As I’m a relationship coach, people come to me to solve their relationship problems.

Whether they’re fighting with their significant other, trying to open up their relationship or wanting to attract better partners into their life, there is usually some kind of drama or unpleasant situation they’re looking to resolve.

What do they want instead?

They want intimacy, understanding, love, joy and freedom. Basically, they want to be happy.

I’m the same way. It’s that whole thing about seeking pleasure and avoiding pain—we all do it.

While I consider myself a highly introspective person who values growth and process, tell me to love the journey in the middle of a fight with my partner and I might say I just want it all to be better.

I want peace, calm and happiness, dammit!

This week, something happened in one of my relationships that totally shook me up.

My partner of three years told me he wanted to move toward being non-sexual with me for a while—and maybe permanently.

My immediate reaction was to cry and search desperately for answers. This wasn’t what I wanted, or so I thought.

Everything else in our relationship has been evolving beautifully and we both wanted to continue building emotional intimacy, so on the surface it made no sense.

Yet, even as I cried and processed over the next few days, a creative well opened within me.

Writing was flowing from me. I started working on launching my podcast. I felt light and joyful behind the tears.

I could feel that something in me that had been blocked had opened up and was overflowing.

Our sexual and creative energies come from the same place. The second chakra is the chalice that holds this vital life energy, and energetic blocks or imbalances in the body can restrict its flow.

We each have the ability to live fully in this energy at all times, regardless of how much sex we’re having or if we even have a sexual partner at all.

Yet, so often we rely on others to unlock this energy in us, not realizing how powerful we are.

Despite knowing all this, being in a non-sexual relationship that I thought was “supposed” to be sexual caused me to question my own expertise over the next week.

A little voice in my head whispered that relationship coaches are supposed to be happily partnered, with rocking sex lives.

That successful polyamorous people should have at least two committed partners and not a scattered network of people who are “more-than-friends” or occasional lovers. A voice inside whispered,

“You need to be modeling something other than what you are.”

Even though I knew this was probably nonsense, I couldn’t help but think that maybe I was doing something wrong.

When we step outside of the normalized roles accepted by our culture, it can feel weird or even wrong at first. We all build up images of the way things “should” be, and our own minds are the most powerful enforcers of these social norms.

Yet, if we listen to our bodies and our emotions, they may tell a different story.

In my case, I spent two days crying and writing prolifically, and in this open, raw space, my partner and I seemed to be getting along better than ever. His expression of something that he had been holding back had opened up a new emotional intimacy between us.

And I felt a lightness in me, a sense of peace for the place where I am. It wasn’t exactly the vision I had for my life, but it felt so deeply true and right.

As we start living in connection with the source of all life inside of us and stop relying on others to fill our needs of being loved and validated, something magical happens.

We find a new joy in bringing forth that which is inside of us, whether it’s a story, a piece of art, a new idea or some other expression that we have not previously allowed to surface.

There is a divine dance of creation waiting for our participation, if only we can slip away from our roles and expectations long enough to hear the music.

And sometimes, if we’re not getting the message, the universe may throw us for a loop so that we can see what we’ve been missing.

When we stop chasing happiness outside of ourselves, we may hear another voice speaking to us. It might whisper,

“It’s not about being happy; it’s about being on the path. It’s not about solving every conflict. Nor is it about getting to some perfect equilibrium. It’s about doing the work, triggering the dark places in the other, and holding each other’s hands as we bring them into the light.”

“It’s not always fun, and it’s certainly not always happy, but it is so deeply rewarding that you know you wouldn’t choose any other way of being over this intense, transformative and heartbreakingly beautiful journey you are on.”

And guess what?

A few weeks later, my partner and I started being sexual again. But now it’s not from a place of expectation that it’s something we are supposed to do. We only engage in a sexual way when both of us are feeling 100 percent in the flow of our erotic energy.

The future is still uncertain, and we haven’t “reached” anywhere. But I’m writing and creating and walking the path—one dancing step at a time.

I live, breathe and teach transformation and growth. That is my path.

I posses a lively curiosity for the great unfolding that lies before me, and in that I will find a different kind of happiness, one which has nothing to do with the external circumstances of my life.

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Relephant:

6 Ways to Have Radically Intimate Sex.

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Author: Moriah Helms

Apprentice Editor: Brandie Smith / Editor: Toby Israel

 Image: Pixabay

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