The 12 Stepping Stones

Sometimes actions speak louder than words, but there are times when words are important too. In a relationship, each partner wants and needs verbal assurance of their partner’s love. Saying I love you and expressing how much important your partner is to you is one of the best ways to assure your partner. So, on Valentine’s Day, lovers should not miss an great opportunity to say something nice to a person he or she loves.

You might have heard these worn out phrases:

• You are the love of my life
• You are my only true love
• I cannot live without you

But why not try some new and different. For instance, 1 Corinthians tells us that “love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not envy, it is not proud…”

If you want literary pieces, there is this quotable Shakespeare. Listed below are lines from varying literary pieces of Shakespeare:

• Love is not love that alters when alteration finds

• Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind

• All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee to me

You may prefer philosopher giants like Socrates, Aristotle and Thoreau. They too are often quoted when they describe the feeling of love.

• The hottest love has the coldest end –Socrates

• Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies –Aristotle

• There is no remedy to love but to love more –Thoreau

Religious icons such as St. Augustine and Mother Teresa have a lot to say about love.

• Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all –St. Augustine

• If you judge people, you have no time to love them –Mother Teresa

Love quotes can also be culled from novels, plays and poems like the one from Les Miserables: To love another person is to see the face of God.

Charles Dickens in one of his novels wrote, “Never close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.” Meanwhile, Charlie Brown wrote, “Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” Here are some well-known quotes from writers:

• Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: our love to others, and others’ love to us.” –Thomas Trahern.

• True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away.” – Alicia Barnhart

• “The Eskimos have 52 words for snow because it is so special to them; there ought to be as many for love!” – Margaret Atwood

• Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.” –John Dryden.

Indeed, these quotes are beautiful to hear on Valentine’s Day. However, lovers should not forget that you could never go wrong with real words coming from the heart.

For my initial thoughts about maintaining self-love during heartbreak and a crisis, you can find the introduction in this post — http://lovecoachjourney.com/1462/maintain-improve-love-yourself/

Remove myself from the negativity that is causing me grief. This is not always possible to do for extended periods of time as we may live or work with the cause of our heartache. But most of us can find a few moments each day to either be alone or with people who lift us up. After all most of us would rather be alone than with people who depress us.

Keep Busy. When I need to work through an issue I keep my hands busy with constructive mindless projects… cleaning out my closet, purging old clothes, rearranging my furniture or garage, gardening, baking, reading, working out, cleaning my truck, what ever it is that we can do that allows us to still think about the issue without losing our minds from idleness. This allows my mind to work through the issue and I am being progressive and distracted enough to allow my subconscious to work on the issue as I am aware that my subconscious will eventually bring the solution to my conscious state of thinking. I know getting off the couch or out of bed to do anything when we feel so heavy is almost impossible but you must get up and keep moving, doing something positive even if it only one little project per day!

Speak Positively. “I will be ok. I will get through this. Time will take care of me.

I am worthy, I just have to keep moving, keep busy.” Tell yourself, “what has happened to me is the door to a better life but I just cannot open that door yet because I am still refusing to believe it has happened and I still hurt, but I will get there, I will open that new door and allow a new way of life to present itself.”

Also we have to consciously and physically do things that will speed up the process of getting back to “normal.”

Eat or stop eating, which ever one you tend to do when you are suffering. I don’t eat which weakens the brain and body making me unable to function making my brain and body weak and I think the worst insecure thoughts when I don’t feed myself, plus I have no strength to get up. I make a conscious effort now to eat something, especially in the morning making sure my brain is fed and I think healthier thoughts with more energy.

Over eating not only adds fat to our body that we do not need, it feeds our brain with guilt and shame adding to the already self loathing we may be feeling, put the fork down and go for a walk!

Do not consume alcohol to mask the pain or do drugs that are not prescribed by your doctor. Alcohol is a depressant and will only magnify your sorrow and pathetic is what you become. Drugs will mask your pain for a minute but as soon as you sober up…the pain will have intensified because of the guilt associated with the alcohol and drug use and the vicious cycle of abuse begins. Soon you will find yourself so far down the depression chart you have no idea how to climb back up…but you can…put the bottle down and throw the drugs away…they are for happier times of celebration, which you will have and that glass of wine will taste so much sweeter.

Do not e-mail, pick up the phone to make calls or text to the person who has caused your heartache, especially if you have been drinking or doing drugs, you will only make yourself feel and appear pathetic and needy…pathetic and needy is a gross feeling which contributes to our low self esteem and we want to feel proud of our selves for getting past the moments of wanting to make contact. As each day goes by the prouder you will feel.

