Several generations ago, the normal route was to get married to one person very young, have children if possible, and stay together until death.

There wasn’t divorce.
There wasn’t living single.
Heck, there wasn’t even birth control.

Back then, our life expectancy was shorter, so we started earlier: we got married young, and had families, and we died young, too. There wasn’t time for more than one partner.

Besides, the survival of the family as a unit depended on staying together; the survival of the tribe, of the lineage, depended on marriage, procreation, monogamy.

So that’s what our ancestors did, faced with the realities they had.
But were our parents, grandparents, great grandparents happy?

Well, from the look on my great-grandparents faces in the one sepia photograph I have of them… well, let’s just say they were scowling.

They did not look happy.
They looked committed.
Not to each other, necessarily.
But to the future generations that they would see to survive.

Nowadays, we’ve got a really different set of evolutionary needs. Overpopulation is real problem in many areas; under population is a problem in others. We’re living longer than we even thought possible in some regions. We have more literacy than we ever had.

We’re opening up to all kinds of new possibilities for gender, sexual orientation, childlessness, single life… many all different ways of living.

So, the question remains: when we take all the restrictions and reasons for marriage and monogamy out of the question, does it still makes sense for humans to go that route?

I think we’re in the process of figuring this out.

For some people, finding the true Beloved isn’t the priority. They prefer a single life that’s fulfilled and rich.

For others, one person also isn’t the path. They may be in several or lots of love relationships over a lifetime.

For others, the deep soul mate is the priority in their lives, and they will move heaven and earth to find that person. It is their quest, their desire and their raison d’être to be with that one true Beloved.

The rules have change, because the reality has changed.

How you live has become a personal choice, with only one thing clear: Your grandparents aren’t going to decide for you.

​It is very easy to get so busy or so distracted, that you neglect to make time to be with the person you love most.

For example, let’s pretend you’re a hamster, monumentally in love with another hamster: all you want to do is nestle in the wood shavings and be cozy.

But one day you wake up from hamster bliss, and find a hamster wheel in your cage.
​
Pretty soon, you or your hamster soul mate tries it out, and starts running.

A little while later, the other one of you tries it, and pretty soon, the distraction of the run-but-don’t-get-anywhere hamster wheel starts to take over your lives.

I mean, it’s a good thing to not just lay around in the wood shavings all day!

It’s great to have things you want to do!
It’s great to have interests you want to engage it!

But in this example, we’re not talking about deep purpose, life’s work, meaningful stuff.
We’re talking about a hamster wheel: it’s all momentum, no real moving.
It’s just a distraction.

And it’s a very addictive one, because it makes you think you’re moving forward, even when you’re not.

So, anyhow…. one day it so happens that one of you wants to snuggle in the wood shavings, but the other one is like “uh, I’ve got three more laps, honey.”

And boom: there begins the cycle of distraction-neglect-loneliness-distraction instead of intimacy.

If you’re a human, your hamster wheel might be overscheduling, busyness, social media, go-go-go, do-do-do. All the stuff that keep us running, without really getting anywhere.

You might find yourself saying things like “I’m craaaaaaazy busy!” and over time, this addiction to busyness makes it harder and harder to connect you’re your partner.

Now this is fine, if you want to stay in the cycle of distraction-neglect-loneliness-distraction.

But, if you are committed to connecting with your Beloved, then you are going to need to get off the hamster wheel and start connecting.

And it’s scary, because it can be very vulnerable to engage with another person. It’s much easier to be busy, or on to the next thing.

This hamster parable isn’t about sex either, although that’s part of it.

Sexual intimacy is one of the ways we can get the very closest to another person, the way we can reveal ourselves at the deepest level. But general intimacy: being there, talking, listening, holding hands, sitting near each other, hanging out with each other… those are big parts of intimacy, too.

If you’re craaaaaaazy busy, always running around and wondering why you’re feeling lonely and unsettled… check which hamster wheel you’re on.

Usually, slowing down and opening up makes every relationship better.

FOMO. Fear of missing out.

In which everyone runs around trying to do what everyone else is doing, because they are afraid that everyone else is having a better time than they are.

FOMO has been around since Caveman A made fire and Caveman B wanted a piece of the action, but it’s been exacerbated by social media and this new 24/7 connection that we now have with anyone, anywhere in the world.

It used to be that FOMO paced slower: we’d read about celebrities and their glamorous lives in magazines, but issues came out monthly, so there was a lot of downtime.

Sure, the A-List was something to aspire to, but it didn’t seem real: they were Them, and we were us, doing our humble little lives of non-celebrityness.

Nowadays, everyone’s a celebrity, everyone’s out doing unique and exciting things. Even a Subaru commercial is more exciting that most people’s day-to-day!

And it’s not that all these FOMO events are all that exciting: there’s a lot of press on Kim Kardashian taking her kid to ballet class, for example, and believe me: I have taken kids to ballet class, and it is not all that it’s cracked up to be!

So here we have it:
Everyone looks like a rock star or an artist or a model, even if they’re not.
Everyone seems super interesting, even if they’re not.
Everyone looks like they’re having way more fun than you are.

