Enslaving The Cock

I was looking at my penis today, applying some oil and care, and it struck me very sadly how much I have enslaved my cock and my sexuality in my life. I have treated it as if its job was to deliver me certain things, things which are beyond its intended offering and function.Using my cock to please women and ‘be a great lover’ and deliver lots of pleasure and satisfaction so I can feel sexually powerful or even just adequate, is a form of enslavement of the cock, and I’ve been feeling some sadness around that today, some regret. The pressure to ‘deliver’. Of course, all the beautiful connected sex is not in the same realm, but the times I’ve used sex, either with a woman or by myself, to fill a gap, avoid space or edgy feelings, avoid loneliness, make me feel powerful, make me feel lovable or special, to prop me up…..that was not what my glorious cock was born for. I want to apologise to my penis and all cocks of the World for the unconscious ways we have sent them on ‘missions’ they were never trained for. It’s not the cock’s job to get it’s man a sense of well-being, sexual prowess, pride, safety from rejection, safety from humiliation, self-worth, inclusion or any of the other things I’ve leant on it for over the course of my life. Let’s stop enslaving the cock, or the vagina. I’m treating my cock with much more care now. I’m no longer using it as a tool of my unconsciousness, of a tool of my avoidance and escape of emotional and ancestral wounding, as a tool of compensation for the spaces and edges in my masculinity. So a new journey of deeply respecting my cock in a much more aware and focused way begins. Will you join me? Men and women? To no longer enslave our penises and vaginas to ‘get our needs met’, to escape, to fill gaps, to prop us up or ‘get’ us anything? Can we love each other’s sexual parts with that respect and care too? To keep the love and sex as a celebration of this moment only, this intimacy, here and now…..let’s not blame culture, let’s build our new culture as of now, no longer unconsciously prostituting our sexuality to fulfil roles and needs it wasn’t meant for. Together.

If we don't care for our fragile sexuality in this way, how can we ever be trusted with our boundaries? Won't they always be at the mercy of the next 'need' that has to be fulfilled? Safety in relationships, both with others, and with ourselves comes from trust. We will be able to manifest that kind of conscious environment within which we can thrive by dissolving the parts of our sexuality that we've enslaved. Please share your experiences in this…

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How To Be Safe From Abandonment Forever.

It's a painful truth that I have ruined every one of my long term relationships, including my marriage, by trying to hand over the job of 'never letting me feel insecure or abandoned' onto my partner as if they'd made a silent agreement that it was now their job to comfort me, be present with me and stay with me and certainly never trigger me into insecurity by placing their love and attention elsewhere. I now realise that it had always been my very definition of 'abandonment', which was based in the idea of 'someone else abandoning me', that was the root of my repeated stuckness and pain here. While this was my idea of abandonment, 'never being left by someone else', then my sense of well-being was always at the mercy of whichever external person I'd assigned my 'not being abandoned' responsibility to. If they chose to leave me then I suffered horribly.

But I now see that the very act of assigning the job of 'being with me' to someone else was always me abandoning myself. It's no one else's job or responsibility to be dependable in that area, only mine. If I try and get someone else to do it they will inevitably be inconsistent and my misguided expectation of their consistency is what will hurt me.

It makes people feel weighed down when we try and foist this job, which is not theirs, upon them. It makes them feel claustrophobic and ironically usually creates the very rejection that we're trying so desperately to avoid.

It also makes us cultivate the bad habit of absolving ourselves of a primary life challenge: To love ourselves, to be present with ourselves even when we feel depressed or lonely or insecure. To not escape our feelings and experiences in those moments is not as impossibly traumatic as we may imagine.

This is the time to soothe ourselves, talk to ourselves, remind ourselves that we, the steadfast adult, are still here, and are never leaving. This is the time to remind ourselves that we have always been here and survived every tough time, all the challenging emotional periods. We are here and always will be no matter what anyone else does or wherever anyone else goes.

I abandon myself when I try and get another person to do that job for me. Breaking that habit saves me from ever feeling abandoned again.

Next time that emptiness or insecurity arises in us let's not anaesthetise ourselves by immediately running to the distracting comfort of another, or Facebook or food or drugs. Let's become our own best friends or even parents, dependable, steadfast and safe.

What do you need to remind yourself in those moments?

All Workshops and Talks at: www.jamiecatto.com

The Battle Is The Map To PEACE

It's been a wonderful, raw, challenging few days here at home. More illuminations about how we, in our relationship, often have complimentary wounds which can serve as platforms for growth and healing once we get skilled at noticing their potential and not getting perpetually sucked into mutual resistance, fighting and pain loops. This week the old wounds of Raisa feeling that 'the man' is not meeting her fully, not there for her, not available, triggered much pain and complaint, a deep sense of mistrust which was expressed verbally and in a strong energetic resistance like a wall between us. Ironically, or maybe perfectly, when she expressed this, it triggered my own deep wounds of feeling unappreciated, feeling like I'm not being loved for who I simply am, that somehow I'm not delivering what's needed by just being me and that I am 'a failure', 'redundant' or even 'a bad boy'.

