Why Have Relationships, Anyway?

why have relationships

When I coach couples and individuals about relationships, the question, “why have relationships?” comes up in two very different contexts.

Why Have Relationships At All?

The first context is one of despair. Relationships have been so difficult, so painful, so exhausting, that someone starts to ask themselves, “why do I do this at all?” and, “would I be better off being alone for the rest of my life?” They may begin to think that loneliness is just the price they have to pay for peace of mind.

The second context is one of maturity. After working through childhood wounds, neediness, and attachment, someone contemplates the reality that they can provide for themselves anything they might seek from outside. As the possibility of this state begins to dawn, people are often gripped with a concern that being self-sufficient might remove any motivation they have for being in relationships at all.

Discouragement: When Relationships Are A Struggle

We could spend an entire article talking about why relationships can be such a struggle, but for now, just bear in mind that what makes relationships difficult is the interaction of our own childhood wounds with another person’s childhood wounds.

The long-term solution is, of course, to do the internal work to heal our childhood wounds through therapy, meditation, self-parenting, rebirthing, and other personal development practices.

In the short term, however, there is a practical way to end the apparently eternal struggle; simply stop engaging with people whose childhood wounds trigger yours. If they are relatives or work associates, take some polite distance. If they are friends or lovers, politely take a break from seeing them.

Now, if you have been deep in your habitual patterns, this may mean distancing yourself from almost every person you know. This is not a bad thing. You won’t be alone for long – the world is full of people who don’t trigger your childhood wounds. As soon as you have some time, space, and emotional energy for interaction, they will be right in front of you, ready to have low-drama relationships with you.

Just be careful not to select a whole new crop of drama-triggering friends and lovers. If all your relationships have always been difficult, then you are probably really good at gravitating to people whose childhood wounds trigger yours. You will need to avoid the people you consider attractive, interesting, and exciting, and get to know some of those boring people you have always ignored.

Maturity: When You No Longer Need Anything From Relationships

The idea that we wouldn’t bother with relationships if we didn’t need anything from anyone doesn’t usually arise after someone has completed their healing journey and attained true independence. It is more likely to arise during the healing journey, as an objection to the idea that we can (or should) be meeting our own needs internally, rather than looking to other people to meet our needs.

In reality, once we move out of neediness and dependence on others, we can begin to have authentic relationships for the first time in our lives. A whole new world opens up, with unimaginable pleasures, unprecedented fulfilment, and capabilities that literally seem like superpowers.

The long climb out of the depths of chaos, pain, and confusion is just the beginning. Once we stop grasping at others to save us, to support us, to fill a hole within us, once we are whole and complete within ourselves, then (and only then) can we truly meet another person, soul to soul.

When two complete beings meet in trust and harmony, we unleash the power of synergy – the world in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Instead of finding our “other half” and becoming whole, we bring two wholes together. Like two pieces of nuclear fuel combining to reach critical mass, we fuse together and access the cosmic alchemy by which we become, for a while, something more than merely human.

Written By Jnani Jenny Hale

Yoni Massage 101

woman's back in tall grass field with arms up

Sssshhhh…

I want to share with you something very secret and very sacred. Something most people would never dream about which can totally change your life…

A yoni massage.

Yoni is the Sanskrit name for vagina, but it actually translates as temple or womb. Yoni is sacred and revered, unlike some of our common words for vagina, like pussy – which often is used derogatorily to mean weak. (Sidenote: I’m taking that word back.) Yoni is a symbol of the goddess as power, energy, life: the sacred feminine embodied.

Yoni

The term “yoni” does not only refer to women or bodies that have vaginas. All humans possess both masculine and feminine energies (also called yin and yang), so we can begin to understand our own yoni (sacred womb) as the deepest temple in our being, with the reverence that the Tantrics gave our human sex: fully divine.

For those assigned female or who have transitioned into assigned female sexual organs, the yoni refers directly to the vulva, vagina and cervix (as well as the rest of the reproductive system, but we’ll stick with the external parts for the sake of explaining yoni massage). Tantrics have long said that vaginas are to be revered, worshipped, adored and fully seen – and have created countless rituals and practices to do just that.

