Do you have the Magical Kitchen when it comes to Love?

For all you foodies out there, you take your kitchen to heart. But do you have the Magical Kitchen when it comes to Love. Here is an excerpt from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Mastery of Love that explains what I mean.

Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity. You
never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you can have at your table. You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally
to others, not because you want something in return from them.

Then one day someone knocks at your door, and it’s a person with a pizza. You open the door, and the person looks at you and says, “Hey, do you see this pizza? I’ll give you this pizza if you let me control your life, if you just do whatever I want you to do. You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day. You just have to be good to me.”

Can you imagine your reaction? In your kitchen you can have the same pizza – even better. Yet this person comes to you and offers you food, if you just do whatever he wants you to do. You are going to laugh and say, “No, thank you! I don’t need your food; I have plenty of food. You can come into my house and eat whatever you want, and you don’t have to do anything. Don’t believe I’m going to do whatever you want me to do. No one will manipulate me with food.”

Now imagine exactly the opposite. Several weeks have gone by, and you haven’t eaten. You are starving, and you have no money in your pocket to buy food. The person comes with the pizza and says, “Hey, there’s food here. You can have this food if you just do what I want you to do.” You can smell the food, and you are starving. You decide to accept the food and do whatever that person asks of you. You eat some food, and he says, “If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do.”

You have food today, but tomorrow you may not have food, so you agree to do whatever you can for food. You can become a slave because of food, because you need food, because you don’t have it. Then after a certain time you have doubts. You say, “What am I going to do without my pizza? I cannot live without my pizza. What if my partner decides to give the pizza to someone else – my pizza?”

Now imagine that instead of food, we are talking about love.

I knew PG was the one, but I still had to ask questions?

It’s hard to explain and even harder to imagine, but when you meet the one, it just happens. After years of getting phone numbers, dating, break-ups, I finally met PG. The funny part about it was it was totally unexpected.

When you meet a person, just after the “hello,” he/she starts sending you information right away. If it’s right he/she willingly will share their dreams with you. They will open up and won’t even know they are doing it. That type of connection can be intoxicating, and oftentimes lust can get in the way. Somehow, we still seem to mess things up. Why?

According to author Don Miguel Ruiz, in the The Mastery of Love,  we don’t ask the right internal questions. Eve though, I knew PG was the one for me, I still had to ask some important questions:

• In reference to my last post, was she the dog for me, or should I be with a cat, or a horse. When you aren’t clear on who you want, and you make the wrong choice, you try to make it work.  You are responsible for your own choices, if it isn’t working, simply make another choice. Ruiz says, “You must know what you want, how you want it, when you want it.”
• In order to deal with a person on an everyday basis, you must find a person that is closely aligned with you. PG and I are total opposites in almost every way except for our values and our love for family. When you meet that person, don’t be afraid the person isn’t exactly like you. If you compliment each other, go with it.
• In the beginning project who you really are. This will take a little maturity on your part. Ruiz states, “In order to buy, you want to see the quality of what you are going to get. But in order to sell, you need to show others what you are.”
• Continue to keep your eyes open. Don’t be blind or pretend to see what’s not there. Over time, the person may reveal their true identity. If you see something that doesn’t align with what you want, have the courage to walk away.
• If you have been in a relationship a long time and have struggled connecting, you might have to look internally and accept who you are. Once you do that, truly accept who they are.
• Finally, relationships are work and I mean WORKS of art. In order to keep the two of you happy, you must work to keep your half perfect.

So Strivers, if you are struggling with your half of the perfect relationship, what step can you take toward making it better?

Why can’t we love our spouse, like we love our dogs?

I know  you may think this sounds crazy, but let’s think about it. In 2011, Americans spent over $50 billion for their pets. According to the ASPCA, the first-year cost for a medium dog is $1580. And why do we spend that amount of money? Because we have the perfect relationship with our pet.

Let’s break it down, what makes the dog/human marriage perfect?

