The courage to be intimate comes from changing our belief and from understanding that transparency and vulnerability do not equate to a threat of injury or loss to our real self. Intimacy is not a show of weakness, nor indicative of a powerless person. Rather, it is a sure indication of an emotionally matured, integrated personality. Our socially programmed idea that intimacy is to be experienced only with those safest or closest to us is in need of change. Because intimacy is a violation to the ego, both individually and collectively, strides taken towards its accomplishment will require patience and compassion. Because the very idea of intimacy is a threat to our ego person and thus our autonomous self, we spend more time avoiding intimacy than embracing it. The truth is that we can be intimate with everyone all of the time, if we truly understand what intimacy is.

People marry to accomplish differing goals. These goals and achievements, as well as acquirements, are often driven by the partners’ desires and values. For instance, Bob and Cathy, who are in their late twenties, are both schoolteachers. They met four years ago, have dated seriously for the past 18 months, and are engaged to be married. They both want children soon, and they want to have summers off together to spend at Cathy’s parents’ cabin, just as her parents did when she was little.

They share the dream of wanting to raise a tight-knit family, and both feel valued and appreciated because their common primary desires weave a bond between them. Cathy and Bob also enjoy outdoor sports and spend many weekends hiking. Their relationship allows them to pursue their highest values together.
Throughout their marriage, there will be a hierarchy of perceived voids, which will, in turn, drive their values, such as more children, financial freedom, a business partnership, deepened friendship, a more fiery sexual companionship, and so on. As each void becomes filled, a new desire will follow, and those desires will often be reflective of the changes that affect them as they age, mature, and evolve soulfully.

Individually and as a couple, as they move from void to void and acquire what they pursue, a new set of desires will rush in to meet them. Through continued acquisitions, they will grow in their sense of power.
Sometimes the new void that we perceive as a value to acquire, such as financial freedom, will require skills and drive that our current partner does not have, nor will want to attain. When the people we are with do not wish to pursue our primary values with us, and especially if they are against our pursuit of these values, the relationship will begin to become strained and, in time, will likely end. When this dynamic occurs, we will begin to pursue others who value what we value at that particular stage in our life. Therefore, the reason for the next union may well be different from the one that drove the previous relationship.

In 20 years, Bob and Cathy may be pursuing spirituality, their own business, financial freedom, travel, or retirement. If one of them perceives that the other does not put sufficient energy into the pursuit of one or more of these values, then they may well be attracted to another mate who they feel is more in alignment with their values at that time. A more detailed explanation of values and their roles in a relationship is provided in chapter six.
As indicated, the reasons for getting married vary, but there are a few common driving forces we should review. Interestingly, because perceived voids are always present, some of the key reasons we unite are associated with fear and loss, yet aren’t always in our conscious awareness.
 

The foundation on which the new marriage paradigm is built is primarily one in which both partners realize that they are whole and complete in and of themselves—they don’t depend on each other to complete their lives. The word “marriage” does not necessarily mean that a couple signs a legal marriage contract, but rather that both partners have paralleled their lives and wish to support each other’s soul expression and the dreams encompassed by it.
Soulful individuals do not unite out of a perceived lack or need, nor are they interested in projecting guilt onto each other for mistakes that each will make along the way.

Both souls are well aware that they have come together to learn what traits they perceive in each other that prompt them to shut their hearts to love. These traits include the beliefs they hold that each partner sees to be detrimental to their advancement as a couple, e.g., selfishness, grumpiness, dishonesty. Each individual has formulated an ideal of what they want to have. When one of the parties challenges that ideal, the challenge becomes a “block” to their ability to feel and experience love. Most importantly, the couple acknowledges that they have joined in order to identify and then remove all the blocks that prevent them from giving and receiving unconditional love and appreciation.

Soul-Filled Love
In the new paradigm, the partners have come together to share their fullness, and to co-create opportunities for joint growth. In addition, both souls are aware that the relationship facilitates dynamics to expose and heal each of their memories of being rejected and wounded by a previous mate. And it is understood that the wounds that emerge have engaged defensive coping mechanisms, which the ego (the inauthentic self) employs to protect its interests and sustain the desire for separation and guilt.

In a soulful relationship, the partners understand that they have joined together to heal their wounds from the past by letting the “now” take precedence over the past. In doing so, they are able to be mirrors for each other now, and expose the parts of themselves that were once believed to be shameful and unlovable. As both souls recognize within themselves, and then take ownership of, the same shadowed traits they see in the other, they are able to advance in soul-filled love, thus co-creating the new marriage paradigm.

In the old marriage paradigm, the ego will work diligently to have the wounded party believe that the past hurt is what gives the soul permission to protect it now. This defensive stance is what projection is founded upon. Projection happens whenever we mix an unloved trait that we want to hide and deny within ourselves with an unloved memory that we then project out onto a new situation. It is as if we had a blank canvas from which all pictures have been erased and, instead of creating a new picture, we paint the old picture back onto the canvas. Interestingly, we then feel confused as to why we keep having the same problems in our relationships. Therefore, the new paradigm is geared towards undoing projection and instead nurturing both souls towards the opportunity to paint a new picture, thus facilitating the understanding and eventual healing of what was once misunderstood.