This hurt so much that instead of seeing through her words and defence strategies into her pain, I instead, as usual, started defending my position, persuading her that this was not true, that our relationship was not as fundamentally flawed as she was saying, and that I AM available and loving and I even complained and expressed upset that 'I'm not being seen for who I am' or 'appreciated for the gifts and love I bring'. I argued that I AM available and that it was her who was 'leaving'.

This is an age old loop. My reaction to her makes her feel even LESS felt and seen, and more lonely than she was before, so we endlessly talk and process and separate even more into alienation and loneliness. This is how the mirror can create a vicious circle of pain. Does this sound familiar?

I'm excited to report that this week we've gone beyond this exhausting pattern - just a few times, but it feels revolutionary.

The challenge for me is to not believe the literal content of what she says. To not defend it or make her words 'about me'. Even though they impact me greatly because I have such deep wounds around being rejected or criticised by 'the woman' (my Mother?) for 'not being enough' or 'not what's wanted here', I have to let those waves pass through me, feel them, and then look deeper, see behind her complaint into her pain. I need to stop believing her words and realise that what she's saying, even though it feels 'true' to her in that moment, is really her mind's strategy to not feel her deeper trauma and vulnerability of desperately wanting to be held in that moment as her old wound discharges some pain. Something raw is moving in her, and she needs me to hold her, love her, above all, simply be present with her, despite all her 'pushing away'.

This takes a lot of presence, breath, and steadfastness.

The last thing I want to do in that moment when I am feeling so unfairly treated, so painfully rejected, is to love her, hold her or comfort her. But this is what is asked of me, as a man, on a deeper level. To breathe through the self-pity and the urge to escape and to go to her, dissolve through her illusory wall, and wrap my arms around her, communicating with touch, with my whole body, that love is here. Presence is here. I am here.

By some miracle, this week, we have managed to do this a few times and the response has been beautiful. She has melted into tears, into soft, yielding sobs of accepting love. We are re-writing our deep beliefs every time we dissolve through the surface 'version' of complaint and pain and connect deeper to what she is really asking for, which is to be met and held in this moment.

Yesterday we repeated this cycle of penetrating through the rejection and lonely resistance three times before lunch and we were both high with the realisations and potential to shift this pattern now in our relationship. Every time we broke through, an immense amount of sexual energy was released. We have been melting into so much lovemaking, creativity, gentle holding, a profound level of peace has returned as we've realised - the very thing that was dividing us and hurting us is the door to our mutual healing and re-writing of our old beliefs and patterns.

The wound is the key if we can only be skilful and present enough to dissolve through the surface story that arises to hide our deeper vulnerability and pain. In this way I get to dissolve my old wounded beliefs around 'not being enough' and she gets to dissolve her wounds of 'the man isn't available'. The reward is that we both get the intimacy and presence we need. The conflict we were experiencing was actually a signpost to healing.

The battle is the map to peace when we dare to read it the right way.

Please share your experiences with this below.

All workshops including What About Us? at http://jamiecatto.com/workshops/

Leading The Men Back To The Women

There’s a scent of reunion in the air. The women want their men back, and I have a foolish and lyrical notion that we can be the Pied Pipers, leading the men back to the women. Our task as men is to re-awaken each other’s maleness and leadership again, but this time expressed through our compassion and service, not our control and dominion. Over the last 100 or more years, women have understandably lost their trust in men in general. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Fragile-ego’d, self-seeking, solely cock-driven, permanently adolescent men have abused the planet on every level. The air, water, and soil are polluted, the animals violently killed, the children uneducated and the old people uncared for.

And it may sound radical to say this, but there has emerged a masculine edge in women, which has crept in during the past half a century. It is an edge that has, I believe, been born of a lack of trust in the males to deliver leadership and protection through service and wisdom. Women have been over-masculinising like mad to compensate for the essence of true maleness that’s so badly lacking in at least the last two generations of men, who have been addicted to profit and status.

Is it any wonder women have lost trust in men’s expression of their core male values?

But what excites me is that over the last 50 years, a radical shift in maleness has been emerging. There has been a whole new wave of softer men, relating to their wives and lovers more, connecting more presently with their kids, and actively trying to cultivate this by attending deepening workshops, for example.

This has awakened the vital feminine-in-the-male quality. But it has only brought us so far. It is a long way from the re-emergence of the powerful, unwavering male that the planet and the human species so badly needs today. Cultivating the feminine qualities in the modern man is just a stepping stone to a deeper re-awakening, and that’s the male-in-the-male.

