Life tips Archives - Living Love | Relationship Workshops & Coaching for Intimacy, Connection & Growth

The 3 A’s of great relationships

Cynthia Connop — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 20:19:49 +0000

The 3A’s of great relationships – Attraction, Alignment and Authenticity are the three essential ingredients for great relationships, friendships and collaborations. Remove one of these ingredients and it just doesn’t quite work.

An energetic pull that draws you together

1. Attraction is central to all our relationships. There is sexual attraction with our intimate partners, the spark of masculine and feminine opposites. In dating we simply want to see someone again. In friendships we like someone, we are drawn to them. At work, we have colleagues we prefer to be with, teams we want to be part of, a culture or creativity that attract us. Here we thrive. Even our pets are likable, lovable or just quirkily attractive to us.

Trying to be in an intimate relationship without attraction is a forced affair. It is a struggle that never fully goes away. There may be a huge amount of love, but if attraction is absent, it devolves more into companionship.

And I’m not just talking about physical attraction, but an energetic pull that draws you together, often in spite of physical preferences. ‘He’s not my usual type but I just want to be around him…’

Attraction in intimacy will ebb and flow over time, but how much depends on your commitment to keeping passion and love alive. As one of the 3 Traits of great relationships it is important!

Sharing core values and dreams

2. Alignment is also a major key to great relationships. If we are not sharing core values and dreams it is difficult to sustain an attraction. For example, if you are a man in your early forties and you really want to have a family, you may be extremely attracted to your girlfriend, but if she does not want children it’s not going to work. Or if you need monogamy and your partner needs an open relationship, your opposing desires for safety and freedom are not aligned.

You are pulling in opposite directions.

Or if your dream is to live and work in a cosmopolitan city, and your partner is miserable unless they are in the bush, the attraction will likely lessen under the strain of the non-alignment. Compromises can be made, but it’s not easy when they are big ones. But the plus is that you can discover new things through your partner.

In a work team, it is often more invigorating to have different points of view. But only when you are all aligned in service to a common goal or project.

Friendships can drift apart when not bound by a common interest, location, political leanings, shared sports, life-styles. Sometimes though, the heart alignment is stronger than these factors and the friendship endures all kinds of changes.

In intimate relationships an alignment of your sexual flavours and preferences makes it easier to flow together in love making. If one partner is very light and romantic and the other is more kinky and darker this can be fearful for one and boring for the other.

When we are authentic others can trust us

3. Authenticity creates trust, an essential for all good and strong relationships, intimate or otherwise. Being real and essentially yourself is being authentic. When we are authentic others can trust us because we do not have secrets or hidden motives. We are not projecting false identities over our true essence, or manipulating to get love and attention. We are vulnerable in the best kind of way.

If we commit to another from our authentic selves we will naturally keep our commitments and follow through. This builds the trust, which creates a container for attraction and love to grow and flourish. Authenticity is not about forcing our ‘truth’ onto another or being ‘honest’ in a way that hurts others unnecessarily. It is being true to ourselves and living love to others.

Authenticity is exciting, an aphrodisiac. It can bring back lost attraction or make it very clear if its not going to work.

If you are not able to be your authentic self in a relationship that is not healthy and needs to change.

Small amounts of awareness can go a long way

And there is a 4th A, the overarching aspect of Awareness. Connecting to lightness, humour, sacredness and ease. Small amounts of awareness can go a long way in our human stumbling towards love. No one is perfect, much less ourselves.

How are you doing with the 3 Traits of great relationships?

Are you showing and relishing your own attractiveness, or hiding it away? Are you trying to be attractive on the outside as a compensation to feeling not so attractive inside? Are you trusting and following your true attractions and desires in all your relationships? If not, why not?

Are you in acting in alignment with your own values and dreams? Do you recognise that getting involved with someone without enough alignment will lead to suffering? What will you compromise to be loved? Why?

Is authenticity something you welcome or fear? Are you a trustable person to be with because you are in touch with yourself and willing to risk being authentic with others? Do you let love in by being vulnerable? If not, are you working on it?

……And there is a quiet 4th A – Awareness – we can all keep evolving and doing our own work to increase our awareness in growth and consciousness. This positively impacts all our relationships.

Where coaching comes in

If you recognised a gap in one of these – attraction that’s faded, misalignment that’s grown, or authenticity that feels hard to access – that’s usually where coaching starts. Not because something’s necessarily broken, but because these are the things worth paying attention to, especially as life and relationships change. And this isn’t only for repair, plenty of people I work with are doing well and simply want to deepen what they have, or take their intimacy somewhere new.

