistically, he has given up so much of his power that he doesn’t have it in him. She really cannot do anything to him that he does not allow.

Yes, it’s true, we all have both.  Women have both masculine and feminine energy.  Men do also.  What is masculine energy?  It is pursuing.  It is linear. It is logical.  It is straightforward.  It is bold.  What is feminine energy?  It is receptive.  It is passive.  It is emotional.  It is intuitive. It is circular.

Hot sex happens when the two collide.  One must play the masculine role and one the feminine.  It doesn’t matter if it’s two men, two women, or one man, one woman.  Polarity needs to exist in order to create sexual tension.  Most people tend to have either a primarily masculine essence or a primarily feminine essence.  The ones with the mainly masculine essence are not necessarily men.  And the ones with the mainly feminine essence are not necessarily women.  Also, a few people have a more balanced masculine/feminine essence.

How can you tell which one you are?  Ask yourself this question: do I primarily want to “take” or “be taken” in the sexual arena?  I know, you are probably thinking: sometimes I’m in the mood for one, sometimes for the other.  But in your best fantasies, which role are you playing? In your heart of hearts, what do you really long for?  Or, do you not really have much of a preference one way or the other?

I, for example have a fair amount of masculine energy for a woman. This is not to say that I don’t like to dress up pretty, or get a facial, or have a door held open for me.  But I am a fairly goal-oriented, direct person who likes to take charge also.  And yet, at the same time, in those fantasies of my ideal sexual experience, I am being taken.  I want to be ravished.  Which is not to say I don’t like to ravish at times, too .  My essence, however, is primarily feminine.  So I am best matched with a guy whose essence is either primarily masculine, or balanced, so that he can easily play the masculine role when he wants to.

If your primary essence, your deepest desires in the bedroom, are not matching up with how you live your life outside of the bedroom, the sex in your life may be a little less than steamy, as in the example I mentioned above.

What are the answers to these questions for you?  Is your deepest desire to ravish or be ravished?  What (if you have one) is your partner’s deepest desire?  What roles do you each play in your everyday lives?  What kind of sexual tension, or apathy, is that leading up to in the bedroom?

1.  She told the truth.  Her truth. As much as she was scared to do so (she had put it off for years already), she told him how she had been feeling.

2.  She honored her feelings.  She stopped having sex with her husband.  She honored herself by not forcing herself to continue to have sex with him when she didn’t want to.

3.  She didn’t panic.  He did.  He was very angry and hurt.  He told her he thought he should move out, that they should get a divorce, all the usual stuff the partner who’s hurt will predictably go to.  But she didn’t overreact to what he said. She remained calm.  (Okay, maybe ONCE she said some unenlightened things, but that’s all )

4.  She kept meditating.  She had been in the habit for years of meditating daily.  Sometimes when we get in stressful situations, we stop our healthy habits.  She did not.

5.  She allowed her soul to penetrate further into her body.  She set that intention before her meditations, and it did occur.

6. She talked to him on the soul plane.  Since her husband’s ego was getting in the way of their having productive conversations on the earthly plane, she went to the soul plane and had some chats with his soul.  (See my blog titled Soul Linking for more information on how to do this.)

After two to three months, something wonderful happened.  One day, seemingly out of the blue, she began to have sexual fantasies about doing something with him that they had done in their earlier sexual life.  When he got home from work, she pounced on him and fulfilled her fantasy.  She reports that for several days and nights after that, they passionately made love as they had done when they first fell in love.  Then, they were restored to a more “normal” frequency of lovemaking.

I’m not saying this eliminated every challenge in their marriage, or that the same experience (lack of sexual desire) never resurfaced .  I AM saying that this is what worked for them.  I know there are literally millions of couples out there who may be going through a similar experience.  Maybe you are part of one of those couples.  If so, how have you handled it?  What has/hasn’t worked for you?  What do you think of the approach described here?

Literally very often while I am meditating alone, I can feel myself having sexual feelings arise in my yoni.  (Yoni is a tantric word for “sacred place”, used to refer to the  female genitalia without all the negative associations of a word like “vagina”.  The word used instead of “penis” is “lingam”.  It means “wand of light”.)  And then when meditating in a room with others, sometimes this makes me horniER.  This, of course, is because of the Synergistic Energy Exchange that is naturally happening in the room, even with all our clothes on, not touching each other, and not even necessarily having any sexual thoughts.

And here’s what our guides had to say about that:  First of all, they affirmed that meditation does in fact work to raise libido.  But they also said the REASON that it works is that it raises the kundalini energy in our bodies.   Kundalini, simply put, is the natural energy of the self.  And what’s true is that since we are in essence sexual beings, ALL of our energy IS sexual.

No, the existence of kundalini hasn’t been proven scientifically, but to me that means nothing.  Lots of other things that were previously not scientifically proven, now are, such as the fact that our chakras, or energy centers, really do exist.  Or the fact that white sage, when burned, really does purify the energy of a space or a human being.

So this kundalini energy sits at the base of the spine, coiled up like a snake. When a person meditates, it starts to rise in the body, up through the chakras.  And this can create, among many other wonderful benefits, more sexual feelings.

To me, sex is one of the greatest gifts we can enjoy while here on the planet.  Okay, it’s actually my favorite, even above massage and food, but who’s counting?  I feel really sad when my sex drive appears to go underground.  I miss it.  (Just to reassure you, in case you were worried about me, right now it is alive and well!)

