Every Pearl is Perfect

Extract from my forthcoming book – Diving for Pearls: A Wise Woman’s Guide to Finding Love.  Click for Diving for Pearls Facebook page

A Cornishman with Attitude

The extraordinary thing about connecting with Pat is that he was NOTHING like anyone I’d been hanging out with in decades.  For a start, his favourite place to socialise was the pub – something that was completely alien to me being a tee-totalling ordained Buddhist.  It wasn’t just the drinking that made Pat and I an unlikely couple, however, it was also the smoking, the meat eating and the TV watching – Pat’s that is!

Much as I’d been massively sensitised to avoid all that – in fact I’d taken VOWS against most of it – and would normally find those behaviours repellent, in Pat’s case I didn’t seem to notice.  This is a bit of an odd phenomenon to describe, but I guess it was a matter of connecting with Pat’s true being so profoundly, and finding him so compelling at that deep level, that those relatively superficial things just didn’t register.

In fact I have now come to recognise that these differences between us have been part of the magic of our relationship and one of my greatest learnings.  Falling in love with a man who, in spiritual circles, is considered to behave so ‘blasphemously’ has been an excellent antidote to any spiritual preciousness I was carrying.  It helped me drop any hoity toity idea of what is proper and ‘spiritual’ – the right thing to eat, the right thing to wear, the right thing to say – and recognise that true spirituality comes in many guises.

So how come I found this beer swilling, cigarette puffing, oft swearing Cornishman so compelling?  The truth is, Pat is one of the most profoundly spiritually evolved people I have ever known, and I must have instinctively sensed that right away, despite appearances.

He is a trickster, a holy fool – often misunderstood and misjudged – but those who see and love him, really see and love something extraordinary.   For a start, although he can appear fierce, impatient and provocative (a red-headed, Aries/Dragon-born Cornishman with attitude), Pat loves powerfully and unconditionally and carries no judgement of others.  His challenges are a form of play and a call for whoever he is talking to wake up to themselves.  Most unusually, however, he is not doing it for any personal gratification – to score a point or make himself feel good – and is not attached to any particular outcome.  In fact, most often his playful prods are involuntary, a kind of automatic truth seeking device.  He calls it his curse, but of course it is his gift too.

True Love Cuts Deep

Finding the right partner is a popular priority amongst my coaching clients.  I’ve had the great joy of assisting many through to that magical moment of meeting someone amazing – the ‘wow’ moment when all the soul work pays off.  I’ve also had the fulfilment of then supporting the same person navigate the deepening waters of relationship once it’s established (sometimes coaching the couple together).

The job’s not done when we finally meet our match.  Not surprisingly, whatever personal issues we each carry about relationship re-emerge big time once the relationship is under way.  It is all there to be made conscious and explored and resolved should we choose to, and actually being with someone throws it all up into stark, potent reality.

There is something about a sexual love relationship that touches us more deeply than anything else.  It stirs up our deepest and darkest as well as our most brilliant and best.  This is something I was re-assuring a newly love-sick client about only last week.  ‘A fine mess you’ve got me into, Stanley’ she titled her email.  ‘Help! I can’t eat, work, sleep….’

Of course, I hadn’t got her into anything.  She’d called it all up herself, and after three months of diligent intention and attention, had manifested the most incredible match imaginable.  She found ‘Him’! This is a person with so much sorted, so much going for her.  Yet, she has only just opened a door to a whole new rich and vulnerable dimension of herself by finally opening to deep relationship.

This is something I can relate to.  Before meeting Pat, I’d spent the best part of twenty years living semi-monastically in a Buddhist community.  Our romantic relationships were conducted peripherally, and we were encouraged to live and work independently in order to dedicate ourselves to our spiritual practice.  It was a perspective that eventually led me to resign my ordination.

Deep down I knew that my greatest spiritual growth opportunity was destined to come from entering deeply into a loving partnership with a man.  And I was right.  What was in store for me upon meeting Pat was nothing short of a spiritual renaissance.   It also prompted the discovery of my true vocation in Thrivecraft, and has been the most fruitful and creative time of my life.

 You Know Best

You know best.  You do!  It was only once I started learning from this wonderful, maverick, not-what-you-expect-from-a-spiritual guy, Holy Cornishman that I started to really take this in for myself that I know best.  That and the fact that I am ‘good enough’ just the way I am!

The magical truth is that, ultimately, each of us knows what is best for ourselves.  But more often than not, we can’t hear our own inner voice speak.  Or, we can’t tell whether to trust it even if it is clear what it is saying.

Say, for example, you are considering quitting your job to pursue something more satisfying.  How do you know for sure that you’d be doing the right thing?  One part of you says, “I need the money, I can’t risk it”.   Another part says, “I’m unhappy and feel like I’m throwing my life away”.  Then another (a voice in your head that sounds rather like your mum’s) says, “Better the devil you know…”

How do you sift through all the inner arguments and find best way forward?  How do you know for sure?  How do we KNOW our hunches are right, that you are making the right decisions and choices in life?  Which inner voice is the wise one?  This is the number one issue people ask me about.  And so, this book includes some guidelines on how to find and trust your own reliable source of inner wisdom.

But Am I Getting It Right?

 Maybe you have been inspired by spiritual growth, self help and personal development for some time, perhaps you are even a coach, counsellor, teacher or caring professional yourself.  You have a pile of books that have guided you to meet the right partner, practice meditation and attract abundance.  You have attended workshops, watched videos, taken online courses and gained qualifications.  You have put some amazing things into place in your life and connected with some lovely like minded people along the way.

 And it has been great.  Fantastic stuff – life is so much better for it.  However, there is still a nagging feeling that you could do better, that you are not good enough or doing it right.  Maybe you are not practicing your meditation often enough, or earning enough money from your coaching practice, or managing to stick to those healthy foods that you KNOW do you so much good.  And even though you are well versed in the principle that love triumphs fear – and so should know better!   You are still not free of those low-level, creeping doubts, worries and fears.

Believe me, you are not alone.  I know thousands of people just like you who share this paradox – terrific, inspiring, positive people who are doing fantastic things in their professional and personal lives, but still give themselves a hard time, myself included occasionally!   I was pondering this phenomenon when I suddenly got it.  We believe that we are supposed to learn lessons and continually ‘improve’ ourselves, when actually, we don’t need to work at change a thing.  Not really, at least, not with that attitude.  It is far more important that we realise that we are already perfect, just the way we are.

Perfect Just the Way You Are

But aren’t we supposed to be ridding ourselves of ego, accepting our inner child and forgiving those who have wronged us?  Our books and teachings are full of instructions on the art of waking up, healing wounds, letting go and moving on.  And the whole coaching model is about getting from where you are now to where you want to be.

However, if we look deeply into the spiritual essence of any edict that really works, you will see there is only one true starting point – LOVE YOURSELF JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.  It is in accepting yourself just the way you are, first and foremost, that real and lasting positive change is catalysed.  That is the transformational power of love.  Changeless change, or at least, effortless, graceful, natural change.