Harmonious Breakups are Possible

In 2010, Víkþórr and I will be going separate ways.

Our relationship was not aligned with my highest path and purpose, with my career and with my world saving plans. I'm ambitious, I want to make a huge difference. My mission is the most important thing in the world to me. This relationship was not compatible with it. Víkþórs energy is not aligned with the energy I want to create in my life.

For a couple months now I've had a bad gut feeling about the relationship. My spirit guides confirmed it. Not aligned. Yet I couldn't manage to leave. My rational mind saw no reason for that. I totally love him. The relationship worked great. Víkþórr is absolutely awesome and wonderful, cute, sexy, kind, and all other good things. He did nothing wrong at all. Why would I leave a guy who's just a perfect boyfriend?

In the end, my intuition won. I thought about the highest good of all. A relationship being detrimental to my own plans is one thing. But I realized that if I let it hold me back on my path, that is also bad for the whole system. That's intolerable.

A few days ago, we were talking about my persistent bad gut feeling about the relationship. I told him that I know it won't go away and that sooner or later, I'll have to leave him. So we decided to separate immediately  instead of torturing ourselves with that knowledge.

It was really difficult. Saying goodbye hurt like hell. Now I am crying my eyes out of course. But I also feel much better. He deserves better than a girl who is with him while thinking all the time that she should not be with him! I also have more energy now. I was feeling so miserable about it lately. I knew I should leave, but didn't have the balls to leave. Being incongruent feels really bad to me. Now I have this energy back.

It was a very successful breakup, even though we both were very sad. No anger, no reproaches. No clinging, either. He said he loves me enough to let me go, which I found very beautiful. We told each other that we love each other and that we are wonderful, amazing and awesome. Our connection and trust are still there. I'm so thankful to him for the great year we had together. Going this portion of my path hand in hand with him was an honor and a delight.

Harmonious, peaceful breakups are possible. :-)

One Hot Month in the Cold - My First Norway Trip

I was right! There are polar bears everywhere on the streets in Norway! The only difference between them and normal polar bears is that they look like humans and are called "Norwegians". But the behavior is the same. :þ

I have found Norwegian people to be of the "rough with a big heart" kind. For my French standards, they're totally rude. They're gruff, unemotional, and have this hard vibe in them. It is in their manners, in their language, in their faces, everywhere. I like it. It is sexy. Lots of very beautiful people there. Behind the icy toughness wall, I have found them to be warm-hearted, genuine and friendly. Those I got to know better revealed themselves as extremely charming, lovely and very funny people. I laughed even more than usually there, and had a lot of fun!

It is a shame. I spent one month in Norway and did not see one single fjord! I stayed only in Oslo and in a town called Seljord that is in a rural area of Vest Telemark. I did not do much sightseeing. I saw mountains in Seljord, but did not climb on any. At least I went for walks in the snow, there was lots of it. But my landscape admiring was very limited. Same when I was in Oslo. I went to see a nice park and climbed on the roof of the opera, but did not have time for the viking ship museum or any other cultural stuff.

The main focus of the trip was clearly people. Of course I spent time with Víkþóri whom I hadn't seen in months, but also met some wonderful new people. Some I already closely knew online or had heard a lot about, so I was happy to meet them in person at last. Others were previously completely unknown to me. I spent most of my time focused on getting to know them better and enjoying their company. There are also people that I would have loved to meet but did not have the opportunity to. I hope to see them next time.

Going to Norway broadened my horizons and pushed me out of my comfort zone in many ways. I did things I had never done before, like juggling, wearing a strap-on during sex, giving Soul Realignment readings in person, writing Norse in runes or hugging several persons at the same time. I also did things that I am totally scared of, for example singing. A lot happened. I met very sexy men, two of which I immediately fell in love with. I was forced to dance salsa, to wrestle, to spy on the naked neighbors, and to watch two and a half Austin Powers movies, which was really hard. I got drunk from drinking half an alcohol free beer. There was an extraordinary connection while dancing with my friend Tarjei, lots and lots of cuddling, hugging and happy loving moments, a spontaneous session of collective cross-dressing, a big heartbreak, hot sex, and some challenging situations. It was awesome.

Unfortunately I didn't learn much Norwegian. But hearing it every day was such a delight! I was happy and fulfilled. I tried to pretend that I was Norwegian when shopping alone, but it never worked. I used all the right words, said "Hei" and "Ja takk" or "Nei takk" when they asked "Blablablapoosa" (which means if I want a bag) and "Hav det godt" when leaving...  but they just heard the weird accent and replied in English. Damn! Tarjei said that I am also way too short to be Norwegian and that my clothes looked too foreign. No Norwegian in their right mind would wear a bonnet with holes in it, he said. Oh well.

