Issue no. 9  - January 2011
 

Welcome to Zelda's Newsletter

I've been living in Amsterdam for more than 30 years now. Through my work, I've met many people from all corners of the globe. My newsletter provides the opportunity to stay connected with people from past, present and future. Where ever they may be on their life's journey!

If you have any comments or feedback, please feel free to drop me an email. 

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In this month's issue:
- Let's talk about sex
- Maybe healthy people don't want sex
- How to create intimacy
- The best is yet to come!
- What's love got to do with it?

2011 Workshop and Lecture agenda
3 February - Relationship & Spirit: Interactive lecture with Zelda Hall
25 February - The essentials of independent Spiritual Practice. Hosted by Lara Owen
 

Let’s talk about sex...

Remember this one?  It’s from 1990 and was controversial at the time. In the video everyone wears a lot more clothing than they do these days! 

’’There was no sex in Ireland before television’’. Oliver J. Flanagan 1920-1987 a long serving member of the Dáil Éireann, or lower house of the Irish parliament, is famous for this statement. I was living in Dublin at the time. And lucky for me, we were already well into the television era. What one wonders, would Oliver J. have thought of the internet? How things have changed!  

For centuries in the West, people’s self worth was measured by their ability to destroy their sexual desire with their mind (sex was not a sin if done without desire). Apparently, Kellogg’s cornflakes were originally marketed as a cure for carnal strivings and masturbation!

Now we're supposed to want sex. And low sexual desire is considered a problem. Whilst I was writing this, an email arrived offering: “Cutting edge hardness technology which gives you a long and stiff-as-steel erection any moment you need one."  Now that doesn't sound like something I would necessarily like to encounter! 

But maybe there’s a solution to my lack of interest. A pill to increase women’s libido? Well, it's actually on its way!  Originally developed as an anti-depressant but didn’t make the grade, it was discovered that this pill had an intriguing side effect: increasing sexual desire in women. Doubtlessly, another triumph for Big Pharma!  

Maybe healthy people don't want sex unless it's worth having.

For many young people and even many of us older ones who might know better, sex has become increasingly divorced from intimacy and is about performance.

Certainly for many men and for women, the pressure to look a certain way has some of us posing in bed, as if we were auditioning for a part in a porn movie. Feeling that you have to ‘present’ yourself rather than just being with someone is not conducive to intimacy.

"When the authorities warn you of the dangers of having sex,
there is an important lesson to be learned.
Do not have sex with the authorities."
~ Matt Groening

How to create intimacy

Of course when we are first involved in a relationship, we tend to be on our best behaviour. We surf along on the hormonal high. As time ticks on, and the hormones wear off slightly, we hopefully feel more at ease and able to reveal ourselves, warts, pot belly, hairy legs, cellulitis and all!

However, the problem is that the more important someone becomes to us in our lives, the more old anxieties and patterns surface.

It is how we deal with this stage and our capacity for self reflection, which will determine whether we can establish true intimacy and a sustainable relationship, where sex is also truly intimate.

The best is yet to come! 

What happens, or doesn’t happen in bed is a reflection of what is happening in the rest of the relationship.

In his book "Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships", David Schnarch talks about the necessity for differentiation in relationship.

David defines this as the ability to stay in connection without being consumed by the other person. Because people with more life experience are often more aware of who they are, it means they may be more capable of differentiation.

"If you’re interested in sex with intimacy there isn’t a seventeen-year-old who can keep up with a healthy sixty-year-old.“
~ David Scharch.

What's love got to do with it?

Every  relationship is an entity with its own DNA created in the meeting of two individuals. If we look closely at incidents and dreams which occur early on in the relationship, we can predict to some extent, the patterns which will arise. Being aware of this may help us to decide whether the relationship is viable. And with seeing what our own part in its failure or success may be.

Find out more by coming to my interactive lecture on 3rd February. There are only a few places remaining for this lecture! See the agenda for more information or visit my website.

"I am, at the end of every day, responsible for my own state of being. I doubt that there is a more important tool of cheerful companionship than that truth." 
~ Elizabeth Gilbert

WORKSHOP & LECTURE AGENDA 2011

What’s love got to do with it? Relationship and spirit.
Interactive lecture with Zelda Hall
3 February 2011, Amsterdam

"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."
~ Carl Jung

Each relationship has its own spirit or story. A kind of relationship DNA. This reveals itself in incidents or dreams that occur early on in the relationship and can be witnessed in any meaningful interaction between two people. Having some sense of the spirit behind the relationship can be helpful in nurturing it but also when having to decide whether a relationship is viable or not.  

At this lecture you will learn:
 

  * Ways of discovering the spirit in a relationship

  * Creating more fulfilment in relationships of all kinds.

Date:           3rd February 2011

Time:          19:30 - 22:00

Location:    LUMEN, Nieuwe Keizersgracht 58, 1018 DT Amsterdam

Fee:             20Euros

You will need to bring socks or slippers, pen and paper.

Places are limited for this lecture,  registration in advance is recommended.  Upon registration you will receive payment instructions. Fee is payable in advance to guarantee your place.

The Essentials of Independent Spiritual Practice.
Interactive lecture with Lara Owen
25 February 2011, Amsterdam

I have invited Lara Owen, teacher and author, to give a talk and present her latest book Growing Your Inner Light: A Guide to Independent Spiritual Practice on 25^th February 2011.

For more information, please visit my website. Places are limited for this lecture, so registration in advance is recommended.  

In the meantime, staying with the theme of relationships, read Lara's informative article: Dating for grown-ups.

Coming soon... Unfolding Destiny Workshops.  If you are interested in receiving announcements about this workshop or future workshops and lectures held in Netherlands, England or Ireland, you can sign-up here to select your preference.