My recent conversations and workshop sessions with numerous women have left me in no doubt that the women want their men back in their true maleness. This means being strong, steadfast and genuine; unswayed by the grasping, needy, untrustworthy and superficial values that have often been driving them in this last century.

In my experience, there seems to be a huge yearning among these women to relax more into their feminine selves, melt and soften and just be.

But to trust that when they melt, the man will be a clear and strong container for that melting, feels like too big an expectation for them to have these days. The kind of man I speak of can hold his woman in her all diverse and changeable forms. He is a heart mountain.

I’ve purposely experimented when spending time with women recently. My intention has been to hold the masculine core in how we relate, being strong and present for them, just for 20 focused minutes, to represent and embody that pure, steadfast maleness.

The visible permission that 20 minutes gives the women to feminise is vividly noticeable within moments. She softens. She opens, she glows, she sometimes sobs with relief and the uncomfortable maleness she was holding melts just a little.

Could it be that the women of the planet are hungry and eager for the men to step into this trustworthy, loyal, devoted, dependable space? Are the men ready for this? I say yes, we are.

So as men, it should be our mission to beckon and invite each other to step back into our strength and power, but this time renewed in constant, reliable, unfaltering attendance to the true principles of authentic support, leadership through service, and humble devotion to women.

The Order of the Sacred Woodsman is a facebook group established by Jamie Catto, where men can gather and uphold their male strengths and share their insights and vulnerabilities, AND NOW Woodsmen For Women which is for both men and women to share gifts, ideas, vulnerabilities...

For more info on workshops and events go to www.jamiecatto.com

The Vulnerability of Penetration

It stands to reason that in love-making, on the surface at least, it is the woman, 'the penetrated one', who holds the vulnerability. After all, having a man push himself into your most sacred and sensitive opening is about the most surrendered and yielding experience one can imagine. So it's understandable that while women are in the 'receiving' role sexually, and are also usually less physically strong than their male partners, the vulnerability is held by the women. I'd like to connect with you deeper in this vulnerability and share something I haven't spoken about before. It is extremely vulnerable for us men to be the 'penetrator' too. As much as we work on raising our sensitivities and empathy to women, unless we enjoy our own anal penetration, we don't know what it's like to be 'pushed into'. Today, the social climate around men's sexuality includes a lot of past trauma from abusive and violent sex or just insensitive or immature men of previous generations who had no clue what they were doing to their women. Today's women bear the scars of past, male-dominated, unfeeling sexual experiences and it has only been very recently that the law and society's moral compass has even acknowledged a woman's right so say "No" even in the middle of sex and even if she's married to the man she's having sex with. Unbelievably, still, in most countries there is no law against a man raping his wife. She has no legal right to refuse him and no legal protection if he rapes her. Even in USA and UK the law has only been passed to protect married women in the last 50 years or so, and across Asia and Africa they think I'm crazy to even bring the subject up.

So the idea that men could be the vulnerable ones in love-making may sound puzzling at first. But I want to express that as a man, carrying the burden of women's often negative expectations and the ever-felt sexual wounds of all mistreated women of the past, creates a very unique and sensitive vulnerability of it's own - for the men. Perhaps it could be likened to German grandchildren of the Nazis who themselves played no part in the abuses of WW2 but in the post war decades couldn't help being tarred by the same brush and unjustly carrying some of the guilt and rejection.

Men carry the shame of our abusive, sexually incontinent forefathers and we don't want to bring that trauma into the bedroom any more. It's in the way of us having incredible, heart-bursting sex with you.

Today, if you are man with any degree of sensitivity, it is a vulnerable thing to penetrate a woman. I don't want to abuse you, trigger you into past trauma or in any way mistranslate your wants or needs. I would hate to accidentally touch you in a way that jarred you or misread your passion. So, if you notice my hesitancy or any held-back-ness, please do not translate this as any lack of desire on my part. I may be waiting for a clearer invitation.

Women, please invite us clearly and unmistakably to make love with you. Only when we are certain that your invitation is wholehearted and clear can we melt into devotional service to your pleasure. We need to be total, unbridled by doubt, to allow the strength of our male physicality to take you. We want to explode you into light and usher you to the door where you can dissolve into pure sex with the Big Spirit - in the field that is beyond us both, but until we are certain that Your invitation is total, we can't surrender to giving you our gifts fully.

Your vulnerability is my vulnerability. Let's melt deeper into it together and heal the past traumas with our love-making.