If that’s you right now – whether you’re working through something or reaching for more – get in touch and let’s talk about what’s going on. Just fill in the contact form below and I’ll get back to you for a free chat. No need to know exactly what you need yet.

Appreciating you with love and trust.

Cynthia

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The Boat and the Ocean: Why Menopause Isn’t Just Happening to Her

Cynthia Connop — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 06:52:13 +0000

As a relationship coach, I work with couples and singles. Each has their own unique challenges and goals. But I also see struggles and patterns that are common to many people. And one I want to share with you here is what often happens inside a relationship during menopause and midlife.

There’s a lot written about how menopause affects women. That’s good, but what’s often neglected is the fact that these changes have a dramatic effect on her partner too.

It’s a confusing time for both of them – just differently.

She’s going through hormonal shifts that can make her own body feel like a stranger. He isn’t going through those changes himself, but he’s living at the effect of them. Perhaps the partner who was once a good sleeper, a high achiever, a passionate lover now has fatigue, insomnia, hot flushes, swinging moods and low libido. She’d rather read a book than make love. Physically, among other changes, the drop in oestrogen during menopause can create vaginal dryness and thinning, and sex that used to be pleasurable can become painful. Pleasure is hard to feel when pain is present.

Meanwhile he’s dealing with his own hormonal changes as testosterone reduces. He’s aging, and his own questions about vitality and performance are surfacing at exactly the same time. This isn’t one-sided.

I often see this: for fear of getting it wrong, he goes quiet. Stops initiating. She reads that as him losing interest, when it’s often the opposite.

Two people, living together, physically and emotionally withdrawn, still loving each other, but leading separate lives. She feels pressured. He feels rejected.

The Boat and the Ocean

Here’s an image I come back to again and again with the people I work with:

The feminine essence is like the ocean – vast, flowing, capable of being both gentle and stormy. During menopause, it’s more likely to be storms and hurricanes, or flat and becalmed. He, meanwhile, can feel like he’s in a little boat being tossed around by waves he didn’t create and doesn’t fully understand. And in many ways, he is.

What’s Hard to Hear

One thing I see that’s hard for a man to hear: she doesn’t want intimacy the way they used to do it. She may have been tolerating sex before, in ways she’s no longer willing to. Or she just doesn’t want it that way anymore. Menopause has a way of stripping off the veils of niceness and accommodation from the female psyche, and he may have no idea what’s hit him.

Add in the other pressures that tend to land at the same time – money, teenage kids, aging parents, career – and you’ve got two nervous systems under real stress, at the exact moment intimacy requires softness and safety.

Some couples don’t make it through this stretch intact. But many do. And I’ve watched couples come out the other side thriving, feeling closer and more connected, and with a better sex life than before.

What Couples Who Thrive Do Differently

They seek out real information and support – medical, allied health, coaching, groups – rather than bumbling around alone. There’s genuine help available on the physical side; localised oestrogen treatment, for instance, is worth raising with your GP if vaginal discomfort is part of the picture.

They also are open to learning a different way of making love – a slower, more tantric approach, sometimes called sacred sexuality or slow sex. Instead of chasing the peak of climax, which spikes and then drops away, it’s about a sustained connection where arousal builds slowly and flows through both the peaks and the valleys.

His body is also changing, in a way that can actually help here. It typically takes longer for him to reach climax as he ages, or he may have erectile issues – both of which mean more room for a couple to explore this new territory unhurried. And if penetrative sex is problematic, practices that don’t involve penetration at all are worth exploring too – see more at The Path to Sacred Sex. Slow, soothing touch, like massage, is often a gentler way in. It doesn’t need to be expert, or lead anywhere, for it to count.

The couples who thrive also learn to talk about what’s changing, and what each of them is feeling. They stay open to the process of adjustment – saying goodbye to how things were, and orienting to what’s here now. That can bring grief, anger, confusion. A real mix of what letting go feels like.

If the masculine partner can bring devotion, and informed, steady support, he becomes an anchor for her rather than another wave. She’s also being buffeted about by the waves of hormonal change she’s going through, and for many women it’s a rough ride until they work out how to be with it, and find what their body needs. She needs someone who encourages without pressuring.

Where This Can Go

Men tell me they miss what things used to be like, and wonder whether their partner will ever feel like herself again. Honestly, probably not exactly. Though things do settle post-menopause, for some women that can take years. It won’t be the same. But it can be better, deeper, richer.

His experience is just as valid as hers and needs its own space to be heard. No one is doing this on purpose to hurt the other; it’s a natural transition that effects most couples. Approached as a team, as beloveds figuring out what’s possible together, rather than focusing on what’s been lost – then menopause and midlife can bear real fruit.

