Posted June 6, 2013 i really appreciate, melissa, your sharing your personal story. it appears that you have managed to find a vital balance within your internal experience as well as your outer. beautiful & inspiring!! 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 6, 2013 Jay, you asked if it is easy to let go of the feeling of lust. My answer to you is yes and no. I love feeling lust. I forget it so I can go on with my daily life. I recall it at stressful moments and the memory relieves my stress. +1. i love & resonate with this observation! 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 6, 2013 it helps me to think of my relationship with clients as a special container. this space serves as an opportunity from which i may practice fully engaging in my connection with another, while remaining completely unattached. if you happen to subscribe to buddhist or hindu philosophy, than you believe that all suffering is born from attachment. i don't mean to bring religious dogma into this thread but i think that many of us (whatever our spiritual stance) may agree upon this basic premise, despite our inherent nature to form ties. yet parallel to this nature run our fears because of our intimate knowledge of suffering from past experience. thus our tendencies to sometimes withhold our connection in attempt to avoid suffering. what we fail to understand is that our withholding or avoidance is only an alternate expression of attachment, if that make any sense. so we often are caught between these two modes of sorrow. how does one break free to the experience of joy? in theory, by allowing for full surrender to one's presence. there's something intrinsically esoteric or fleeting in this mysticism. & we are only but human after all. yet it rings to me of truth. & this is why... call me crazy, but... i consider the client/provider dynamic, even if only in some ways, to carry the potential for a higher form of relation than may be attainable through the pursuit of personal love. that said, i embrace my humanity. sorrow & all!! but i do believe that there are significant pieces to my experience here within my role as a provider that are relevant & valuable to my experience of relationship, in any form. including, but not limited to, my engagement through surrender to my feelings of lust. i think the key however lie within the surrender. not specifically the lust. each connection is unique. beyond this, no connection is static & i rarely know with any real certainty when (or even if?) i will reconnect with any given client. all these factors, & others, culminate to demand my letting go. does my memory ever linger over a particular session? or fantasize about the next?? alrighty, i'll admit that i've known myself to indulge in the occasional psychic fluff! but much of the attraction for me is in the freedom that comes from the letting go... be it my inhibitions or my expectations... which are all ways rooted in past or future... & instead communing with the Wow of Now 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 8, 2013 perhaps one of the most enlightened and eloquent posts i've ever read in the forum. in this realm, there always exists that possibility of a certain liberating intimacy (not just purely sexual) without a lot of the more traditional emotional and problematic trappings (mean as a double entendre) of attachment 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 8, 2013 Yes keep it real, Married men are not going to leave their wives or families for us. We don't have to worry about our SO leaving us because then they have to go too work. Providers/Jons relationships never end up with a happy ending. Pun intended. If you don't want to part with your life's earnings Keep it real. Sex is not love and love is not sex. But money now that's a different story. I love lust for money. lilithia 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 8, 2013 it helps me to think of my relationship with clients as a special container. this space serves as an opportunity from which i may practice fully engaging in my connection with another, while remaining completely unattached. if you happen to subscribe to buddhist or hindu philosophy, than you believe that all suffering is born from attachment. i don't mean to bring religious dogma into this thread but i think that many of us (whatever our spiritual stance) may agree upon this basic premise, despite our inherent nature to form ties. yet parallel to this nature run our fears because of our intimate knowledge of suffering from past experience. thus our tendencies to sometimes withhold our connection in attempt to avoid suffering. what we fail to understand is that our withholding or avoidance is only an alternate expression of attachment, if that make any sense. so we often are caught between these two modes of sorrow. how does one break free to the experience of joy? in theory, by allowing for full surrender to one's presence. there's something intrinsically esoteric or fleeting in this mysticism. & we are only but human after all. yet it rings to me of truth. & this is why... call me crazy, but... i consider the client/provider dynamic, even if only in some ways, to carry the potential for a higher form of relation than may be attainable through the pursuit of personal love. that said, i embrace my humanity. sorrow & all!! but i do believe that there are significant pieces to my experience here within my role as a provider that are relevant & valuable to my experience of relationship, in any form. including, but not limited to, my engagement through surrender to my feelings of lust. i think the key however lie within the surrender. not specifically the lust. each connection is unique. beyond this, no connection is static & i rarely know with any real certainty when (or even if?) i will reconnect with any given client. all these factors, & others, culminate to demand my letting go. does my memory ever linger over a particular session? or fantasize about the next?? alrighty, i'll admit that i've known myself to indulge in the occasional psychic fluff! but much of the attraction for me is in the freedom that comes from the letting go... be it my inhibitions or my expectations... which are all ways rooted in past or future... & instead communing with the Wow of Now Interesting. One could also argue that the greatest joy comes from the courage to damn the torpedos and form a firm attachment. For all the admitted frustration with my wife, I never regret that attachment that gives me a deep satisfaction and profound love. That feeling comes less frequently than the old days, but it's great when it comes -- physically and emotionally. Ultimately, it's complicated and probably contradictory. Such is life. