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“All marriages have difficulties.” “All couples fight.” “The make-up sex is fantastic.” So, what’s your story about marriage? Was it something you learnt from your parents or did you choose a different way to love?

I don’t resonate with any of the quotes above. To me, it’s like saying “birth is painful and dangerous”. Maybe that’s your experience, but that doesn’t mean it is the same for every woman on the planet. And just as more and more women are discovering that birth can be joyous, pleasurable, painless and ecstatic, so too will people discover that by bringing conscious awareness to the path of marriage, and recognising both ‘self’ and ‘other’, their script doesn’t need to mimic other people’s less than pleasant (and often destructive) experiences.

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What do you bring to marriage? What is your fundamental belief about being in a long-term commitment? Does it fill you with fear or delight? Does it speak of entrapment? Or freedom? Do you feel comfortable being vulnerable and honest?

While each of us is our own person, and has our own beliefs, when we are in a relationship, a third entity is created. That ‘sacred being’ needs feeding and nourishment in order to grow and thrive, and that living entity then, like an invisible feed-back loop, ensures the individuals become the best version of themselves. And isn’t that what we truly want for the other? If not, then why stay in that relationship?

 

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Someone said to me a while ago, “how can you stand spending time with your husband all the time?” (We both work from home.) The short and long answers: “I love it. I never tire of his company.”

For a marriage to blossom, it requires the individuals really know themselves. When we do that, then we fully own everything we bring to the relationship. When we don’t, pretty much everything is the other person’s fault. So marriage falls somewhere between an adversarial dead-end street or a vibrant freeway to heaven!

One of my daughters once commented that her father and I set the bar so high in terms of marriage. Truth is, I wouldn’t waste a day of my life in anything less than what we’ve created. If that’s the message my children see, then I’m delighted! Why spend your life consuming cheap and nasty ice cream when you can sup on the deluxe, gourmet, high-quality ice cream?

 

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Mandy and Graham Bingham, one of the most gorgeous couples I know.

The more conscious we become, the more we also come to understand that our marriage is a mirror of our own self-worth and self-love. If your relationship isn’t anywhere near what you’d like it to be, then you have to go back to you. That is where the real loving has to begin and end. Love, Value, Respect. Prioritise your self-care and self-love, and watch your relationship change. Invest in your emotional and creative well-being. Life’s too short for anything less.

Perhaps you could use the energies of this upcoming Full Moon to really get a sense of relationship. https://veronikarobinson.com//full-moon-in-libra-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall/

Veronika Robinson has been officiating ceremonies since 1995. She has a deep love of the sacred, and derives great joy from creating, writing and officiating ceremonies for people. She specialises in handfastings, but is equally at home conducting more formal weddings in five-star venues, as well as namings, home blessings, blessingways, vow renewals and funerals. Veronika officiates sacred and inspirational ceremonies throughout Cumbria, northern Lancashire and Southern Scotland, and is particularly fond of outdoor ceremonies. www.veronikarobinson.com/celebrant

A few years ago I had a strong desire to leave the life I’d known as a magazine editor and become a romance novelist. It made sense. I have a deeply felt need to bring more love to the world, and I love writing. Why not combine the two?

I spent my teenage years immersed in romance novels. They provided just the antidote to boring school days and tedious exams. Instead of doing homework, I was being romanced by tall, dark, fictional men…that is, until I could hear my mother walking up the hallway to my bedroom. And then, my secret lover was shoved beneath the textbooks while I pretended to studiously examine the theory of how to dissect a frog. Talk about going from princes to frogs!

I was thrown out of biology class for drawing hearts. Love hearts!

I met my husband Paul―a prince, not a frog―when living in New Zealand, and we moved in together the day after our first date. It was ‘I’ve known you forever’ at first sight. We’re happily in love, two decades later. I still get butterflies when I see him smile, or watch him walking towards me. He makes me laugh like no one else can. I can feel the privilege of those oft-said words: till death do us part; and I know that it means our love will carry us through and beyond that day.