Do not to stay in bed or on the couch. Get up, shower, and get dressed. This will make you feel and look better to yourself. And there is no one but you who deserves to feel and look good for.

Avoid negativity. Stay close to people who lift you up! I know it is almost impossible to avoid all negativity but do your best to move away from it when you recognize it. Negative words, personalities and generally people who are always finding the worst about every situation and talking about our sorrow in a negative demeaning way only prolongs our agony….get away from them!

Talk. Don’t keep all the anxiety inside allowing it to build up, speak with at least one person who will listen, truly listen to you. It does not have to be a professional, not every one can afford professional therapy. Find that one person you can trust to tell your feelings to that is not the person who has contributed to your pain. This kind of release will help put your scattered mind back in some order. If you have no one to speak with there are community counsellors who will listen…find someone, do not try to do this by yourself, let someone know what is happening to you. I had two people who are not in my town but I call them as soon as I feel myself slipping back to being sad, they remind me of the good things in my life.

Sleep. We all need to sleep but no matter how tired our bodies are, when our minds won’t shut down sleep becomes elusive, making us more weak and vulnerable and susceptible to dis-ease. We repair our bodies and mind when we sleep. It is so easy to get our sleep patterns confused when we are suffering. Try to get up early and stay up until a reasonable time to go back to bed. Get physical to tire yourself out; this helps with the mind too! Get up when you wake up, even if it is in the middle of the night because staying in bed when you are awake allows your mind to depress you more. Get up and do something constructive, such as read a book, a craft or hobby that preoccupies your hands and mind until you are tired again.

The love we develop for ourselves. Soon you will find that time has passed and the pain has eased. The moment you realize you have turned a corner and are not so depressed or filled with anxiety, that is the moment we wish we could bottle to use in the future. Unfortunately we cannot bottle our level emotions and please understand that a smell, a photo, a name on a street sign post, an old sweater or movie will trigger memories but because we have done everything we can for ourselves to become strong again, we do not fall as far as we once did. We have developed a love for our life that was not there before the heartache and the feelings we once had of unworthiness and self loathing disappear. Today it amazes me how I want to be thankful for the heartache…I would never have developed this strength without going through it.

Continue to focus only on the positive aspects of your life, let the negative move through you without affecting you; it will pass, you will be strong and proud of yourself again….I promise!

For more information about Unfinished by Suzanne Gravelle, visit http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Suzanne-Gravelle/dp/192700506X and you can follow her journey on her blog – http://ontourwithsuzanne.blogspot.com.

When we are suffering a heartache, regardless of what has caused it, our minds tend to be ruled by our heart. Although we may have experienced many emotional crises in our life, each new crisis feels like the first time as each new heartache is brand new to us, we have not done this one before, it is a first. Emotions we never experienced before race through our bodies making us weak and vulnerable. We feel as if we will not make it through the day let alone the next few minutes without breaking down.

There are many stages of we must go through before we can start to accept our heart aches and move on from it and unfortunately we have no choice but to endure each stage.  These stages range from very low to extreme highs. It would be fantastic if we were able to control our emotions and skip right to recovery….but if we could do this we would not gain the wisdom or the new found strength and love we find for our selves that comes with surviving the trauma we are going through.

We swing through the emotions when they first come upon us, first we feel them, then the tears start to fall, then we start telling our selves to stop, and the next thing we know we are in a full blown emotional breakdown and we cannot, no matter how hard we try to convince our selves, we cannot stop the wave of unbelievable sadness that is moving through us.

To me, the worst parts are the self doubts and fearful feelings I cannot control.

“What’s wrong with me? What did I do? What could I have done differently to prevent this from happening?” Just a few questions we ask ourselves and the first one… “What’s wrong with me?” is the one that I had to address first.

“There is nothing wrong with me,” that is the answer. But why couldn’t I control the situation and prevent the crisis from happening? Because…we are only in control of ourselves. We make conscious decisions everyday that affect us and those we love and most of us believe they are the right decisions. When someone else is making decisions that affect us in an adverse way it is out of our control, we can only respond to their decisions and when we are in disbelief that this has happened to us it is difficult to take the steps to move on….but we must if we ever want to truly laugh again.

