Love, Lust, & Enlightenment
Awakened Love
for
a Delightful, Juicy, and Present Life
while
“Saving the World”
Chris Elms, M.A.
360-317-4773
chriselms@vom.com
Copyright—— 2018
Do you want an Awakened Relationship?
People find another person, and things are great, or pretty good. Then things come into some sort of drifting status quo. Sex stays pretty good, and friendship disappears. Or friendship gets comfortable and sex disappears. Very few couples live in the thrill of enlightenment as a simple way of being in which you are happy almost all the time, and are present almost all the time, and have a commitment to the Big Picture, to “Saving the Earth.”
And the earth needs saving, just look at all the poverty and war and racism and ecological destruction and vast income inequity and sexism: tis a mess. And loneliness. And meaninglessness. And deep harrowing struggles for so many. Yes, the Earth needs saving, but without the anguish that usually goes along with this.
My goal is 10,000 Awakened Couples, who are happily engaged in Love, and Lust and Enlightenment. And “Saving the Earth.”
To make it simple, here’s the base line of Awakened Relationship.
Love: Ease and fun and communication every day.
Love: Ready ways to forgiveness and humor when buttons get pushed, or the shit hits the fan.
Lust: Sex, both reciprocal and non-reciprocal every day. Mindful sex.
Enlightenment: Happy and in the present almost full time.
Enlightenment: Committed to the Big Picture and happily, mindfully “Saving the Earth.”
This books is for anyone, in a couple or wanting to be, who wants all five aspects to Awakened Love. You might be in a boring or okay relationship. You might be in a troubled one. You might be alone.
If you want this wonderful Awakened Relationship world, this book is for you.
There are nine weeks worth of focusing on pathways of liberation. There will be “games” for you to play almost immediately.
You can play one right now.
The Wake Up Game:
Smile.
Look out a window if one is near.
Take a breath down to your belly.
Sense your pelvis’ connection to the chair. If you are standing, sense your feet and the ground or the floor. If sitting sense one or both feet against the floor or ground.
Breathe again, a little deeper. Smile a little bigger.
Feel yourself alive.
Right now.
The first three weeks will concentrate on three liberations pathways —Gratitude, Being Present, Writing Goals from the Real you—that helped a miracle take place in my life, and that of Carol. Who is Carol? Read on.
Week One: GRATITUDE
On June 20, 2015, I walked half a block down my street in Austin, Texas, to meet a woman I knew and admired and liked, but with whom I thought I had no “romantic” expectations. I had met her a mere three months before, in March. She had moved to Austin in February. Now in June it was a gentle summer’s day, and we were going to meet for a lunch and “study” session. I was writing a book on radical listening. She was smart and kind and I wanted her input. Her name was Carol Williams then.
It’s Carol Elms now.
We thought we were meeting for an hour and a half. For lunch and a bit of her help on a book I was writing, the precursor to this one.
Twelve hours later, at one am, as I pried myself out the door, to walk the half block back to my home, we both were almost certain we’d met the future lifetime partner that had a day before seemed “almost impossible” to find. I’d written an “impossible goal” to find a fabulous woman within walking distance. I hadn’t realized till that night that Carol was to be the answer to that request.
Goals are important, crucial, yes. Carol had been praying for a life time partner. But goals written or prayed from a heart of grumpiness and fear are more like whining. Goals from the fertile fields of gratitude are more like singing as you plant a fertile field.
This book is for those who want a fabulous relationship at the center of a fabulous, awakened, sexy life. A life that is making a huge difference in the world.
Is this you?
If yes, read on…
We all thrive in gratitude…
On that night, and since then, the practice of gratitude was a deeply embedded part of both our lives. Then, as now, I was writing in a “gratitude journal” at least twice, often three or four or five times, a day. Carol, on that miracle day, had a steady background prayer life, of which gratitude and thanks was a significant part. Now she has a gratitude journal, too. By the middle of week one, (or sooner) so will you. If you want a fabulous life. (Oh, darn: basic law: if you want to change, you have to change).
And, of course, Carol and I keep being grateful that our gratitude helped paved the way for our miracle. And every day we are grateful for the fun and sexual delight and waking into the present moment that is our new life.
What are you grateful for? Think of three things. Does something shift?
The Power of Gratitude
Gratitude focuses our hearts and minds on what we like and love in life, what is going well in our life, what we are thankful for and want more of. Instead of wasting time and mental energy on worry or complaining, gratitude allows us to look at life from a peaceful and open heart. With an eager heart alert to what has gone well in the past, we are primed to be looking forward to more “good stuff” unfolding each day.
Gratitude has us focused on what we want more of in life, not what we want less.