All Intimacy and Creativity Workshops at www.jamiecatto.com

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When you are next Pleasuring yourself…

When you are next Pleasuring yourself, and you feel those first ripples of warmth and arousal begin to rise between your legs, try allowing those waves to slowly expand and spread beyond your usual pleasure zones. Feel the warm energy of pleasure radiate out from between your legs and spread through your belly, and consciously inhale all that rich turned-on-ness deep into your body. Let it fill you entirely with each deepening breath. The arousal can build rapidly and deeply. Direct the pleasure with your breath and really allow the tilt of your hips to pull the horniness through your whole body. Feel how powerfully healing and energising this pleasure force can be, filling you. As you are touching yourself, with every rising wave of desire, breathe that wave further through your whole body, inhaling it deep to your core. Let it reach to the ends of your fingertips and toes. Your whole body and mind becomes one pleasure centre. Staying with the breath, as the arousal builds, allow yourself to open even more to the waves, consciously surrendering, as that exquisite turned-on-ness saturates you.

Now feel the crown of your head mirror the deep seated pleasure below and open your whole body for an even stronger current to move through you. Let each growing wave energise and heal and light up every cell of your body in health and power. Feel every pore drink in the pleasure and fill you with limitless creativity.

If you want to take it even further you can beam the pleasure out of you from all directions to connect to anyone or anywhere at all. Send the super-powered force of it to dissolve any limitations, disease or suffering anywhere on the planet. As you send it, actually see the energy do it's transformational work with your mind, watch the place you send it to transform and heal in your imagination.

We have the power to do this Now. Pleasure is transformative and is available to be directed to creative, healing and passionate uses at any time.

Tune in and transform your World with your pleasure...

...and do please share your experiences below.

All Intimacy and Creative workshops and Talks at www.jamiecatto.com

When splitting up is SO painful - a letter to a friend

Dear old Friend, waking up at my sister's in Golders Green, thinking of you especially on Sundays which can be brutal. I want to share with you a couple of things you already know such as - don't forget that this is but a painful TRANSITION, not a painful entry into a painful new life. When you were working on me last year I was having an agonising time 'being left' by my ex-wife and battling with abandonment, jealousy, lostness, loneliness. While I was still trying to keep my old reality intact and not surrendering to what was really going on I did a lot of emotional violence to myself. What I didn't know then was how brilliantly abundantly treated I was gong to be, how as soon as I placed my focus on the next chapter, not the last one with all its alluring hooks and safe, known comforts, I was met with limitless support and exciting, nourishing new gifts. I'm not suggesting that you deny any pain or force yourself to 'move on' too quickly, but I do want to remind us both that once your deeper choice and vision is directed to the next chapter, your innate genius adapts and creates and attracts wonderful new circumstances, people and surprises - and that creative genius takes it's lead from where you direct your attention.

You once reminded me to edit the tape in my head. This is a great time to raise one's awareness on the 'version of events' we are playing back in our heads. I don't know in how much resistance you are right now, or how you are faring as regards clinging, turning scenarios over and over in your mind, looking back not forward, injustice and loneliness - but I want to remind you, just in case, that there is a slither of choice here to look through a more optimistic lens, a lens which trusts that even though I have very limited vision here and it looks dark, perhaps the All That Is has a wonderful array of scenery and characters and positive unfoldings, uplifting and healing revelations in store for me.

When I was at my most disempowered and terrified state during my divorce, I had a formative experience on the London Underground train. I was sitting there listening to my music on headphones and my ipod was on shuffle. A piece of really sad film music was playing, and as I sat there listening, my own despondent predicament engulfed me. I looked around the carriage and everyone looked so isolated and lonely. I sank deeper, feeling all the tragedy of my situation, how much of a victim I felt in it and that depressing reality became more and more true. It was painful. Then the next track came on and it was something really triumphant and rocking by The Clash. Immediately my chest swelled a little and my posture became fractionally more erect. The tube doors opened and I strode down the platform, strong and upright. The music pumped along jubilantly in my ears and I walked all the taller. 'Look at this hero' I thought as I strode down the train platform, 'surviving and thriving amidst all these challenges, unstoppable. Come on then!' I felt, 'Gimme what you got!' It was only the soundtrack in my ears that had changed but it really showed me how malleable 'the truth of what's gong on' can be.

The tape in our head is the soundtrack. Our beliefs and attitudes to what's gong on. The 'version' of events on which we choose to place our attention is the truth we energise. We will empower what we focus on, positive or negative. So, as Gabrielle Roth says, it takes immense discipline to be a free spirit. To choose the positive, 'open to miracles and trust' lens over the usual attractive 'doom and gloom' one. It takes discipline. But there is a slither of choice, much aided by kicking music.

And the reward is, a year or two down the line, I now know that what happened when Jessica and I split up was a wonderful life-change for me. I resisted it with all my might when I couldn't see the future, but I am now with a heavenly, intelligent, funny, soulful girlfriend who really gets the Me 'now'. Our sex life is glorious and fresh and deeply intimate. Our soul life is so much more 'equal' that any relationship I've had before. In numerous other ways I am growing into my real wholeness, my less limited shapes, my fullest potential. I have experienced my courage, endurance and self-compassion and awakened a deeper sense of personal responsibility and self-parenting. The list of gifts is long.

