The Energies of Love

by Donna Eden

  After settling on an image, he began to examine it. Matt’s life was structured so that his vision would have to somehow accommodate his complex career as a software engineer. As an independent contractor, he was always trying to find a balance among the needs of the various clients who had come to rely on him, and he was always feeling stretched. The work was, nonetheless, deeply satisfying and it kept him at his creative edge. But he saw that he had to carve out more time if he was going to give his desire to reawaken his passion any chance of succeeding. He approached the problem like a software engineer trying to make a program more elegant. He saw some routines he could easily cut out and other passion-limiting patterns that would be more challenging to shift. He also knew how readily new projects come in when there is space, so he wanted to envision a new pace, not just a few responsibilities taken off the list.

  What better symbol for thinking about this, actually, than a calendar, the very image that had been pursuing him! A one-month wall calendar came into his mind and he had a flash of how he could structure his time very differently. Longer breaks, days off, more sleep, more dedicated time for intimacy and inner work—while obvious—could have substantial impact on his quality of life. While he didn’t exactly map it out to the level of “at 8:15 A.M. I’ll do this, and then at 9:00, I’ll do that,” he did have an image of a month and how his time was laid out and he envisioned restructuring it so there was more space, more intimate time, and more sacred time. He wanted to go deeper with Jessica and to share his more joyful side with her. The revised calendar became the symbol of his commitment to have that unfold.

  A RATING OF BELIEVABILITY

  The next step is to give a rating of how believable the vision is to you. On a scale of zero to ten, how possible does it seem to you? Matt’s initial rating was 2, not very likely at all that the calendar was going to support the changes he longed to see. That’s how steeped we get in lifelong patterns, but that inertia is exactly what this technique addresses.

  PSYCHOLOGICAL REVERSALS

  Any heartfelt goal for personal change is meeting some kind of resistance or the change would already have occurred. Some of that resistance may take the form of a psychological reversal, an internal objection or doubt about achieving the goal (here). As Matt tried to embrace the vision of a calendar that supported greater passion in his life, two internal objections immediately occurred to him. The first was that he had made similar resolutions before, but little had changed. As you saw in the previous chapter, a way of addressing such psychological reversals is to begin with an Acceptance Statement in the form of: “Even though” and then briefly describe the old pattern [while rubbing on chest sore spots] and then stating a new and affirming choice [placing both hands over the Heart Chakra]. The wording Matt used to address the first psychological reversal was, “Even though I think this is going to be another disappointment, I choose to recognize that I’m more motivated than I’ve ever been before.” The other concern grew out of his recognition that life can’t just be planned out like a calendar on a wall. Situations inevitably come up to disrupt the plans. His Acceptance Statement for this was, “Even though disruptions will occur, I choose to flow with them and then get back into this new rhythm.”

  THE TAPPING

  Matt’s tapping (same points as shown in Figure 6-3) at first used statements that addressed his doubts, such as “I can never pull this off” and “I have so much responsibility!” As the tapping neutralized Matt’s charge regarding these thoughts, he noticed that the calendar he had seen actually had many empty spaces where rest and renewal could be possible. Beyond sleep, there were sixteen hours every day that were in his control. That eased him, and he tapped in this awareness along with a recognition of how much better his life could be if he carved out more time for intimacy and reflection. Then he tapped on increasing his confidence that he could indeed pull it off and a sense that this new rhythm was his new natural. This part of the work was relatively complex. It involved a review of Matt’s entire lifestyle and extended over several weeks, with homework between sessions to incorporate some of the changes in his time management that had been tapped on during the sessions.

  A NEW VISION EMERGES

  By the time the believability of the new, kinder calendar was up to a 5, Matt’s internal picture of the calendar changed. Rather than the entire calendar appearing to him, it was as if he had zeroed in on a single day. What then emerged within that day was a picture of him and Jessica holding hands with intense joy on each of their faces. This became the image for the next round of tapping. There had been no room for it in the old calendar, but after clearing space, this was what his psyche presented.

  Tapping on this image was certainly more appealing to him than tapping on the calendar, but the believability rating got stuck at around 6. Two issues that received attention at that point included Matt’s intense self-judgment about anything he attempted and the ways his expectations kept him from appreciating what was already good in his life. He tapped on these, as well as seeing Jessica through more appreciative eyes, finding opportunities for affectionate mini-encounters, and making more time for intimacy to occur. Believability was up to a 9 by the end of the session. Phrases he tapped on at home were simple reminders, such as “Even though I’m afraid it’s no longer possible, my spirit wants to have more passion.” While Matt’s energetic structure lent itself more to gradual change than dramatic breakthroughs, over the next several months, he and Jessica reported having more fun with one another than they’d had since their early days.