Cunts

Sadly, that is not often the way we experience our sex or how others view or treat our sex. Cunts have been given a pretty bad rep, and far too many people have experienced sexual repression, denial, coercion, manipulation, pressure, trauma, or violence. For many people, sexual interaction and expression aren’t times in which we feel revered and adored.

As an intimacy and relationship coach, it is my mission to change this pattern, one person at a time. My favorite way to spur this change is to spend time adoring, worshiping, and yes, massaging yonis.

What is a yoni massage, you ask? Think about a massage on any other part of your body: safe, loving touch and energetic opening to experience being in the body, relax, soothe, and deeply heal. A yoni massage is exactly that: safe, loving touch and energetic opening to reclaim embodiment, heal wounding and trauma, bring full acceptance, and open the flow of unconditional love throughout the body and into the yoni.

A Yoni Massage

A yoni massage is a chance for the yoni to be seen, petted, explored, mapped, desired, cared for and pleasured without any other sexual touch. No reciprocity. No expectation. Two or more hours just exploring the yoni and all of its unique, individual contours, hot buttons, sensitivities, and quite possibly traumas and stored emotions.

All yonis can benefit from this sacred and reverent touch, whether you’re attending the session with a specific need to heal, to orgasm, to be seen, or just to have space away from the rest of life. As a person with an active sex life, I still benefit from regular yoni massage to learn about myself, experience new sensations, and to commune with the divine. It helps me feel deeply seen and appreciated, safe, and held.

Every experience is unique. Every person’s intention is different. All bodies and experiences are welcome. All emotions, feelings and experiences are held with openness and acceptance. Instruction is slow, generous and soft. Requests are welcome. Boundaries are firmly communicated and respected. Consent and communication are explicit and professional. Hearts are opened. Bodies and psyches are healed. Wounds are seen and repaired. Experiences are confidential and continuously supported after the session. Questions are welcome!

For yonis who are healing from sexual violence or trauma, challenging relationships, a time of celibacy or a lack of physical touch, yoni massage can bring you back into connection with your physical body. It can invite you to engage with life in ways that might have felt inaccessible or closed off. It can heal a broken heart, or a series of them. It can awaken sensation you thought was dead, or just very dormant. It can reconnect you to YOU.

 

Curious to learn more right from your home? Check out the Yoni Massage 101 Course at Beducated! It’s a step-by-step program to learn how to give and receive a Yoni (Vulva) Massage. Suitable for singles and couples of all genders…and includes Yoni Self-Massage!

Here’s a few more online courses in Yoni practices…

Yoni Egg 101

Yoni Yoga

Jealousy in Polyamory

woman standing in a field of bubbles

If you practice nonmonogamy, you might have already been through the new and shiny phenomenon, where you or a partner meets someone new and it awakens the fun, unpredictable New Relationship Energy (NRE).

This could go a number of ways. Two of the most common are:

  1. It kicks up a new appreciation and desire in your existing relationship
  2. You find yourself comparing your new love to your current relationship

Obviously, option one is preferred. Without awareness, option two can easily happen…but it doesn’t have to. Let’s see how to deal with jealousy in a polyamorous relationship and examine the habits that can lead to a comparison of new love with existing and how to create patterns that help NRE fuel your existing love, not necessarily create a desire to replace.

The Mind’s Task of Comparison

Comparison is one of the fastest paths to disaster in poly relationships.

Even if we think we don’t compare partners or past relationships, our mind and ego are constantly on the lookout for better or worse. That’s our mind’s job, to put things in order (*note: hierarchy) so it can have linear thoughts. While we don’t need to despise our mind for its instinctual task, we can recognize that it creates a lot of suffering.

In fact, most suffering comes from this desire of the mind to separate, identify and compare.

When this sets one relationship against another, we get just that: a fight. Who’s the better lover? Better partner? Better listener? This is what the mind will ask you and desperately try to get you to answer.

Continue reading the full article at omooni.com.

Ready to Evolve

I have been anticipating this post for a very long time. I am filled with joy to tell you about some of the most exciting decisions of my life. They haven’t been easy and some have taken every ounce of courage to jump over the fears of my past conditioning. A friend who I briefly knew in Seoul recently messaged me asking me how I can just go all over the world and do what I want to do without fear. My immediate response was, “Of course I’m afraid!” But I am learning the difference between fears that keep you alive and fears that keep you from living. I am determined to manifest my dreams and I’m so happy that you are a part of them.