I’ve written before about my own experience of sexual maturity (and more) in The True Essence of Sexual Maturity – and spoke about intimacy through menopause on The Menopause Revolution podcast.

If this is where you and your partner are right now – or you’re navigating a different struggle in your relationship – you’re not the only ones, and you don’t have to find your way through it alone. If you’d like support navigating this together, I work with couples through 1:1 and couples coaching – you can find out more here.

Appreciating you with love and trust,

Cynthia

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The Elastic Band Effect (Why You Keep Snapping Back)

Cynthia Connop — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 02:12:11 +0000

Over many years I have personally attended multiple growth workshops and trainings, made trips to ashrams in India, and done heaps of individual and couples therapy.

Like many people attending I would usually have an amazing time of connection, growth and insights. Mind-blowing, awesome, deep. Then came the next step where I’m going back into daily life and the demands of work, relationship, parenting.

I noticed a disturbing phenomena that would sometimes happen – I’d slide back into old ways. Let’s call it the Elastic Band Effect.

You know how when you pull out an elastic band it stretches, and when you let go, it snaps back to its original shape?

Having a transformational experience is like that. Our ego’s sense of self and safety is like an elastic band that is widening and stretching. We have new adventures, new loves, even a new sense of ourselves. We may feel joyful, blissful, inspired, reborn. A better world awaits us.

And then we go back into our life and our old habits and patterns reemerge. And our inner elastic band that has been stretched, springs back, slowly or quickly. Why? Because this is our familiar, comfortable default zone in our psyche. We return to this sense of ourselves, that isn’t really safe but feels like it is.

For example, we have wonderful intimacy with a partner and feel amazing love and connection and then it’s not long until we are arguing over money or housework yet again. The dance of merging and pulling apart.

Or you had a great first date that brought hopes of romance, and then it falls flat and we tighten up our protection again. It’s unconsciously safer than risking love.

What happened to the openness, the shifts, the insights you may wonder? ‘Were they real’, you ask yourself? Or is there something wrong with me?

Yes, they are real, and they give you an authentic sense of what is possible, what expansion feels like. And don’t worry – it’s normal to contract a little when you leave the intensity of a group, or the beauty of an intimate connection. It’s the ebb and flow of openness and contracting.

The good thing is that when you stretch the elastic band enough, it never goes back as tight. Even if it seems to, the ground has changed. And if we keep practicing more opening and loving and bringing our presence, the contraction becomes less each time you do that.

You stay open, the transformations deepen and become more stable. This is the value of ongoing work and practice. To move from a temporary state to a natural permanent trait. A new baseline is established whether solo or in a partnership.

Not everyone experiences the Elastic Band Effect after doing workshops, intensive events or having intimate connections. But if you do, it’s helpful to understand this is normal. It is a challenge to grow and learn more, or something to show you where you need to focus next. To build on the opening and stabilise the learnings you had.

In my teaching I favour learning by doing as that brings real change to our daily lives.

What helps if you snap back?

Develop a daily practice. If you have done a workshop, intensive or session, it’s good to use the tools that are given there.
Somatic and embodied practices like yoga, dance, martial arts are helpful. Also meditation, breath work, spiritual practices.
Making and nurturing new connections with people that encourage and reflect your transformation. And don’t take on the reactions from those who don’t.
Many of my workshop participants choose to follow up with individual or couples coaching to integrate their growth and take the next steps.

I invite you to pick any one thing that works for you and do it. The smallest movement in the right direction creates momentum.

A heads up – I love assisting people with this stage. It’s a very creative time and ripe for personal unfolding. Reach out if you would like some coaching and support.

Love

Cynthia

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Loving and Connecting in the Modern World

Cynthia Connop — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 23:06:21 +0000

Most of us want to feel deeply loved, connected, and passionately alive. To feel secure in our relationships and free in our expression. To have an erotic life that feels playful and vibrant. We yearn for intimacy that feels safe, meaningful and exciting.

But how do we create this in a world that delivers crisis after crisis through the phones in our hands? Anxiety rises, disconnection increases, and security and playfulness feel far away.

The rapid pace of change in modern life and the dominance of digital communication have reshaped how we relate. Texts replace conversations. Screens steal presence. We are overstimulated but under nourished. Some say it’s even “breaking our brains” and fuelling today’s loneliness epidemic.

But we are not powerless.

We can still choose to move toward healing, loving, and connecting more deeply – whether we’re single or partnered. Good relationships remain our truest form of security and are worth our effort.