I felt insecure, not worthy, I devalued myself because of someone else’s decisions and I had to find a way to bring myself back to a place where I felt worthy and find a way to pick my self esteem up off the floor. This was not easy because I was emotionally beat up and bruised, but I was determined because deep down…I knew I was worth it!

So this is what I have done to help myself and continue to do.

In the next post, I’ll share my favorite tips…. here, http://lovecoachjourney.com/1468/maintain-improve-love-for-yourself/

For more information about Unfinished by Suzanne Gravelle, visit http://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Suzanne-Gravelle/dp/192700506X and you can follow her journey on her blog – http://ontourwithsuzanne.blogspot.com.

For many years, guys and gals growing up getting their sex cues from Hollywood romances didn’t have a clue about how to kiss. That changed with more realistic kisses coming to the movies, but now the pendulum has gone beyond that point with most movie kisses looking like the two combatants are consuming each other for lunch.

This has caused more than a few folks to fail to understand how a kiss should work, and what methods might be employed to arouse the ardor in a lover with a simple kiss.

Unlike today’s movies, you shouldn’t jump into your lover’s mouth like a high-speed chase through a tunnel. Instead, build her anticipation by kissing all around her face. Begin your kiss slowly and gently with emotion and sensitivity.

First, kiss without using your tongue, slightly open mouthed, with sweet breath. Only after this initial modest kiss should you start to get serious, and only when your lover indicates that she’s ready for more (usually by using her tongue or by opening her mouth more widely to invite your tongue in).

From this point, there are a variety of ways you can continue this interplay:

• Take your lover’s bottom lip between the two of yours and suck gently.

• Trace the outline of your lover’s lips with the tip of your tongue.

• While kissing, lick you lover’s teeth with your tongue.

• To increase sexual excitement, make your kiss wet.

• Wrap your lips around your lover’s tongue and suck passionately.

• Use hot or cold liquids to create erotic sensations.

• Kissing her eyelids and ears.

The key to success in all this is to go slowly, and to keep things modest especially with the first few kisses. Be sure to follow your lover’s kissing techniques and emulate them. Little by little the two of you will learn what works best.

Then put your knowledge to good use, bringing her slowly closer to consummating your encounter.

Are YOU Ready For Love

Are You:

* Single and Looking For Love
* Married and Trying to Improve Your Relationship

Do You:

* Want to Love Yourself More
* Find More Love in a Current Relationship
* Want a Better and More Loving Relationship the Next Time Around
* Want to Increase Your Self Esteem and Self Respect

I’m a Love and Relationship Coach and I have a program to help YOU with all these things.

Enter your name and email address below to get your FREE copy of my ebook

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Considering that humans are a non-monogamous species, modern Western society’s expectations regarding relationship fidelity can be especially hard for men.   They are biologically wired to respond to variety and to sow their seed in as many places as possible, and by places I mean between women’s legs?

When Romeo and Juliet conveyed their dying love for each other (literally), most people didn’t live beyond middle age. Now with the advent of modern medicine and sanitation, our lifespan has been extended, making it less and less likely for long-term couples to remain monogamous; men’s need for sexual variety is so understood that a huge porn industry has emerged.  And when porn isn’t enough, well then there’s cheating.

TOP 10 SIGNS YOUR MAN IS CHEATING

Tell-tale signs your man is cheating include:

He starts spending less time with you, but always comes up with last minute excuses that he has to work late or take sudden trips out of town.

1. He starts spending less time with you, but always comes up with last minute excuses that he has to work late or take sudden trips out of town.
2. He no longer gives you long juicy kisses, but replaces them with short pecks on your lips or face.
3. He starts requesting that you change things about your body such as shaving your pubes.
4. He  makes  noticeable  changes  to  his  physical  appearance  such  as  adding highlights to his hair or going on a diet and working out regularly.
5. Inside his car is unfamiliar with a new radio station and the passenger seat has been changed, so you know someone else has been sitting in your seat.
6. His aroma is different because he is now wearing a new cologne or you can smell another woman’s perfume that has rubbed off on him.
7. He is constantly on his cell phone texting, talking in code or he leaves the room whenever it rings.
8. He spends more time with his computer than he does with you, especially at night when you go to bed.
9. He says that he doesn’t have enough money to buy you the things that you need because he is short of cash.
10. He suddenly starts bringing you little trinkets and acts uncharacteristically nice to you without any explanation.