I don't want to in any way suggest you rush the grieving, but whenever you have a fraction more energy, allow the next chapter vision to creep in. It's like the motion is the lotion exercises you taught me. Allowing some gentle movement in this let's your innate genius begin to lay the foundations for your next incredibly fulfilling chapter. I believe your higher mind and even the Universe itself is conspiring to set up the perfect, fulfilling, abundant circumstances for your pleasure and growth.

Beyond all that, I am sending love and trust and an extra bank of pumping electric guitars to spur you onward.

You are a Warrior. Allow your posture to reflect this and the mind will follow.

huge hug

Jamie

All workshops at www.jamiecatto.com

Intimacy of Excitement

We hold back our full excitement sometimes in case we look too keen or uncool. There's something so beautiful about childlike excitement but it can feel risky. We expose ourselves in our youngness and if we are not met there we can suddenly feel foolish and alienated. So often we limit our expression of joy to appear 'appropriate' and 'measured'.

I get much more excited by, and more intimate with, someone who is total in their passion and excitement than someone who plays it down to play it safe.

Your excitement is magnetic. Your excitement is attractive and juicy. When I see you consumed by your passion I am drawn to you and I want to be infected by your enthusiasm and spirit.

Show me your bigness and see how I myself am encouraged to open more and be seen in my own passions.

What is one specific aspect or area in your life you could be bigger in, something you could dare to be more seen in? Please share with us below.

4 Levels of Intimacy (at least)

Why so much about Intimacy and what do we get up to on these weekends? For me, Intimacy comes in 4 levels, or at least there's 4 things that especially inspire me right now.

1) Intimacy with my Lover: this has so much to do with dissolving old unconscious behaviours and strategies which fog intimacy. Ways I manipulate and control, even in subtle ways, to stay safe and in my 'perceived' comfort zone. A huge amount of mutual appreciation and effortless Intimacy lies behind these busy blocks. Intimacy arises effortlessly, naturally when we're all in the lightened-up, no nonsense space together and we realise that the thing in the way is only a mirage and once arrived at, has no substance.

2) Intimacy with everyone in my life: which means not turning up to work every day having to pretend I'm not crazy for everyone. I am crazy, you are, we all are, and I believe that the amount of energy we waste keeping up a mask, a role for everyone, a smaller than me version of myself, a crippled brochure of 'just my appropriate parts', is incredibly limiting as a lover, parent, artist, human. We're all addicted to approval from birth. So all my violent self-editing due to my approval addiction is really a manipulation to make you behave in a way I want, approving and accepting me, rather than risk how you might behave if I showed you my big, unapologetic, whole self. I want to loosen that stuff up. I am turned off by your appropriateness. In fact I find it provocative. It makes me want to go to the edge of it with you and see what's really there.

3) Intimacy with myself: I have rushed into so many decisions and actions without really checking in with myself in the moment 'what I actually want'. Things I take for granted, things I make myself do, things I deny myself due to limiting beliefs. I want the space to really listen to me. No one else will meet my needs no matter what they promise. No one will know my needs if I don't ask myself what I need and then communicate it to others. I need to give myself more space and not force myself through experiences that I don't really want just because it's expected or 'what I've always done'.

4) This really excites me - Intimacy with all the unexpected circumstances of my life - when something unexpected or not 'what I ordered' happens in my life, my old reaction would be to immediately control it, and 'guide' it back to how I originally wanted it. But now I want to leave more space. I choose to listen more to how these circumstances that I usually resist might actually be a gift, a benevolent beckoning from my soul to invite me back to a more honest, whole, version of myself. The characters that turn up to challenge me feel like they've been sent over by Central Casting to be just that kind of person who would make me react in that way and see what an over-reactive diva I can be! I believe the whole of external reality is set up to invite me back to presence. This is how I begin to trust what's going on and above all participate with what crosses my path.

all Creative and Intimacy weekends at www.jamiecatto.com - turn right at the crossroads

Suffering for Love

Sometimes in a household where a couple have much to accomplish; kids, jobs, money, the runnings of a home, it can be exhausting for them both, and there are inevitably some jobs that come up along the way that at the end of a tiring day, neither person wants to do.  The biggest trap the couple can fall into is to start competing for 'who's done more recently,' or 'who's most exhausted,'

If you and your partner begin competing in this way to justify being able to rest, then you are empowering and magnetising a reality where you believe you both must suffer to earn your rest. You start creating a reality where suffering becomes a currency - you start creating a belief that you both must to suffer for your love.

This inevitably creates an ugly, manipulative relationship where both people are inflating their sense of being a victim to get their needs met and competing for the ‘Martyr Crown.’ This will kill the attraction in the relationship stone dead.

To vulnerably ask for the support I need without fighting for it with the expectation of refusal or injustice, is Intimacy.