For centuries, people have prayed, meditated, and practiced to merge with the divine. Today, many of us seek that same sacred union through soulful connections with each other – through deep relating, honest intimacy, and sacred lovemaking.

We are all ‘flawsome’ beings — perfectly imperfect — and our messiness is part of what makes us human. When we connect authentically, we experience a divine wholeness and something in us awakens.

The smallest shift can lead to profound change. Start small, finish big.

6 Tools to Support a Life of Love, Intimacy and Connection:

1. Put Away Your Phone: Your attention is a gift. Whether alone or with someone, look up, look around. Presence is where connection begins. When you are meeting another person, turn your phone off – make the connection with them (and yourself) your top priority. Break the inbuilt addiction of our screens. In a sacred lovemaking space there is no room for pings and beeps that break the timelessness of love.

2. Be Together — Offline: Despite two decades of online matching and meeting, we are more isolated than ever. Greater togetherness happens in shared spaces. Breathe the same air. Touch, laughter, eye contact — these are sacred. Even talking on the phone is better than texting, which lacks nuance and warmth. Old fashioned maybe but savvy.

3. Move Your Body Every Day: Walk, stretch, dance, swim, breathe deeply – anything you can do to feel yourself more alive and grounded. Embodiment makes for a felt life, it makes intimacy exciting and sensual. In tune with our own bodies, we can sense, feel and merge with the other. Life is precious and we live through it in one precious body.

4. Open Up: True connection asks for courage and needs our vulnerability. When we reveal our tender selves, this invites deeper intimacy and trust. If we have been hurt in the past or criticised this can be scary but unless others can really see you, the intimacy stays shallow. Where it feels hard is where the rewards lie. Pick people you trust and take a risk.

5. Don’t Judge or Criticise: You don’t need to be perfect to be loved. And neither does the other. Authenticity, not perfection, creates meaningful connection – and brings greater love and intimacy. Each of us is stumbling towards love and learning along the way. We need space and freedom from judgement and criticism to progress and open up. Masculine and feminine are every different modes – seek to understand why he/she behaves the way they do.

6. Play: Don’t get stuck only in the hard work of relationships. Include joy, laughter, adventure, and sensuality in your relationships. Play heals and renews love and intimacy. And surprisingly makes it much easier to solve serious problems. Talk about the good times are see the energy shift.

These tools are the beginning of a more intimate, awakened life. And the sustaining of it too. I say it often, try something new and use these tools, and see how different your connections become.

I explore and deepen these practices in my work with couples and singles – in The Direct Path to Love & Intimacy Sessions and the Living Love in-person workshops.

With love
Cynthia

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The Big Love Myth

Cynthia Connop — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 09:59:05 +0000

I hear it a lot – if your relationship isn’t working or you have had a painful break-up, or you are unhappily single, it is because of the big love myth

“You have to love yourself first before anyone else will.”

It has almost become a cliche, that self-love is the cure all. What comes to mind is images of patting oneself on the back, a deluge of pamper products, affirmations on the fridge, expensive wellness retreats, designer handbags and mid-life motorbikes.

More seriously, the thinking goes that negative experiences in relationships, or a lack of one, means that you don’t value or love yourself enough. That you need an upgrade. Implying that if you really loved yourself then life would reflect that, your partner will magically change their ways, or the universe will drop the perfect one into your lap.

And this idea is often reinforced by friends and family who want to help you avoid suffering. They can see that you don’t have good boundaries, or choose partners badly, or tolerate bad behaviour. They see you get attached very quickly over and over again without checking if the other person is meeting you there, and then being emotionally devastated. At a loss for what else to say they tell you to learn how to love yourself more. Don’t work on your relationship, work on yourself. Or even, don’t be in relationship until you are happy in yourself. As one woman said to me, “How do I even do that and why do I have to accept being alone when they aren’t?”

This love myth does have some truth in it. The ability to self-regulate big emotions and negative thoughts is helpful. Leaning into one’s strengths and gifts is attractive. And the more we honour our own vulnerability and needs, the more we have the confidence to voice what is not ok for us, leave a toxic relationship or ask for better.

However, to me it is a limiting myth and often used as a protection from hurt or looking at our own behaviour to others. And it is usually covering over another belief “I am not ok, there is something deeply wrong with me.” This type of belief or mental construct is usually formed in early childhood and then you find yourself later in life getting busy ‘fixing’ yourself, trying to love yourself more, in order to have love.

Let’s pop that whole belief and imagine that you don’t have to fix yourself. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with you. You are not a broken kitchen appliance. However, you can work on your behaviours, self-expression, blocks and negative self-talk. You can choose to develop your strengths and gifts; you can choose love over fear. The fact that we can improve does not mean we are broken. A musician improves, a cook improves, a writer improves (hopefully :)).

