A recipe for finding love (even if it’s nowhere in sight)
If you met me 2 years ago, I felt like a different person with different priorities. It went work, dog, love, with random spurts of love being put on the top.
Now love lives on top, which allows for everything else to get accomplished as well, which is a dreamy ahha for those of us who love feeling productive.
Let love rule.
So I’m sharing these insights with you while lounging on a comfy couch, surrounded by pillows and dogs at our home in Costa Rica. This is NOT the scene I had 2 years ago…it’s pretty much the opposite in attitude and attire.
I’m also drinking a cup of chamomile tea, wearing my favorite lounge clothes (that closely resemble pj’s), watching the rainstorm through our open door, while my husband works in the garden; he loves working in the rain, it’s part of his healing ceremony.
I’m LIVING in love and this is a typical day in our life.
Now this may not all seem like a big deal to you, but the me from 2 years ago, was no where near this chill state of being, this relationship status, this lifestyle or this country. She was quite far away.
Life can move pretty fast when you open up the manifestation floodgates, and that’s what I’m here to share with you.
The recipe of activating and manifesting love in your personal life (especially when there’s no sign of it).
But…big forewarning here: please be READY to RECEIVE the abundance when it hits you, because the Universe loves it when you say “yes” to its help…you’ll see what I mean in the story.
Although the details of our love stories will be different, I know that the recipe I used to get here can and will work for you as well, because the secret lies in the energy flow surrounding the steps.
And no, I’m not going to give you vague non-actionable steps like, “let go” or “be the change,” because while those are all great, when I wanted shift to happen in my life, I needed bullet points and steps to actionize and cross off; that’s what really made the difference for me, so that’s what I’m going to provide for you.
And what was the result of this recipe?
I met my soulmate, married him 2 months later at a waterfall in Costa Rica, and completely transformed my life.
It’s now been nearly 2 years since the moment I met him and rose into love, and not only has my business expanded and thrived (without me being there onsite), my communication skills have improved, I’m feeling vibrant, I’ve simplified my life and I’m finally looking at and into a lot of the deep energetic blocks that I didn’t even realize had been weighing me down.
Healing is my full time job now, and learning how to let love in is my daily practice.
Why am I sharing this?
Because I find many of my clients (I’m an energy tuner) are desiring deep love and just aren’t finding it in their current state, and when I share what I did and what my results were, I always hear and feel a lightbulb go off for them.
So if I can help more people manifest love for themselves by writing about my experience, then I’m creating more possibility for love to be unfolding everywhere around my cyber space, and that’s exciting.
So here’s my recipe for activating LOVE in your personal life, complete with the actionable steps that I took, that worked.
- Let go of people that aren’t in energetic alignment with where you want to be.
Yes, this may seem vague at first, but here’s what that looked like for me. I had an ex boyfriend that haunted me. He didn’t haunt me to the point that he showed up at my doorstep wanting to get back together, he’d haunt me in the way of reaching out every 10 weeks or so, giving me a morsel of attention, which was always just enough to set off my “what if” alarms, and singe any sparks with whatever guy I was trying to make it work with.
I KNEW my ex wasn’t right for me, but the chemistry of our disfunction was intense, and strangely desirable, and even writing that is crazy to admit.
In my grand scheme of who I am as a human being, that’s not an exchange I wanted to participate in, because it was so dysfunctional, so I wanted to say no to it.
So here’s what I did:
I collected a few shells (rocks could work to), and I listened to the words of Miguel Ruiz Jr (Don Miguel Ruiz’s son), from his book “Five levels of Attachment” on letting go. I then wrote my ex a thank you letter for his valuable role in my life, in helping me see the kind of man I want to be with.
Then I poured this energy of gratitude into one of the shells I’d picked up, I went for a long walk along Sugar Beach, and tossed his shell back out into the ocean.
- note: This doesn’t have to go down at a beach for it to work; you can infuse any object you’re willing to let go, and hurl it out somewhere that you can’t find it again.
