My first relationship, like the experience of most young people, died with the melodrama of a Shakespeare play. The notes passed under the table at school, the carvings of our initials on trees, and that first sweet kiss on the cheek were soon the only reminders of what was, we thought, forever love.

A lot of those false starts happened after that. And when I turned 10, it looked like I would become a serial monogamist. Home wasn’t a Christmas party either. My stepmother was the stepmother from hell, alcoholic and violent. My poor dad would come home most nights to flying saucepans, cigarette burns on the new carpet, and a totally burned offering from the kitchen.

I, like most others in family settings so violent and unstable that they lack the warmth of parental love, searched for role models who would give me some hope that a warm heart, a soft touch, and kind words were not just the prelude to another heartbeat. or alcoholic stupor.

In those days, television was not what it is, but if it had been, my search would have ended before its time. I would have found Big Brother or some other reality show that gave me access to someone I could love, trust, and give my heart to, without backlash. Unfortunately, there was no television where we were. Books for a dyslexic child provide little comfort, take too long, and the plot is always confusing. So for me, reality was the solution.

I think I must have looked a thousand girls in the eye a day. Wondering if it was them. Most laughed at this childish nonsense and re-engraved the names of their oldest boyfriend of the week or rock idol on the desk. She played competitive sports trying to stop thinking about it. That was short-lived fun.

At 12 I met the “love of my life” and with the head of a match I carved his name on my forearm. We spend a lot and talk about eternal love. And it lasted about 6 months before we got tired of meeting up after school, hiding under a willow tree and exchanging promises. Everyone else would drop by or sneak into one parentless house or another to pet them more seriously.
This “love of my life” started dating another guy. I went back to soccer and carjacking. Life is so. We adapt, and when peers make crying impossible, we take it out on someone else or ourselves. There are few other real options when home life lacks trust and love between parents.

My dad had lectured me about sex. And he feared it more than most things in life. Even the paraplegia seemed less dramatic and less punishable by that God the minister spoke of at every mandatory Sunday morning church service.

But it was at church, while studying for my communion class, that I met “Julie the fart.” She came from a wealthy home and Mom and Dad worked very hard to make the house a haven for after-school gatherings. Farts Julie was sadly fat. And I guess to make up or something, she was the “easy” one. I got my first sense of it: encyclopedias, medical slides at scout education nights, a bit of porn broadcast in senior classes, and an accidental glimpse of my sister in the shower had so far done nothing to assuage my utter confusion.

Between the farts, bad breath, and confusion, I left with a not-so-optimistic impression of what everyone else was so obsessed with getting more of. My football improved and my commitment to dad, that I would be a virgin until he married me, turned into a vow. I didn’t really see what I was missing anyway, after that.

However, a few days later, in the middle of a fantasy dream, I woke up to a wet glue that stuck my pajamas to my never regions. In one exploration, I found a new sport and, like most of my age, I threw myself into it without hesitation. The creativity to find places where I would not be discovered was incredible and would have made Picasso proud. However, the toilet was the backup of all time and it somehow coincided with the embarrassment that was associated with the whole exercise.

With renewed enthusiasm, the whole girls thing took on a new meaning. Sometimes when meeting a girl I would notice a change in my pants and this should be taken as a sign that she was right. Of course, there were many failures, and like a cat biting its tail, the whole realm of boy-girl love, sex, personal happiness, and spiritual happiness turned upside down. Religion got in the way, so like a good red-blooded Australian citizen, I went to church and spent most of my time wondering who would and who wouldn’t be up for the next church social. Of course, “fat Julie” was the alternative, but even on Church, her very stinky and audible back exhaust made that a last option. (which often waited in line as the last lifeline)

The puppy love continued until, at 17, I met Julie. She and I were perfect, unfortunately her parents didn’t have the same mindset and therefore our true love story took place after dark, sneaking out of the house and gathering on the frozen lawn to kiss and play. We even created a circle of social friends and went to concerts and stuff together. We were perfect together and of course, unsurprisingly, her parents moved out of town. We pledged love and loyalty and, on the surface, long phone calls seemed to fill the space.

