Courses & Training:

OPENING TO LOVE & TRUST IN RELATIONSHIP
BY BRENDA SUTHERLAND

Striving to simply connect in our relationships often gets entangled in trying to fix, change and get our needs met, missing the simplicity of connecting. To get out of our own way and cherish life and each other in our magnificence allows us to see and experience what we have been yearning for- letting life roll in ecstasy at our feet.

  1. Steps to Personal and Relationship Transformation
    1. Observer
      Rest in the observer that is aware of the thinking, doing, and oversees all action and inaction.
    2. Personal Responsibility
      The ability to respond to my heart’s desire moment by moment. Own my own stuff, however I think that it is not.
    3. Honour the Co-creation.
      Discovering the depth and truth of who I am means I sometimes need to have it reflected back to me. Thank you for showing me that, and bringing to my consciousness what I had yet to embrace. From this place I recognise in me that which manifests these situations and has brought you to me and created this situation to simply meet and embrace what is.
    4. Align Judgement
      What I judge in you to be, is what I have yet to own in myself. E.g. My man is unconscious. = I am unconsciousness or I am unconscious towards my man/relating with my man.
    5. Surrender to the feeling
      When I let go into the feelings that drive my thoughts, trusting that this moment is perfect then I can hand my feelings over to that part of me that brought me here and let myself go into the moment. When I fully surrender into this moment my feelings dissolve to reveal the wholeness of being.

  2. Whose Business Am I In?
    Any movement I make to get something from someone is a movement in forgetting who I am and that I am already am what I am looking for. How I know I am in your business is that I feel lonely and conflict arises. When I realise this I can truly examine this and ask:

    Whose Business am I in?
    What is my experience in this moment?
    What would someone believe in order to experience this?

    Examining this belief I can do The Work The Great Undoing By Byron Katie www.thework.com
    Is this true? Can I really know it to be true?
    What do I get when I think this thought?
    How do I treat you/others when I think this thought?
    How do I treat myself when I think this thought?
    Can I find any reason, that doesn’t cause stress for holding onto this
    thought?
    Can I find any reason for letting the thought go, without trying to let it
    go?
    How or who would I be without this thought? How would I be with you
    without this thought?
    Turn it around “ I am … or “ It is only in my thinking that…


  3. Active Listening
    I can hear you and I want to prove you wrong, give my opinions, but I know what would happen, I want to justify myself but instead I will really listen and actively listen. I can hear the feeling behind the situation that you are talking about, I can really feel this, so I will instead tell you that I can feel this, so that you can really hear that I am listening. Fact and Feeling, I would like you to know that I am hearing you, I hear your feeling and the fact of the matter . Here I can tell you so that you do not have to fight to be heard or understood, here I can really meet you, acknowledge where you are at so we can both get our needs met and really listen to what is going on.

  4. ‘I’ statements: “
    I feel myself closing when you………. (Talk from how it is for you, without blame, include your feelings, the fact and the consequence when addressing issues)
    The invitation is to allow myself to remain open, to speak the truth without the need to have you ‘fix’ it – saying it can be enough, letting it be heard is enough, I am not challenging.

  5. From Man to Woman: Your anger, nagging, rejection just closes me more.
    I just reflect the way you are – I have no choice. Open and I will find this irresistible. Am I committed enough to love enough to open you when you have closed.
    If I continuously ignore your opening then honour your gift of loving and opening and leave.
    I nag because you have closed, and when you are home in yourself then I can rest in trusting you.

  6. From Man to Woman: I love the way your body moves – I hear your body not your words.
    Seduce me back to consciousness with your body. Open me with your loving presence, your words just close me to the more of you.

  7. From Woman to Man: Devote yourself to life, your purpose and I will become a part of that, not the one who needs to be devoted.

  8. From Woman to Man: When you fuck me, I close…….trust yourself and me enough to “meet in love”, to let your spirit move you. I will trust you in knowing that you can.

  9. Lets honour our relationship daily.
    My daily ritual to you is……
    Our weekly ritual to our togetherness is……
    Creating rituals gives meaning to the togetherness, to remind ourselves the importance of nurturing the togetherness.

  10. Taking time for me.
    When I take time for me my spirit can speak to me and I am able to hear. I can fill up with all that I need and overflow with this to you.

  11. My way is not your way, even when I think I know better. I trust you to know your own way.

  12. Exercises to open my body and heart:
    Yoga, active meditations – kundalini, chakra breathing, dynamic
    Mediation, Massage, Exercises – swimming, tai chi, dance, swimming, sounds etc
    What are some of my favourites? Write them down

  13. What is my addiction?
    My man?
    My escaping?
    My work?
    My emotions? ie: rejection, abandonment, disappointment etc
    What does this addiction protect me from?

  14. I will walk in your moccasins so that I may have compassion for you.

  15. A Balance of Giving and Taking
    I see now that you have hurt me and I have hurt you back, if I hurt you a little less each time there is an opportunity to give and take positively, otherwise our giving and taking is based on hurt, it still keeps us together. Our relationship is based on giving and taking in whatever capacity that appears…this is what keeps us together. So if I give and then you give a little more, and then I give the relationship is maintained.

  16. Respecting you again
    Today, as in everyday, I would like to tell you 3 things that I a love about you, that I know when I say them to you, it will make you happy.
    “I love the way you are just there for me when I need you, even if it is in a way that I think should be different”
    “I love how you are devoted to what you do”
    “I love how you move when you want me”

  17. Clearing the way to Meet In Love
    Make time to clear all the positive and negative withholds that stand in the way of surrendering and meeting each other.. Firstly negative with holds, Secondly positive with holds by using “I statements”

  18. Dear Lover: My deepest hearts yearning is that you trust life fully enough to let it claim you,
    not in its mediocrity or safely, but fully, to walk your hearts pull. Then I am able to fully
    trust you, as I trust life.

    Dear Beloved: I have not been shown the way and everyday is a challenge for me to find my heart and to trust enough to follow it, to listen to its voice and bow to it. Thank you for honouring your love and devotion, and the movement to open me. I will hear your invitation, and life’s invitation and ride the waves of consciousness and love.

    As I read your letter to you, please let the words touch your soul, without any discussion, comment so I can freely tell you the depth of my heart, I will do the same in the next couple of days when you read your letter to me. We will not discuss it instead trust that our hearts respect and open to hear each others words.

  19. I Am What I Am Looking For -
    When I fully experience the flow of life and love, I become to realise I am what I have been looking for. Here all techniques drop away and I can simply meet you wholeheartedly.

  20. Granting a New Beginning
    Together we walk with new intentions, new commitment to our true self and our love for each other as we grant each other a new beginning.