And with that, here they are!

Welcome to my new website: Bewholebehappy.com

This has been months in the making and years in the thinking. I actually almost bought this domain name 5 years ago in a café in India after I left Korea the last time. But I knew at that time I was not ready for whatever developing a website means. Now I know it means quite a bit of organization and vision, some money, and a lot of support. A few things are still being tweaked, but it is ready to share with the world.

Why Be Whole Be Happy?

Because as Swami Vivekananda says, “Happiness is our birthright. Happiness is the treasure of our soul.” Happiness exists inside us. It is there waiting for us. Through the process to authentic living, we can uncover our whole self, and discover and experience happiness every day.

I would love for you to visit my website and sign up for my new mailing list. I’ll be sending out periodic emails as I have been the past few years, with more frequency but the same integrity and honesty that you’ve come to expect from me.

The first thing you’ll notice on the site is my name, Grace. I’ve decided to change my teaching name to Grace. My international communities have known me as Grace for a number of years, as have some communities around the US. I made this decision for a number of reasons. First, it reminds me every time I hear it of the Divine influence in my life and the inseparability of Divine Will from my own will. In that way, it is something of a “spiritual name” as it brings me closer to Spirit when I hear and say it. And hopefully it does for you, too. It was a surprise to both me and my mom when I found out a few years ago that Karissa actually means Grace in Greek. If you’ve known me as Karissa, you don’t have to start calling me Grace. But that’s how I’ll be introducing myself in the teaching world from now on.

Please also note my new email address: [email protected].

One more joyous announcement: I’m teaming up with another Tantric Yoga teacher from Portland, Amitayus, to begin offering courses in both Seattle and Portland this spring and summer. We have a lot scheduled for this year already. You can see the first few offerings in Upcoming Courses on my website. You’ll also see our name –Spanda Tantra Yoga – on our offerings. Come to an event to see what it’s all about! We are so very excited to continue our teachings together and create a larger community of like-minded, truth-seeking, consciously awakening souls in the northwest. I hope you will join us!

I’m also delighted to return to Three Trees Yoga to offer some of my favorite series beginning on April 20th. First, a satsang (community of truth) based on The Crest Jewel of Discrimination, a 1000 year old text by Adi Shankacarya. Click here for more information on this Yoga off the Mat series. Second, Journey with me into the Sacred Feminine. Tantra is all about connecting to Shakti – the life force, power, creation and manifestation that surrounds us in every form. This series is limited to 12 women. We start on April 20 in Federal Way and June 2 in Seattle. Don’t miss it!

Before I return to Seattle in early April, I am taking a month on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand to decompress and study. I’m doing a few intensive courses at Agama Yoga to renew my personal inspiration from gifted teachers. And taking a lot of time to reflect on this past year and a half in Asia. I feel that the tides are shifting for me. I’m starting to uncover some of the shadows of my past and making room for what really serves me and my global community. This year is latent with new expressions of joyful teaching, inspiring teachers and blessed choices. I pray that my vision will lead me and all those who join on the path to more awakened decisions, free from past karma and full of creative and limitless energy!

Love and Gratitude,
Karissa – Grace

Quietly Rejoicing

living in korea

I’ve been living in Korea again nearly 2 months now and the only real observation I can make is that I Am Present. I am with the familiar, the unfamiliar, the challenging discomforts, the joyous comforts, the new routines and the constant changes with a seamless ease that makes me feel suspended between this world and another. It’s like I am watching a beautiful life of synchronicities and serendipitous meetings unfold, watching the moments pass by with simultaneous bliss and suffering, and screaming with gratitude all the while.

December  in Seoul was a month of loneliness, confusion, heartache, uber-caffeine and a wacky diet, and also a very stable yoga practice with a tapas (discipline) of heavy pranayama and meditation. I had a winter’s hibernation and barely left my house for 6 weeks, taking a lot of silence, reflecting on my cravings for people and things, and accepting my less-than-exuberant emotional and physical state. There was a solid week where I was so angry at myself for coming here and completely convinced that I had made the wrong choice. It was hard. And as I emerge, I feel that the cocoon has preserved and evolved me with stronger and more beautiful wings with which to fly into new and unknown territory.