With projection, the assumption is that what happened in the past must happen now. This is so because the part of the mind that does the thinking is the part that still believes and worships “specialness,” the past, guilt, and autonomy. It is the part of the mind that is asleep to its true unifying self as it is now. A key difference, then, between those living in the special vs. the soulful relationship is that the latter operates in the now.

The souls that have made the decision to transform their relationship or marriage into the new paradigm will first need to recognize the key differences in each model. As mentioned in chapter one, marriage contracts in the past were signed for many reasons, but primarily for security—be it emotional, psychological, or financial.

We married in order to have a family or a “tribe,” and to share our life with another soul who we hoped would take our side in our fight against the world. In fact, the ego uses the union as a way to separate the couple from the world. This is true because the ego itself is an out picturing of the desire for “specialness” and autonomy, which results in exclusion. The original desire of the ego is that each of us stands individually against the world, but as the ego hears our inherent and insatiable request to be unified with someone, as we were in our creation, it compromises and allows a union to occur with another individual, provided that the couple now work together against the world.

The desire to be autonomous is incongruous with our true nature because we are really a part of a much greater whole. Since we forget our wholeness, we feel a need for protective and defensive action, so that we are able to uphold our ego selves. But each time we fully join with another in heart and mind, the ego “evaporates.”
 

What causes chemistry, passion, and the deep sexual attraction I like to call fire between some people? And why does it emerge with some and not with others? Why does it emerge at times with an individual and then disappear?

I desperately needed answers to these key questions, not only for the clients I counseled, but also for myself as a deeply devoted wife, who had somehow misplaced or covered the fire she once felt. I suspected that one of the many factors that had snuffed out the flames was my pursuit of other priorities. Another key factor could have been the past hurts or resentments that I had avoided discussing and healing through meaningful communication. And the most crippling force could have been a personality trait that I coveted more than fire—autonomy.

Through hours of investigation into the components of chemistry, I discovered that what arouses the fire in us is made up of intricate measures of fantasy and illusion—the hidden and exposed parts of each other and ourselves. The ingredients are both the known and the unknown, the familiar and the mysterious, and the physical attributes of our parents. The predominant aspects and traits of the individual to whom we feel chemically attracted include the physical (overall look, scent, ethnic orientation, height, weight, and hair color), the emotional (mysterious, impartial, warm, kind, gentle, nurturing, cool, mean, aloof), and the overall psychological and personality makeup (street-smart, witty, diligent, hard-working, intelligent, funny, committed, unfaithful, intimidator, control freak, princess, warrior, knight, mother, etc.) that remind us of who we are in our “light,” not shadowed, side.

In addition, the individual to whom we feel attracted is the embodiment of the person we wished we could have had as a parental figure. In short, this fantasized figure is the culmination of the primarily valued and appreciated traits of our mother and father, without their shadow sides. So, we want the two positive sides, including the physical features of mom and dad, to be a single individual, and when we believe that we have found that personified soul, we feel fire! I believe that in “finding” them, we finally feel secure enough to be all that we are, and to express our fullest nature, which encompasses both vulnerability and confidence. The traits and qualities that we perceive as “proof” that we were, and still are, worthy of being loved and approved of, concurrently elicit sparks. Since this idealized figure is a fantasy, the sparks will eventually fade with this realization, hopefully into a deeper love that is more truthful and reflective of the holistic nature of our parents and, ultimately, of us.

For example, I am most attracted to the physical attributes of my father in men, and conversely most attracted to the moral, playful, flirtatious, and spiritual virtues of my mother. If I perceive a man to encompass the embodiment of both my parents, then my heart stops and my head turns to follow this person, almost without my conscious awareness. In the moments I see the dream figure, whether I know them or not, I am consumed. In that moment, the young emotional “I” feels fully accepted and safe. In time, however, the little girl with perceived unmet needs will have to mature into a woman, as she works with a mate to fill those needs. It is the dance between juicy fire and a deeper integrated self that keeps the relationship alive.

I have concluded that what is happening in my mind when I see the fantasized man is that I am only seeing one half of them—the half that I have equated with pleasure, comfort, safety, fun, and feeling in control.
These ingredients make up half of the chemical mixture necessary to create fire. The second part of the chemical mixture we need for fire will be pursued and evaluated, albeit at lightning speed, and will involve a dance of power and control.

For me, the displacement of fiery passion, which had been a common bedfellow of mine ever since I can remember, happened gradually over the years. And, as mentioned earlier, as the fire dwindled, a deeper, more enriched love based on respect seemed to fill the space that sexual passion once occupied. Still, my question was, can I have both? Is it not possible to have a deeply mature and enduring love coupled with an insatiable hunger for sexual intimacy and a deep fulfillment of that burning desire? I hoped that our souls and our love had grown to a level that could envelop both. I needed to discover the answers to these powerful questions.