Most of what I believe is Biblical... but also comes from don Miguel Ruiz... The Four Agreements and The Mastery of Love .<p>
http://www.miguelruiz.com/articles/article-miguel-artofloving.htm<p>
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<p>The Art of Loving
by don Miguel Ruiz<p>I ask you all, what does it mean to be a lover? Basically it means one who makes love. And a lover is the one who creates love. When you eat, you make love. When you walk, you make love. When you speak, you make love. Any activity is making love. Everything is about making love. Then I bet that most of you do not even know you can be lovers in this way. The times that you have made love it was without awareness. What I am calling a lover is not exactly a lover the way most of you understand me. You can be a lover without sex. It's about being in love in every moment, for no reason at all. On the other hand, you can call someone your lover when that person treats you poorly, gives you his or her anger, their jealousy, their drama. Is that really a lover? No, that person is not a lover. A lover is someone who gives you love, not his or her garbage. <p>Now the question is, are you a lover? What is it that you give to your partner? Do you own your partner? Do you want to enslave your partner, to control your partner? Is that really love? Are you really a lover? I don't think so. But it's not your fault, because you never really learned to be a lover. You learned to be the way you are from everyone else before you. It is important to understand this: you cannot give to another what you do not possess yourself. If you do not have love, how can you pretend to give love? What most people call love is need. Need for companionship, need for sex, need to be needed. We want someone who needs us. We do not want to be alone. If someone needs us, we can justify our existence. My children need me. My parents need me. My beloved needs me. My dog needs me. And that's what we call love. Well, this is not love. <p>Even worse, if someone is sending you love, your belief system can distort everything they are sending to you. As a result, what you reflect back to them is not love, but your emotional poison and fear. And that fear and emotional poison comes out because that is what the belief system eats. When you eat love, the false beliefs have to die. By loving, you are cleaning your belief system. Then as a mirror you become more and more clear. When that happens you can reflect love clearly and love makes everyone and everything beautiful. When you are making love, your soul is eating love. <p>We need to take the risk to be in love again. It's time to start a brand new romantic relationship with yourself. The challenge is for you to treat yourself better than you would treat any lover in your life. Fall in love with yourself and love yourself unconditionally. I want you to imagine how different your life would be if you loved yourself so much, that you never rejected yourself again. The problem is we reject ourselves for nothing. We create the whole drama of our lives for nothing. We do not enjoy our life because we believe that we don't deserve to be happy. That we don't deserve love. That love hurts. But this is not the truth. Love gives you the most pleasure ever. Because you, the real you, your Spirit, your soul, eats love. <p>Imagine that the love that you feel for yourself, is so strong and so powerful, that you never disrespect yourself again. You love yourself so much, you honor yourself in everything you do, and in everything that you think and say. And in everything you create! You love yourself so much that every activity of your life becomes a ritual of love. In every bite that you eat, you enjoy the smell, texture and flavor. Imagine that you love yourself so much that your entire life is about giving yourself all the pleasure in the universe. That you know that you are here to enjoy every moment, every second of your life. Imagine you love yourself so much, that you trust yourself completely. The love that you have for yourself is so big, that it is coming out of you, through your eyes, through the manifestation of everything that your do in your life. You see everything through the eyes of love. And you perceive things the way they are, not the way you want them to be. Without distorting anything. You love yourself so much, you know creating conflict with another person will hurt you as well. You love yourself so much, that you want to enjoy the ones that you love. You want to love every interaction with your parents or your brother or sister. You want to love every moment with each one of your children, with each one of your friends. Your love is so strong that when you have a romantic relationship, and you make love, you know that you are making love with yourself through the other person who is with you. You know they are a mirror for you the human, and you the divine. Whatever you send to your partner, will be reflected back to you, because they are a mirror. The more love you give, more of the real you (love) returns back to you. Imagine you no longer have to live your life with resentments. With guilt, shame, or blame. You don't even have the need to forgive, because you don't take anything personally any more. <p>I want you to imagine that you can say yes when you want to say yes and you say no when you want to say no. And it's nothing personal. I want you to imagine that when you love yourself so much, there is no way that you will ever accept anyone's disrespect, or dishonor. You would never allow anyone to touch your body without love. I want you to imagine how different the dream of your life could be if you loved yourself unconditionally. Imagine that you no longer need anyone to tell you how good or bad, or right or wrong you are. You can trust the voice of your spirit, and live your life with integrity. Is there any reason why you shouldn't start a brand