Connection

Since I started living and teaching in Korea again in early January, I’ve found a lot of companionship and positive energy in my colleagues. I am adjusting my daily practice to move into what supports me while teaching full-time to high-energy kindergartners, abstained for 3 weeks from coffee and sugar, and seriously reset my diet. I enter a new month feeling energized, excited for the year ahead, and without fear or doubt that I am right where I need to be, learning lessons I have been perfectly ripened for.

I am blessed to be on a 10-month journey with a group of people moving through the yamas and niyamas, the traditional ways to live according to the Yoga path. This week we began month five, aparigraha or non-attachment, which I find to be the crux of a spiritual lifestyle. The basis of non-attachment for me is TRUST, which is my intention for 2015. The more I actually let go, relax into the intelligence of the Universe, and laugh at the ridiculousness of my claim to know anything, the easier I can accept what comes and let go of what goes. It is a dance that takes practice, precision, and expertise, and eventually completely freeing oneself of all those things. Good thing I packed my dancing shoes.

New Opportunities

When I first got to Seoul, the Universe directed me to a few interesting opportunities which I decided to pursue. One was to audition for an international choir which has a pretty solid rehearsal and performance schedule throughout the year. I haven’t sung in a choir in many, many years so I was excited and nervous when I found out a few weeks ago that I was accepted. We started rehearsals last week and already my soul is rejoicing at getting to make music with trained singers and sing in beautiful, beneficial engagements around Korea. Apparently, this year is one of making music for me, with teaching music full-time and singing once or twice a week with the choir. And in this, a part of me that’s been trying to get my attention for a while quietly rejoices.

Another opportunity was a small organization I found that coaches and tutors North Korean refugees living in Seoul. I expressed interest in volunteering a few weeks ago and am now coaching two North Korean refugees on telling their story and speaking about how to change things for North Koreans and refugees. One has already been accepted to speak at three engagements in the US in two weeks, and I have a feeling they will both be frequently commissioned as the national and global energy for Korean Unification grows this year. I’ve started posting on the Supporters without Borders page with links, information, and how you can help if you’re interested. I personally believe Korean Unification is imminent and it’s up to us an international community to offer much-needed support however we can. Please visit the page and offer your encouragement!

I made a few blog posts earlier this month with some photos of the adorable kids in my school and my quaint and peaceful apartment. I also posted about my visa trip to Japan, a hilarious comedy of errors that involved traveling to Japan and back twice in subsequent weeks to get my Korean work visa.

The Usual Unexpected Twists

Quite unexpectedly, right after I started my job, I was asked if I could teach yoga to the staff one evening a week. It became obvious that there was a lot of interest, so I accepted and we began our classes tonight. Six women attended, with many more excited to join next week, and they have already asked me to teach several times a week for 2+ hours a class. That sort of aspiration cannot go unheeded, in my opinion. I had no intention of teaching yoga this year and thought that I would take a little sabbatical, but I warmly welcome this opportunity and hope that my students will find peace, balance, and restoration from our practices together. I am in jaw-dropping awe of where the Universe has already led me in the past 7 weeks and baffled to even imagine what this year in Korea will look like.

Which leads me to my wrap up and take home from this lengthy post: be open to what comes.

Life is endlessly unexpected, and being present is the only way to embrace the stream of blessings and be in love with every moment. If you want to experience being present and how to suffer from your notions and expectations, try teaching anything (especially kindergarten) for a day. Every time I am stuck in the past or what I think “should” be happening I suffer, and my students also suffer as a byproduct of my power struggle. I see how being attached not only harms me but everyone around me.

I recently read The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra and love the techniques he offers in applying detachment to everyday life: “Today I will factor uncertainty as an essential ingredient of my experience. In my willingness to accept uncertainty, solutions will spontaneously emerge out of problems, out of confusion, disorder, and chaos. The more uncertain things seem to be, the more secure I will feel, because uncertainty is my path to freedom. Through the wisdom of uncertainty, I will find my security.”

