MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME

Being at home on the Earth and in yourself is a great foundation for intimacy. When you can rest in yourself and access a sense of safety, then you have an abundance of hominess to share. If you can’t rest in yourself, and do not know how to feel safe, it will be hard to feel at home in a relationship.

An element of feeling safe is feeling “supported.” In this chapter, we show how you can access the sense of support by paying attention to gravity. Feeling the ground as foundation allows us to sink more fully into relaxation. We realize we are always being carried by the Earth. Developing awareness of this inner ground, this inner foundation, is a primary resource for ourselves and all our relationships. We feel supported and we learn how to be support for another person.

You can use gravity, which is always present, as a source of emotional wealth. Gravity is always attracting you inwards toward the center – toward the hot heart of the planet. Surrendering to gravity gives the physical effect feeling of rest and relaxation; muscles can relax on the bones. After sinking down, we realize the Earth is also pushing up, giving us support. Feeling physically supported gives us emotional nourishment. We can stand tall. We have ground under our feet. We can be secure. We can push off the foundation and stride into the world. Gravity is an often-overlooked, accessible resource for enriching your sense of intimacy in life.

We drive other people crazy and sabotage relationships by making others cater to our insecurity. It wears people out. If you can provide your own security, it is a blessing to others. Then you can negotiate about the forms of security you really do need to get from others.

There is syzygy between neediness and self-sufficiency; we need the right balance of both. The greatest gift we can give to those we love is to thrive in the relationship, and help the creature that they are to thrive as well. It is through their needs that another person or creature lets us love them. Being able to groom the cat, comb the fleas, is adorable. You feel needed. It is bonding. Love and nurture the creature that you are.

Abandonment issues can be dealt with, to a certain extent, by making friends with gravity. Gravity really is always there. If you can support yourself – that is, access how the earth and nature is always supporting you – then you will have more to give.