Unguarding Your Deepest Heart

From Bluetruth

Unguarding Our Hearts

Yesterday I made a mistake and said something stupid, hurting her emotionally. I apologized and tried to talk with her, but it made no difference. Now, as we lay in bed together, her body is unmoving. Her face is frozen, etched with tension, anger, and hurt.

I gently touch her shoulder with my hand. No response. I lightly massage her shoulder and arm, giving her as much love as I can. She begins to relax and breathe deeper. I continue touching her, caressing her, feeling her emotions and responses. Eventually, after a long while, she reaches over toward me, smiling, and pulls me closer.

I surprise her and roll on top of her, pinning her beneath me. For a moment, she closes down again, as if my actions have violated the residue of her mood. But I’m not forcing anything. My belly is relaxed and soft against hers. My breath is open and full. I look into her eyes with love.

She begins to open more. Her tension releases as tears roll down her face. Her chest and belly relax. I sink more deeply into her. She holds me tightly against her body. I feel into her, as if my heart were sonar sensing into the deep ocean of her being. Our breathing becomes one.

Her openness is so inviting, so pure, so attractive. I yield more fully into her. Now, I can feel a subtle tension around my heart. I am still trying to “fix” her, rather than simply communing with her. So, I stop trying to fix her or myself, realizing that even this well-meaning intent obstructs our loving.

Her heart becomes completely unguarded and mine lets go of all effort. There is no me to help, no her to save. Our hearts unguarded, all effort wide open, we are gone in the large undoing of love.

Love Prevails

Over time, learn to have sex with a completely unprotected and vulnerable heart. But to start with, your heart may be closed. So, you can use sexual practice as a means for opening and unguarding your heart.

There are two forms of heart closure. One is long-term closure. If for years you or your partner have lived with a closed and protected heart, it may take many months of practice to undo the fear and tension that have become stored in your body.

The other form of closure is short-term acute resistance. Something happens—for instance, your partner hurts you—and you close down. You don’t want to be hurt any more. You are in no mood to give love. So, you guard your heart to protect yourself and withhold your love to hurt your partner back.

Both of these forms of closure, long-term and short-term, can be undone in sexual practice. You can actually use sex to de-ice the frozen heart. Use the heat of sex to melt the rigid protection of fear. Use the love of sex to invite your partner into yielding his or her separative position. Use the humor of sex to bring laughter into every wounded pore.

In this process, all sorts of emotions may be released. As the heart is unguarded, the stress that was used to form its barricade is released in emotional expressions such as rage, laughter, tears, babytalk, or striking out. That’s entirely as it should be. Take whatever precautions you need to in order to render the situation physically safe, but expect long-suppressed emotions to boil off as the guardedness melts. Even if both of you are emotionally hurt to the core, you can, eventually, apply this practice of lovingly unguarding your heart.

The alternative is to continue protecting yourself by closing down and separating from your partner. Sometimes this is a necessary gesture. You may not be ready to open. You may feel you will lose yourself if you open to your partner.

If you are weak in the moment, you will lose yourself into your partner’s needs. If you are playing it safe, you will protect yourself and hold onto yourself, never opening completely to either hurt or love. However, you can grow beyond weakness and the need for safety by practicing to give yourself fully, opening without limit, even while suffering whatever hurt is inflicted on your open heart. Your persistence in openness can be felt by others, including your lover. Through your practice of openness, you demonstrate and exemplify the naked strength of love.

You might feel tortured by your partner’s unlove. You might be weeping in pain as your partner continues to knife your heart with words of unlove. But if you can remain open, willing to suffer in the openness of love, then your partner can feel your strength. Because love is indestructible, you don’t need to protect yourself. Your feeling heart can be hurt, dreadfully so, but the profound depth of love always prevails. All hurt is eventually consumed in love.

Over time, this demonstration of love begins to transform the patterns of your intimacy. Indeed, such a demonstration reaches out and begins to transform the world.

An unguarded heart can be hurt, but not destroyed. It is the “you” of protection that is destroyed, as it must be, sooner or later. Eventually, you will have to let go of all holding on to this protection, even if only at the moment of physical death.

But if you let go now and unguard your heart deeply and regularly, your life becomes an ongoing force of love and blessing. The sexual occasion is a powerful setting in which to practice unguarding your heart.

Unguard your heart, over and over, even when you don’t want to—especially when you don’t want to. Continue practicing many short moments of total surrender. Eventually, the habit of guarding wears thin, and your heart is courageously exposed to the world, shining with great brightness and demonstrating a perpetual willingness to suffer others’ oblivious rancor without closing.

Love prevails. But it takes practice.

