Until I married my husband, I always dreaded Valentine’s Day.

If I were with someone, it never lived up to my expectations…. Valentine’s Day always seemed to highlight the flaws in the relationship – like the boyfriend who after 3 years still didn’t know that I absolutely hated fruit inside my chocolate.

And if I were alone, I was usually sad and pining away for the last best guy I’d been with. I was too busy being hung up on the one that got away, to be open to the possibility that the juiciest relationship was yet to come.

Sound familiar?

Top 10 Ways to Know You’re Still Hung Up On An Old Lover

1. You’re Facebook friends and you just ‘happen to’ check out every tagged picture of them.
2. Women: You still sleep in his old t-shirt (yes I know it’s comfy)
3. Men: It’s her face you see when… (I know you know what I mean)
4. You still wear that necklace he gave you last Valentine’s Day.
5. You’re now ‘just really good friends’ and hang out. All. The. Time.
6. You read their old emails/letters when you’re lonely or when things are ‘off’ with your current partner.
7. You still cry every time ‘your song’ comes on (and sometimes you even play it on purpose).
8. You secretly feel sick to your stomach when you see them with a new partner.
9. You still have them on speed dial.
10. You deny till death all of the above to your closest friends.

Does pining for old lovers keep you from making space for a new one?

True Confession: I was madly in love with a man – let’s just call him Rhett Butler – who I was sure was ‘the one’. When it ended my heart was totally broken.

I continued to ‘live’ in that relationship for another 2 years. I still wore the earrings he gave me, played our songs and read (and reread) his old letters and love poems (God, did he write the best poetry). Energetically, he was still my man.

I held onto him because I was convinced this was it – my soulmate. My one chance for true love. I couldn’t trust that I would ever love again. I was totally willing to wait for him and had a fantasy that we would reconnect in 20 years and live happily ever after.

Then, in a healing session, an intuitive told me I was carrying his energy and it was time to let it go. I cried and cried. Not wanting to give up my one chance for love – but in the end… I did it.

I cut the cords and cleared his energy out. I took off the earrings and put away the poetry.

Only then did it become clear that all the time I was hung up on Rhett, my husband Craig was right there waiting for me. We’d known each other for years, but I had been too stuck in the ‘sludge’ of lost love to even see him.

It took energetically letting go of my Rhett Butler to make space for my husband to come into my life.

Hanging On

When you hang on to past lovers, either consciously or energetically, you tell the Universe that you’re taken. There’s no room for someone new in your life because you’re still ‘in’ the old relationship.

Even if you’re in a new relationship now, you’re still ‘energetically cheating’ if you’re holding on. You can’t completely surrender to a deep soul connected love if there’s the shadow of an old lover lurking in the corner of your heart.

So do you have an ex, or even a fantasy love, who you still hold a torch for?  One who still plays at your heart?  If your real, true, feel-it-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach answer is ‘yes’, there’s a good chance you’re blocking the love you really want from coming into your life.

Letting Go

Here’s what I want you to hear, and to know.

That person who broke your heart was really saying: ‘This relationship is too small for you. It’s distracting you from finding your soulmate, and I’m releasing you to find that love’.

Letting go can bring up a lot of resistance. We can get caught up in the memories of old relationships, in the happiness we felt, the great sex we had, the deep connection that was there.

Like me, you may feel you had your one chance for love. That it doesn’t get any better. Like you messed up the one and only chance you had for happiness.

That even if you really let this lover go from your life, and from your heart, that the void will be too big to live with.

The fear is: maybe no one else – no one really wonderful – will ever want you.

But the gift is much bigger: When you drop into the void and trust that there’s someone out there who will meet you at your deepest soul level, you give yourself permission to receive a love that will blow your heart wide open.

So If You’re Ready for a Love That Deep…

• Unfriend your old lovers on Facebook – just. click. that. button.
• Give away or burn all their ‘stuff’.
• If you still hang out with them, get really honest about what you might be ‘hoping for’.

3 Ways to Really Dig In, Let Them Go, and Open Yourself to Love

1. Allow yourself to really feel the fear – to feel the pain in your heart. Have a good long cry in the bath tub.
2. Allow yourself to trust the Universe, to know that you are as worthy of love as every other being on this planet.
3. Create a special meditation, your own ritual for moving on. Close your eyes… Thank your past love for all you learned from them… Thank them for releasing you… Release them…. And say ‘goodbye’.

It is possible for YOU to have deep and lasting love.

But first you have to let go.

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If you're ready to let go and let LOVE in, I'll be teaching a powerful energetic release of old lovers this Valentine's Day in the V-Day Party in Your Heart Workshop. If you have a phone or a computer then you have a date for Valentine's. Here's the link with more details!

