WHY YOU CAN'T LET THEM GO - Projection, Love & The Parts of Yourself You Get To Claim | 19
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UNSTUCK - 5 founder spot in July.
You think it's about love. You think it's about this person that walked into your life, turned it upside down, and you think that's love. You think that's your soulmate. Whereas in reality, they were the perfect projection surface for you and all your dreams, all your desires, your ultimate best life. They become the perfect mirror for everything you've forgotten about yourself. Sometimes we don't miss the person. We miss the version of ourselves that came alive inside, aaaaaaaaahm, with them. Today I want to share an experience with you which feels ultra vulnerable, ultra scary, embarrassing, all the things, but it's an important experience. It's so important and I really want you to know about about this, hence my courage.
THE STORY
Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. Winter. The beautiful, beautiful mountain town I got to call home for the past 6 years or so, remote, with the best skiing ever, tons of powder. And I got invited by a dear friend to go to this party. And I was super excited about it. She hosted it for clients of hers at this heli skiing lodge and it was it was a big deal. A great party in my town is a big deal. I got ready. I put on my beautiful sparkly cheetah dress and just felt amazing and powerful and empowered. When I arrived at the chalet, I walked up the stairs to the bar and I will never ever forget that visceral feeling in my body. I walked up those stairs and I knew, I just knew that something was about to happen. Maybe you've had that before in your life where you're moving towards something or even when you're still and you just know something is about to happen. I arrived at the bar and I felt fabulous. I looked fabulous. My friend did such a great job in putting all this on and she introduced me to guests, clients, friends. It was so fun. I had great, engaged, versatile, well rounded conversations. And then there's this one man. And this one man and I, we just fell into each other's eyes. We fell into each other's souls and had amazing conversations about life and skiing and tantra and he was just super stoked because he had been heli skiing the whole day. Plus then he went to the ski hill, loved it and asked, "Do you want to show me around?" I said, "No, I'm going touring tomorrow." Still, we were magnetized. We really were magnetized. And the evening passes on, the night passes on, and I engaged in other conversations. I had such a great time. And every now and then, I look through the space, let my eyes wander. Downstairs there's a band and then a DJ. My friend ended up DJing. It was super fun. Also, there was this whole vibe with this man, and whenever I let my eyes wander through the space, whenever he caught my eyes, something happened. Something happened. The air got hot and just vibrated with charge and electricity and there was this exchange of energy and it was just so fun and powerful and terrifying all at once. But I thought to myself, "Yeah, this is fun." You might have said we flirted, but I feel like it was more. It was just bigger and deeper than that. And we played with our gaze, with our eye contact through the entire space. Ultimately we danced together and it was phenomenal. This man knew how to move his body. And he asked me if I wanted to look at the moon. That's right. Look at the moon. It worked. It's a good line. You should try. And at some point he said, I would like to kiss you. I said, I heard you have a partner. What are your agreements with your partner? Is is this okay? And it was okay. It was within their agreements and we kissed and made out and it was incredible and it touched really deep parts inside of me and it was beautiful and devastating at the same time like wow. Similar, you know, when when you get a massage and you feel like, "Oh my goodness, those parts of me haven't been touched in forever. How good does it feel to finally be touched?" And that's what it felt like. That's what connecting with this man felt like for me. It felt like, "Oh, finally." Water in the desert. And I do have a very, very good relationship with myself and my own pleasure. But connecting with a man on this level hasn't happened in a long time, if ever. It was absolutely mind blowing phenomenal. I stayed up way too late so I didn't go ski touring the next day as planned. I responded to his text, "Let's ski." And I showed him around the mountain. He was a phenomenal skier. I'm into hot skiers. Then, he invited me to join for dinner. It was super lovely to meet this friend group that was staying at the heli lodge. My dear friend who organized the party the previous night was there too. And it just turned into probably one of the best weeks of my life. Enjoying incredible dinners together, skiing, playing board games, being silly, and incredibly hot makeouts and sleepovers (I don't really do sleepovers, but next to this man, I slept like a rock). It was just so good. And I have learned from the past that penetrative sex takes time. That's nothing that happens within a night. I really learned it the hard way. I had a lot of fun. But as I got older, I got more and more discerning and wondered, who do I actually want to merge my energy with in such a deep way? And that's a conversation for another day. But with whom do I want to go this deep? Whom do I really want inside of me? As a matter of fact, who do I want to be inside of me? Anyhow, this man, I really wanted him to be inside of me, but we're not quite there yet. We spent this epic, great week together. We had so much fun. There were some crazy serendipitous moments, like the one time we played a game and he had to guess a word which I had to explain, I said the thing and the first thing he says is abracadabra, and that was the word, and I was like holy shit and the whole room, the whole group, was just like what's happening here like what is going on here. On their last day they had a seat available in the heli. So we got to go heli skiing together. It was just so much fun playing in the snow and it was sunny and beautiful and the friend group was incredible. My heart, my soul, I was so full. Everything felt so rich and beautiful and it was just so special to be invited into this circle of friends and having a very close friend of