• It doesn’t matter what you are. They are dogs, and they are going to be dogs.
• You can’t change them into a horse, or a pig. They are going to be dogs.
• A dog doesn’t care what you do; it just loves you. (Dogs will even put themselves in danger to find you in the hospital.)
• A dog in only responsible for its half of the relationship. They bark, wag their tails, pant etc..
• Most humans have perfect relationships with their dog. They feed them, take it for walks, and might even for over board and buy quality clothes.

Most people can imagine this type of relationship with their dog, but WHY NOT WITH A WOMAN OR  A MAN.

STRIVER’s I would love to hear why not?

 

 

 

 

Mastering Love requires you to switch tracks!

In order to master the track of love we have to move from trying to control the entire relationship when our relationship/marriage is operating on the track of fear.

We operate from the track of fear when we respect our partners, or feel our partners aren’t intelligent enough to know what’s good for them. So we take it upon ourselves to control what things are being said, as well as what actions they take. In essence, we try to control the whole relationship.

No matter how great your relationship may seem to you, the other person brings their own dream, their own perspective of the relationship no matter how hard you try to control it.

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Mastery of Love, uses the example of a couple playing tennis together. If you are playing tennis, you have a partner, you are a team, and you never go against each other – never. Even if you both play tennis differently, you have the same goal: to have fun together, to play together, to be playmates. If you have a partner who wants to control your game, and she says, “No, don’t play like that; play like this. No, you are doing it wrong,” you are not going to have any fun. Eventually, you won’t want to play with that partner anymore. Instead of being a team, your partner wants to control how you play. And without the concept of a team, you are always going to have conflict. If you see your partnership, your romantic relationship, as a team, everything will start to improve. In a relationship, as in a game, it’s not about winning or losing. You are playing because you want to have fun.

So I ask you, would you rather operate from the track of fear and control the entire relationship, or operate from the track of love and enjoy it. When you move to the track of love, it involves giving more than taking. You will also have to take action when your partner tries to sabotage your relationship based on them living in the track of fear.

In order to live on the track of love remember to:

• Understand that everyone has their own dream.
• If you understand your own track of love versus your track of fear, you can clearly shift to the right track when you start to veer of course.
• Finally, which is the most important, no one else can make you happy!  Happiness is the result of love coming out of you. No matter how many books you read. LOVE in action produces happiness.

What do you think? How has your actions of love created happiness in your life?

Keith Dent is a certified relationship coach, and President of Strive 2 Succeed Coaching Services.  Whether it’s a discussion about who to look for in a soul mate, how to improve my relationship, or a discussion about the opposite sex and creating healthy relationships, couples are looking for someone to acknowledge their issues and provide solutions. I have been working with couples for more than 3 years helping them to explore their passions and dreams in their relationships, and the necessary steps to achieve them. He can be reached at strive2succeed@comcast.net for questions and appointments.

 

Which track is your relationship on? The fear track, or the love track?

Don Miguel Ruiz in his book talks about how our lives are based on a dream and our dream is made up of emotions. The two main emotions we possess in dreams are fear and love. Most of us live on the track of fear rather than love. Living this way ultimately affects our choices and inhibit the mastery over our marriage. So how do you know if your relationship is based on the track of fear or the track of love.

Here are some clues:

Fear has a lot obligations vs. love with no obligations. We do something for our partner because we have to do it. We expect our partner to do something, but over time we begin to resist our obligations.  In love, there is no resistance you do something for your partner because you want to do it.

Fear is full of expectations, love has no expectations. We do things because it’s a given, and we expect  our partner to do the same. When those expectations don’t happen we feel hurt and we place the blame on our partners. In love, if nothing happens we don’t take it personally.

In fear you respect nothing, while in love is based on respect. Fear comes out in a couple of ways in regards to respect. If you don’t respect your partner, you will feel they can’t have a say in the relationship and you will try to control them. When you don’t respect yourself in the relationship, you doubt your own strength; your own intelligence. Love negates this type of behavior.