Modern research has shown what ancient wisdom has long suspected: the brain (and person) can be in either fear or gratitude.
Carol and I were tuned in to what we appreciated about our lives. This made it far easier to tune into what we could appreciate in the other person. We played a communication game that I will give you soon as part of chapter two, the Being Present chapter. In this game, you take turns talking a specific amount to a timer (3, 4, 5 minutes). In this time, no interrupting is permitted. We took five minutes each. We had the goal of being present in both talking and listening.
This game will change your life.
For us, in gratitude and in the presence of talking and listening without interruption, this “game” allowed one hour to expand into two, into three, into four for us.
And as we listened, since our lives were coming from gratitude, and being present, we could discover who we were with. It wasn’t about explaining ourselves. It was about mutually discovering each other.
Way too many “dates” are like job interviews, where the people push their “qualities” back and forth. Instead, if they were present and curious, they could be delighting in finding out about a new human being on this planet earth.
We keep discovering and discovering and discovering. Then it was time for “have you ever watched the Brene Brown TED talk on vulnerability?” “No.” And watching it.
“Say something vulnerable.”
“You are starting to look a lot like the level of person I never thought I could find.”
More of that.
Walking to dinner.
Holding hands.
Back to watch the TED talk again.
I asked her favorite verses from the Bible, since it had become clear in our talking that in quite different ways (deep Christianity for her, a mythical Buddhism meets Christianity for me) we were both intensely committed to a spiritual path.
One of hers was “Be Still and Know I am God.”
To me this meant: Bingo. That’s what meditation is about. I’ve found someone with whom I can meditate. (We now have sex usually twice a day. We now meditate usually twice a day. Going deep in two ways. Yum).
One of mine was Philippians 4:4: “Be happy (rejoice) in everything. Be anxious in nothing. Lift up your thanks and then your petitions.” (Give your gratitudes, and then your requests/ goals… Always be in a state of equanimity).
There was more talk.
I told her, to her shock, I was going to a wonderful Austin church the next day, with music that sometimes bordered on Broadway musical and sermons that were about real Christian themes, not the narrow minded stuff of many modern churches.
We kissed a bit.
We held ourselves back.
I pried myself away and got out the door at one, am.
We were both pretty sure we’d found the “impossible” mate/ lifetime partner that we’d suspected might not be out there.
And yet, here we were, half a block apart.
I showed up the next morning, at eight with my way cool Restored New Testament (Willis Barnstone, check it out) in hand.
We’ve been together since.
That was June 21, 2015, our day of “Yes.”
And then the deeper “Yes” came on March 5, 2016, the day of our marriage.
We had and have nine wedding vows, all of which we recite together each morning. The ninth is: We are joyfully creating a long and happy and healthy and enlightened Love, Friendship and Marriage that is getting better and better and better every day.
Every day.
That usually happens.
We touch a lot. Kiss a lot.
We are getting better and better at converting growls into laughs.
We are getting better and better and transforming complaints into ease and self realization and “we goals.”
And making love.
Delicious lovemaking.
The best of our lives.
Once a day.
Twice a day.
Three times a day.
She is now 68 to my 72. Neither of us have ever had a third as much sex as we are having now. For her before it was several times a month, at best. For me, twice a week.
And now: zowie. As if we were in our twenties. If this, along with mindfulness and health and happiness and awakening to ways of joyfully “saving the world,” is what you want… read on.
And….This isn’t a sex manual.
Sex is the dessert to an amazing life. If you are alone and deserted now, many of the games in this book will help you find really great friends, friends with whom awakening and real communication can take place.
One of those great friends might turn out to be the lover and spouse that you are looking for.
Along the way, you can be present and happy with yourself and with others. If so, you will be living a real life and pulling toward you real people. Without being present and happy (and having purpose) it’s all the random crap shoot of most life.
This book is for those who want far, far above the Random Crap Shoot.
For those who want Love, Lust and Enlightenment.
And now, for the beginning of your week one playwork, let us start our gratitude games:
Love and Gratitude Game #1:
Say aloud five things you are grateful for. Feel your heart as you say these five.
Really, do it now. This is not a book to “just read” and imagine “doing it” later. This is not a book of “good ideas” for you to give your “screwed up” friends. This is a transformation manual for those who want even more amazing life.
So, do it.
Say aloud five things you are grateful for, and be as present to your body and your voice and your heart as you can be while you do so.
Love and Gratitude Game #2: Write five Gratitudes.
Get a journal, label it your “Gratitude Journal” and write down five things you are grateful for.
Write slowly.
Feel your breathing and your hand and arm moving.
Feel your handwriting as part of YOU pouring out your appreciation for life.
If you don’t have a journal, YET, grab any piece of paper and write five gratitudes.
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