Please don’t kill the messenger.

I’m just the messenger of guidance in your pursuit of connection by debunking myths or long-held false beliefs about relationships that dictates life’s choices. I want to shine a light on the darkness of the unconscious, where they reside in your mind.

Dispelling myths is exposing myths for what they are - false beliefs that pervade our psyches and dictate life’s choices, how we relate, and the relationships we create by switching the light on where there was darkness, to make what was unconsciousness conscious. They live in the darkness of our unconscious.

These deeply ingrained and longstanding beliefs often become the bedrock of our wellbeing, so some shock and dismay are to be expected when they’re exposed.

What you are ultimately after determines how you feel and deal when these myths are laid bare.

The message here is that to make deeper and more meaningful connections and become the co-creator you have the potential to become, is by being conscious and connected to what is going on inside of you.

Too often we never get past the outside appearance, our projections or excitement, and completely missing what matters most, that is, what is happening inside of you and what is happening inside of the other.

Yes, attraction is important, usually at the top of the list of what you’d and I’d like, but its small potatoes considering the long-term trajectory of a relationship. Okay, not such small potatoes. 

I know how it feels in my body, a torrent of excitement takes over me. But I have also learned that attraction is not a constant, nor continues on its own indefinitely, that it ebbs and flows over the life of a relationship.

The myth of attraction also has the effect of dis-incentivizing the lack of attraction, tending ignore everything else, miss the forest for the trees.

While attraction can certainly heighten your experience and add a layer of excitement on top of an established connection or rapport, it is not a pre-requisite for connecting deeply, a strong rapport or an otherwise intimate relationship.

And as aroused and excited you may be, there is nothing inherently nourishing about attraction and it is not a solid basis to pursue a relationship or assess its future.

When you’re driven by your need for connection and are longing for intimacy, you need a lot more to go on than attraction. Both people must be bringing and looking for more substance, realness and depth than the puff of smoke of attraction.

Sex, too, is way overblown and shouldn’t be held front and center, or held as tightly and long as it has, considering the life of a relationship. Although sex, or great sex are key ingredients of a dynamic, intimate, full-filling and enduring relationships, and feel really good and intimate, it’s a far cry from intimacy and an emotional connection. It doesn’t figure as a large factor in the overall scheme of things.

Sex, even great sex, is not, by any means, reliable criteria for assessing the quality of a developing relationship, the potential for the relationship to work out, how much two people are able to talk to each other, have the conversations that need to be had and how well they understand each other.

And as great and exciting as sex can be, there is nothing inherently nourishing about sex in itself; when in contrast, connection and intimacy which are inherently nourishing. 

Being in Love- It’s not true. That if you are not “in love,” not feeling or lost it, the relationship is ill-fated. It’s as if love doesn’t matter unless you’re in love. It’s going to help you a lot to learn about the altered state of idealization; that being in love is a peak experience, the nature of which, is temporary, but intense and irresistibly tantalizing.

In this heightened stated, we may feel like and believe that the relationship can and will last forever, and that something is wrong if it doesn’t. When intoxicated by idealization, you’re more apt to feel there is a deeper connection or intimacy than there is. When ‘in love,’ there is no room for a broader, more varied range of emotional experience, difficult feelings, conflicts and differences to have to be navigated.

The Mythology of Appearance, Beauty and Talent - another fallacy that conditions us to focus more of our attention and energy on outside appearance and less what lies beneath the surface.  

It’s a trap I have fallen, and still fall into. I often get excited about how beautiful or talented someone is, I’m awestruck, imagining how great people they must be and how great it would be to be in a relationship with them. I’ll behave uncharacteristically. I automatically give someone who I find stunningly beautiful or extraordinarily talented, the benefit of any doubt.

When fueled by my projected imagination, I’m just like anyone else; missing the boat, veering way off course and am probably no doubt, unprepared for the crash that will inevitably happen when I find out I was wrong, when realizing that they weren’t who I thought or adamantly believed they were.

I’ve come to understand why I hang on to the myths and am so susceptible to falling into that trap is that they feed me on some level, my ego; they make me feel better and look better and they provide a level of excitement that enhances my wellbeing.

What you are ultimately after determines how you feel and deal when these myths or illusions are laid bare; when you’re sitting in the aftermath of, “I guess, it’s not the way I thought it was.”

“I guess there’s more to what makes a relationship work than I thought there was.” It’s humbling.

The message here is that to make deeper and more meaningful connections and co-create intimacy and become the co-creator you have the potential to become, is by being conscious and connected to what is going on inside of you. Mindful practice is necessary to shifting your attention from the outward appearance to what’s going beneath the surface and to what you’re ​feeling being with that person.