  YOUR TURN

  This mental image technique is usually used after the obstacles to reaching your goal have been addressed, which is why we presented it in the context of Matt and Jessica’s much longer story. In other words, you would generally identify and work through hindrances and negative emotions about your goal before rating the believability about an image of the goal having already been achieved. Still, it is a powerful technique and certainly does not have to be preceded by twenty-two years of life changes to be effective. You can start with your goal, turn it into a vision, and work backward if other issues emerge that need to be addressed before the goal can be attained. If the believability does not increase, the obstacles usually reveal themselves when reflecting on what is keeping the believability from increasing, and they can be worked on one at a time.

  So when you have a clear goal, translate it into a vision or image as instructed above, give its believability a zero-to-ten rating (with 10 being completely believable), identify and address any psychological reversals, and hold the vision while tapping, using the basic protocol taught in the previous chapter (tapping with statements about the goal, Integration Sequence, more tapping, new rating, next round of tapping). Always be prepared to adjust the routine as new developments emerge, such as when Matt’s vision morphed from a calendar to a vision of sharing a moment of joy with Jessica.

  On to Part 3

  In this chapter you have learned seven ways in which acupoint tapping combined with phrases related to your challenges and goals can be used to strengthen your relationship. We are aware that while some readers will be able to put this into immediate use, others will find the technique a little too strange or cumbersome or that there is so much confusion in their relationship that it is hard to know where to start. At a minimum, we hope you will sense that it is possible to identify forces within yourself and in your relationship that may need to be transformed for the two of you to grow into greater intimacy and happiness and that it is possible to transform them. While you may sometimes want a skilled practitioner to help you use these techniques to navigate through difficult territory, acupoint tapping is always available to make things better in the moment, and it can often facilitate changes in long-standing patterns.6

  Part 2, “The Learned Aspects of Love,” has focused on habits of thought and patterns of behavior that you can change. We opened by exploring the way early experiences with your
caregivers set the patterns that reverberate into your adult relationships. The attachment style you bring into a relationship may be more or less secure or insecure, and while that is a product of your past, there is much you can do to craft a future supported by increasingly secure attachment. Skills laid down in childhood for soothing yourself, managing your emotions, and living with the ebbs and flows of intimacy are essential for secure attachment, and they become more refined and robust as your partnership matures. You can cultivate each of these skills, and also address many other aspects of your relationship and your personal evolution, by using techniques from energy psychology. Energy psychology works primarily at the individual level, even when it is focusing on relationship issues. You tap your own acupoints. Now you are about to enter the book’s final section: Part 3, “The Mutually Created Aspects of Love,” where it is your shared journey itself that brings you into ever deeper levels of intimacy.

  PART

  3

  The Mutually Created Aspects of Love

  8

  Sex Is Nature’s Energy Medicine for Couples

  Invoking the Passion

  Our mothers couldn’t tell us and our fathers didn’t know the secrets of great sex.

  —JOHN GRAY1

  The best thing to happen to our sex life in the past decade has been to work on this chapter. It has been so much fun! Neither of us is trained as a sex therapist, but we’ve been reading and listening to the best of them and trying out their methods, as well as innovating our own energy techniques, like kids in a candy store after opening the piggy bank.

  One of the first audio talks we came upon was by Alison Armstrong, who suggests that most couples, after the initial passion wears off, go about their sex lives backward.2 They wait till they want sex before they say yes to it. She impishly advises the opposite: Say “Yes!” first, and often. Then go about creating the wanting. While some couples remain passionately interested in one another’s bodies year after year without consciously cultivating that passion, most do not. A New York Times article summarizing the findings of more than a hundred scientific studies concluded what everyone knows except those in the middle of it: The passion of new love has a “short shelf life.”3 An NBC Dateline survey of 27,500 people showed that two-thirds reported dissatisfaction with their sex lives.4

  For us, with so much pressure (and pleasure) from our work and so little free time, we were finding that we would choose sleep over physical intimacy, if you can imagine such a choice, or relaxing into a good movie, or buckling under the pressure to squander possibilities for intimate time by returning to the relentless push of unanswered e-mails and uncompleted projects. As we approached the point where we were going to begin writing this chapter, we were wondering, “How are we going to pull this one off without feeling like total hypocrites?”

  We did have one advantage over most couples. We could now set aside time for sex as part of our research for the book. So we had the “yes” part in the bag. And after being together for more than three decades, with both of us well into our sixties, getting to an enthusiastic “yes” was not something to take for granted, so this was good. On the other hand, making sex a part of our job descriptions didn’t do much for enhancing the intrigue or passion.

