This is what we mean by “building an extraordinary life.”
The Reluctant Shaman - https://amzn.to/3SA5i58
Sacred Link - https://amzn.to/3SxtaGJ
Our ability to communicate is at the heart of fulfilling relationships. Indeed, it is at the heart of a fulfilling life.
Where I am observing the art of clear communication, where people genuinely know how to listen, doing their utmost to understand and feel what is being shared without being empathic and without judgment, listening from the heart with genuine curiosity, love, and caring has mostly gone the way of the dodo.
Most people’s ability to listen without simultaneously running what is shared through their mental filters and processing pathways to evaluate, judge, and form a response, has gone the way of the dodo.
Most are not listening; they are just getting ready to jump in with their opinion when the other pauses for a second; in the process, they are missing most of what is being shared.
It is a pretend surface-level connection. It’s better than no connection, barely. And it explains why it isn’t any wonder that so many relationships fall apart, that more than half of marriages fail, that many more are not fulfilling and that many people feel isolated and alone.
In a recent national survey of American adults, 36% of respondents reported severe loneliness—feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time or all the time.” This included 61% of young people aged 18-25.
This is one of the hallmarks of a bankrupt society. And, by extension, a society can only be this bankrupt when the people making up the society are desperately sick.
“Our hunger to belong is the longing to find a bridge across the distance from isolation to intimacy.”
– John O’Donohue, Irish poet
As humans, we need connections with other humans. Any form of connecting is better than none; that’s one of the big reasons people stay in abusive relationships.
With all this as our backdrop, where do we start? How does one create meaningful connections and fulfilling relationships in a world where most people’s ability to form such relationships is atrophied? And the questions that have always had a special place in my heart are, how to not just form these connections, but how close can we get to another human? How deep can the bond reach? What beauty can two human hearts create dancing together?
At one point in my life, I was so isolated and alone I was ready to end it. Fortunately, I was able to claw my way back from that brink. And build a life committed to answering these questions.
The one piece of nugget I can offer is that a big part of the foundation of creating profoundly fulfilling connections and relationships is learning to connect with, relate to, and love yourself unconditionally without so much as a hint of narcissism.
I can say with certainty that I would not be who I am today and live the life I am living without my wife and her endless unconditional love, caring, and guidance. Nor would I be here without studying the ancient teachings she introduced me to and guided me in making my way of life over the past three decades.
Among my life’s most cherished and fulfilling moments are experiences of deep, profound, genuine heart-based, heartfelt connections. Being in the awareness of experiencing the fullness of your truth, dancing in bliss in the profound connection and exchange with the full measure of the truth of another human in the expanse of the universe as your studio.
The bliss of sharing yourself completely, being received, understood, and accepted without judgment, hesitation, or limitations, and offering and sharing the same with your lover.
Sex is one opportunity for such experiences. And the orgasmic moments offer to experience our connectedness and intense sharing of our truth, our love, and beauty with another human and with everything in the universe without boundaries or limitations at the same time—to experience life itself as your beloved.
Those are some peak moments of connections available to us as humans. Enlightenment through the physical. Kay’s book Sacred Link (https://amzn.to/3SxtaGJ) is all about that.
There are other ways to experience those moments.
A true spiritual journey offers you to create a life where you live those peak experiences. Step by step at first. More and more with time. Fully when you have finally let go of all the garbage, the culture has piled on you so that the only thing left is to experience yourself and your connections with all life with the eyes of your heart.
Getting there is easier than you might think; staying there is the magic trick.
Drugs can offer climactic moments of feeling connected to and accepted by everything, by life, by god. A valid way of reaching for knowing what’s possible if it weren’t for the many severe dangers to your body and psyche inherent in taking mind-altering substances. The exception is using these substances occasionally in authentic ceremonies while guided by genuine medicine people, which are not as easy to find as it may seem these days.
For many people, god has that place in their life. Looking at the enormous numbers of people living in severe isolation, it is no wonder many think that god is their salvation. I’m sure that feels real and true for these people. Many aspects of believing in “a god” can offer the feeling of connecting, belonging, and the fulfillment of being listened to.
There are many pieces of this way of life that I could not make part of mine, so I don’t quite understand it, but I can relate.
One version of the Egyptian Creation story talks about when Isis Auset created the universe; one of her primary desires was for there to be as much diversity as possible.
The opportunities of exploring infinite variations to experience connections as a human, from the feeling of complete isolation to living the orgasmic bliss of knowing and experiencing your connection and exchange of love and beauty with other humans and with everything in this world and the universe from the eyes of your heart, are nothing short of astounding.
Some other big questions at the forefront of my heart and mind are, and, it seems, have always been, who am I, what is this all about, and why the heck am I here?