Try this:

Practice saying ‘No’ without following it with an excuse. There’s nothing sexier than someone who’s in touch with their ‘No’. We’re so used to fending off demands that we can forget our innate right to just say ‘No’ to something we don’t want to do. To make excuses while you say ‘No’ is a manipulative placating device to control the other person’s response to your refusal. It’s also a statement that you yourself doubt your own right to refuse and need to back it up with justifications. Justifications make you sound like you yourself lack the belief in your own justice. For a day (and for the rest of your life) take a long moment to check-in with yourself thoroughly before you agree to anything. Without an Intimate relationship with your own preferences and needs you will automatically roam and wander into situations and realities that don’t serve or excite you. Practice saying ‘No’ with full, centered presence whenever it is your truth. And don’t protect everyone so much from their responses to your truth. We are creating a honest, visible world and their messy responses are far more nourishing and authentic than this insipidly fake ‘politeness’ and ‘appropriateness’.

Please write what happens below and how you feel right now about being THAT honest.

Both Creative and Intimacy weekend workshops at http://www.jamiecatto.com/

Be Generous By Receiving

Some people feel weird about being given to. The moment someone volunteers ”I'll pay for this one” they say ”oh, no no…” and go into immediate resistance. In this situation I always say to the refuser: “safe to receive…safe to receive…”.

It's understandable that those of us who have been given love so transactionally in our lives are cautious to receive it when it’s offered because we have learned since childhood that the pay-back police are never far behind. But this auto response hugely limits Intimacy.

If you always say "no" when I try to give you something then you're never giving me the chance to feel generous and have the experience of giving to you. I want to have my gifts received. We all do. So be generous in your receiving, and generously allow others to feel generous in giving to you.

Intimacy is in receiving more and more of the other. Their gifts, their wounds, their truths, and generously allowing others to feel so received.

Please share with us below something you are now going to explore being open to receiving from someone close to you. I dare you to receive!

Both Creative and Intimacy weekend workshops at http://www.jamiecatto.com/

Intimacy Waits Patiently

When your lover or partner is complaining to you, you have two choices: you can do the usual defending dance, trying to show them why what they're saying is not true, why they're being unfair or wrong and proclaim your innocence. This is a big mistake. The moment you begin defending your position, you have surrendered your balls (or ovaries), your personal power, to them. You have joined their dance of negativity and sunk to their level of competing and defending.

A much more positive and powerful thing to do is 'not defend'. Just wait. Hold the space. Look at the person in the eyes and, while allowing them to be a complaining child, uphold your image of them as a responsible, powerful, wise being.

If you don't automatically join the defence dance, which can take some practice, then their complaint demons have nothing to fight against and with nothing feeding the conflict, the process can naturally transform into the expression of their real feelings.

It might drive this person mad at first that you refuse to join them down there in the darkness, but before long they will return to their own presence and to you for support with the real feelings that are arising, not the complaint that's trying to avoid those feelings.

Intimacy waits patiently for presence.

With a friend or lover, throughout the day, try and trick each other into defending. Try things like ‘why did you leave that in such a mess?’ and any criticism or accusation that begins ‘you always...’ or ‘you never....’ See if you can throw each other into auto-defense, denying or proclaiming innocence, for a full day. Bringing awareness to this knee-jerk self-defense blurting is advanced ninja stuff. To stalk your auto-reactions and bust them when they trick you into smallness is like tying a bell to the ankle of an insidious demon. You begin to hear it coming early. Please write below the knee jerk auto-react you are most easily suckered by - for me today SLQWNESS! Ugh I wanted to explode....you?

Both Creative and Intimacy weekend workshops at http://www.jamiecatto.com/

Like Me!

Whenever you hear yourself say anything about anyone, good or bad, practice the habit of saying "like me!" afterwards. So, "he's such a great guy, but not always completely honest………like me" or "she's so talented but a bit of an attention-seeker………like me”.  It's so liberating!

We can create a lot of false separation and alienation when we describe or pass judgments on others. We separate ourselves from them in our definitions. The truer and more Intimate way to live is to shout 'like me!' each time you judge something in another. We all have the potential to act in the darkest and lightest of ways and the only reason we judge is because we want to distance those ‘unacceptable’ qualities from ourselves.

This denial causes illness and separation, but joyously announcing one's fallibility at every opportunity dissolves this false separation and creates oxygen for everyone to be their perfectly flawed selves without feeling the need to live in hiding.

Once the separation is dissolved, Intimacy naturally arises…

For one full day, keep track of each and every judgment you placed in someone else (by writing it down) and every time add the “… like me!” phrase at the end. Then next day share with us 2 such judgments and their melted separation from your list.