For Him

Your Mission Comes Before Your Intimacy

It’s not a nice thing to consider. Certainly it isn’t a politically correct thing to say. But it seems apparent: for most men, their “purpose” comes before their intimacy. Some men’s purpose is financial: work first, love second. Some men’s purpose is artistic: painting first, relationship second. Some men’s purpose is political: fight for the country first, spend time with the family second. Some men’s purpose is spiritual: meditate first, make love second.

As described in The Way of the Superior Man*, if you have a masculine sexual essence, then you will prioritize the search for freedom rather than for love. This search for freedom is your main purpose, your “mission.” Whether the freedom you seek is financial, artistic, political, or spiritual, this mission is the guiding urgency of your life.

Ultimately, the freedom you seek through your mission is the free openness of consciousness, but most men only approximate this sense of freedom through financial victories or social power. Nevertheless, if you are a man with a masculine essence, then freedom—expressed through devotion to your purpose—is your ultimate concern. Your intimate relationship comes second.

She Wants the Fruits of Your Freedom

Your woman wants to feel your freedom expressed in relationship with her. While you are both still settling for less than the freedom of your fullest consciousness, she will settle for stepped-down, monetary versions of freedom: shopping sprees, a nice house, going out to good restaurants, beautiful jewelry, wonderful vacations.

When she grows so that material freedom is no longer enough, she’ll start demanding your emotional freedom, the fullness of your attention and affection: “Why are you always thinking about your work? Why don’t you spend more time with me? Are you listening to me? You don’t love me like you used to.”
Because your orientation is toward your mission or purpose in life, your woman’s complaints probably frustrate you. You know she is right, but you don’t really want to do anything about it. You actually do want to deepen your love with her, but you’d rather spend the time making money, building your business, creating your art, doing your spiritual practice, or, when you need to rest, watching TV or reading. It’s difficult to deepen your love with her. As long as you are getting enough sex and things are fairly comfortable, why stir the water? There’s plenty of mud at the bottom, and it seems like it’s going to take a long time to clear it up.

Your woman may be the most important person in your life. You may truly love her. But no matter how much you love your woman, your attention is mostly occupied by concerns about your work, your art, your mission, your spiritual quest, your money—not to mention moments of distraction by other women throughout the day. A man can love a woman with all his heart and soul, and still, if he has a masculine sexual essence, he lives for the sake of his mission.

Your Dissatisfaction Is Inevitable

Sooner or later, every man becomes dissatisfied with the results of their mission. Most men don’t even bother to discover their true calling, their deepest gifts. They spend their lives going through the motions hoping that some day things will be different. As they get older, they stop even hoping. They settle for whatever success their mission has afforded them. They learn to live with whatever they have accomplished, justifying their choices one way or another. “At least I’m better off than a lot of people. Actually, I’ve had a pretty good life. I’ve contributed quite a bit to the world.” All the while, they feel a deep sense of unfinished business, as if life has passed them by and they didn’t quite do what they were supposed to do. They never discovered their deepest purpose, the mission that would culminate their life.

Eventually, when you have lived long enough to realize that what you do or have in life never completely fulfills you, your purpose becomes deeper and more direct: How do I live each moment so that I am totally free, at ease, in touch with my deepest purpose, and expressing my deepest gifts? How do I discover who I really am and live fearlessly based on this knowledge? What is the meaning of my life, and how do I live it? What is death, and how can I prepare myself for it?

Your Woman’s Desires Can Prepare You for Death

It is extremely valuable to explore the answers to life’s deepest questions in the midst of intimate relationship. You can face your strongest fears and find your deepest truths right there, in the place so easy for most men to avoid, the swamp of sex and emotion. Instead of being satisfied with the challenges of financial success, sports, and saving the world, you can also turn to face your most dreaded enemy: your fear of death. Smaller versions of this great fear are reflected to you every day as you face the little deaths of emotional exposure, sexual failure, and the hurt your woman causes you by knowing your hidden weaknesses and secret self-doubts.

Your woman knows your weak spots that you hide from others. She knows your real reasons for doing what you do in the world, and they ain’t always so pretty. Often, your actions in the world are based upon your hidden fears. You do “great works” because you otherwise fear your unworthiness. You struggle to build a monument to your existence, something that will outlast your mortal fling. Your woman’s demands, spoken and implied, can challenge your anxious obsession and help liberate your deepest gifts from the fear that keeps your life short of complete.

If she is a good woman, she won’t settle for your bullshit. You can’t trick her for very long with empty promises and superficial accomplishments. She wants your depth as well as your success. Emotionally and sexually, she wants to feel your deepest gifts and full heart-presence—which are exactly what you need to give to the world, if you are to feel complete at death.