This is an excerpt from The Loveologist Guide to Understanding Cheating by Dr Ava Cadell. If you want to learn why people cheat, how to know if your partner is cheating or if you want a plethora of ways to improve your relationship, get this ebook – http://understandingcheating.com

If you are concerned about your relationship and would like to speak with a love and relationship coach or a master sexpert – feel free to contact me at lovecoachjourney@gmail.com.

By Shobhan Bantwal – author of The Full Moon Bride

One of the most feared but anticipated moments in the life of arranged-marriage couple is the “Wedding Night.”

Back in the days of my parents’ generation, a bride and groom met for the first time in the marriage hall, surrounded by their respective families, friends, half the neighborhood if the bride’s family could afford it, and even strangers/party-crashers. Despite the happy smiles and tears of joy, there was one huge concern that loomed large over the couple’s heads – the night.

In most instances both the newly-weds were virgins, entirely naive and clueless about the intricacies of sex. Modern society has changed that to a large degree. Unlike the old days, when couples were painfully young, and brides were barely into their teens, couples nowadays, even if they are virgins, are older, wiser, more educated in the nuances of sex. They are exposed to sex via TV, movies, books, and videos, so there is a certain awareness of what to expect. Some are even experienced, having had experimental sex with one or more partners before entering into holy matrimony.

Nonetheless, despite any amount of mental preparation or experimentation, the wedding night in an arranged marriage is still an adventure. Anticipation and anxiety, passion tempered by clammy hands and cold feet, and a sense of “sink or swim” war with one another in the minds of the newly-weds. After all, they are married; there is no turning back. With luck, they manage to overcome the nerves and discover the joys of the marriage bed, but the night could easily turn into a disaster.

Of course, in my old-fashioned Indian culture, no one talks about the wedding night. Very rarely is there a mother-daughter talk involved, since every parent prays that their children will instinctively follow the dictates of their bodies and brains. Everything else is left to karma. If they are destined to be together, they will discover they are soul-mates, and it will work out as it is meant to be.

Having had a strictly arranged marriage myself 37 years ago, my husband and I went through all the expected joys and pains, thrills and tribulations of the wedding night. But we discovered each other. Then we settled into a long and happy marriage.

Readers can find my books, events, contests, photos, recipes, and contact information on my website: www.shobhanbantwal.com/ or visit my facebook page: www.facebook.com/ShobhanBantwal.author

I want to feature some erotic reading material. This book is mainstream, but I think it will also appeal to a couple of distinct audiences. One – people who enjoy a healthy dose of sex in their books. Two – women in their 40s and 50s who understand the many layers in their lives, loves and relationships. Life gets complicated and all of our actions have many collateral implications. Author, Phyllis Schieber, is a master at combining all these things and I think you will enjoy this story. One of the characters is even an erotic author– I think you will enjoy the writing process through her eyes. This is my review – don’t you LUV that cover?

Sinners Guide to Confession

Take three best friends, each woman has her own life and family. They share just about everything – but each friend has a secret that she won’t share with her friends or family. Will people think less of her if they know the secret she is hiding? How will her life change if she admits the truth? Will her life be better if she shares the secret? Admitting the truth gives friends and family the chance to help her with the secret – is that what she wants?

Barbara, Kaye and Ellen live in New York and they are each around 50 years old. Barbara recently lost her husband when he died unexpectedly. Thankfully, she has a lucrative career as a romance author and an even more lucrative secret. Her children are grown and on their own, but she is their mother and children have certain expectations about what their mother’s should do.

Kaye has a life with her husband and her children are adults, but her relationship with her husband has grown stale – is her future with him or another man? She meets a man who makes her feel sexy and desired, that makes her “stale” relationship with her husband even harder to tolerate. What will the future bring for Kaye and her family?

Ellen was forced, by her parents, to give up her daughter for adoption. This made her relationship even more strained with her parents and siblings. This forced adoption is even harder to handle as Ellen is married and she is unable to become pregnant. Will Ellen be able to meet her long lost daughter and if she does, can they forge a relationship?

Each of these women has a strong support system in place, but she needs to make the decision to trust these people with the secrets she is hiding. Their journey to self discovery takes you on an interesting, touching, emotion and at times a humorous trek through the pages of The Sinners’ Guide to Confession. Female relationship stories are not usually my favorite reads, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and often found myself laughing at great one liners and other times reaching for tissues as I read this very well written book by Phyllis Schieber.

To find out more about Sinners Guide to Confession — http://www.amazon.com/Sinners-Guide-Confession-Phyllis-Schieber/dp/0425221539