I also discovered Swedish when I met a Swede called Michael. I had never heard Swedish before and swooned every time he was speaking it. It is way softer than Norwegian, and very sexy. When he was talking with me in Swedish, I didn't understand a word but just closed my eyes and felt happy. It felt like he was caressing me, when maybe he was talking about doing the laundry? Maybe I just find Swedish so sexy because Michael is such a beautiful and sexy man, I don't know.

This trip definitely was a deeply transformational experience. I feel that I came back as a different person. There just was not enough time. There are so many things that I didn't get to do! Now I am more than ever in love with Norway. I want to go live there as soon as possible.

Even though they don't seem to have much of an ecological consciousness! It was pretty much impossible to find any organic food outside of Oslo, and even in Oslo there wasn't much. I was also shocked when I saw the huge amounts of plastic that they use to package everything they sell, especially fruit and veggies. Every single lettuce comes in a plastic box with a plastic bag around it. And the garbage does not even get properly sorted and recycled. I don't want to know how much waste they produce every year.

And the weather? Oh yeah. Big shock when I arrived. I realized that my "winter coat" is a joke there. So are my other French clothes. Stealing a big woolen pullover from Víkþóri helped. I don't like wearing wool (it's not vegan) (and it itches and scratches) but I was just desperate.

My lungs were hurting because of the cold air. I tried to walk barefoot, that was bearable for ten or fifteen minutes but more was impossible. My feet weren't used to shoes anymore and started to bleed and hurt when I wore some. My lips suffered a lot too. I had to give up on my cold showering habit. As I have discovered, cold water is not equally cold everywhere! The one in Norway is evil. I even went back to sleeping on beds, mattresses and couches instead of on the floor because I was freezing my ass off at night.

After a while of bitching around about the weather, I surrendered. Fortunately, I had taken my big hiking shoes with me. I bought a few pairs of really warm socks to go with them, wore pants and a long skirt one above the other and adopted the stolen pullover as my daily companion. Wearing hiking shoes together with a gothic skirt definitely offends my sense of style, but I didn't care.

In the end I got used to the cold. I even loved it! Cold, gray, wet weather has always been my absolute favorite anyway. I very much enjoyed taking walks in the snow. I love snow, skies of steel and this biting cold when the temperatures go down to  -10 or -15°c. The last week, I was disappointed when it was only -8°c. I even loved the four little hours of real daylight and the fact that it's completely dark at 3:30pm. It's cozy. This way the evening lasts for many hours. I like evenings.

Now the plan is to focus on completing my Soul Realignment course, then start my business as a practitioner, and as soon as I can afford it, emigrate!

Hug Threesome

Have you ever hugged two persons at the same time?

I'm currently in Oslo, Norway. I met some great people here, two of which I spent the last weekend with. At some point, I was hugging one of them, when the other one asked if he could join us. The first one replied "Yeah, man!" and opened one arm to him.

It was wonderful! Whoa. It felt so amazing to hug both of them simultaneously while they were also hugging each other. What an awesome energy we created! It was so powerful and loving. We kept hugging closely for a very long time, and did it a couple more times the next day. It just felt so damn good. I loved it. It was terrific.

A hug is a powerful thing. A one-on-one hug already creates an energy bigger than the sum of the individual ones. Taking in one person more makes the additional energy creation even more intensive.

If you never had a hug threesome, maybe it's time to try that out! ;-)

Is it Safe to Trust Everybody?

I recently shared some useful beliefs. One of them was "I trust everybody". In a comment, lovely Andrew asked me if it is safe to have such a belief.

Yes, it is safe. It is safe because we are safe at all times, unless we make ourselves unsafe by choice.

If you ask me, I'd even say that we can only be fully safe if we fully trust.
******

Wondering if it is safe to trust everybody implies two things.

It implies that if someone deceives us, lies to us, doesn't keep their word, doesn't fulfill our expectations, lets us down, takes advantage of us, etc., in short, if someone behaves in a way that we think is not okay and breaks our trust, then this can actually hurt us. Nobody would wonder whether it is safe or not to trust others if safety were not an issue, so this implies that other people's actions have the power to seriously affect us.

It also implies that the more you trust others, the greater the risk. Like, trusting a few people is safe, but everybody? Again, nobody would ask this question without the assumption that the more unconditionally you trust, or the more people you trust, especially without knowing them, the higher the probability that you could get hurt.

I disagree with both of these assumptions.
******

Other people's actions cannot hurt me unless I allow them to do so. I know that I am the creator of my own feelings and that I am free to choose how I react to whatever situation shows up in my life.

Seen this way, even when others break my trust and deceive me, lie to me, let me down or take advantage of me and so on, I still have the choice to let this affect me, or not. In case shit happens, I know I can take it. Therefore, trusting others is not any more risky than not trusting them. I am safe either way.

Besides, does shit never happen to people who don't trust others easily? I highly doubt that. In my experience, the contrary is the case. We see what we believe. When we are full of fear and believe that others are out to screw us over, then that is what tends to happen to us.