All Jamie Catto weekend workshops at http://www.jamiecatto.com

The Harsh Truth About Dumping

It has become common practice in our relationships to blame and complain and dump on our partner when we don't feel good or our lover does something we don't like. But the truth is that whoever triggers us into a painful reaction is not responsible for the level of upset we go into. The 'trigger' is not the same as the 'cause'.

When something has happened to make us feel bad, instead of putting up with the discomfort of that pain, it is often easier to blame and dump on someone else, usually our partner, and make them feel the bad feeling instead of us. It's easier to be reactive and offload the painful feeling onto them than sit responsibly with the pain we feel.

This “dumping the pain onto someone else” is the same as pulling them into the path of a bullet that was meant for you. You’re using your partner, your friend, your lover as a human shield from the pain blast.

Especially for men, this is about the unsexiest and least gallant thing to do.

The vulnerable and nourishing action to take is to ask for support of this person so that they can responsibly and out of their own free choice give you the support and love you need.  It's ironic that the one person we want that support and love from is usually the first person we push away with our dumping.

Don't push away the one you want support from. Dare to ask for what you need today.

What are the ways that blamers and complainers hook you into defending yourself? Which ways of blaming you trigger you automatically into a defense dance, proclaiming your innocence? How we respond to being dumped-upon is a victim trap. It’s too easy to feel superior and shut down. It’s even easier to jump to your own defense and disempower yourself by debating the accuser point by point. The intelligent thing to do is use the encounter to really get a feeling-map on what accusations, criticisms and complaints habitually suck you into forgetting yourself? Which ones sting and still trigger a reactive charge in your body? Practice complaining and blaming with your friends or partners. If you know them well, give them full permission to really try and find those spots that somehow still ‘get’ you, and do them the service of really doing the same for them. Laugh together when you hit a sore one. This is a profound Intimacy to enter the cave of triggers together and clean some house while the dragon sleeps. Please comment below what the quickest thing to make you dump?

Intimacy weekend workshops at www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

The Intimacy of Ruthless Honesty

Intimacy means being real, but not always being nice. We live in a world of appropriateness and politeness where we have all culturally agreed not to make each other uncomfortable or press each other’s buttons. This habit of holding-back creates insipid and stagnant relationships. I don't want you to hide the truth from me when you see me behaving smaller than I really am.. I want your challenge, your insights and above all your ruthless honesty.

However, beware: if you don't express your challenge constructively with sincere love and with the other’s interest at heart, then instead of supporting your partner in their higher truth, you are likely to send them deeper into the resistance and probably start a fight.

Who want their truth varnished? Not me.

In order to live this truth fully and richly you have to be ok with other people sometimes going into dramatic reactions around you. It’s important to know not to take their reactions personally. If you are terrified of people’s anger or even their tears then you might limit your honesty with them and therefore limit your Intimacy with them. One doesn’t have to be bluntly hurtful to be clear and ruthlessly honest.

Can you trigger someone’s resistance and know it’s not ‘your fault’?

(i) What is one specific truth you’d have liked to tell your former partner or you’d like to tell your current partner, or anyone in your life - and yet you didn’t or don’t for fear of not being ‘nice’? Please write it in the lines laid out below.

(ii) When you look at what you’ve written, are you sure it’s expressed in a manner that is constructive, full of love, supportive, and with that partner’s interest and well being at heart?

(iii) Go through it to make sure you’re clear about how much this is ‘for them’ and how much is ‘for you’, and then express your truth or challenge to that person from a loving place.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

Intimacy with My Body

Choose Space, not Reaction.

When a challenging feeling arises, or an unexpected situation throws me off-centre, the first organ that leaps into the fray is always my amazing, problem-solving Mind. It's as if I believe that whenever an unusual or shaky feeling arises in me I have to make it immediately go away with a solution or a controlling response from my thinking centre. Yet if I take a breath and a moment of space to allow myself to feel this uncomfortable wave fully before I dismiss it and block or solve it, the seductive, over-reactive urge to control the situation subsides and a less anxious and more trusting sensation is left. This is my Intimacy with myself.

To live intimately with myself and with the circumstances which unfold around me, it takes a moment of space and of listening. This is the habit to cultivate.

Choose Space, not Reaction.

I find a moment alone. I place my palm on my heart, I take a breath, and I feel deeply for a moment. Naturally, I fall into more harmony with what's really going on instead of struggling and resisting by auto-reacting to it.

This Intimacy with myself saves me much angst and energy. It even saves me from alienating other people in my life both at work and at home.

What makes you so triggered that you instantly over-react? Please write below both the trigger or situation and also, next to it, how that behaviour in others is exactly like you yourself in some way.

Please continue with the answer to this vital question: ‘If I had set this situation up as a simulation scenario to show myself something about me, what could it be?’

This is how we participate with the challenging circumstances we encounter. This is where we are powerful, not victims of our circumstances.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

The Intimacy of Full-Body Listening

When I am empty and open to listening, the ideas and insights which arise in me are always far richer and more profound than anything my busy 'front-mind' ever comes up with.