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Our love story is a rom-com; I’m the rom, he’s the com. In the roughly ten years I spent as a single woman, I kissed more than a few of those proverbial toads. Often it’s only in hindsight that we see the blessings of poor relationship choices and lost loves. Those toads—every single one of them—showed me what I didn’t want in a relationship. And so I went on kissing toads in the hope that there was a fairytale ending for me. Those toads may have worn different costumes, and had different names or jobs, but in the end a toad is a toad is a toad. Would I ever meet my handsome prince? Perhaps I’d read far too many Mills & Boon romance novels! Nevertheless, they gave me hope.

 

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Despite the heartache, the betrayal, the lack of emotional intelligence or ability to give more openheartedly by some of the above said toads, I never really stopped believing in love. It took me about ten years of kissing toads to realise I wasn’t a toad, and that’s why those relationships didn’t fit right.

I trained to become a marriage celebrant. Even if I wasn’t married, I could at least celebrate other people’s happy unions. As it turned out, by the time I officiated my first ceremony in 1995 I had a beautiful baby girl growing inside me. Yes, I’d found my prince! Or had he found me?

Several years ago, I became rather ill with what I later discovered was adrenal fatigue. I ended up in bed for weeks, so exhausted I could barely move. My daughters, bless them, remembered my teenage addiction to romance novels and scoured the local charity shops buying me dozens of novels from their pocket money. I’d not read romance novels in years. At first, I was somewhat amused that I’d ever found them interesting. After all, aren’t they all the same? That’s what everyone thinks, right? Boy meets girl. Boy is a prat. Girl can’t bear the sight of him. Well, she can really, because, frankly, he’s so hot he’s capable of melting an ice cream from five metres away. Is it lust? Is it…oh my, it’s love. And, darn it, turns out they’ve always loved each other and can’t possibly be apart.

Whatever the storyline, those novels helped me heal. Each day I found myself getting stronger as I read more stories of romance. I’m a fast reader, and generally get through a Mills and Boon novel in two hours.

Then, a few summers ago, I decided to write a romance novel. That summer, getting up before sunrise each day, I wrote five romance novels. Finally, I’d come full circle. All those years of reading about romance, and now I was writing stories about love. But was I?

My novels Mosaic, Bluey’s Café and Sisters of the Silver Moon are not romance novels, but they all feature love stories. What I learnt from writing these novels and writing those five romance manuscripts is that I actually find it hard to follow the formula of ‘boy meets girl and now we have to throw lots of obstacles in their way before they can be together’. Although I have quite the backlog of toads to my name, when I met ‘the one’ our path was smooth. Instant. And in my heart, that is what I wish for other women. I hope that one day they look up and ‘he’ is standing there before them, smiling, and ready to open his heart. I hope he won’t be all ego, arrogance and too macho to communicate his feelings.

 

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The alpha men of romance novels might be drop-dead gorgeous, but I want women to do better than that. I wish for them men who make you come ALIVE with their gorgeousness. You know, those men who aren’t just eye candy but are nourishing soul food. Men who are your equal, and don’t treat you as if you’re anything less than royalty. How do we know if someone is right for us? The best way is to close our eyes. How do they feel? What energy emanates from them? Because, it isn’t their dashing looks which will sustain your relationship through the years, but their kindness, respect, integrity, honesty and ability to be emotionally intimate and vulnerable.

I am grateful for every Mills and Boon book (and other publishers, too) I’ve ever read. And I’m so pleased I never gave up on finding true love. Like childbirth, I don’t believe it has to be a painful experience. I also don’t subscribe to the common beliefs:

Every marriage has its difficult times
Every couple fights.

