In my work with Randall, he would immediately go into his head and analyze what was happening in session minute feelings came up. Over and over I would bring him out of his head and into his body, into his feelings. His feelings were so terrifying to him that he could only stay with his feelings for a few moments before he was back into his head - explaining, figuring out, intellectualizing. He was so terrified of soul loneliness and aloneness he felt that he had learned to avoid these feelings with his mind. Yet until Randall was willing to feel his painful feelings, which had been there since childhood, he couldn’t stay out of his head. As long as his intent was to control his pain rather than learn from it, he would not be able to move into spiritual connection he so desired.

The purpose of all of our addictions are to avoid pain, especially deep soul loneliness that we all feel in this society. The problem is that our disconnection from our feelings - which is our Inner Child - creates aloneness as well. Our feeling self, our Inner Child, is left alone inside with no one to attend to painful feelings. It is only when our desire is to learn about how we may be causing our own painful feelings that we open to our inner experience. Our desire to learn also opens door to our spiritual connection, which we cannot feel when our intent is to avoid pain with our various addictions.

It took Randall many months to be willing to feel his painful feelings, but he discovered that when he finally had courage to feel them, it was not as bad as he thought. In fact, when he was no longer abandoning his Inner Child by going into his addictive thinking, he no longer felt alone within. Connecting with himself allowed him to connect with Spirit more and more of time. Rather than getting there through thinking and trying to control it, he was getting there by being present in moment with his inner experience - surrendering to moment. Randall found that while he could not control others and outcome of things, he actually did have control over his misery - by choosing intent to learn rather than protecting against pain. While he couldn’t control Spirit, he did have control his own intent, which eventually led to his being able to connect with Spirit.

Creating time to connect with yourself means setting aside time each day to just be with yourself. When you plan this quiet time - to pray, meditate, dialogue, journal - you create space to connect with Spirit as well. It is when you are quiet and in moment with yourself that you will hear voice of your spiritual guidance.

Creating time to connect with each other means planning time to do nothing with each other, as well as planning fun time together. It means sitting together on patio and watching sunset. It means having a cup of tea together before going to work. It means watching a video together, or taking a walk. It means getting into bed way before bedtime to cuddle and share your day with each other. It means getting up early enough to share your dreams with each other. It means planning a date night together at least once a week.

Your relationship with yourself and your partner will always suffer if you do not plan time to connect. This is not a luxury - something you do only after you’ve finished everything. This is a necessity for your own health and well-being as well as health and well-being of your relationship. You will never finish everything you need to do. There will always be "stuff." But wonder and passion of life will pass you by if you do not schedule in time to connect. This time needs to be as important as time you take to eat, sleep, and work. It is only when you see it as essential to your well-being will you make it a very high priority in your life.

Gretta and David decided to set aside a half hour each day to sit on their patio and do nothing with each other. In addition, they each decided to set aside another half hour - when they were usually doing stuff - to connect with themselves. It didn’t take long for passion to come back into their relationship.