In you are on the track of fear, you are full of pity. You feel sorry for your partner when they aren’t strong enough. When you are on the track of love, you  have compassion towards your partner if they fall. You prop them up.

On the track of fear you avoid responsibility. When you are on the track of love, you are responsible for your actions. When you try to avoid taking responsibility it only makes things worse because even non-action has consequences.

The track of fear is always unkind, while the track of love is kind. When you are living in a fear based relationship, you always feel like a victim, sad, jealous and betrayed. When you are in the track of love it’s always kind. The kindness makes you generous and opens doors to opportunities.

Fear is full of conditions, while love is unconditional.  If you are on the track of fear, you will love the person if you are allowed to control them and if they fit into the image you create for them. In the track of love there are no conditions You will love your partner for who they are. If you don’t like them for who they are, you will find someone who is the way you like him/her to be.

Which track are you running on? The track of fear, or the track of love? Why?

The Man Who Didn’t Believe in Love…Is this you?

There was once a man who didn’t believe in love. This was an ordinary man just like you and me, but what made this man special was his way of thinking: He thought love doesn’t exist. Of course, he had a lot of experience trying to find love, and he observed the people around him. Much of his life had been spent searching for love, only to find that love didn’t exist.

Wherever this man went, he would tell people of his thoughts and opinions on love. This man was highly intelligent, and he was very convincing. What he said was the love is just like a drug; it makes you very high, but it creates a strong need. You can become highly addicted to love, but what happens when you don’t receive your daily doses of love? Just like a drug, you need your everyday doses.

He used to say that most relationships between lovers are just like a relationship between a drug addict and the one who provides the drugs. The one who has the biggest need is like the drug addict; the one who has a little need is like the provider. The one who has the little need is the one who controls the whole relationship. You can see this dynamic so clearly because usually in every relationship there is one who loves the most and the other who doesn’t love as much. You can see the way they manipulate each other, their actions and reactions, and they are just like the provider and the drug addict.

The drug addict, the one who has the biggest need, lives in constant fear that perhaps he will not be able to get the next dosage of love, or the drug. The drug addict thinks, “What am I going to do if she leaves me?” That fear makes the drug addict very possessive. “That’s mine!” The addict becomes jealous and demanding, because the fear of not having the next dosage. The provider can control and manipulate the one who needs the drug by giving more doses, fewer doses, or no doses at all. The one who has the biggest need completely surrenders and will whatever he can to avoid being abandoned.

The man went on explain to everyone why love doesn’t exist, and how what humans call ‘love’ is nothing but a fear relationship based on control. So many promises are made to each other: to live together forever, to love and respect each other, through the good times and the bad times but after marriage, you can see that none of these promises are kept.

What you find is a war of control to see who will manipulate whom. Who will be the provider? And who will have the addiction. You find that a few months later, the respect that they swear to have for each other is gone. You can see the resentment, the emotional poison, how they hurt each other, little by little, and it grows and grows, until they don’t know when the love stops. They stay together because they are afraid to be alone, afraid of the opinions and judgments of others, and also afraid of their judgments and opinions. But where is the love?

The man went on and on about all the reasons why he believed love doesn’t exist.

The one day this man was walking in a park, and there on a bench was a beautiful lady who was crying. When he saw her crying, felt curiosity. Sitting beside her, he asked if he could help her. He asked why she was crying. You can imagine his surprise when she told him she was crying because love doesn’t exist. “This is amazing—a woman who believes that love doesn’t exist!” Of course he wanted to know more about her.

He asked her why she felt that love doesn’t exist and she told him about her marriage and how she and her husband had both lost respect for each other. She told him about how they hurt each other, and at a certain point she discovered that she didn’t love him and that he didn’t love her either. ‘But the children need a father, and that was my excuse to stay and to do whatever I could to support him. Now the children are grown up and they have left. I no longer have any excuse to stay with him….There is no sense to look around for something that doesn’t exist. That is why I am crying.’