And I know there are so many people suffering with a low or non-existent sex drive.  According to USA Today, 20 to 30% of men and 30-50% of women say they have little or no sex drive.  Wow, those numbers are high! Low sex drives deprive of us being able to fully enjoy the gift of our sexuality.  It is bad enough if we are single and have no sex drive (or, perhaps if that is the case we may be grateful, but not for long I predict), but when we are in a relationship and one or both partners are having trouble with libido, this can cause real difficulties.

If you are falling into that category right now, why not give meditation a try?  It has no negative side effects, does not require a doctor’s prescription, it’s free, and you can do it just about anywhere.

I did a little better with my own kid.  One day when she was about three, she was getting ready for a bath and she touched her clitoris and asked: “What is this?”  I am proud to say, I told her the truth: “That’s your clitoris”.  She responded by saying: “I like this.”  And I validated by saying: “I know, honey.”

But seriously, now I think back and ask myself: why was it that at three years old, she did not already know what her clitoris was?  We had already gone through the whole game of teaching her the name of every other body part when she was one or two and then quizzing her to see if she remembered them.  Conspicuously, we had left out her genitals.  But she caught us on that one.  She asked.

When she was seven, there was an older kid that told her all about sex, again accurately.  She checked the story out with me (a sign that she did not get the message that it was bad to talk about it), then said: “And he said that’s called sex.  Is that true?”  I confirmed that it was.  She asked some more questions at that time, which I answered.  Some people might say she was too young to know that, but apparently she wasn’t, because she did know it. Think of it this way: by that age, we have already explained to our kids how all sorts of other things worked when they asked, why would sex be any different?

Another way that parents give the erroneous message that sex is bad or shameful is by trying to stop their kids from enjoying their own bodies. Even when the kids are still infants, many parents will pull the baby’s hand away when it naturally goes to it’s genitals.  Infants and children do things with their bodies when it feels good.  Some kids like to rock.  They may stroke other areas of their bodies simply because it feels good.  But allowing kids to touch their own genitals is where most parents draw the line.

Clearly something that is left out, not discussed, and discouraged must be bad, right?  That’s the message that our kids receive.  Is that the message that we want to give children, that sex is wrong and bad and sinful?  It’s certainly not the message that I want to give

What about you?  What messages did you receive about sexuality growing up?  How do you think that affected your attitudes toward your own sexuality?  What messages do you think you have been (verbally or non-verbally) giving to your own kids?  What messages do you consciously choose to give your kids about sex?  What is one step you are willing to commit to toward creating that?

First of all, yes, there are those whose High Self, the God(dess) part of them plans at the outset to find their partner, (usually a soulmate, someone who they have known and loved in past lives) and stay together literally ‘til death do they part.  But that is relatively rare.  Most of the time, our High Selves agree that we will meet in this lifetime and stay together for a pre-determined amount of time. We will learn what we can learn from each other, and then it will be complete and we will move on to continue our learning with different partners.  This may turn out to be a total of two partners or twenty.  None of it is wrong.

The problem is, our personalities usually don’t know that, and our society tells us differently.  So, and here’s the really crucial part: we are set up to think that we have failed if our relationship or our marriage, Goddess forbid, doesn’t last forever.  In fact, when I was married and going to counseling, our therapist literally told us that we had failed at marriage.  Wow.  For years afterward, I was afraid to really commit to anyone else because I believed what he said, and didn’t want to fail again. And the truth is, if our relationships end it doesn’t mean we have failed at all.  It simply means we have chosen differently.

And here’s the part where true love really IS forever.  For example, my last partner and I loved each other deeply, even though we eventually chose to separate in this lifetime.  We loved each other before we met in this lifetime, we loved each other for the five years that we were in relationship, and we will love each other for the rest of our current lifetimes and into eternity.  I know that may sound incredibly sappy and over dramatized, but it is actually true.  I can’t explain how I know that exactly.  I just feel it in my bones.

So, what? What is the implication about all of this?  Here’s the big payoff.  If we accept the new paradigm, we don’t have to go with the old way of breaking up. The old way is, since we are all meant to stay together forever, and since we’re not doing that, this must mean not only that we have failed but that there is something wrong with one or both of us.  We messed up.  We are defective.  You are defective.  I am defective.  We feel pressure to come up with a laundry list of reasons we are going to give when someone asks us “why?”.  I didn’t handle it right.  (S)he has all these bad qualities that I can’t put up with any longer.  And it goes on and on.

I did that when I divorced my husband.  I came up with a long list of all the things he did wrong and all the ways I didn’t voice my displeasure strongly enough or soon enough, and thus the marriage had failed.  The real truth was, I didn’t even know why I was divorcing him, I only knew I needed to do it.  It was over.

In the new paradigm, you get to say: “It’s been a great ride together, and it’s over now.  Thank you for allowing me to grow and learn together with you. Thank you for all the good times, and all the bad times.  I learned from all of them.  I honor who you are, and I love you.  There is nothing wrong with either you or me.  It is sad to part ways, but it is part of the plan we made together with God.  I trust that our High Selves made this plan in perfect knowing of what was for our highest good.” Isn’t that much better than: “I’m leaving you because you’re a @#$ ”?