Look around you at the people who are in loving relationships, warts and all. Do they love themselves more than most people? ‘No’ is generally the answer. They are growing in love because they are in a loving relationship and working on the areas of unlove within their relationship. They didn’t believe they had to be perfect or fix themselves or love themselves more before they entered relationship. In fact, they often see relationship as a way to grow in self-love.

Single people often look at inappropriate people they are attracting and say “I must not be ready; I don’t love myself enough” or “I only meet psychos and narcissists so there is no point in dating. I’m going to work on myself first before I love anyone else.” And the impenetrable “It’s my karma, I am meant to be alone.”

I work with singles and couples to help them see underlying patterns that are playing out painfully in relationships. To loosen the contractions of mind and body is like unkinking a hose so water can flow more freely. So it is in relating, dissolving the blocks allows more energy and love to flow. Psychological wounds and traumas can and do affect our ability to love and working through them with the right support is good work to do.

In a spiritual sense this love myth turns our attention inward and focused on me, myself and I. Not a bad thing for a period when needed, but it’s not an end game. Better to focus on acting towards others with more love, bringing yourself more fully into life. Recognise that you are love itself, an evolving human being, not an imperfect, fixable thing.

Both masculine and feminine can subscribe to this love myth. I find it is still often the feminine essence that tends to believe something is innately ‘wrong’ with her. While traditionally the masculine tends to want to fix and upgrade the externals of his life, career, house, car, to be more worthy to attract a beloved or keep his current one happy.

Truly loving oneself is a life-long up and down process of varied experiences and relationships, of risking self-expression and gaining awareness. It’s a hard-won authenticity and trust in one’s own values, gifts and integrity. Challenges face us at every corner. There are times alone and times in partnership, we can embrace both.

Nothing is gained by deciding to wait to love. But yes do your own work, so you are clearer and more open, while allowing life and the other to enter you.

Love

Cynthia

“Deep, real work. Living Love helped me become a better person. Realising my true nature – Love.” Vin, finance

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5 Ways to more Love and Awareness

Cynthia Connop — Fri, 12 Aug 2022 07:14:18 +0000

When we feel caught up in the day to day, or lost in our fears and thoughts, we can easily forget that Love and Awareness are available now and just a heartbeat away! And while I know it can be hard to make a shift, I also know that just a taste can be highly impactful and lead to an exciting opening.

These 5 Ways to create more Love and Awareness today are playful methods to try out, and you can do them solo. You can do all 5 or pick one or two.

Today I woke up feeling rather ordinary and used No. 3. and it worked so well!

Each one is designed as a remedy for a particular form of closure, but they all work to create more Love and Awareness generally.
………………………
1. Feeling unappreciated or unseen? Praise at least three people today for who they are, or something they do. Ideally in person but if that is not possible do it online or by phone. Friends, family or strangers is ok. For example “I honour the way you are always there for others…” “I adore your beauty and how you shine your light…” “You are a trustable, loyal and true friend…”

Notice if any stinginess or embarrassment comes up and breathe through it. Once you have praised others see if the same need is there in you, or has it changed? Keep going until it does.

2. Being fearful or closed down? Risk opening through your fear and expressing your love. Often we have a natural impulse to offer our love or presence, and then fear comes in and we pull back. All kinds of stories can start running in the mind about expressing love, many of them from childhood. “But I won’t get my needs met…” “I will get hurt and be abandoned…”

Take a few deep breaths, trust your higher self and act. You could make a surprise for your beloved, do a kind act for a stranger, listen to a troubled friend, sing love songs on the street. Endless possibilities arise. Big and small.

See if you still feel fearful and closed, or has it changed? Keep going until it does.

3. Experiencing self-criticism, being down on yourself? Shower compassion on you, yes You! Even if you have been mean, bitchy, withholding, less than your ideal self. The cringe away from that, and the inner critic, is the glue that holds it in place.

Sitting quietly, close your eyes and imagine a bucket full of compassion and appreciation sitting above your head, being very slowly tipped and pouring over you. Let it melt and soften you. Keep going until it does.

4. Feeling disappointed and frustrated with others or with your life situation? Letting go of expectations is key here. Bringing too many expectations to a person or event can not only set you up for disappointment, they also set a limit to what can be experienced. Instead of the spacious embrace of being fully with what is, you are busy judging and feeling let down.

It can be a set-up because you can be having unrealistic expectations, like going to a cheap restaurant and being disappointed that it isn’t a gourmet meal. Holding people to a rigid moral code so you can feel superior or right.