Understand her very well, he embraced her and said, you are right; love doesn’t exist. We look for love, we open our heart and we become vulnerable, just to find selfishness. That hurts us even if we don’t think we will be hurt. It doesn’t matter how many relationships we have; the same thing happens again and again. Why even search for love any longer?”

They were so much alike, and they became the best friends ever. It was a wonderful relationship. They respected each other, and they never put each other down. With every step they took together, they were happy. There was no envy or jealousy, there was no control, and there was no possessiveness. The relationship kept growing and growing. They loved to be together, because when they were together, they had a lot of fun. When they were not together, they missed each other.

One day when the man was out of town, he had the weirdest idea. He was thinking, ‘Hmm, maybe what I feel for her is love. But this is so different from what I have ever felt before. It’s not what the poets say it is, it’s not what religion says it is, because I am not responsible for her. I don’t take anything from her; I don’t have the need for her to take care of me; I don’t need to blame her for my difficulties or to take my dramas to her. We have the best time together; we enjoy each other. I respect the way she thinks, the way she feels. She doesn’t embarrass me; she doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t feel jealous when she’s with other people; I don’t feel envy when she is successful. Perhaps love does exist, but it’s not what everyone thinks love is.’

He could hardly wait to go back home and talk to her, to let her know about his weird idea. As soon as he started talking, she knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt the same way. They decided to become lovers and to live together, and it was amazing that things didn’t change. They still respected each other, they were still supportive of each other, and the love grew more and more.

The man’s heart was so full with all the love he felt that one night a great miracle happened. He was looking at the stars and he found the most beautiful one, and his love was so big that the star started coming down from the sky and soon that star was in his hands. Then a second miracle happened, and his soul merged with that star. He was intensely happy, and he could hardly wait to go to the woman and put that start in her hands to prove his love for her. As soon as he put the star in her hands, she felt a moment of doubt. This love was overwhelming, and in that moment, the star fell from her hands and broke in a million of little pieces.

Now there is an old man walking around the world swearing that love doesn’t exist. And there is a beautiful old woman at home waiting for a man, shedding a tear for a paradise that once she had in her hands, but for one moment of doubt, she let it go. This is the story about the man who didn’t believe in love.

Who made the mistake?

Excerpt from Mastery of Love  – Don Miquel Ruiz

Why removing the mask is key to Love Mastery!

 

 

In our last post from our Mastery of Love series, we talked about removing the mask so we could reveal our true selves. How do these masks develop in our lives? We create masks in order to be accepted in our world.

Think about it. As young children we just play with whomever will play with us. They don’t worry about how good they look, who their parents are, or what kind of future in business they have. But, as children age and interact more with adults, they project their masks onto the children, so they imitate those behaviors in order to be accepted.

According to Don Miguel Ruiz, author  Mastery of Love, puts it this way. “We create not just one image, but many different images according to the different groups of people we associate with. So if you find that love mastery has alluded you, it might  because you have put on a different mask to match the person you were dating, or have changed masks with your spouse in order to reduce conflict.

We think we are projecting the right mask, but at the same time don’t believe what’s behind the mask.

If your relationships have been floundering, what sort of masks have you been wearing?

To find Love takes Mastery!

A couple of weeks ago a female friend of mine on Facebook mentioned, “I just want to be loved by somebody that loves me.” There were several people who echoed her sentiments so I got to thinking how does love find some people, but allude others? Is there a way to master the art of Love?

Don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Mastery of Love, starts out by saying mastery of anything takes practice> In order to master love, you have to practice, therefore you have to take action.

In order to Master Love, we must first tackle our minds. We have a strong instinct to love, but we are plagued by a fear of getting hurt. This fear brings out any emotions that deal with suffering like sadness, anger or hate .

To protect ourselves from this fear we put on a mask. The mask serves as a mechanism to keep people away, but it also restricts you from revealing your true self.

Imagine if you lived in a world where you could remove the mask and be who you are. How would this help you move towards Love Mastery?