  Saying Yes and Then Creating the Desire That Will Fuel That Yes

  Couples can raise the passion in one another in many ways. Activities that get you into your bodies—from dancing to massage to mock wrestling—can be aphrodisiacs. Knowing special words or ways of touching your partner can be turn-ons. Armstrong talks about the “jump-start”:

  You get a dead battery and you hook it up, and all of a sudden, “Vroom!” It jumps, it just roars to life! So this is really, really important information to share with your partner. “If you touch me like this in this place, in this way, my battery, vroom, jumps to life.” Many men have learned that some women’s breasts have a sensitivity that can create a jump-start, but not all women’s breasts are that way. For some women it’s the palm of her hand . . . rubbing the palm of their hand with a thumb in just this slow way while just looking deep in her eyes. . . . vroooom, she’s jump-started! For many women it’s words. I know a woman where, if her boyfriend says to her “Oh, honey, we don’t have to do anything.” . . . vrooooom! She’s jump-started. Everybody’s different. For another woman, anything said breathlessly, that’s all he’s gotta do . . . or kiss her on the back of the neck. Every woman has her own jump-start. And it’s really important that her partner knows what they are.5

  When David puts on soft romantic music, removes Donna’s shoes, and massages her feet, he often scores a “vroooom.” An important exception is in what Armstrong calls the “pumpkin hours.” The pumpkin hours are “when Cinderella’s coach turns back into a pumpkin and can’t give anyone a ride!” Men and women have different kinds of pumpkin hours: “When a man is extremely focused on a project, a request for sex will be terribly irritating to him. For women, if it’s going to cost us sleep—our sleep is so important to us and critical to all our capacities—a request for sex after we’re going down and falling off to sleep . . . that’s cruel.”6

  Sexual Desire Problems Are Part of a Healthy Marriage

  Waning sexual desire is not only common, it is natural. But it is also stigmatized. People don’t like to admit it, particularly to their partner, and they don’t know what to do about it. If the spontaneous passion and the euphoric cocktail of brain chemicals that often accompany new love are inherently time-limited, how are passion and desire sustained? Passion and desire are sustained by the way you relate to one another in all dimensions—from how you handle differences to how you play to how you grow with one another. Most young people do not enter marriage with the realization that keeping things hot in the bedroom depends on what happens outside the bedroom. David Schnarch, a highly respected psychologist and sex therapist, titled the opening chapter of his best-selling book Passionate Marriage, “Nobody’s Ready for Marriage—Marriage Makes You Ready for Marriage.”7 He teaches that being with the same sexual partner for years and then decades can stay interesting because “what makes human sexual desire human is your brain’s unique capacity to bring meaning to sex.”8

  Schnarch surprises couples who have encountered sexual desire problems by telling them, “everything’s happening as it should!”9 He sees sexual desire problems as a normal and healthy part of long-term intimacy, propelling us to grow and to take the next step with each other in the relationship. If we embrace rather than resist them, sexual desire “problems” can help us find a better balance between “two basic life forces: the drive for individuality and the drive for togetherness.”10 Becoming isolated in your own story or so deeply enmeshed with your partner that you lose contact with your own truths are two common imbalances that work against sexual aliveness within your relationship. Sexual desire problems are a warning light indicating that it is time to rebalance the drives for individuality and intimacy. Re-achieving this balance “lets you expand your sexual relationship and rekindle desire and passion in marriages that have grown cold.” Schnarch goes on to suggest that maintaining a dynamic balance between these forces “is the pathway to the hottest and most loving sex you’ll ever have with your spouse.”11

  • THE ENERGY DIMENSION •

  How does sexual energy look in the following three states of relationship?

  A New Relationship

  A single aura surrounds both people, ensconcing them in a world of their own. It is an electric, bright, colorful, palpable, beautiful energy, very alive. Even when alone, the aura of a person newly in love is light and bright, though it is not particularly grounded. Also key for understanding the dynamics of new love, the personal auras of the two partners have not yet connected in the nuanced ways of a couple that has gone the distance.

  A Stale Relationship

  A collapsed energy is around each of them when they are together. These energies
do not reach out for the partner. The energy around the two of them may still be there, but it is no longer animated. It has little movement.

  A Renewed Relationship

  The energies surrounding each partner are grounded and have become linked in ways not found in a new relationship. A great deal of connection has been established between their chakras, forming invisible lines of communication that are felt at a deeply emotional level. Their auras overlap—bridged with figure-eight patterns—but the energies surrounding them retain more of their individuality than in a new couple.

  We recently received a letter from a friend confiding that while she and her husband are compatible in many, many ways, the sexual charge is not there and they have been thinking of separating, despite their mutual affection for one another and their profound love for their two beautiful daughters. Our reply: “You must know that the lack of spark between marriage partners who are great friends is far from unusual. Even as you may be aware or even fantasize that someone could sweep you off your feet, and perhaps someone could, the chemistry of that new love would inevitably be short-lived. The contrast between that fantasy and what you have is a common but misleading way of measuring what you have. That is not to say that the status quo you describe is acceptable. There are important ways it will not sustain you. But it is to say that the status quo need not define your future together.” For taking the full and fulfilling ride of a committed relationship, we offered two mechanical suggestions: that they learn how long-term partners can still stimulate in one another the hormones of romance (here) and that they rediscover one another as sexual beings, as presented in this chapter.