The probability of having shit happen to us is much higher when we are full of shit inside. Like attracts like. The more we let go of the fear and make the choice to trust, the lower the probability that we will be proven wrong. Trusting greatly contributes to our safety. There will be less shit inside that could attract the shit outside.
******

My "100% trust is default"-policy works great for me. I have found that the people in my life tend to be absolutely trustworthy and fair. I often get surprisingly much from them; more than I expect. I cannot even remember the last time I felt intentionally taken advantage of or deceived.

From time to time, someone unintentionally does something to me that I find is not okay. When this happens, I re-evaluate my relationship with them. I might completely let go of it, or reconfigure it, or just continue without changing anything. I do this only once something has happened, though. Why would I mistrust someone preventively? This is an absurd idea.
******

Some people believe that trust is something that one needs to build. Preferably slowly. Something that we need to earn by repeatedly proving our loyalty and reliability, before we get the privilege of being trusted. They believe that we should not trust people we don't know. More generally, we should not open up to or rely on anybody without being assured that we won't get hurt, disappointed or taken advantage of as a result. Like, let's not trust in order not to fall on our nose.

Such an attitude does not serve us. It's a way of trying to avoid risk by controlling our external life circumstances. Trying to control what we are scared of is futile. It just doesn't work.

Obviously, mistrusting others is by no means a guarantee that no shit will ever happen. If you let your well-being depend on other people's actions, you are fundamentally unsafe anyway, no matter how much or how little you trust others and no matter how well you succeed in avoiding opportunities to get challenged.

Trying to avoid risk means seeing ourselves as vulnerable and not trusting ourselves to be able to handle whatever we might get confronted with. That's a very weakening message that we send to ourselves.
******

The cautious attitude is based on lots of fears. These fears not only attract a lot of shit that would not happen to us if we didn't have the fears in the first place. They also prevent us from relaxing and opening up. They prevent love from flowing freely. The resulting feeling of connection to others is suboptimal. When you don't fully trust, you cannot fully love.

Only when we let go of control and fear and trust others unconditionally can we be open enough to experience love in all its warm magnificence. Are you ready for that? :-)

Choosing Who you Spend your Time with is Not a Love Issue

One of the beliefs I recently shared as a part of a successful mindset in social situations is that whether you choose to spend time with someone or not has nothing to do with how much you love them. It is a strategic time-management choice, not a love issue. Let's elaborate.

Some people associate loving someone, both in a romantic or non-romantic way, with wanting to spend time with this person. They also associate not spending any time with someone with not loving them.

I don't subscribe to this point of view. In my opinion, loving someone does not imply in any way that I spend time with them. And not spending time with someone does not imply in any way that I don't love them. There are people that I love and chose to throw out of my life completely. There are also lots of people that I love, yet never or almost never spend any time with. I don't love these people any less than those other people that I do choose to spend my time with. It is not a love issue.
******

Why is it a time-management issue?

When we have a specific goal, or when we simply grow and feel like bringing some new energy into our life, we tend to surround ourselves with people who already have reached that goal or already radiate this energy that we want. This can be done consciously, as a smart move. But most of the time, it just happens naturally. We automatically feel drawn to these people, maybe without even knowing why. It's only logical: they already have what we want. Their energy feels attractive to us because that's what we're looking for.

Such an intuitive attraction to these people is a good thing. By spending time with them, we learn from them. Most of all, over time our energy adjusts to theirs. They rub off on us.

Some of the people we love might not be in that place that we want to be in, or not radiate this energy that we want more of. We then tend to lose interest in spending too much time with them. This is natural. Their energy is not what we are looking for.

We might even feel that spending time with them holds us back. We influence each other energetically. The more we engage with someone, the more this reinforces the energies inside of us that resonate with their energy. It is difficult to create something new if our old energetic state is permanently being reinforced by the people we surround ourselves with.

Since we can only devote a limited amount of time to socializing, spending time with those people that we want to learn from vs. those that are no energetic match for us at this time is a time-management choice.
******

Why is it not a love issue?

Choosing not to spend our time with someone does not mean that we don't love them. It simply means that our energies are not very compatible at the moment.

An immediate example that comes to mind are smelly orcs who are abusive, violent, manipulative, or otherwise harmful to you. Kicking those out of your life is an elementary self-protection measure. Does it mean you should stop loving them? Certainly not. Everybody is lovable, including smelly orcs (or killers). You can love them, yet stop associating with them. You will still be connected to them whether you talk to them or not. You can send love to them, include them in your prayers if you do pray, have loving feelings towards them, and not talk to them. Why not?

Does choosing not to engage (too much) with someone mean that they are "not good enough" or "less lovable"? No, not at all. All energies are perfectly fine. Just because you want to create something specific does not mean that everything else is bad or wrong in any way.