As this year comes to a close, what is your intention for LOVE in 2012?

State it. Declare it.

Be grateful for it as if it's already done.

Light a candle.

Drop into your essence.

Write it down.

Be consciously intentional with your intention.

Share it here.

Publicly proclaim exactly what it is you want for your love life this year. 

Let's all hold the vision for each other and for Love!

 

   On Monday night I shared a call:

  Allow the LOVE In.

On the call I invited you to begin receiving more in your life so that when your true partner does arrive you will be well practiced in receiving.

And you can let him in!  

Giving and receiving work together.

Like inhaling and exhaling.

One requires the other.

If you only give and don't receive, it's like exhaling over and over again without an inhale. What happens then?

Where can you begin to receive in your life? Where can you allow more good to flow to you?

I invite you, challenge you even, to receive TRULY receive as many times as you can between now and the New Year.

Then please come back here and post what you've let in. How you've started the pattern of letting love into your life.

It can be as simple as letting the clerk take your groceries to the car. Receiving a gift without rushing out to buy one to reciprocate with. Letting a friend pick up the bill when she offers.

Try it. Stretch yourself. Hey it might even be fun!

Write about here so you can inspire more receiving in each woman who reads this.

Let's start a trend of gracious and effortless receptivity.

This is an excerpt from some writing I did when I first arrived in Bali. I promised you awhile ago to continue with the conversation of masculine and feminine. And writing about and from the feminine includes vulnerability. So I'm putting my money where my mouth is and sharing feminine vulnerability. Watching my heart beat faster as I publicly let go of another 'mask'... Here it goes:

Balance.

Masculine. Feminine.

Which one leads? Which one is dominant? Which one runs your life?

If you were able to place the masculine and the feminine on the scale which would be heavier in your life at this moment? Wow - noticing how my stream of thought writing is feeling constricted by the knowing that I am reading this in front of the group. The masculine “perfectionist” in me wants to be sure it sounds good. While the feminine is saying just flow... just flow... just flow...

So which is “heavier” now?

Breathe.

Feel your body Liesel

Breathe again. Allow the flow of the feminine. Allow the music. The nature. The heat to soften you. To ease you into this new experience in this new place. To write for yourself and not for an audience.

Allow your body to soften now.

Breathe again. Deep and slow. Almost brings up tears.

Such a contrast to the push to the direction to the masculine energy it took to pack up my life, to pack up my family, to leave behind my sisters, and move here to this beautiful FEMININE island. This place where flow is required. Where pushing feels like pushing against air or water. Only falling into myself in frustration when I try to push here.

So now breathe. Soften Allow the flow.

This is what you came here for. To slow down. to allow. to receive. to soften. to live in the feminine. To Live the Feminine. To live a scandalous life of slowness ease and grace.

Tears again. Breathe.

Allow the feminine to be heavier. Trust it. Surrender to it.

Remember what he said. Everything just works here. Remember how true that is when you flow with the energy of life. When you allow the Universe to guide you to take care of you. When you trust in God’s plan for your life and the KNOWING that home is here for now.

For now. Be in the now. Allow the present moment to be all you need.

Give the pusher, the planner, the perfectionist, the worrier and the frightened child a day off. Let them rest too.

Buy a hammock. Today. That will help. Yes buy a hammock today.

Dance. Sing. Move your body in the divine feminine rhythm that is nature that is life. Allow the nature here to touch you so deeply. To touch your heart to touch you in the dark frightened places inside.

More tears.

Allow the people here to warm your heart. To teach you about God. To guide you into reverence. Reverence for nature as God. Reverence for the divine mother for the divine feminine.

Watching now as the inner critic wants to have a say. "Are you really going to read this aloud to strangers?" she says. "You need to edit it first. You might even cry".

Just keep going. Stay open stay soft.

Breathe. In and Out. Yin and Yang. Masculine and feminine. The masculine has had it’s time. So much time. Most of a lifetime. Let’s allow HER to be heavier now. Let’s allow the softness to ease the tightness.

Let’s allow the heart to guide the mind.

Let’s bring the creative back online. Please. Let’s be creative just for the sake of it. Let’s write a song about all the feelings you are having about your life right now. About this HUGE leap of faith you have just taken.

Let’s write a song about love and sisterhood. Let’s write a song about that beautiful man you have at home. Let’s write a song about that fiery little girl who is full of so much LIFE.

Let’s write a song of gratitude to God for this life. For this freedom. For this profound gift.

More tears. Breathe. In and out. Breathe. A moment.