For me, the gratitude is truly endless. I love living in Korea. I am in love with every moment and amazed at what keeps falling in my lap. May you also experience boundless acceptance and expansion in your days and nights this lunar cycle.

Choosing Partnership Over Fear

Recently, I’ve begun to reexamine the question “Why Am I Here”? You probably know that I believe everything exists for a reason, all at the right moment, and I trust that I am being led…well…somewhere. What I continue to be surprised about is that it’s not leading me anywhere but here. This is one of those truths that, I think, we “know” but don’t really know. The path doesn’t lead us anywhere but where we are; it only awakens us to actually being where we are. Through the divine medium of Love, I’m still here, in Seattle, in America. As much time as I’ve spent trying to be most other places, I’m here.

Digging through some pretty big barriers of fear, I decided to forgo my plans to return to South Korea and instead stay with my new partner, Circus, in Seattle. Together, we plan to go back out into the wild to experience whatever Life calls us to experience. Together. Together isn’t something I thought I wanted or recall asking for, explicitly. And yet, many of my teachings are based around surrendering to the divine through Love. What I perhaps forgot is that we are always offered exactly what we need and get to make a choice if we are ready to really take it, or not. I choose yes. I choose yes.

I wish I could say it’s been all bliss and roses since. When we are in the bliss of union, trust, limitless love and surrender, it is certainly bliss. But we live in everyday life, too. And in that everyday life I have habits and patterns I am less than proud of. (And letting go of that shame is high on my list of priorities, I assure you.) You could call it karma, too; ways of living that have been imprinted on my mind from countless previous relationships and experiences.

When you are doing what you are used to, things don’t “come up” all that much. And that was my happy, single, spiritual life. I have surely wrestled with the spiritual teachings of celibacy and isolation and have come out the other side knowing that connecting with another soul, or other souls, is a valid and beautiful path to realizing the union of yoga or whatever you want to call it. And it can rock your very foundation, crack apart what you think you know about life and love and expectations, and leave you falling into the abyss of surrender. But isn’t that the point? Aren’t we going for the “Beginner’s Mind” as the Buddha calls it? To see every moment as the first time, without expectations? Aren’t we trying to rid ourselves of patterns, habits, ego-grasping, etc., etc.? Maybe, maybe not. For me, I am reminded every day that connection – or reconnection as I experience it – is a way to see and recall the Divine in every moment.

They say Tantra is the highway to discovering the Truth – Tantra meaning the interconnected web of life, samsara, Shakti, experiential existence, as opposed to the pristine isolation of the soul. And it’s messy and sometimes chaotic. It doesn’t always feel good and calm and perfect. What I continue to learn from the amazing love I experience every day – from so many people – is that life isn’t supposed to be any one way and I’m not supposed to know how to “navigate” it. Truly living in the moment means letting go of what we think the moment should look like or feel like and just experiencing it as is, for the first time. Because every moment is the first time. No two moments are the same and nothing can be recreated or experienced again.

So I unpack what I think life is supposed to look like, what a spiritual teacher is supposed to do, and ask myself “Why Am I Here”? And when I let go of my own expectation, I come back to simply trust that I don’t know and I don’t need to know. Well, in a way, I do know. I feel when I am in line with my truth, when I am doing things that feed my soul and surrounding myself with people who challenge me to be the most compassionate and honest person I can be. I am here to experience and awaken and to share that with you. What I don’t know is exactly what that is going to look like. And that is certainly okay.

One of my favorite teachings is that the amazingness of life comes from its unknowable and unpredictable nature. Even on that day when we wake up and really realize that we are of the same stuff as all of creation, we still get to be surprised at what is around every corner, the beautiful people we run across, the lives we will affect in ways we will never know. And for all of that and more, I must thank you for encouraging me to grow more into myself, just by us knowing one another.

What spurred this topic is having to cancel some really incredible things that I had planned to do today – some of my favorite things in fact – because of a physical injury. So I am lying on the couch in the house I share with my partner, in a bathrobe, trying desperately not to feel guilty, and wondering how I can be what I am supposed to be, how and what I can really give to the world lying on this couch and feeling sad and hurt. This is what I came up with: to continue to share my journey with you, one day at a time and one story at a time. And trust that it’s all enough.