What You Need to Know Before Starting a New Relationship
Have you ever felt crowded in a relationship? Do you feel memories of the past overflow into your current relationship? If you saw your ex in a new relationship, would that evoke resentment, self-doubt, or envy?
It’s all normal and natural. Your emotions are habitual just like your words and actions.
If you're serious about love, you can start afresh with healthy relationships in the art form of Zen love.
What is zen love as an art form and how does it apply to new love?
Rebound love is often a short-term distraction and only fools rush in. Here's a sure shot at making your new love successful, and not a distraction or a foolish venture.
A zen art form flows at a slow and steady pace. And intuition is a huge part of this art form.
To sharpen your intuition, a clear mind is a must. Intuition is different than instinct. If you feel it in your gut, that’s instinct.
Intuition comes from your higher self.
A house needs to be cleaned of signs of a previous resident before opening it up for the next resident.
Let go of the old before you begin anew.
One of my teachers, Shri Daya Mata, would say, "Weeding is a great practice to work through your karma." She said it so convincingly that it made perfect sense to me.
Gardening is a great therapeutic practice for me. Each time I pluck a weed I look at the root and am amazed how a tiny weed can have such a deep root.
When working on any karma, you want it all gone.
Relationships are karmic.
When you think karma, you think of the good. Your good relationships are as karmic as the bad ones.
When you must let go of a painful relation, walking away physically is the easiest part. Creating mental and emotional separation takes time.
With time, your past gets buried in layers of your subconscious. Your past is like the stuff you put away in your attic or basement. You don’t see it but it's always in your space.
When you step away from a partner, you have to step away from all the emotional charges associated with them, too.
Pluck them out like weeds or follow what Japanese poet Hosai Ozaki has to say: "Letting go of a slanderous heart while shelling the beans."
When you walk out of a relationship, it helps when you carry every bit of yourself in one piece - body, heart, mind, and spirit.
Ending a relationship is rarely amicable. There's a lot of hurt, blame, shame, and maybe even guilt.
In order to heal and find emotional freedom and allow new love to take root, make shelling beans, or peas, or peanuts, or weeding a daily practice.
Whatever you keep is the good part from the past. Whatever is discarded is the tough casings that kept goodness within intact.
Regular practice of shelling beans or pulling weeds helps you recover from the pain of the past. A hurting heart might give rise to slander. Each shell you discard is the painful part of the relationship you are letting go of.
Forgiveness is the only way to heal from all hurts.
Love and ego cannot live together. When the ego takes the front seat in a relationship love falls behind.
Your true nature is love, you come from light. When you love yourself, you learn to forgive yourself.
Forgiveness is not for the other. You forgive yourself by taking responsibility for your hurt.
Carrying hurt around makes your heart grow heavier. It’s like dust gathering beneath your furniture and turning into dust mites.
You have to learn to let go and forgive.
Forgiveness does not right the wrong. But, it gives you permission to move on and live with love in your life.
You live beneath an undivided sky.
The land and the waters have been divided by man. The only thing left undivided is the sky.
Take time to gaze upward. The celestial bodies that brighten the sky are impartial. Each of them shines equally on anyone who cares to enjoy their light.
You could be anyone — rich, poor, kind, or unkind. As far as the stars, the moon, and the sun go, you are an earthling.
You can choose to enjoy a meteor shower just by gazing at it, and you will have the same joy as anyone else witnessing it.
When did you ever look upwards and rejoice in a visual splendor? Maybe it was an eclipse, a sunrise, a sunset, or anything else.
Anyone who watched any heavenly phenomena with you felt like a friend, a brother, or a sister. You shared the same splendor at the same time. No one’s a stranger.
In Northeast Asia, there are cherry blossoms in spring. In the Americas, we have the Jacaranda. When walking on a street lined with Jacaranda trees in bloom, the sky looks violet.
There’s no stranger. Everyone beneath a violet sky is busy admiring the beauty of the moment.
As you go about your days, carry the memories of watching a shooting star, or anything equally splendid in an undivided sky.
If you carry a hurting heart, there’s little room for joy. How could love step into a heart with little or no joy?
You cannot look for love when you are hurting and lonely. What you attract from a place of hurt and loneliness is another heart that's hurting and lonely.
Each time you gaze upwards, know that you are loved equally as anyone else beneath the same sky. Mother earth is home to billions of humans, plants, animals, birds, and sea creatures.
A stranger is another friend waiting to happen.
When you carry these truths and practice them regularly, you can enjoy love freely. Replace ghosts from the past with dreams of the future.
Shell your beans, pick your weeds, and let go of all the hurt from the past, one bean at a time, one weed at a time.
Love and hurt are two sides of the same coin. Love yourself, love is forgiveness. Forgive and live in love.
Finally, beneath the sky, no matter the splendor at display there is no stranger, you are equally loved as the other.
Keya Murthy, M.S., is a #1 international best-selling author and Clinical Hypnotherapist and Spiritual Life Coach at the Ventura Healing Center. If you are interested in moving beyond your circumstances to find your purpose and authentic happiness Keya is available for a clarity call with you. If you are a DIY person, then her book 11-Steps to Goal Getting: Using the Principles of Hypnosis, NLP & Huna is a great start for you to start getting your goals in any area of your life.