Letting go of expectations can feel painful initially, as if you are letting go of your true needs, but it actually brings you the opposite. Expectations are not the same as trusting your hearts desire will unfold. And you can still have boundaries and a clear No to what doesn’t work for you.

Deliberately relax your expectations of a partner, a new date, a meal and see what happens next.

5. Over thinking, feeling stuck or overwhelmed? Enjoy more pleasure today. Pleasure can transform you when it is fully savoured and experienced. Our mind is expanded by opening our senses, we become more open to feeling, sensing and intuiting. Savour the pleasure by breathing slowly and deeply and let it fill your whole body.

Plunge your hands into the earth. Don’t just smell the roses, become them. Bloom open as the fragrant flower. Fly with the bird, sense the wind on your wings. Eat your favourite food slowly with delight. Linger in a warm bath. Listen to your special music and really enjoy it in your body, beyond the mind. Surrender into your senses, being here and now.
…………………………..
Remember these 5 Ways to more love and awareness are here to do today. Share this with your partner or a friend, or just jump in yourself.

I’d love to get your feedback.

With love
Cynthia

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How to Strengthen Relationships in Challenging Times

Cynthia Connop — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 06:38:42 +0000

Why do some relationships get stronger, and some get weaker in traumatic circumstances? We often just don’t know how to strengthen relationships in challenging times.

I live in Northern NSW Australia, an area that has been recently battered by severe flooding, and after two years of the pandemic there are constant trials and troubles for people not only here, but everywhere.

As many have discovered it is our relationships and our communities, that turn out to be our biggest security in adversity. And yet tensions do rise in relationships as feelings of worry, anxiety and hopelessness increase.

And it is often the ones closest to us that suffer the brunt of the stress and exhaustion. We can easily revert to old habits of psychological protection as emotions surge. In ‘fight, flight or freeze mode’ we can be mistrustful of others, and anger, irritability and lashing out is common.

Here are 9 ways to strengthen your relationship in challenging times (that mostly apply to all close relationships).

Do:

Seek to be kind and supportive, take care of each other.
When you are triggered or upset, pause and slow down your breathing and breathe into your belly before acting or speaking. Calm yourself down.
Show affection, touch each other, and surprise them with a gentle, slow hug. Increase the good feeling, when you are both ready, by making love in a gentle, tantric way that is healing and nourishing.
Communicating your shared pain can be bonding as you face things together.
Be aware that people cope and process differently with trauma. For example, one person may want to talk about what’s happening a lot (feminine mode), while the other partner may prefer not to talk at all for now (masculine mode). Respect the differences.
Reach out to other people too for help and support, not just your partner, or one close person. Spread the load.
Take time alone to replenish and regroup. If friends offer you massage and healing, take it. You will feel better and be able to give more in relationship.
Look for what they are doing right and verbally appreciate them. This strengthens the relationship into a team of love and depth, resilient to the challenges.
Saying “I Love you” often will go a long way.

People who do some, all or even one of these things have better outcomes.

with much love

Cynthia

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The critic that kills love

Cynthia Connop — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 05:32:10 +0000

We often read about the destructiveness of being critical of others, but what about when you are overly critical of yourself? The idea that we have an internal critical voice is not new. Most of us have some awareness that we can be overly critical of ourselves, our bodies, our performance. We even learn to not believe or listen to it too much. We may even gradually acknowledge that it is trying to help us, improve us, keep us safe, in a misguided way. But the critic that kills love is often hard to silence completely.

Do you sometimes have a voice inside you that can be devastating in its harsh criticism, it’s ruthless negative assessments of yourself. A killer critic doesn’t necessarily come through all the time, it can get set off.

In relationship you may feel great until your partner abandons or hurts you. Then the critic will make it your fault. It goes to town on you and ignores their part in it. Sexually, the critic is a pleasure killer, it distracts you from being free and fearless. You can’t let-go and merge as you are in your own head with the painful thoughts. Or at work all is going well and you feel positive about yourself until you get a bad performance review. Then you start savaging yourself with your failings. Or when your business fails or dips, the harsh critic will have you believing you are hopeless and stupid.

Letting the critic loose on one’s body image can lead to severe eating disorders, shame and addiction.

Sound familiar? Many people have a little or a lot of the critic that kills love. Its power is based on being hidden, a voice that we don’t even notice is there. It’s just a familiar thing. But the results are a lack of enthusiasm for life, a closing down in love, giving up on your dreams.