And this causes most of us to feel this intensive, anxious, FOMO.

Like, what if my life isn’t cool enough?
What if my friends aren’t interesting enough?
What if my trip to the grocery store doesn’t look like a cool trip to the grocery store?
And so on.

If we take it a step further, FOMO makes us afraid to get out of the game, because downtime is boring, isn’t it?

And take it a bit further, to where we’re really at:
Will I even exist, if I am not in this continuous swirl of group energy?
Will I even exist, if I am not constantly tethered to group thought?
Will I be anyone, if I stop being everyone?

Welcome to Oneness. We’re all One, all the time, and we’re just getting use to the idea. FOMO is one way we feel pulled by the energy of Oneness: we feel the urge to merge with everyone, and we’re afraid that if we aren’t in group energy, we won’t exist.

If you’re feeling FOMO, relax. Oneness doesn’t go away. We’re in it, the cosmic energy soup of everyone and everything, always, whether we want to be or not.

FOMO?

The bigger truth is this: we can’t get separate, even if we wanted to.

​We sometimes think that our Soul fills our body: we imagine that our aura or energy or essence fills the human container, the same way water might fill a cup.

This is a good practice for when you want to focus on being really embodied: right here, right now, in the human container.

And yet, the thing is: our Soul is much bigger than our body!

Recently, I had the delight of taking my group students on an interesting meditation, in which we expanded out of the body, into the room, and became one not just with the space in the room, but with everything in it: the desk, the chair, the computer, the cat.

We dissolved into energy particulate, which is of course also Soul, and became One with all That, which is also us.Then we expanded bigger, to the surrounding area. Then bigger still, to a few mile radius around us.

Our soul expanded to several miles in all directions, and we became One with everything in this radius: the tree, the building, the car: Soul merged with All, knew it All, experienced it All, because Soul is That.

Soul isn’t just contained in our bodies.
Soul is infinitely expanded.

In this meditation we went out a few miles; but really, there’s nowhere Soul can’t expand to, because it’s unlimited.

All space. All matter. All time.

And when we exist from Soul self, that’s you! That’s me! That’s us!
​
It’s a great thing, to realize we are more than just Soul in body.
We’re Soul in Universe.

When you are trying to live a life of balance and peace, there is nothing more challenging to deal with than a crazymaker.

Julia Cameron used the term “crazymaker” in her book The Artist’s Way, when she wrote about how chaotic personalities can derail artists.

However, crazymakers are equally destructive for all of us sensitives, empaths, intuitives… all of us who feel everything all the time.

As sensitives, we empathically feel the energy of a crazymaker, and this energy does not make sense to us, because its vibration is chaos, and sometimes it is chaos mixed with darkness.

There are crazymakers who aren’t dark: they’re flaky and inconsistent and self-absorbed, but they’re not malicious: they’re just off in their own little world.

These types of crazymakers are annoying, but if you have good boundaries, they won’t affect you much. You might feel slightly anxious or even nauseated when you’re around them, but it’s not intentional. They’re not trying to hurt you.

But dark crazymakers, often lumped under the broader categories of narcissists and sociopaths, are another story.

These folks work hard to bring chaos to your life. For example, some politicians are crazymakers; they’ve learned to use crazymaking as a tool to distract from what they’re really doing.

There are crazymakers in your own life who also take delight in creating chaos: maybe a family member, a partner, a friend, a colleague.

The thing is, crazymakers love empaths, sensitives and intuitives, because we’re so easy to tweak!

Empaths, sensitives and intuitives are often way too nice for our own good; we put up with the bad behavior of others because we are too polite to say “no.”

Yet there is no reason any of us have to be in energy that is chaotic, destructive, demeaning, dark, or evil.

If you haven’t said “no” yet to the crazymaker in your life, today is a great day to start.

When was the last time you got naked with yourself?

Not naked with someone else, such as in sexuality.
Not naked at a wild and crazy festival where this is sometimes common.
Not naked in nature, where there’s no one around.

Just you, naked.

Not paying any particular attention to being naked.
Not involved in any big naked activity.
Just you, not wearing any clothes.

Nowadays, we aren’t naked very often.

Unless you’re in a warm climate or maybe have a beach lifestyle, most of us keep a steady pace from shower to towel to clothing: it’s not that we mind being naked, it’s just that it’s our habit to put on clothes quickly.

Maybe we have to get to work.
Maybe there are others in the house.
Maybe it just doesn’t feel right.
Maybe we’re not comfortable in our bodies.

And this idea of not being comfortable in our bodies, of not being comfortable in our own skin.
Wow!

Why, this is very skin we are born with, the skin that covers our organs and muscle and blood, the skin that has expanded from baby to our current size and been our boundary, our living protector of inside from outside, our whole lives.

Being naked isn’t some crazy weird thing you do with body paint at Burning Man. It’s your body, without one vestige of cultural conditioning upon it. It’s your body, as you were born.

Accepting our bodies is one of the ways we accept ourselves.