Last night I sat in a room filled with men who are cultivating the Divine Masculine. Men who are anchored in their hearts - men who are anchored in their MASCULINITY It was a beautiful thing to witness, to be a part of, to soften into. It was the welcoming home ceremony for MEN and I do mean MEN! who just completed The New Warrior Training through The Mankind Project (mkp.org) . I cried through the whole evening. So grateful to be Feminine in the presence of the Masculine. So grateful to be opened by these hearts... I witnessed these men standing in their power, sharing their hearts, speaking of TRUST, speaking of LOVE. Showing UP in such a PRESENT and PROFOUND way. Men of all ages, all walks of life, all religions - - - all joined together in Brotherhood. When my husband Craig came home from this event 2 years ago, I welcomed home a new man. A man in his power with a beautiful heart. A man I could open even deeper to. I am in awe and in deep gratitude for this organization and how they are redefining the MASCULINE!

I know my next post was supposed to be more on the masculine and feminine and I’ll come back to it. I promise. There’s been something else that’s also been on my mind a lot lately. It’s the idea of being ‘addicted to your process’. You know what I mean? Continuing to hash and rehash your childhood, your divorce, the acne you had in junior high. We as a society are addicted to processing. Addicted to going in and digging up ‘the what’ and ‘the why’ we are the way we are. The story of what’s happened to us and the effect. The other side of this coin of course is ‘spiritual bypassing’. The art of ignoring all of our story and just skipping right to the bliss. When we watch The Secret or listen to too much Abraham/Hicks we can drop into this state. Spiritual bypassing doesn’t allow any process – for fear it might lead to a thought that’s not in alignment with our highest intention. And that might keep us from manifesting exactly what we want. Yes our ‘story’ is important AND yes our thoughts affect what we manifest. The key is balance. Knowing your ‘story’ enough to move forward. To move through it without getting stuck. Not skipping it altogether for the sake of not wanting to feel anything ‘negative’. AND being willing to go ‘story-less’ and drop into who you’re really here to be. So what does that look like? For starters it’s checking in and asking – do I know my story? Am I intimately familiar with my patterns, my hardships, with the experiences that have made me who I am? Basically if you’ve ever been in therapy, you’ve probably got this down. The next question is: Am I stuck in my story? Do I still blame my dad because I don’t have a good relationship with men? Am I still hung up on the guy who cheated on me in college? Is my mom’s alcoholism still holding me back? Do I keep digging in deeper and processing more? Is it more about what happened to me than what I can do to heal it? I have definitely been in both categories. Spiritually bypassing first, of course, because that was the easier route. ‘Just think positive thoughts and it’ll all heal’. Then realizing that the patterns just weren’t changing. That I did need to dig in and get to know my story. The truth of it. I needed to process all the childhood stuff in order to understand myself, especially in regards to being a mother and a wife. And when that happened… yes, I got stuck for awhile. I got stuck in the blame… In the victim energy…. In the anger…. Coming out the other side has been quite a transformation. Bringing the spiritual healing online with the ‘story’. Merging both parts. The talk therapy and the energetics. I’ve found, through my own personal experience and with the clients I see - it’s the combination that serves us best. So ask yourself. Where do I tend to fall? Leaning toward processing my stuff over and over. Or skipping it all together - sure if I read enough Ekhart Tolle, it’ll all be all right. Whaddya say – should we find a way to come back to the middle?

By now many of you have seen my new article called "Making Space for Love" in the newest Finer Minds newsletter. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet here's the link. If you like it leave a comment :-) In the article I listed some ways to really let go and make space for love in your life. To release those past lovers so you have room for your true partner. Because when we carry all that old energy around it can really create a block to love. One of the things I’ve found with my private clients is when we clear the energetic residue from past lovers – HUGE transformations occur. One beautiful, amazing woman I worked with was still lingering on an old boyfriend. We did a clearing to move his energy out of her heart and just two weeks later she called in an awesome and comitted new partner. I’ve seen this happen enough times to know that the energetic clearing is a huge part of calling in our true partners – it worked for me too. This technique is one I guide women through in private sessions and teach in Soulmate School (www.soulmateschool.com). If you’d like to learn how to do this clearing for yourself – I’ll be sharing how on my free call: Juiciness 101: Secrets for Calling in Your Soulmate on Tuesday March 8 at 5:15 pm PST. If you can’t make the call, I’ll send you an mp3 to listen later. Plus you'll also learn how to increase your radiance (yes this one is for the ladies). Literally shine your light so your true partner can find you. Would love to have you join us! To register for the call click here. For more information about the call or to share it with friends here’s the link. Much love to you.