mine there too who got to witness this whole experience. We even all got rewarded medals for humble strength. At some point I invited him to stay with me for an extra couple of days, because it felt like the right thing to do. He said yes on that last day, and he did stay with me and the magic continued to become more and more magical. We went on this big ski tour I've been wanting to do for years and it was challenging, adventurous and a little bit scary but also so beautiful. Together we were tapping into this the power of play even more deeply, the power of adventure together as a team. We shared another grand adventure, he stayed with me and I said yes. I said yes to the love making and something in me just opened up so deeply and I was ready. I was so ready. I wanted him with every fibre of my being. I don't know how that happened, but it just happened. I'm a woman in my late 30s, but something in it felt so right. We did have conversations beforehand. I had sex without a condom for the first time in a decade, maybe longer, and totally underestimated what that does in the body. And it was phenomenal. Outerworldly. Cosmic. Orgasmic (no kidding). It felt so together, unified. I cried. He cried. It was ineffably powerful and beautiful. Our love making was next level. And in all of that, in our connection, in our love making, he reminded me to breathe. He reminded me to breathe. He said "Breathe, Flora" And usually I am the one walking around reminding people how to breathe. That's what I do for a living. I remind people how to breathe and how to feel their bodies. And suddenly this man reminds me to breathe. Like literally just this word breathe, Flora. Oh, I could not even. I was just balling and balling and balling and it was so deep and so beautiful and just so amazing. But I also knew he's going to leave. He's going to go back to his home, to his partner. So, you know, don't get too attached. Anyhow, we had this magical time together. He extended his stay and then he left. I thought to myself "Okay, wow, that was amazing. I'm so grateful for this magic. That was phenomenal. What a blessing. Ciao." Or so I thought.
A week or so later, he had sent some sweet texts, rather poetic, I was into it. And a week or so later, he asked, "Hey, can I call you?" And we talked and he said, "I booked a flight." I'm like, "What? You did what?" He's like, "I booked a flight to come see you again." Uh, do tell more. Like, "I need to come back to check out if this was real." And I was like, holy shit. Holy shit. Up to then, it was fine. Okay, I had this mind bending experience, and now pack it in a box, put it on the shelf, and occasionally think of it fondly, wow, this happened. I'm so grateful I had this amazing experience. The end. But now he was coming back. That was unexpected. I was not prepared for that plot twist. And he asked if he could stay with me. So he came back. And what can I say? More magic. The magic was real. Ski conditions were mediocre. Sex was beyond anything I had ever experienced before. We had a lot of fun. We skied with friends. He joined for dinners with friends and we had the best time together. We had the best time and I was falling in love. I was falling in love and that time it was ultra important to me to really use a condom because I was around ovulation and I did not want his babies. The entire time, those five, six days was absolutely magical again. Hot springs, skiing, love making, yoga, breath work, learning more about each other and making coffee and meditating together. We shared a bed. I usually don't share beds with people because my nervous system adapts to whoever is there. But I slept so well next to this man.
And more embarrassment. I don't even know if that's embarrassing or maybe somebody really needs to hear that this can actually happen. So our adult selves were very proud of ourselves for using condoms. The sex was just cosmic, so orgasmic, we were breathing together and really opening each other up in this way. And where did the condom go? Where did the condom go? Literally, my pussy had pulled off the condom. Has that ever happened to you? Anyone out there? Please let me know because I still to this day I have not heard of anyone for whom that has happened. So, you got to finger out a condom and I was also ovulating. Fuck. Plan B. Great. Drive to the pharmacy, get plan B. Also haven't done that in, I don't know, more than a decade. Oh goodness I I don't know if I was pregnant or not. But something in me does tell me that I was pregnant and I take that pill and I felt okay but it was still a weird day and it was so interesting to have conversations with this man who has been in partnership for so long. I think it was 15 years. And here I come and blow his mind. I blew his mind. We breathed together. We felt each other. And we had this incredibly magical connection. And I turned his world upside down. His own words. In his own words, I turned his world upside down. And he leaves. And he said, "I love you. I also love my partner. I don't know what to do." And he goes back home.
And I'd say with that first chapter of the experience, when we met and had this amazing connection, I would have been able to be like, "Okay, that was great. Ciao." But him coming back, that was wild. That was crazy wild. I got my hopes up. I dared to start hoping and allowed myself to dream. I allowed myself to dream up life with this man. And then he calls me. "Flora, I am ending my partnership. I am uncoupling from my partner of 15 years." Can you believe it?!?! "Holy shit, this is happening. How can I support you?" And so the dreams became more and more real. And magically enough, during that time I signed my first high-end client. And whenever we talked, we had so much fun. And just this visceral memory of breathing together, of being together, of you can say or believe what you want, but it felt like deep old soul connection. To some degree he was not available, but as a matter of fact he became more and more available and also more and more quiet. We made this agreement, where I offered him to take his time to tend to the uncoupling, tend to the ending of his partnership. I set him free. I asked him to call me in a month. That was one of the scariest things I've done in my entire life. You know this thing where you love someone and you set them free. Did that. Did that. Still proud to this day that I did that.