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 9, 2013 i think what you are referring to as attachment is what i would call commitment. you might be wondering what's the difference as i ask myself the same question. first off, i want to let it be known that i have a lot of admiration for anyone who takes on & respects their commitments. a practice in integrity. for to make a commitment is not a one-time decision that's never revisited, but one that is ever-renewed. & that right there demands one's trust & presence. in the case of marriage, it is likely that one's attachments (attraction, compatibility, etc) are what may initially motivate each lover's commitment to the other. but what i feel is so interesting about this concept is that you essentially are choosing to surrender these same attachments for the sake of your faith in this love. knowing full-well that you don't know shit about how things may change. as things tend to do. the "courage to damn the torpedoes" perfectly describes this dichotomy because i suspect that the "torpedoes" you mention are your attachments & hers. in the form of hopes or fears. we fall in love with a portion of a person & than we expect the remaining aspect to change shape. we become attached to their fitting the design we assign them. meanwhile, we fear the foundational pieces that we fell in love with may change. & then what? where does that leave us & our plans? to which we've become so attached. this is the point where feelings of frustration, jealousy, depression come into play. speaking for myself, the torpedo which has most ravaged my own relationships has been my attachment to my lovers' approval. i have so often & so badly wanted to be wanted, accepted as i am, that i have lost all feeling for who i am. from which to relate. only you know what torpedoes you brave, but i venture to guess they may also in some way pertain to personal attachments. yet it is through your commitment that you are braving... by surrendering... them, with trust, to your journey. no matter what may come up. there is a beautiful fool-hardiness in this. & i hope you know that i mean it with utmost esteem & respect!! my heart goes out to all you brave soldiers of love... which is why i described the client/provider dynamic as "only in some ways" carrying the potential for a higher form of relation than personal love. in truth this relationship is not devoid of all attachment. i am attached to my income while clients are likely attached to having some of their own needs, desires met. however, as urfan noted, there is a rare & liberating intimacy only made possible when we free ourselves from some of the other more traditional motives of attachment. specifically what comes to mind for me is one's urge to possess, which can wreak havoc in our love lives. it defeats our capacity to live in the moment with sheer gratitude. there is no room for this possession piece within the client/provider relationship. i have not the slightest use or desire for my clients to leave their wives, families... or lives... for me. in fact, it is a source of affection i have for many of them that they are so committed to a love that they believe in. while there may be others that may fancy the idea of something "more" with me, that feeling has never yet been mutual. & so, so long as nothing more is made of it, then we are both free to go in as deeply with each other as we please... & then free to let each other fully go. just like that. pretty rad!ically sweet if you ask me. why mess with? although i've said it before & i'll say it again... nothing worthwhile ever comes easily. & i can't fathom anything more worthwhile than love. i look forward to the day when next i might fall madly into it. free to delve the depths of embrace. when i do, i aspire to bring with me a few shining pearls gained from these diving adventures right here. which i must forget to carry, if i have remembered any of their wisdom! ahh life's contradictions at their finest 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 9, 2013 Yes keep it real, Married men are not going to leave their wives or families for us. We don't have to worry about our SO leaving us because then they have to go too work. Providers/Jons relationships never end up with a happy ending. Pun intended. If you don't want to part with your life's earnings Keep it real. Sex is not love and love is not sex. But money now that's a different story. I love lust for money. lilithia This comment would be laughable if not so pathetic. the day I need a woman or anyone else for that matter to financially support me, I will eat my gun. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted June 9, 2013 Ditto!!! I think most guys would have to feel this way too. Most of us are engrained with a sense of pride from earning our own way in life. I'm sorry that she got stuck with a freeloader...and it's sad if she believes that what she has is typical of the male population:( This comment would be laughable if not so pathetic. the day I need a woman or anyone else for that matter to financially support me, I will eat my gun. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