If you have this, or even suspect you might have a touch of it, start writing down what your critic says to you over a day or two. Stop and read it and see how strong it is. Give yourself and the critic a lot of compassion, but refuse to let it take you over. With time, with awareness, the critic that kills love will generally soften and relax. You can integrate the killer critic and be free.

If you need support and help with this, reach out here.

love

Cynthia

The post The critic that kills love appeared first on Living Love | Relationship Workshops & Coaching for Intimacy, Connection & Growth.

Heart Open and Love Flowing

Cynthia Connop — Fri, 11 Dec 2020 04:00:47 +0000

I have a photo of myself as a young child, wearing a blue corduroy pinafore made by my mother, a huge smile, eyes literally shining with eagerness. I was naturally open, as most of us are. And well cared for. I wasn’t abused, abandoned or neglected, and yet I started protecting my heart. What would it take to get my heart open and love flowing?

As human beings we have a long gestation time in the womb, then once we are born, years of vulnerability follow. We lack sharp teeth, claws, armour, stingers or camouflage. From necessity we are hardwired for bonding to our protective parents and carers. Physically and emotionally this make us helpless and vulnerable.

I was raised by parents who were imperfect, just like me. Like most parents they were doing their best to survive and give their kids chances they didn’t get. A good education being the main one. Catholic primary school was an endurance test between being bullied by the boys for being too smart and chubby, and the regular cruelty of celibate nuns forced to teach classes with three kids in desks made for two.

It made perfect sense at the time to hide my soft centre, even eventually from myself. I decided it’s not safe to be open, as it leads to painful feelings. But as I grew and matured, I realised that protecting myself, closing off or shutting down physically or emotionally, is sometimes very necessary, but mostly it is not. Even when we may be actually safe, we can still close down because of the past.

The impact of life experiences

My family lived in a small house with a front lawn, with bright yellow daisies in the grass. One summer day I was freely running around until I was stung by a bee. It was a searing pain that didn’t last too long. But the fear of crushing another bee under my bare feet made me cautious about running around in yellow flowers for many years.

That’s a garden variety example of how we can protect ourselves whether the threat is real or imagined. And even if it is real, avoiding it may not be the answer. It temporarily pushes pain away, but at a cost.

And then life unfolded its opportunities and challenges, loving others, feeling love’s disappointments, a wonderful career as a filmmaker, spiritual awakenings, the joy of getting married and having a child, and years later the unexpected sadness of divorce.

And through it all, a meandering journey back to my open heart, to meeting life with vulnerability and a willingness to feel.

Are there times that our loving hearts needs protection? Yes, definitely. It is good to take care of our needs wisely and not be manipulated or exploited. Otherwise we can shrink and close up even more. And ultimately this can be done by discernment and walking away to a place where one is safe to be open. It can become a choice.

The illusion is that we need protection at all times to be safe

Protection is a paradox. It may aim to keep us safe but eventually it keeps us separate from others, and vulnerable to loneliness and despair, or to a feeling of superficiality in our lives and relationships.

The illusion is that we need protection at all times to be safe. The reality is that unless we are facing real harm, protection will keep us from the closeness we need to thrive. It can make us unhealthy, cause sickness and stress. It can prevent us resolving hurts and issues.

Protection also decreases pleasure. If we are contracting our bodies in protection, we are closing down to receiving and feeling deeply. Pleasure requires openness, relaxation and letting go.

If we are overly protected, we become more reactive to the ‘slings and arrows’ of life. It is like a shell that feels safe, but is actually brittle, and cracks with every movement. Without protection we have natural ‘shock absorbers’ to the knocks of life.

Do you know that moment when you do open up and let-go, and realise ‘wow I’ve been protecting myself’? You were so used to it you didn’t even notice it was there. It feels normal, but it isn’t.

Forms of protection

There are different ways that protection can show up in different people or at different times. And I’ve done most of them at times of high stress, fear or overwhelm. Protection can be criticising others, wanting others to change, or trying to fix them. So that we don’t have to feel, or really love. Withdrawing or isolating to be ‘safe’ or to reduce overwhelm. Being cerebral and analytical instead of raw and vulnerable.

The ‘blame game’ is a form of protection – making the other person wrong – needing to be ‘right’ or ‘in control’ to feel safe and secure. And creating the opposite.

Some people protect their hearts by avoiding commitment in intimate relationships. When mature people still want to keep it light, casual or uncommitted, there may be a good reason, but ultimately they never have to be really open to another in the deepest sense of showing your shadows and less ‘palatable’ side of the personality.

I would take risks to prove I wasn’t afraid. Jumping headfirst into relationships, life, projects. But I learnt that my protective identities were there to preserve the status quo, to keep me safe. If we deny them or disturb them too vigorously it can create a backlash, so we need to honour those protective parts of ourselves. But also, to be aware of what protection serves us and what harms us.