A month later he called me, and he told me that he recommitted to his partner. I cannot even tell you how fucking heartbroken I felt. It was awful. It was devastating. I I was so sad and also mad and disgusted, but also celebrating him at the same time. "Wow, you you have committed to this person 15 years ago, and you are choosing your partner of 15 years, which I find extremely beautiful and powerful. Instead of me, this new magical creature that brings sparkles and skiing and epic sex into your life." There was so much gratitude for what I opened up in his life where he remembered, I need more spirituality. I need epic sex. "You reminded me of the possibility of those experiences and how important they are to me." I'm so grateful that I got to open that for him and also what he opened for me. I learned that this man exists, that this badass skier, entrepreneur, epic lover, he is out there. He exists. And just that in itself was such a lesson, such a learning. The imprint he left on me was fucking wild. I am tying it down to that deep physical intimacy we shared. We shared the breathing together, the adventures together, a pregnancy scare, so much play and pleasure. I loved who I was with him, the sides of myself he reflected back to me. I really fell in love with it. This almost makes me want to cry. I really fell in love with myself through him. He showed me parts of me that I didn't see before. And that was so beautiful. That was so so beautiful. And then it was also so hard because we make it about them.
Why do I still think about her? Why can't I get over her or him? Why am I comparing everybody I meet with them? Why was that connection so different? Why does the body remember this so clearly even though the mind knows we're done, he chose somebody else, they chose somebody else. Why am I still so invested? Why can't I move on? Maybe it's not just about this partner or this person or this lover. Maybe it's about a project. Maybe it's about this business you dreamt about. Maybe it's about this property you dreamt about. Maybe you tasted a tasty teaser. You tasted something of it and then for whatever reason it left. It was gone and you were left with this sense "But we were so close. We were so close. We were there and then it was gone."
The projection that looked like love and just had enough availability to stay open and curious, "Oh, oh, this becomes more and more real. And there was just enough unavailability- living far away, still in a partnership, then not in a partnership, then again in a partnership. There was just space enough to be a great projection surface. And there comes in my shit, right? Where I'm like, "Oh, but, this was real.... dream, fantasy, duh." Ah, you familiar with that? It fucking hurts. It hurts. I do love my capacity to dream, though. I'm a bit delusional, I'm a massive dreamer. Even if you have the self-awareness and self-knowledge, the capacity, the capability to see the pattern of projection, "Oh, I'm totally projecting here. This has nothing to do with the person, but with myself and what I'm dreaming of." But we still do it subconsciously. And it's so hard. It took me a while. It took me a long time. I was questioning my sanity. It felt really good to have this one friend who was there for most of this experience of us connecting. Hearing that this was real, "Flora. I saw the magic of you two." Having this reassurance that I'm not only making this up. This is not just a fantasy. It was real, too. And then at some point it flips. It flips into the fantasy, into the projection. And then the question is really what what did he allow me to feel? What did he show me that is possible? And maybe you are still waiting. Maybe you're still waiting for them to come back. Maybe you're still waiting for them to choose you. Maybe you're still waiting for the promotion, the property, the project. Maybe you're still waiting to be chosen. And ultimately, all of those things are showing you things about yourself. It's your body is saying, "Brother, what you're looking for on the outside is already inside. It's already inside of you." And it was how I imagined I would feel once I get there. And then suddenly you're there and you're feeling it. So you make it about them because they show up in your life or the thing or the project shows up in your life. You are certain, "Oh, it must be them. It must be them." Whereas ultimately they're just reflecting back to you what's already inside of you. And this was a really hard lesson in all of this. And I still think about him. I still do. And I think about him with a lot of love. And I'm wondering and I know that he did not choose me. He chose somebody else. And I really want this person to feel fully chosen. It was such an insane experience. I could write on and on here, on the freedom of love without needing anything in return, on non attachment, on liberation...
The woman is not the answer. The man is not the answer. The thing is not the answer. But the longing, the longing is real. What are you longing for? What is the longing underneath? What are the things that they uncover inside of you? The things that they show you inside of you. And in that case it was so easy to see? The amazing, deeply spiritual sex I've been craving for years, the breath, the skiing, the money, the success, the client, it all happened while he was here. So, of course it's him. It's about him. He is doing that for me. Uh-uh. It's not true. So was I falling in love with him or was I falling in love with who I got to be with him? Both are true.