For example, let's say that consciously or subconsciously you want to bring more authority into your life. I am all about love, compassion, oneness, kindness and so on. Maybe courage as well, but certainly not authority. Would it be smart of you to spend a lot of time with me? Noooo. Go away! Go see Steve Pavlina instead. You'll probably feel much more drawn to him than to me anyway.

If you feel strongly drawn to Steve and want to spend time with him instead of with me,

does it mean that I am less worthy or less interesting than Steve? No. It's just different energies. Your choice is based on what you want to create in your life and whom you feel intuitively drawn to. There is no space for judgment in that matter.
Does it mean that you don't love me? No. You can very well love me and spend your time with someone else. This is no contradiction.
Does it mean that you should feel guilty for shunning my company? No. Your spending your time with someone else simply shows that I don't radiate the energy that you feel attracted to right now. This means nothing bad about me. And, if I have a life outside of you, which should be the case anyway, then I do perfectly fine with or without you.

******

Why is associating love with spending time together a crappy idea?

Choosing to spend your time with the people you are already used to and clinging to them no matter what out of sentimentalism, even though you would naturally feel more drawn to other people, puts you into a place of resistance that will block you in your growth. Choosing to dissociate love from spending time together allows you to go your own path without disconnecting emotionally from others. Disconnection creates suffering.

Associating love with spending time together makes love conditional and kills its beauty. Like, "if you love me, you will spend time with me.". Ugh. Where's the freedom? If the people you love also love you, they want the best for you. If the best for you is to spend your time with someone else, they will accept it. Expecting someone to spend time with you if they love you is not loving them. It's your ego trying to possess and control them. Which is impossible.

Spending time with people because you feel that you should do so if you love them, or in order not to hurt them, is highly disrespectful both towards yourself and towards them. How could that be love?

Just two days ago, I had a chat with a friend of mine. He walked away, saying that he couldn't stand my energy. I really like that! I appreciate his honesty and his ability to make clear choices for himself. That is admirable. I also very much appreciate that he trusts me to be able to deal with him walking away without taking responsibility for my feelings. I don't feel less loved by him now. On the contrary.
******

Let's be flexible!

Relationships can smoothly fade in and out of our lives and in again, depending on how we resonate with each other at any given time. We stay connected at all times anyway. All this only becomes a drama when the ego steps in and considers it an intolerable insult that someone else would be "preferred" over ourselves.

People change. The ones that are not compatible with you right now can become a good energetic match for you in the future. They can evolve and start radiating different energies. You can evolve and suddenly feel attracted to their energy. Or both of this can happen. One never knows.

And what if someone's energy never becomes compatible with yours again? Well, so be it. Let them go in peace. You can love each other and not have any contact in this lifetime. Trust your loved ones to be fine without you in their physical life.
******

What does love mean to you?

The above is just how I see it. If you think that loving someone has to imply spending time with them, or that if someone does not spend any time with you, they don't really love you, ask yourself what loving someone truly means to you.

Does it come from your soul or from your ego?

Is it love, or is it fear and attachment?

What are the conditions for you to believe that someone loves you?

What does it imply for you to love someone?

And does any of the above necessarily require that you spend time together?

Sexy Language Mixing

Víkþórr and I have a fetish in common: we are language fetishists. Languages and grammar turn us on. Beyond that, we also have a lot of non-sexual fun communicating in different languages. We mix languages all the time, to express ourselves, to explain things, to fight, and to love each other.

We speak English most of the time, for laziness reasons. But we also use French, German, Norwegian and Japanese as well as some Spanish and Old Norse, and occasionally some other languages such as Esperanto, Russian, Latin or Icelandic.

We rarely speak the same language for a long time. Usually we switch languages during the course of a conversation or we throw some foreign words in. Different languages are more or less able to express certain things. What requires a clumsy, lengthy sentence in one language can be tackled with two words in another language. I usually prefer to go for the most efficient, elegant or accurate version. I like this kind of flexibility.

What I love most is when we mix all kinds of different languages in the same sentence. We don't do it on purpose, it just happens spontaneously. It's so much fun! So for example we once said:

Rose: I liebe norsk de plus en plus cada dag! ("I love Norwegian more and more each day!": en, de, no, fr, sp, no)
Víkþórr: It freut meg zu høyra. Aujourd'hui hadde ich very Lust en turka tomato. :/("I'm happy to hear. Today I very much felt like eating dried tomatoes.": en, de, no, de, no, fr, no, de, en, de, fr, no, en)
Rose: Je quería bringen deg some til Strasbourg.  Ek skal envoyer sie med the Post. :) ("I wanted to bring you some to Strasbourg. I'll send them via mail": fr, sp, de, no, en, no, fr, Old Norse, no, fr, de, no, en, de)

What is of course even more fun than to mix languages is to mix languages while talking about languages! Once, Víkþórr explained to me what "helder" means in Norwegian and I explained to him how to use "eher" in German, all of this while mixing Norwegian, Spanish, French, German and English.