new relationship with yourself? Will your belief system allow you to take the risk? I want you to open your heart and take the risk right now. I want you to feel all that love for yourself. Don't believe yourself when you say that love makes you vulnerable. It's not true. Love makes you strong. The voice of your integrity comes right out and lets people know that it's not okay to mistreat you. And you can communicate this without anger, even with a smile on your face. Take the risk. Love is food for your soul. Enjoy! <p>Now let's talk for a minute about relationships with others. Some of my apprentices have asked me "Miguel, how come I never can find a good man/woman? They always turn out to be losers." Well. I tell them, there are two kinds of humans. The ones who are like bees, and the ones who are like flies. The ones like flies, they're searching for garbage. They are searching for poo. They are poo-eaters. The bees, they look for nectar. They go into the most beautiful flowers, and they drink the nectar and create honey. Then nectar attracts bees and poo attracts flies. If we understand that, then we can have awareness in our relationships. If someone is trying to control you with jealousy obviously that person is a fly, a garbage eater. If someone respects you the way you are and treats you with honor, they are obviously a bee looking for nectar. Then when you go into a relationship, what are you looking for? Are you are looking for nectar, or you are looking for drama and emotional garbage? Are you needy for someone to send all your poison and anger to? Are you needy for someone to send your opinions to so you can make them miserable? If you are doing that, you are a fly. If you are a bee, then you are looking for joy, happiness, and love,. You want to have fun and to enjoy life. You are not looking to control others. If poo is what you are offering, only flies will come to you. Don't expect bees to come around! When you interact with people cursing, unhappy, with anger and envy, with all those addictions, you only will attract flies. Then you cannot blame the flies, because you are attracting them! But if what you have is nectar, everyone will want to be near you.flies and bees, but you don't have to accept the flies. You can see they are flies. Flies can go for nectar but really they are looking to turn nectar into poo! They don't appreciate the nectar. It's about having awareness and making choices. You need to see things the way they are, not the way you want or wish them to be. You make the choice to date a fly. You make the choice to act like poo! In order to go and have a successful relationship outside of yourself, first you need to clean up your beliefs and emotional garbage. You can only give to another what you have inside yourself. If you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. If you squeeze a human made of emotional poison, guess what you get? Then, if you have poo inside you, guess what you will put out. It is time to be your true self. You don't have to pretend to be what you are not. What is important is that you present your integrity to the world. What you project is what they will perceive. <p>I am going to give you all some homework. What I would like you to do is to fill the bathtub and take a bath. Pretend the bathtub is filled not with water, but with love. Imagine you are just floating in a sea of love. Now get a little washcloth, and we will create a ritual with it. I want you to imagine that you can remove all your emotional poison with the washcloth in this ritual. Wet the cloth and rub it lovingly from your head to your toes, letting it absorb all the poo and everything you have done that has gone against yourself. It's about forgiveness. Now rinse the cloth in the bath filled with love and use the cloth to rub the love all over yourself. Cover yourself in love. This is the night of your honeymoon with yourself. You will make love with yourself tonight. To make love means to create. You will create love for yourself tonight. By doing that, it's a ritual that is purifying you. It's a cleansing. After this ritual you will feel clean and pure. After the ritual you will deserve to be loved by you. Can you do it? <p>Lastly, you need to rediscover yourself. There are so many possibilities that exist within the relationship you have with yourself. You just have to choose. Then this is the first step, the re-encounter with yourself. The beginning of the new romance. Start practicing and practicing all that love for yourself. As a result of your self-love, all of your outside relationships will transform automatically. Practice treating yourself like the best lover you have ever had. Give yourself the best, treat your body the best you can. Give yourself massages, whatever, to look and feel beautiful for yourself. Do it just because it makes you feel good. It's not about competing with anyone else in the world for a partner anymore. It's not about pleasing anyone else anymore. It's about treating yourself. Give your body the best food you can and the foods you enjoy. It's about giving yourself all the comfort you can. Even the luxury, why not? You deserve it. You work so hard, take care of yourself. Give your body what your body needs. And give your mind what your mind needs. But most of all give your soul what your soul needs. And what it needs is you, which is love. Live your life in total romance! <p>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------<p>Just want to reiterate that YOU is NOT the selfish YOU, but the giving YOU. CHANGE STARTS W/ YOU... When you start to walk in love and act in love, it is difficult for those around you NOT to respond... this is about setting LOVING boundaries not REJECTION and putting up WALLS and arguing about FIT or GOING outside of YOURSELF to another to make yourself feel good. It is about finding the love WITHIN yourself and NURTURING it and YOU... <p>Cali