If a friend is hurt and I am sitting with them as they pour their heart-break out to me, when I am truly empty and present with them, not in a mindy solution-orientated mode, but just totally present with them as they speak, then amazing wisdom will come out of my mouth. These pieces of wisdom will contain more amazing insights than I could ever have thought up. In fact, they are usually news to me too! When I'm totally present then the most pertinent and apt genius arises all by itself out of the space between us.

All our best parenting of our kids, and all our best love-making come from a listening and empty place. It's here that our perceptions and sensitivities to the other are most heightened and therefore our responses are richer. As I am quieter and stiller, I receive and am present with more and more of you. As I listen, our intimacy grows and our sense of being connected arises effortlessly.

Let's listen even deeper. When you next hear a baby cry or a dog bark try to listen beyond the actual sound of it to the impulse that threw that sound out, the root feeling that the sound sprang from. Grab your lover, or a friend, and try 6 minutes of unbroken, silent eye-contact with them or your own reflection. All sorts of feelings will bubble up but stay with it for the full six minutes being fully present with all the feelings and thoughts that arise in you and giving full-bodied, focused listening presence to the unique human who's facing you.

Please write below what it was like for you, your levels of stillness, presence and listening. What does it feel like to fully give your attention to someone and to be given someone's full presence? Please tell us how much you heard or perceived with all your senses.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

The Intimacy of Imperfection

Since childhood, we have been so conditioned by our never-ending quest for approval that we attempt to project a 'perfect' image of ourselves to the World in order to be loved. We hide our failings and less attractive qualities from the people around us and present an edited 'brochure' of who we are. We think that if people saw our less charming sides that they wouldn't love us as much.

But the truth is, when we meet someone who is comfortable to be seen in all their lights and shadows, it is the most refreshing experience imaginable. When someone is unashamed of their imperfection, suddenly that so-called fault becomes strangely attractive. Here we see that it's not the quality that is unattractive but our shame around it.

I don't only want to meet your 'good' sides. I want to meet you in your wholeness, warts and all. As we reveal more and more of our crazy diversity, there is more and more of each other to love and laugh about. And so more intimacy is felt and we go deeper still.

This was the core of the song 'Wounded In All The Right Places' we wrote for KD Lang to sing in our last 1 Giant Leap film 'What About Me?' - here's that song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrv-sbQj-IQ

What part of you would be a challenge and a relief to let us see?  Please let us know by commenting below. I'm scanning my own list as I ask this:  hmmm.......abandonment terror.......panic attack casualty.......fascist dictator....so many to choose from.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

Intimacy Begins with a Question

from Raisa:

There is not a single question that a child will not ask and there are no questions that should be banned from being asked because when a child meets the World, naturally inquiry arises. In this inquiry the child seeks intimacy with his or her World.

Intimacy is our natural state. It is the state we are born into. Somewhere along the way though, sitting in a primary school classroom, we asked a wrong question and people laughed at us. Somewhere along the way we faced others’ humiliation, dismissal, judgment and negativity when asking our questions, and we learned not to ask ALL questions. In some cases, not to ask any questions at all.

We learnt these lessons at a young age when we often didn't have the mental capacity to question these negative responses to our questions. Because we sought intimacy and were dismissed, we came to the conclusion that there must have been something wrong with us and our questions. Not only did we then begin to suppress our inquisitiveness but we also stopped our search for intimacy. We dismissed our own need for intimacy in the same way that people dismissed us.

Look at your partner openly this evening, or look at yourself in the mirror, with your most childlike eyes, with the eyes of curiosity and fascination. What do you see? Please share with us below. Be specific. Be curious. And above all give yourself full permission to be inquisitive.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy

The Intimacy of Asking For What You Want

There have been times in the past, both in my relationship and with friends and colleagues, that I’ve felt ashamed about asking for protection or space or anything that might sound needy or demanding.

It feels vulnerable to ask for what I want or need sometimes. They might see me as weak. I might get refused and feel rejected. I might seem demanding and even if they give me what I ask for it could cause resentment or judgements about me.

The truth is, when you or I ask clearly and responsibly for what we want, it is usually everyone's absolute pleasure to give it to us. And what's more, because we've been vulnerable and present in the asking, we have also given everyone a permission-slip to be open and tender too.

When I resist asking for what I need, I remove the opportunity for the people around me to treat me lovingly, and worse, I suppress my own impulse to love myself by asking for what I need. I block the chances of love from both myself and others simultaneously.

It's brave to be vulnerable and it encourages generosity and intimacy with everyone around us.

What do you hold back from asking for? Please post below something you resist asking for and so indirectly refuse yourself. Dare to ask for what you want today and please tell us below what happened.

What About Intimacy weekends at http://www.jamiecatto.com/about_intimacy