Actually, we even mix languages inside of words. For example, we take one verb from one language and give it an ending from another language. Or we apply prefixes from one language to another one. The result may look like "I was schmusing with you" or "I'm still klembing you". ("schmusen" = "to cuddle" in German, "å klemba" = "to hug" in Norwegian)

We mix languages when we fight, too. He hates Bokmål, the Danish version of Norwegian (or rather the Norwegian version of Danish, depending on how you see it). When I want to annoy him, I just send him a hug... in Bokmål. Or I just throw some random Bokmål words at him. That's like insulting him. When he wants to annoy me, he says something romantic to me, in Italian. Italian is my big turn-off, I just can't stand it.

(05:53:22 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Ciao, mi amore bella. ;) ("Bye, my love beautiful" - or something)
(05:53:31 PM) Rósíngr: >:|
(05:53:38 PM) Rósíngr: En klem fra meg. :þ ("A hug from me" in Bokmål)
(05:53:44 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: You started it. >:)
(05:53:50 PM) Rósíngr: Jaja! ("Jaja", literally "yesyes" in German, can be used as "Yeah, sure" but also as "Leck mich am Arsch" which means "Lick my ass". Not exactly a sexual proposition here.)
(05:54:04 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Grazie di Vittorino. :þ (Some more infamous Italian)
(05:54:25 PM) Rósíngr: Grrrr.
(05:54:33 PM) Rósíngr: Sentralstasjon. ("central station" in Bokmål)

Throwing random words at each other is a lot of fun. Of course we do that in positive ways too. When we feel particularly romantic, we say each other's favorite words.

(10:45:06 PM) Rósíngr: Sucre. :) ("sugar" in French)
(10:45:18 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: :) Dyri. ("the animals" in Norwegian)
(10:45:22 PM) Rósíngr: Begeisterung! ("Enthusiasm" in German)

My favorite Norwegian words are "dyri" ("the animals"), "ikkje" ("not"), and "nei" ("no"). I love it when he says no to me! Provided it's in Norwegian.

I love mixing languages. What about you? How much do you mix languages in your daily life?

Say "You love me"!

Something interesting happened tonight, while I was chatting with Víkþóri on Pidgin. Víkþórr is this charming young man waiting for me in Norway whom I mentioned a few posts ago. (This is no typo, btw: "Víkþóri" is the dative form of his name, and "Víkþórr" the nominative.)

So tonight we were chatting. I was talking about soap, when suddenly he wrote:

(11:17:21 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: You love me. :) :·x

Logically, I thought he was interpreting my story about my soap that doesn't wash well as a proof of my love for him. I didn't quite get that.

(11:17:30 PM) Rósíngr: ?
(11:17:39 PM) Rósíngr: Sure I do!
(11:17:43 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: :)
(11:17:45 PM) Rósíngr: But why are you saying that now?
(11:17:53 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Because. :)
(11:17:55 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: :·x
(11:18:03 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Tell me I love you.
(11:18:28 PM) Rósíngr: :D
(11:18:32 PM) Rósíngr: You love me. :)
(11:18:42 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Yes I do. :)
(11:18:46 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Very much.
(11:18:56 PM) Rósíngr: :D
(11:19:05 PM) Rósíngr: You're so wonderfully confusing at times. :)

(That's true!)

(11:19:17 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: :D Cool.
(11:19:23 PM) Rósíngr: You know what?
(11:19:27 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: No.
(11:19:28 PM) Rósíngr: This felt great!
(11:19:32 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: What?
(11:19:39 PM) Rósíngr: I love it when you tell me that I love you. :)
(11:19:43 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Oh. :)
(11:19:50 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: You love me. <3
(11:19:59 PM) Rósíngr: Oh yes! Very much so.
(11:20:02 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: I like it too. :)
(11:20:07 PM) Rósíngr: You love me. :)
(11:20:13 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Oh, yes! :D
(11:20:34 PM) Rósíngr: It feels so great to hear that. :) I don't know why, but it feels just wonderful.
(11:20:49 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: :) I agree.

It really feels great! Wow. "I love you" is such an anemic sentence. "You love me" on the other hand, that's a vibrant, alive, powerful, confident, exciting statement! It made me immediately fall in love with him on top of already being in love with him.


After half an hour of sweet talk about love, languages and our relationship...


(11:54:52 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: You love me so much. :)
(11:55:21 PM) Rósíngr: Oh yes. :) And you love me so much too!
(11:55:27 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: Yes. :D
(11:55:37 PM) Víkþórr Veggiss Berurjóðr: You want to fuck me. ;)
(11:55:53 PM) Rósíngr: Do you allow me to quote this on my blog? XD

(He said yes, or else you wouldn't be reading it)

I thought I just had to share this idea with you! It's SO brilliant to turn "I love you" around. "You love me" sounds totally exciting and warm. Not to speak of "You want to fuck me"...! If he didn't live 2500km away from me I'd have made wild passionate love to him right away.