To unguard yourself completely—including emotionally and sexually—is to offer your deepest truth and give your deepest love, to your woman and the world. They will both hurt you in the process, no doubt. They will test you and challenge you. Lesser men will just plain quit at a certain point, only giving so much of themselves. When they die they will feel incomplete. A superior man learns to give of himself so fully that every moment is a culmination of his life. In this sense, every day is a “good day to die.”

True Completion Is the Freedom of Deep Openness

Failure and success come in cycles, and any experienced lover, businessman, artist, or spiritual practitioner knows this. Behind these cycles is your depth of being from which arises your true calling, your real gifts. Practice relaxing into and as this depth of being, over and over. When your woman criticizes you, relax as your deep being. When you are on the verge of making a lot of money, relax as your deep being. When your business projects fall apart, relax as your deep being.

Always practice relaxing as your deep being regardless of your situation. Practice relaxing your body so you can breathe from your deep belly rather than your upper chest. Practice relaxing your mind so you can act spontaneously from your gut. Practice relaxing your attention as open awareness. Unguard your heart during sex, again and again, so that your deepest being is fully exposed to your woman, and so you can receive your woman’s love deep into your heart. Learn to live as this freedom of openness, giving your deepest gifts to your woman and the world, and you will die complete.

For Her
Does He Sweep You Off Your Feet?

Unfortunately, most men are sexual dorks. The height of sexual expertise in many men’s minds is being able to give a woman multiple orgasms through oral sex. There’s nothing wrong with multiple orgasms or oral sex. But for most women, in addition to physical pleasure, sex is a doorway to profound emotional fulfillment and spiritual surrender—and most men just don’t know how to open this door completely.

The way somebody dances can tell you a lot about how they make love. The ease with which they move their hips, their capacity to express musical rhythm from toes to nose, their connectedness or obliviousness to their dance partner, all reveal aspects of their sexual capacity.

A woman who is married to a man who can’t dance often longs for a partner who could glide her across the dance floor. This may reveal more than her predilections about dance; often it shows what she lacks in bed. If a man can dance well, it means he can enjoy his body, feel the energy of the music, and match his partner’s rhythm. If he is a really good dancer, it means he could move her beyond what she might do on her own. Most women are turned on by a man who can take them to new places, not only on the dance floor but also in bed and throughout life.

However, there is a big difference between energy and consciousness: a man could be a great dancer—with all the right moves—and yet not be very deep in his daily life. That is, a man could be good at moving energy but not be very conscious; he might be able to take you to new places of physical pleasure, but not to greater spiritual depths and emotional fullness.

A Man’s Depth Versus His Style

The deeper or more conscious a man is, the more trustable he is. You can feel his commitment to truth. You can trust what he says. His life is aligned by a profound sense of purpose that you can count on. Yet he may still be a lousy dancer.

A good dancer may be able to sweep you off your feet physically, but in day-to-day life he may appall you. He may lack a sense of purpose, flit from one woman to another without commitment, and orient his life around having fun, disregarding the daily cultivation of depth and meaning. Yet his smooth moves might trick you into lust.

Ideally, a man embodies both depth of consciousness and physical grace. He is guided by true purpose and is also able to move spontaneously with energy. He is a man of integrity and style. But, if you have to make a choice, a deep man is a much better intimate partner in the long run than a superficial fancy dancer, a Mr. Suave.

If you happen to be with a good man who can’t dance—who is, therefore, probably somewhat of a dork in bed—don’t despair. He can practice dancing with you in bed or on the dance floor. It is much more likely that a deep man will become better at dancing than a superficial man will develop depth. But even if your man remains a clunky lover, you can continue to open.

Allow love to enter your body with or without your man’s expertise. This is a crucial practice. You are built to grow spiritually by receiving and opening to the force of love-consciousness in your body, and you don’t need a lover to do so.

Why Teachers and Horses Can Be Erotic

You have probably felt swept off your feet or opened by a force of conscious presence at one time or another in your life. Perhaps you felt swooned in the erotic intensity of a teacher or professor. Perhaps you felt bloomed by a therapist’s empathy and understanding. Even the directional power of a horse between your legs could be more than merely sensual. The reason women often develop sexual feelings with their teachers, therapists, and even strong animals is that they feel taken, entered, flowered, or swept away by masculine consciousness and directionality.

Three Stages of Your Sexual Growth

As a woman, you may find yourself growing through three stages in relationship to the masculine force of direction and penetrative consciousness. First, you feel this force as something outside of you, something which is more powerful than you. You look to an other as your savior, whether he is a husband, therapist, teacher, or close friend. You may find yourself depending on his guidance, support, and knowledge, afraid to lose it, worried that he might leave you for another woman he finds more attractive. You may find yourself playing the helpless victim to his ways, either grateful for his wisdom or tolerating his abuse—or both.