I had to learn how to let go, how to internally soften. Using breath practices and becoming bodily aware of tension or contraction and releasing it. Starting with the catharsis of bio-energetics, created by Dr. Alexander Lowen, and then over the years incorporating dynamic meditation and other Osho meditations and practices, several forms of yoga, dance and shamanic techniques to expand through the layers of belief and protection to enter the realms of unity consciousness. Choosing love whenever I was able to. Learning to discriminate between healthy boundaries and unhealthy protections. The latter by experience, feeling, and trusting my feelings. Finally, if something doesn’t feel right or good or clear then no matter what my mind (or other people) is telling me, I don’t go there.

We can also protect ourelves with certain types of clothing, attitudes, words, even holding inflexible opinions. Holding on to past hurts and resisting peaceful negotiations and resolutions. Preferring bitter resentment instead of seeking help. Avoiding inner work that would heal the hurts from past relationships.

Awareness opens the doors

When we first see our own protection, it can be a shock! But over time it is empowering, because then we can do the work and trust ourselves to make different choices in the future. Connecting with what we really want beyond the protection, also gives us the strength to face the fears, insecurity or shame.

Barriers are not boundaries. They are walls of closure, rather than clarity about self-value. Boundaries are self-care, barriers are protection.

I found, and continue to find, the courage to risk letting go of unnecessary protection, letting my guard down and letting life open me in all its wonderful and difficult ways. Many wise people have helped me along the way. If I can do it, so can you.

With love and appreciation,
Cynthia

This article was first published on Uplift Connect

The post Heart Open and Love Flowing appeared first on Living Love | Relationship Workshops & Coaching for Intimacy, Connection & Growth.

Masculine and Feminine Truth

Cynthia Connop — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 08:14:53 +0000

The masculine (doing consciousness energy) is extremely valuable, as is the feminine (feeling flowing energy). We all need both at different times. But the masculine and feminine energies are not something you want to balance out in yourself, to hold in equal amounts. If we do that we will have a lot of neutral people who don’t attract one another. Everyone will be self-sufficient and ‘complete’. This is not the masculine and feminine truth.

Completeness is deadness when it comes to human beings. We are complete when we die and exit this lifetime. Being complete is a type of new age perfectionism that sounds appealing but actually creates seperation, loneliness and confusion.

It implies we have to be everything, both masculine and feminine energies, equally accessed and utilised to be a whole person. Our feeling/receptive and doing/penetrative energies must be in complete harmony. This is just wrong. We are more complete when we are being fully ourselves. Living our own unique imprint of masculine and feminine energies. For most people there will be a predominant energy.

The problem of being both of the energies equally, it shows up when I talk to single parents. They struggle to be both the masculine and feminine to their children. Nurturing and directional. It is often exhausting and difficult. It helps them if they find trustable others who can support them, such as the ‘Uncle or Aunty project’ consciously bringing in the missing and different energy. Then there is freedom to be oneself more, which is actually great modelling for your children. Purely acknowledging the struggle to be both energies can be liberating.

Yes, we can activate dormant energies. Especially when they have been suppressed and dominated by the opposite within us. With work and practices we can change this. If as a masculine essence you have become lost in the feminine feeling world and not sure of your direction, you can adjust this by focusing on your purpose, your embodiment, your sacred connection to spirit. If you are a feminine essence who has had too much doing and directional energy in her life, you can find ways to surrender into your flowing, creative nature.

But the goal is never to be the same, to be balanced. The goal is to be what makes you feel right, true, contented, connected and authentic.

Some people are naturally balanced between masculine and feminine energies, having a more neutral imprint. Many people however think they are neutral when they are really in fear. Fear about being fully oneself. Fear of being too feminine, too much of a woman, that may attract the wrong men, or create chaos, loss of boundaries or trigger self-doubt. And for the masculine, fear about being too macho, too alpha, insensitive, too sexual, one of the ‘bad guys’ who dominates with aggression.

These and other fears can be masked as a spiritual concept of the inner union of masculine and feminine being the most desirable state. So you sit there under a tree humming to oneself in a perfect balance ….hmmmm. No trouble that way.

Meanwhile life is calling and it needs your authentic masculine and feminine essence, with all its ‘imbalance’. And it needs the glory of You, unashamed of who you are, brought to the table to eat at the feast of life.

So disregard those who want to balance you out, for the sake of peace. Don’t trust it.

Trust instead what calls you, attracts you and moves you. Trust the masculine and feminine truth in you.

with love

Cynthia

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