Next time you feel like saying "I love you" to someone, don't. Say "You love me" instead. And see what happens! :-)


(Btw, he got the idea here.)

From having no friends to loving everybody

Until my early twenties I was the shyest person on Earth. As a kid I thought other kids were strange and cruel little monsters. Later I still saw others as dangerous. When someone talked to me I got very nervous and tried to hide it. I thought I needed to protect myself from them. After all, I was getting mobbed a lot, so I thought if I let them know me or see my weaknesses, then they'd use the opportunity to hurt me. I was terribly scared of others, and socially isolated.

I was asked how I transitioned from having such social anxiety to my current mindset, which is basically that nobody can hurt me and that I love everybody. (See How to Connect with Strangers and Do you Love Killers? ) Such a fearless mindset makes it very easy for me to build connections and to have lots of lovely people in my life. But how did my beliefs change?

So here is the story. Please keep in mind that this post is not a how-to, it's just my personal story. I don't necessarily recommend to do the same. There are better ways to reach the same goal.

Courage

I remember the first steps very well, because I made a conscious decision to improve my social skills and I remember how I chose to do so. First, I decided to get rid of my fear of rejection. To do so, I grabbed a banknote. I chose a street with many shops in the city center, and in each of these shops I asked one of the salesclerks to change my note. Of course most of them said no. Every time, I replied "Thank you", smiled and left. This was a great exercise in hearing no! I knew it wouldn't hurt me in any way, it was just a game. But this way I got used to having plenty of people say no to me, and it made me realize that a no doesn't hurt.

I trained myself this way for a while. For example I picked a very crowded street on a Saturday afternoon and played being a beggar, asking everybody for some change, politely and nicely. The goal was the same as before: hear no and be fine. Later I switched to exercises with a more uncertain outcome. For example I smiled to every person I met. Then I said hello to every person I met. Then I started small conversations with random strangers. Etc.

Of course I got rejected a lot. Many people looked at me with an incredible disdain on their face when they thought I was a beggar. Many didn't return my greeting when I said hello to them, some said ugly things to me, and so on. But that was the goal. It taught me that no matter how bad others treat me, it doesn't affect me as long as I don't think bad of myself. I didn't think bad of myself, because I knew I wasn't really a beggar, I knew it was just for training purposes. And so they couldn't hurt me. I knew their disdain changed nothing about me. I got used to being rejected and not give a damm about it. My mindset went from "Others are dangerous and I need to protect myself from them" to "Others are potentially dangerous, but I'm strong enough to take it!".

For months and years after that I kept building courage, approaching strangers, talking to people, putting myself in exactly those situations I feared most.

Responsibility

These experiences proved to me that my own mind and nothing else has the power to hurt me. This was the next step. I found a book in a library which opened my eyes about this. It was a book about behavioral therapy. The author explained that not the situation itself but our judgment on the situation causes the feelings we have about that situation. What a big insight that was for me! I realized it was true. So I began paying attention to what I was thinking about the situations I was feeling bad in.

For each social situation that made me feel bad, I wrote down what I was thinking in that moment. This wasn't easy, for most of my thoughts were subconscious. But with time and practice I got used to become aware of them. So I wrote them down. Then I wrote down what I would like to think instead. More positive and empowering thoughts, which would make me feel better. My negative thoughts often sounded like those of a little child. For example in the beginning I wrote things like "Others are dangerous. They're evil. They want to hurt me." I replaced it with "Everybody is my friend. They're all friendly and mean well." Every time I caught myself thinking one of the "bad" thoughts, I consciously repeated the "good" thoughts. I also repeated the positive affirmations every single day ten times in front of the mirror.

From that moment on I decided to take responsibility for my feelings. For many months I spent countless hours working on my thoughts, and covered several big exercise books with old (in red) and new (in green) beliefs. Over time I addressed many of my issues this way, and solved many of my problems. Of course this wasn't enough to stop hurting altogether. I knew it was possible, in theory, not to get hurt if I didn't allow it, but I still lacked the power to deal with my emotions appropriately. However, alone this theoretical knowledge helped a lot. I just knew it was up to me. My mindset changed to "Others aren't dangerous. Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them! It all depends on me."

Self-Love

When I started working on my social skills, I had very low self-esteem and used to hate myself. So I worked on learning to love myself. I struggled a lot with this one. I said to myself in the mirror "Rosine, I love you very much exactly the way you are" - ten times a day as well. At first I felt totally stupid doing this! And I felt I was lying. But with time it became more and more true... I also progressively took better care of myself and did more nice things for myself. I believe self-love is extremely important. If you don't really love yourself, you cannot really love others.

Learning self-love gave me a lot of strength in dealing with others. When you know you always have yourself to love you, it's like you're never alone in front of others: you always have an invisible friend at your side. Others also respond much better to you when you love yourself. They mirror your self-love back to you. Their esteem for you generally is proportional to your self-esteem.