It’s time people started creating their own love stories. Ones that aren’t perpetuating conflict, drama, power games, disrespect or arrogance. Because, you know what? Love isn’t any of those things. Love is accepting, honest, open, kind, encouraging, supportive, respectful, forgiving, compromising, and fair. Love is loving. And yes, even though most of us are dysfunctional in one way or another, and we all have a needy ‘inner child’, so too are we adults capable of making adult choices. Every moment of our relationship interaction is a choice.

 

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As a writer, I have come to accept that I may never have what it takes to be a romance novelist. I can, however, always write about love. For love, true love, is something I know well.

There’s an old Patty Loveless song with lyrics I relate to:
If you don’t count my reckless youth, I came straight to you.

And also: I saw a tender heart, and I came straight to you.

I was in my mid-twenties when I had the pleasure of working with a man called Graham. He was a Minister of Metaphysics. I taught workshops such as “Why is this happening to me again?” and “The Quest”. Together, we made a great team. I loved going to work. Graham was fun, he was passionate, and he was smart. He was also deeply empathetic.

One day Graham said to me “Veronika, you have to stop believing all men are bastards”.

His words hit me hard, but they were just the wake-up call I needed. I did have a strong belief system in place which meant that the guys who turned up in my life were not the sort of men who were good for me. Graham was one of the first men in my life I respected, and my working relationship with him was a turning point in how I saw men.

My experiences with men had me believing that they were generally unavailable in some form, or were just out for one thing.

Graham’s words had me doing some serious soul searching, and whatever it was that I excavated from deep within my murky subconscious clearly did the trick. Just a few weeks later, the man who would become my husband, walked into my life. And, thank the Goddesses, he’s still here.

In my youth, I was a magnet for ‘bad boys’. What was I looking for? Adventure? Fun? From my current vantage point, I simply didn’t know what I was looking for back then. I had a dad who worked overseas for the majority of my childhood, so I didn’t have him around as a role model (for better or worse). What I did have pervading my childhood were men who took advantage of me sexually. When your boundaries (physical and spiritual) are penetrated in such a way you lose any sense of self. Today I’m a different person. Abuse, of course, comes in different forms ~ it’s not just sexual. All those years of having men take advantage of me destroyed something within me. But I didn’t stay a victim. I empowered myself and grew into the woman I am today. The one my husband describes as ‘she doesn’t take sh** from anyone’. I think he means it as a compliment!

Spending the past twenty years with a man who respects me has been deeply healing. In the process, I have also found my feet and my inner power source. No man walks over me. And although I may not be physically strong like a man, I have a strength within that could make a grown man cry.

I have had the good fortune to meet some amazing, caring, talented, loving, kind and wonderful men over the years. To be honest, such men are in the minority. But who is to blame for this lack of decent men? Their mothers? Probably. The culture? Definitely. Women? I’m afraid so.

As long as women allow men to treat them appallingly (on any level), the longer those men have what they consider their god-given right to be disrespectful, thoughtless, uncaring, rude… and you can stick an assortment of other words here.

When I write my novels, I create men that I’d want to have in my life. And, here’s a secret: a lot of their characteristics are based on what I find admirable in my husband. I’m not prepared to share him with anyone, but I would love for women the world over to experience the joy, liberation, well-being and happiness that come from living with a good man. When we are in such a relationship, the depth of emotional intimacy is life-changing. Remember, intimacy = in to me see.

 

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This gorgeous man is the inspiration behind the character Isaac in my novel Sisters of the Silver Moon. You can just tell from his smile that he’s loving, kind, thoughtful, humorous and gentle.

I dated about fifty guys before I met my husband. My daughters are horrified by this. Yeah, I’d like to erase them all from my history, too, but… what I did learn from those experiences is what I don’t want in a man. When Paul walked into my life, I recognised him immediately as someone who was kind, tender and had a good sense of humour. He was unlike any man I’d been out with before. No wonder we moved in together the next day after our first date. Sheesh, I wasn’t letting him go. I often joke that I didn’t marry him; I took him hostage!