I understand the orgasmic bliss part, so there is that. I have found some significant clues along the way. I have learned to get “there.” Still working on staying “there” no matter what. And the moments of peak bliss are getting longer. So, there is progress and hope.
Small talk, while for many people living in isolation a valid form of interacting and, to some extent connecting with people in certain situations, has, for many years of my life, bored the shit out of me.
It doesn’t so much anymore. I use it to practice going to my bliss place, and remarkably, I’m getting better at doing so.
For many people, small talk is the only form of connection they can make, and as I said, better than nothing. Still, they are missing the endless wonder of living in the awareness of the deep level of connecting and sharing available to us as human beings. To me, that is missing so much of the magic and beauty of life, of being alive. It is missing the opportunity of being unconditional love in the midst of what is.
People don’t have connections to other humans, even though their hearts long for it, because they are afraid. Afraid of hurt, pain, rejection, not being accepted, being belittled, not being understood, and on and on.
And that fear is genuine to them based on what they have observed and experienced.
When I stood on the edge and decided not to jump and instead turned back to my life, I became determined to find out, to truly know what life has to offer because there was no way I would continue living in the pain and desperation of the blindness I have been stumbling through my life with.
I was determined not to continue the way I had been living. And from then on, I developed and followed a burning desire to find answers no matter what, as best I knew how.
And find I did.
I ended up in many dead-end alleys. People who professed or were considered to know stuff, I often realized pretty quickly most were as clueless as I was; they were just much better at pretending they weren’t.
Until one day, I was sitting across what, at the time, I considered a pretty wild-looking Indian, as in Native American. As he started talking, I recognized the language, gifts of truth, and genuine love and care he shared. My heart jumped and filled with hope because I was finally in the presence of another human who made sense to me.
Of course, there is a more remarkable story about my time with him and what I learned following that first encounter. He wasn’t just the first human who made any sense to me, he was also my first “real” teacher.
Fast forward, and Kay and I started our life together a few years later. It’s been 30 years since, and in all these years, she has shared and gifted me with treasures worth more than all the gold ever taken from the Earth.
While I don’t feel like I can tell you to do this and this and this and you will reach your goal of more profound, more fulfilling relationships in your life, I can claim that I am fortunate and blessed enough to create such a life and can share a few thoughts from the experiences of my wild and magical ride to get there.
Undoubtedly, the most important thing is to learn who you are. As you embark on that journey of self-discovery, you learn to love yourself unconditionally, which becomes the foundation for your ability to connect and build fulfilling relationships. If you think you already know who you are, as many people in the spiritual world proclaim these days, you ended your journey of discovery before it even got off the ground.
Begin to focus your attention on things that generate love, and do fewer of the things that deny and eliminate love from your life.
As you continue your journey, you build courage; you learn to walk in the knowingness that you deserve real love and deep, genuine, fulfilling relationships and connections. You are finally on the magical adventure to find what you can create.
Learn to master your attention and focus more on living in gratitude for how you want to be in the world and the way you want your relationships to be so that you feel all of it already as reality.
Most people profoundly underestimate the power of manifesting by living in conscious awareness that the things we want to create are already in existence.
I am confident that the more you walk in that simple form of gratitude, the closer you will get to your dreams until you realize you are living them.
We offer public gratitude ceremonies so people can experience and learn that way of living. We are currently teaching one of our extensive courses, so we had to put these ceremonies on hold for a bit, but if you want to join them when we continue offering them again, please go to https://www.katasee.world/gratitude.
Along the way of learning who you are, you will free yourself from what the ancient path we follow calls your masks, your cultural muggle programming. Because as you learn who you are, you will shed the emotionally charged beliefs that you carry, such as I’m not worthy, I will never live in a fulfilling relationship, I will never live in abundance, I don’t deserve this, that is not meant for me, I will always struggle, and with that, your life will shift from feeling like rowing a creek upstream without a paddle to floating downstream trough new experience with much more beauty and ease.
There is so much more that can be shared about all this; for now, I have one final thought, commitment is a big key that, when added, guarantees success on your path to freedom from your masks and towards living the life and the relationships and the connections you want in an abundance of love and beauty and passion and joy.
The stronger your commitment, the more the universe will smile on you and support you on your adventure of living your dreams.
Please reach out to me or my friend Lora if you want to experience how, through the ancient teachings of Ka Ta See, we guide people to walk this path to bliss, love, and freedom.
You can find Lora and get in touch with her at www.lorakeddie.com. And you can find and get in touch with me at www.katasee.com.
In love and beauty, always!
Song to Song,
Helmut
www.katasee.com