When I got a bit better at loving myself, I started getting friendlier feedback, making friends more quickly. Talking to others became much easier. I wasn't so nervous anymore. Loving myself more, I was better able to accept that others might love me, too. My mindset changed to "Others are friendly" and also to "How I feel depends on me, but no matter what happens, I always have myself in my corner!"

Taking off

At this point, I don't remember exactly what happened, how and in which order. My progress was exponential: at first it took a lot of practice and conscious effort. I had many setbacks and sometimes thought I'd never succeed. But my willingness to learn self-love was the catalyst. I didn't learn it overnight(!), but alone wanting to learn it changed everything. Things began moving faster and faster, and at some point everything just happened to me and I had to let go of control.

Emotional Mastery

At some point I met a fabulous energy-psychotherapist, a wonderful woman who taught me EFT. EFT helped me a lot in dealing with particularly negative or strong emotions. It also helped me get rid of some deeply rooted negative beliefs about people. I wouldn't recommend to you the method I used with my notebooks alone. Such a purely intellectual, psychological approach is a big waste of time. The idea definitely is good, but it's way more efficient to combine this technique with EFT and with visualizations. But I'm digressing, I just want to relate my story here.

So this lady taught me EFT. She also helped me understand, accept and love myself more. She taught me how to get better at dealing with my emotions. This gave me much more Power. It especially helped me not to get hurt so much anymore. I got a feeling that "I'm safe".

Connection

I have always been highly sensitive and empathetic, but my fear had prevented me from opening up enough to other humans. All those walls I had built around myself out of fear made me feel lonely and disconnected. After working so much on myself, my thoughts and my emotions, I got way less scared. I knew I would be able to deal with it, should I get hurt. Once the fear didn't force me to shut down anymore, I became able to feel other people's emotions very strongly just by being near them, and to deeply connect with them emotionally.

Later this applied as well to people who were not even around physically. For example I could physically feel what someone who was thousands of miles away and whom I was chatting with was feeling. Or I knew how someone felt that I was thinking of without even seeing them or talking with them. This showed me that we are all connected in some way. I didn't know how this communication took place, but I added to my mindset the belief "We are all connected".

Oneness

With the therapist I mentioned above, I talked about this amazing experience I had when I was a little kid, where I felt that I was being the whole Universe.

I had never forgotten about this feeling, but when I talked about it with her, it suddenly really made sense to me, for the first time in my life. I realized that we are not only all connected, but all one. I am everything that is, which means that what I call "I" is much, much more than just the little physical person called Rose.

This insight felt more like a big spiritual breakthrough than like an improvement of my social skills... but it made me much better at socializing! I was already able to connect deeply before, however my mindset still had been that we are separate persons. My default state was to be disconnected. After this breakthough, it was the other way around: I was still losing the connection very often, but my default state was to feel connected and one with everybody.

Another difference is that before this breakthrough, the connection I had with others was essentially emotional. Now, it's not only an emotional connection anymore. It feels more like a deep emotional and spiritual connection. We're not just two separate beings incidentally feeling the same. I really feel that this other person or animal or object in front of me IS me, that I AM the whole world. New belief for my mindset: "We are all one Consciousness."

Love, Love, Love

To sum it up, the beliefs I adopted in the last years are:

Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them. I'm safe.
How I feel depends only on me. I'm responsible for my own feelings.
Others are friendly
I love myself and always have myself in my corner
We are all connected
We are all one
I love everybody

Now please don't get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that I totally master all this. I still lack Courage sometimes. Sometimes I still blame others and don't take responsibility for my feelings. There are still aspects of myself that I don't love unconditionally. I still have issues with some emotions, especially with Anger. I can get quite choleric and violent! It still happens to me that I disconnect from others, that I'm scared or that I forget how we're all one. I'm far away from being perfect at all this! It took years for me to learn it and I'm still not done with it.

However, since I got so much into Personal Development and am progressively getting better at loving and accepting myself, at staying in the here & now, at making conscious and deliberate choices, etc, this mindset is becoming more and more true in my life. I feel more and more safe, connected and in love.

I feel very much in Love with the whole planet now. I feel very much in love with you :-)

I still have no friends!

As you can imagine, I have no social anxiety anymore. I don't think others are dangerous anymore, I don't think I need to protect myself in any way. I'm not scared anymore. I can talk to any stranger, have no problem opening up, and I can connect with others easily. I never feel lonely.

I'm saying that I have no friends because for me now, a friend is not something one can "have" in the first place. There are many adorable friends in my life, but having friends is not something I explicitely want or do intentionally. I don't consider socializing to be an action anymore. It's a way of being. The friendships in my life are simply an external manifestation of my inner state of mind, they're an expression of who I am.

As a consequence, I don't fear to lose my friends. No matter how many people disappear from my life, the Love and Connection I feel inside will always manifest as loving and interesting people to connect and have fun with.

