God and Sex
He was six foot four, had strawberry blond hair, arresting blue eyes, and somehow embodied what Jung would call my animus, or the imago.
Steve approached me after the meeting where I’d naively asked, “How do God and sex go together?” I was about to celebrate my thirty-fourth birthday and almost four years sober. Steve had eight years on my four.
“I asked my priest that question,” Steve said. He was six foot four, had strawberry blond hair, arresting blue eyes, and somehow embodied what Jung would call my animus, or the imago. My ideal male.
Scientist John would call him my chimera, which I took to mean magic instead of a “thing that is wished or hoped for but impossible to achieve” that John knew it to be.
chi·me·ra:
(in Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.
I had diligently done my 12-step work and followed the suggestions, such as making no major changes the first year of sobriety, which for me meant staying in my marriage the first few years and then staying out of a relationship a year after we separated. I had been restored to sanity. I did not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it, and I was brand damn new. I might be the mother of two, but I was a virgin in every sense of the word.
I was primed to fall head over heels in love with somebody, and there he was, “I talked to my priest about it,” he said. I believed every word.
Somewhere in there, I would have to betray myself, wouldn’t I?
It happened a few dates in when I told him over dinner that I thought we should be friends first, and his tone immediately shifted to anger. Though the signs were subtle, I froze like a deer in headlights. Deep down below the level of consciousness emotional conflicts persisted in me that hadn’t been addressed in the first go-round of the steps, nor would they surface for many go-rounds after, but these? The ones around men and relationships and my unworthiness and lack of value? It was time.
I froze like a deer in headlights.
Of course, I didn’t see it coming. We will come to know a new freedom and happiness. I was sure I was ready for THE ONE. I was sure he was right there in front of me, this tall, handsome man I could look up to, literally.
I had done the work, I thought. I didn’t know the work happens in the failure of relationship, not in the happy ever after.
When he didn’t get his way and his tone and demeanor switched, I betrayed myself. I gave in, adjusted to what he wanted instead of remaining true to myself. I had deep emotional conflicts regarding love and abandonment. The only love I’d experienced had been conditional, transactional. In the high-control religious group I was born and raised in, God’s love had stringent conditions. My parents’ love and approval did, too, and was contingent on my conforming. Human love is like that. I like to think we are evolving as humans to a less transactional model of love, whether we call it God or not.
Though my new recovery told me to honor myself, I didn’t know how. Even though I had a glimpse of its importance, a hint my step work and sobriety had given me - to thine own self be true - I wasn’t able.
The rest of the relationship, which lasted several years as he came and went on his terms, was spent in denial that I’d made a deal with the devil. The devil came in the figure of this beautiful man with a voice like an angel, whom I could not see as my equal. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I couldn’t imagine this man I idealized, or any man, could love me unless I twisted myself into a pretzel to please him. Steve wasn’t the devil. The devil was my belief I was only worthy if I gave myself up to please another. If I gave myself up in exchange for love. That’s what I learned in the cult I was raised in: sacrifice was love. A girl groomed to sacrifice a self she wasn’t allowed to develop.
And so I had nothing to bring to the table.
He didn’t either.
Irony. Steve would share how a mentor warned him, “If you don’t do the work on yourself, your soulmate will come, but you won’t recognize them.”
“If you don’t do the work on yourself, your soulmate will come but you won’t recognize them.”
Steve didn’t recognize me. When we made love, I experienced connection on at least seven dimensions of the chakras and maybe beyond, but Steve was only conscious of the first three1.
I believed he was my soulmate. Maybe he was. Maybe we are all each other’s soulmates, but we don’t recognize each other. We choose partners based on personality, but at the soul level, we are all soulmates.
I think that’s always true now. If we use the chakras as a model, even if we’re unaware, we exist in consciousness on many dimensions beyond the physical. We can only experience what we are conscious of. If we are only conscious of the physical, at the level of the profane and the ego, we won’t cross the bridge of the heart into the greater realms. And that’s how God and sex, I learned from Steve, go together. I just didn’t learn it in the way I expected, and he didn’t know it was his lack of awareness that would teach me. That’s how we met and why we came together.
I like to use the term greater versus higher because higher can imply superior, and I don’t think of it that way. I think God is everywhere, not somewhere up there. It’s a matter of consciousness and capacity. What is our capacity?
Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough. … ~ Rainer Maria Rilke
I had asked, “How do God and sex go together?”
The universe answered in the shape of Steve, who walked up to me that Sunday afternoon and introduced himself.
He might as well have said, “I’m here on assignment.”
Things didn’t work out between us, but I didn’t drink over it, thankfully. Over decades of recovery, I’ve observed that many, if not most of us, often relapse or drink again over relationships.
The primary fact that we fail to recognize is our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being.
I had much more to learn, and my first love after getting sober - and I fell hard - was only a beginning, though crucial. It was an initiation and a gateway.
God and sex, it turned out, are best together.
On repeat:
You gotta run those dogs In the rain and the snow
Til you turn where it is you need to go
One thing:
At a certain point, I had to admit that I attracted partners who could not commit because I lacked commitment. A mentor advised me to honestly search my heart, ask myself and my higher power what I wanted, and write it down:
I saw that I did want a committed relationship with a life partner. Getting honest about that enabled me to stop participating in transactional relationships and commit to my own heart’s truth. Once clear, I knew I would rather forego relationships of convenience and remain true to my vision, even if it meant staying single forever.
Get quiet. Maybe sit beneath a favorite tree or by a creek. Ask your heart’s desire. Write a relationship statement: What I Want in My Heart.
Pin it up where you will see it daily.
Share it, or a portion of it, here in the comments. Own it. You are worthy.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Oh, and never forget, you can always change your mind if your heart says so.
Dear reader, did I find THE ONE? I did. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary this past August. But that’s another story. Hint: there are no happy ever afters, no happy endings, only new beginnings. May they never end.
Shout outs:
A shout out to Chandni Challa! Lots to explore in her newsletter and podcast The Great Reality. Love her thoughts on ego, soul, and mind.
And THIS: Spirited Within Y’all Lost the Plot and Phoebe. I love a good rant, and Phoebe is my new crush. Here’s to N95s and people who care so deeply it hurts.
If I had to recommend only one relationship book, this would be the one. If you’re single, this one. My life partner and I had been dating six months when I told him I wanted to attend a Harville Hendrix workshop together. “I just can’t do this again,” I told him, meaning I couldn’t survive another failed relationship. When he pulled out his checkbook and said, “Let’s do it,” I knew our relationship had the potential to go the distance.
Outsiders, misfits, scapegoats? On the margins? You’re my people. I AM THE GOAT: A Love Story is still looking for a home. If you have a substantial subscriber list and are looking for a guest post, contact me!
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A community for those interested in how to recover (from anything), find their badass, kick-ass, and align with their true selves.
The first three chakras are:
The Root Chakra: Muladhara
The Sacral Chakra: Svadhisthana
The Solar Plexus Chakra: Manipura
According to Sri Vidya Tantra, understanding and working with the first three chakras is the gateway to freedom. These chakras are considered your physical chakras and are responsible for your self-image and physical and emotional identity, together with your relationship to the physical world.
"I had done the work, I thought. I didn’t know the work happens in the failure of relationship, not in the happy ever after."
I cannot think of a more accurate description of "doing the work" in a relationship. Like literally the best relationship advice I have ever read.
"A girl groomed to sacrifice a self she wasn’t allowed to develop." HOLY FUCK, YES!!!! 🖤