So, when my single friends ask me ‘where are all the good men?’ I probably need to enlighten them and break through the myth that they’re already married.

Want a good man to turn up in your life? Then you need to honour yourself enough not to say ‘yes’ to the men who aren’t good for you. Ladies, you’re worth more than crumbs. Don’t accept them! Go for the best, most luscious, delicious cake you can find!  If there isn’t one in sight, then bide your time and grow yourself into the most beautiful and amazing version of you. You are what you eat. Don’t eat the crumbs!

I imagine most of us have used a funnel at some time. Do you use the wide, open end to pour your liquid, or the thin, narrow end? Of course you use the open side. It would be silly and pointless to use the other end.

 

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And yet…and yet how many people go through life with the narrow end pointing out to the Universe? To be open to consciously receiving all the good and abundance and joy and love and happiness and riches of this amazing world, we have to open our heart and mind as widely as possible. Our receiving container must have the capacity to receive.

Studies have shown the positive people appear to have luckier lives because, quite simply, they expect to have their container filled. These are the people with the open side of the funnel as their ‘first responder’ to any event in life.

Those who go through life with an aura of pessimism can’t expect to receive more than a few miserly crumbs.

 

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Is it possible to change who you are and start looking for the best in life? Hell yes! Is it possible to change the direction of your funnel? Yes!

The question is: do you want to receive the abundance of this world?

Thank you to my husband Paul for this lovely analogy. Sometimes it’s the simplest images, isn’t it?

Now, my friends, pick up your metaphorical funnel and hold the wide, open end out to the Universe and say YES PLEASE. Thank you!

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/I-Create-My-Day

 

#icreatemyday

 

 

Invitation for Submissions, 2014

Starflower Living (digital magazine) is now seeking submissions for issue 2, publishing July 26th. Due date for articles, photographs or art, July 10th. Please send to: office (at) starflowerpress (dot) com or veronika (no space) robinson (at) hotmail (dot) com

 

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Themes sought for our New Moon in Leo issue include: the heart, courage, pride, fierce determination, fire, passion, love and romance, playfulness, creativity and celebration. (Health-related topics: back and spine, heart, exhaustion, inflammations.)

We seek articles that are original, and haven’t been published (or submitted) elsewhere in print or digitally. Please ensure the work is your own, and is of a professional standard. If submitting art or photographs, please make sure you have written permission from the owner.

Issue 3 themes for the New Moon in Virgo (due date August 8th): healing, healers, helpfulness, service, mentoring, diet/exercise, perfectionism, discrimination, efficiency, weight management, mind/body/soul, alternative health care. Health: solar plexus, bowels and intestines, digestion.

Issue 4 themes for the New Moon in Libra (due date, September 6th): Love, partnership, marriage, kindness, balance, fairness, co-dependency, harmony, beauty, counselling, peace, décor, diplomacy, companionship, grace, luxury and elegance. Health: kidneys, adrenals, sugar imbalance.

Issue 5 themes for the New Moon in Scorpio (due date, October 4th): soul mates, sexuality, transformation, empowerment, letting go, old baggage, psychology, secrets, depth of character, compulsions, deep emotional connections, debt, inheritance, jealousy, abandonment. Health: sexual organs, organs of elimination, menstrual cycle, sexual diseases.

Issue 6 themes for the New Moon in Sagittarius (due date, November 2nd): optimism, faith, adventure, freedom, truth, travel, publishing, horses, expansion, higher learning, Nature, conscience, friendliness, universities, philosophy. Health: thighs, sciatica, liver, hips.

Issue 7 themes for the New Moon in Capricorn (due date, December 1st): self-discipline, commitment, public image, aging, success, reaching goals, financial security, ambition, respect, fathers, and tradition. Health: knees, skin, bones, joints, gall bladder/stones, arthritis.

Starflower is also known as borage. Borage comes from the Celtic word borrach which means courage. Starflower Living is a publication dedicated to holistic and courageous living. www.starflowerpress.com