Eventually, you may grow into the second stage, where you “come into your own.” That is, you discover and cultivate your own masculine directionality. You may start a new career or pursue higher education. You learn to make your own decisions, independently of a man or other outside influence. You refuse to be a victim—but you may also miss the pleasure of opening to a man’s loving presence. You become more whole and autonomous as a person, but as a side effect of guarding yourself, you may also feel less fulfilled emotionally and sexually.

The third stage begins when you know that you don’t depend on a man, that you can make your own decisions and guide your own life, and yet you are tired of keeping up your guard; you want to relax in your feminine body and emotions. You want to stop protecting your heart. You want to swoon in the bliss of utter surrender, spiritually, emotionally, and sexually.

At this stage, you want to maintain the freedoms and capacities you’ve developed, but you also long to be entered and opened by massive masculine love. You want to be ravished, swept off your feet, by a trustable man, sexually and emotionally, as a consort, an equal, a partner—not as a victim. Eventually, as you grow, you may realize that you can be ravished by masculine force, bloomed physically and emotionally by a tangible invasion of love, whether or not you have a lover.

Welcoming the Force of Ravishment

When you want feminine energy you go to nature. Feminine energy is the force of life. You can be rejuvenated by feminine energy in the ocean, the woods, your garden, or your bath—anywhere you connect with untamed life force, with sensual pleasure, with enlivening radiance and bodily relaxation. On the other hand, masculine force makes you feel entered, blossomed, swooned, or guided into blissful surrender—with a therapist, teacher, lover, horse, career, suave dancer, or even by the thrilling presence of your favorite movie star.

In the first stage, you seek this masculine force in a man on whom you could depend. In the second stage, you seek to depend on yourself for this masculine force. In the third stage, you don’t depend on others or yourself: you practice opening directly and being permeable to the ever-present force of divine masculine consciousness itself.

You can practice this while meditating, praying, dancing, or even while sitting right where you are, reading. Relax your body as much as possible. Relax your lower body, your feet, calves, thighs, anus, and vagina. Relax your middle body, your belly and chest. Relax you face, especially your eyes, tongue, mouth, and throat. Remember a time when you felt pleasurably invaded by masculine force, perhaps while you were making love with a deeply trusted man. Or maybe you felt ravished and opened while receiving bodywork or therapy, or in the arms of a great dancer. Some women have been swooned while looking into a powerful person’s eyes. In these kinds of situations, you have a sense of being ravished by a force of consciousness that opens you deeper and swells you in fullness.

It may feel like a force descending upon you, filling your throat and opening your heart, pressing you down and open, down and open. Or, you may feel it moving up between your legs, filling your womb with warmth and fullness, as your body surrenders in waves of ecstasy. This force of consciousness may pervade you in many ways, all of which involve your trust, relaxation, and capacity to open your heart and yield your body in bliss. Even if your man is just beginning to grow in his sexual capacity, you can still practice to intentionally open and receive masculine force.

Preparing Yourself for Divine Bliss

Opening to this force of bliss is not always a pleasant experience at first. If you were sexually abused in the past, you will naturally resist trusting masculine sexual penetration—by a man or by divine consciousness itself. If your body is chronically tense—perhaps you have spent two years concentrating on a business project with very little time spent dancing, making love, or exercising—then you will feel pain as the force of bliss invades and opens up your tight spots. Masculine force is like a deep tissue massage: it hurts if you are closed, and it deepens your ecstasy as you open.

Men who are good at moving with energy but are not very deep are more like a gentle sensual massage. They will give you pleasure but won’t be able to open your closed places, physically and emotionally. They will want to have fun rather than go through the pain of opening with you.

Even if your man is a sexual klutz, he is a good partner if he is willing to stay with you through your pain and continue to practice deepening love through difficult times. A good sexual partner may not be as good a dancer as you, but he is willing to learn, remaining fully present while you practice opening to receive the blissful invasion of consciousness in your body. You don’t need a man to do this. You could do it alone. But a trustable man who is learning to grow in love with you can make it a lot easier.

Every day, whether you are alone lying in the grass or in bed making love with your man, practice allowing yourself to be “taken” by the deepest, most loving masculine force you can imagine. As a young girl, you may have fantasized about unicorns and horses. As an adolescent you probably dreamed of the high-school quarterback or the motorcycle badboy. In your early adulthood, you may have pined for a genius type, a millionaire, or a therapist/teacher who could save you and take you to a new place of understanding and happiness. As a grown woman, you have probably sought for a lover whose strength and integrity you could depend on and trust—and who would also ravish you into bliss.

Now, it may be time to practice opening directly—to be lived by and as the love-force you hoped for in previous forms. Your exquisite permeability to your lover’s penetration is but an innuendo of your divine permeability: your openness to, ravishment by, and oneness with the force of unbounded love.