When the Lover is Ready...

ﾠ

Wow! So busy yesterday I forgot to mention that August 1, 2008 was my tenth anniversary with Tananarive. She is absolutely the love of my life, and my perfect partner.

ﾠ

We had such a narrow window of opportunity to find each other. I was living in Washington state, and she, in Miami. We'd each gone through a massive amount of internal work preparing ourselves to find a partner. Such work involved, variously, therapy, meditation, self-discovery, journaling, and more. I believe in love, and that each of us, if we wish, can find a deep and lasting connection with another human being, one we can cherish and who cherishes us, who supports us without reservation, and is prepared, and willing, to be one of our better angels. There is an old saying: "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." I have a corollary to that: "When the lover is ready, the beloved will appear."

ﾠ

Somehow, we recognized each other, and within 48 hours after meeting realized that we had to take a chance to be together, that the potential was simply too wonderful. In maybe two months one or the other of us would have met someone else: we were both ripe. It was a minor miracle.

ﾠ

On my own part, the most important things that prepared me for this were:

1) Convincing myself, totally and permanently, that I could get laid any time I wanted, and with the quality of lady I'd always desired. All insecurity about this was just gone, due to some very specific energetic work I'd done. Frankly, it was spooky how good I was getting at attracting women. I realized I could be a REALLY good Lothario, and realized that wasn't me at all. That what I wanted, more than anything in the world, was a friend and partner, someone I could just be myself with. And I was willing to be celibate until I found her.

2) I had made a very clear list of all the attributes I wanted in a woman, without ANY compromises at all. Then I did one of the two or three smartest, most courageous things I've ever done: I found a woman who measured up to that list (a dancer in Phoenix) and sat her down, asking her what SHE wanted in a man. What she described became my road map. I compared what she said with what I currently was--subtracted who I was, and what remained was what I had to become in order to attract a woman at her level. As soon as I began working in that direction, everything changed.

ﾠ

BTW--what were the differences? 1) she wanted a man with more of a spiritual life than I had at the time. I realized I'd stopped meditating, and promptly began again.

2) She wanted someone with less body fat than I carried at the time. I realized I'd stopped running, and began again.

ﾠ

As soon as I did both, it was as if I began "vibrating" at a different level, and women began reacting to me differently.

ﾠ

I have no idea how I came up with that, what I now call the "Soulmate Process". Thank God I did. Another piece was realizing that the kind of woman I wanted was a lioness. She would be satisfied with nothing less than a lion. That meant that I had to be a hunter, and project that energy. I couldn't be focused on finding a woman--what a lion hunts, he kills. So I had to cultivate an attitude of "intense but slightly distant" if you know what I mean. Once I found the right balance, the effect was absolutely devastating.

ﾠ

And then, I had to be willing to cast it aside, and just be myself. But without absolute confidence, and a real commitment to doing Whatever It Took to find a genuine heart connection, without a speck of bullshit, and be prepared to wait my entire life if necessary...while simultaneously working every damned day to be the perfect partner for that imaginary woman of my dreams...it wouldn't have happened.

ﾠ

Don't compromise. Decide what you want. Find out what it will cost. Commit to paying the price. And the price is passion, and commitment, and self-love, and self-respect, and honesty.

ﾠ

Ten years. And it's gotten better every year.

ﾠ

I believe we can all have this, if we are just willing to actually reveal ourselves.