People like you. I love you. <3

Do You Love Killers?

Hi all,

I was asked a couple wonderful questions! In my previous post I wrote that for me, there are no strangers, because I believe that we are all one Consciousness, and all permanently connected with each other.

Question: When you have the belief that "Everyone is my friend, there are no strangers", what about people you don't like?

My take on this:

There are people I don't like. When I'm being honest, I realize it has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with me. I don't like them

because I'm judging them or part of them in some way
or because I see in them something I don't like about myself (again, because I'm judging myself or part of myself for that)
or because I'm scared of them in some way (and this too is a consequence of judging either them or the situation)

Basically, it's always about judging, them or myself, with or without fear as a consequence.

My answer to this is present moment awareness. When I'm judging, it means I'm not being present. When you're being present, you cannot possibly judge. To judge, you need to label things. You need to give them a name, a value, a "good" or "bad" tag, to think of consequences they might have in the future or in the past, and so on. It's impossible to do this when you're being totally focused on here and now.

Therefore, a high present moment awareness means no judging, and no judging means I can't dislike anyone, because I dislike people on the basis of some judgment. So when I notice that I don't like someone, putting myself immediately back into a state of presence solves the problem.

What also helps is to ask myself what it is exactly that disturbs me about the person I don't like. If it's fear, I face that fear and shine Love on it. If I'm judging them or seeing in them something that I judge myself for, I practice Acceptance. I remind myself of the fact that there is no right and wrong, that all choices are valid and that everything is perfect the way it is.

I also work on loving all that is unconditionally. Since we are all One, all manifestations of one Consciousness, those I don't like are aspects of this Consciousness: parts of myself. It doesn't make sense to hate some parts of myself and to reject them because they're not as I want them to be. This would only create disharmony, separation and fear, and harm the whole system.

Instead, I practice loving all of myself unconditionally, both internally and externally as other people and the world around me. I especially send Love to those I don't like. I think accepting and loving them instead of resisting them has a healing effect, on me, on them, on the world.

I see not liking someone as disconnecting. When I'm being fully present and connected, I love everybody. My goal is to make this my permanent way of being. I'm not there yet but on my way. I'm convinced that if everybody were fully present and connected all the time, there would be no such thing on this planet as not liking someone.

Question: What about people you've met and decided you don't want to associate with them for one reason or another? Do you still feel they are your friend, or does that belief "Every stranger is my friend" holds true until you've gotten to know the stranger and decided that stranger is not someone you want to be friends with?

My take on this:

It happens that I decide, for some reason, not to associate or not to spend much time with someone. However, this doesn't mean I don't love them. Loving someone does not mean that I have to spend a lot of time with them, it does not even mean that I have to communicate with them at all.

There are people I love dearly, but have decided not to meet again. There are people who have chosen to leave my life. There are people I'm simply not interested in spending time with for some reason. I love all of those people though and feel one with them. I send Love to them. Just because we can't be together in this lifetime doesn't mean I have to disconnect from them! Why on earth would I??

Choosing not to associate with someone is no personal attack, it's no rejection either. It's a time-management choice. You can make this choice from a place of Love and still feel loving and connected towards those you don't spend time with.

Question: Even with killers and toxic people?

My take on this:

Toxic people are never toxic because of what they are, they're toxic because of what you are. Only what resonates with you on some level can affect you. So if someone influences you negatively, drains your energy, makes you feel bad, etc, then their "toxic" part resonates with something inside of you in some way. If one person's toxicity totally does not resonate with you, you won't be affected by it. When you become so strong that you don't resonate with some person's toxicity, then this person is not toxic to you anymore. No matter how negative she is, it won't affect you.

Which means that toxic persons are wonderful opportunities to grow. Solution: check what, inside of you, resonates with this person's negativity and work on yourself. If you don't feel strong enough to spend time with this person while simulatneously trying to change yourself, because contact with this person would reinforce the part of you that resonates with their toxicity, then you can of course choose to temporarily not associate with them. But that's not a reason to disconnect.

Same with killers. If you think it's better for your personal security not to meet a sadistic serial killer in person, don't. As I said above, loving someone does not mean you have to spend time with them. I can see no reason to disconnect though. Protecting yourself does not require that you reject others and disconnect from them.

There's a big difference between disconnecting from someone, saying "You are someone else. I don't love you, you're not my friend, go away", which is turning your back to Love and negating that we are all one, thus fragmenting yourself - and simply choosing not to concretely spend time with someone, while still loving them and feeling deeply connected with them.

Everybody is lovable, no matter what they do. There's absolutely no reason not to love everybody. Why would you turn your back on a part of the Universe and disconnect from it?

One reason I can see is judgment. You see "them" as separate from "you" and want to punish them for doing something you think is "bad" or "wrong", like killing or draining you. That's your mind judging them. When you're being present, such a thing doesn't happen.

That's how I see it. What do you think? :-)