Confidence is a funny animal. Jealousy, suspicion, and doubt coalesce to cause a kind of fear-based paranoia. Questions came to me about his loyalty, his fidelity and our promise of eternal love. I began to doubt and in that simple change I gave myself permission to be and do everything I feared he would do to me. I began to soften my commitment (I just didn’t want to be hurt like my first love as a baby), I didn’t want to be heartbroken like I was with “the love of my life” and sexually, I had no way of separating possessing someone. and loving him, the thought of her being treated the way I treated “fat Julie” was unbearable.

In self-defense, I didn’t break the vow, but I went to a party, and I danced with a girl and I hugged her tight, and yeah, okay, I did the vertical gibberish with her at the dance. floor and, well, ok, we kissed a little. But nothing else. Despite my self-proclaimed and unwarranted innocence, Julie’s sister was at the party and reported home every bit of what happened. Julie was devastated and I was excommunicated from her life.

There is a story of a dog with a bone in his mouth standing on a dock looking out over the water and seeing another dog (his reflection) in the water. The other dog has a bigger bone, so the dog drops the bone he has and jumps into the water to grab the bigger bone. Of course, he ends up with nothing but a wet coat and a long bath.

For the next several years while in college, I tried first to replace Julie in my life and second to find someone who, under the leadership of her parents, would not leave town. Lots of false starts, some beautiful people, but the bruises from breaking up with Julie hung like a cloud over every relationship he started. So, in a sense, I went back to “fat Julie” dating girls who were available on some level, but weren’t interested in “taking things seriously” (actually, I think “fat Julie was interested in get serious, but she abandoned the palette too quickly)

Not long after, I met my wife, and for the next few years I had a great love affair that ended, as was inevitable, in an acrimonious divorce.

The story provokes the action. We react and respond to the past quite unconsciously in our daily lives. We plan for the future based on our memories, wanting to avoid the things that hurt, wanting to embrace more of the things we love. We develop a kind of personal religion, a moral code of who is worthy and who is not. What behavior are we willing to accept and what behavior will we condemn and reject. We develop knowledge and experience and wisdom and with this bank of information, we get closer to love and relationship.

And here, with our own personal religion of acceptable and unacceptable, we fall in love and in doing so create our own destiny. Thinking that we know what is right, thinking that it is the other person’s fault, thinking that we are complete while others are to blame, thinking that we will find a lover who has none of the characteristics of our past loves, we go into our future cheated, and therefore becoming another statistic on the road to marriage and divorce.

Fault. If you erased a word, an experience, an attempt on this earth that led you to celebrate love, true love throughout your life, you would erase the word guilt from your heart. To say “you are to blame” is to imply that others in your life have caused your life. Implying that an alcoholic stepmother, the death of my birth mother, the loss of my “first love,” my second’s “infidelity,” and “fat Julie’s” unpleasant introduction to sexuality all had something to do with it. with them is the great joke of life.

If you choose to live a farce, blame. If you choose to enter a relationship half prepared, half in love, half committed, blame your previous lovers for your experiences with them. If you choose to have breakups and broken hearts, hold on to your “religion of love” of who is worthy and who is not. But if you choose this path, don’t call it permanent, sustainable, sacred, or profound. Call it marriage, call it relationship, but please don’t expect intimacy, sacredness, or anything beyond.

Since the awakening I got from the breakdown of my marriage, I have spent every hour of my life, almost 20 years, exploring love, relationships, and sacred truths. I’ve found therapies that condone victimhood, meditations that build personal religions, yoga classes led by gurus who can’t love, I’ve found “happily married” plenary speakers who are internationally famous for their spiritual and self-help teachings, whose sex lives say as a Hollywood movie script. It’s not easy being you, and the teachings you’ll get are mostly corrupted by economics. People pay to hear what they want to hear, not what they need.

Five years of work, 20 years of research, 30 years of lies and self-deception in the relationship. Due to my own ignorance and lack of a real awareness of what a Sacred Relationship implies, I have hurt many people, among which is myself and if taking some notes, reflecting on some learnings I can help someone else does not cause what caused, then my life will have achieved a great purpose.

If you want to read this book, please link to http://www.sacredlovethebook.com

With Spirit and love,