- note 2: If it’s a rock, just be mindful of what or who is around you if you’re tossing it out a car window. I don’t want anyone to be harmed by your letting go ceremony ;-)
Here’s what happened.
I SHIT YOU NOT, about 30 minutes after my letting go ceremony of tossing his energy back out into the Universe, I got one of his “haunty” emails, and it was literally powerless over me.
I was blown away by how different I felt.
I responded with grace, and wished him the best on his journey, and that I wasn’t coming along for the ride anymore, and he never reached out again. I think he felt how resolute I was in my decision to let go of him.
After that release, I had the energetic space available for the kind of love I knew I deserved.
And this letting go doesn’t JUST have to do with ex lovers. It spans to anyone who is weighing you down from where and who you energetically want to be.
So have a release party for yourself, and see what happens next.
Powerful stuff comes from releasing toxic energy, and it’ll surprise you what (or WHO) the Universe delivers once you let go.
Exciting.
2. Get CLEAR on who YOU want to be in your love life
Again, sounds vague I know, but I’ll give you the exact actionable and result, to help you break it down. After I let go of the spirit energy of my ex boyfriend, I thought for SURE that I’d be falling in love with the guy I’d been dating for nearly a year. The guy who was 90% awesome for me.
This 90% awesome guy had everything I knew my head wanted in a partner, but something was missing, and I had no idea what it was. Because on paper, we were awesome together.
Therefore I was convinced I was doing love “wrong,” so I grabbed my pen and paper, and sat down with Don Miguel Ruiz himself, at a small table overlooking the ocean at Hotel Sugar Beach in Playa Potrero, and asked him how to say “YES” to love (me thinking it would be like a magic potion, and all I needed to do was drink it).
“Say yes to YOU first” is what Don Miguel Ruiz said to me.
Damn. That’s not a magic potion to drink.
His statement gave me back my power, which was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. What the hell does “saying yes to ME look like?” I thought.
Don Miguel smiled as though he saw the words in my head, and told me to make a list of everything I loved about myself and my life, and imagine what kind of man would love that woman.
Huh, I could do that. There was my actionable.
I made my list. And it was a good list. It showed me 2 main things:
- My 90% awesome guy definitely wasn’t my match
- I was officially looking for a Unicorn
Great. Yay for me.
That night I felt equally hopeful and terrified. So I went for a walk to clear my head, and felt a strange pull to walk further through the jungle to the lobby of the hotel.
There I found a list of activities available for our day off (I was on a yoga retreat), and I didn’t feel called to any of them because I wanted to hang back and kick it at the hotel.
And then I saw a flyer that said, “Chakra Balancing and Energy Clearing with Adam.”
After what I’d just been through, (letting go of 2 ex’s in 24 hours) that sounded perfect, so I signed up for my session the following day at 11am.
Adam arrived at my cottage at 11:16am, and he wasn’t what I expected a Shaman would look like. He was young, handsome, didn’t wear shoes, and was in board shorts.
What are Shamans even supposed to wear? I thought.
But Adam had a way about him that definitely didn’t feel like any human I’d ever met, so after a brief interrogation of his credentials (that I thought I needed before I’d agree to receive healing), our session began.
What I saw during that healing ceremony changed my life.
Adam was my Unicorn.
HUH?! A young hippie Shaman who lived in Costa Rica was my ONE? That didn’t make ANY sense, and Adam didn’t have a lot of the characteristics I’d put on my “non-negotiables” list for a man that I’d made the month before.
I let go of what made sense in my head, and let my heart lead the way, and it felt like a playing field I didn’t even know existed, but felt like coming home.
I married Adam 2 months later.
Here’s what’s REALLY important to see here. I met Adam less than 24 hours after I’d let go of who and what wasn’t for “me”, and made my love list about myself.
Damn, thanks Universe, that was fast.
p.s. The Universe LOVES to deliver what you’re clear about #foodforthought
3. Make Space for who you want to be in your love life
I mean this literally and figuratively.
If you met me ONLY 2 years ago, I didn’t have time for love. Sure I was in a relationship, but not really. I worked a ton, and when I wasn’t working, I was thinking about working, so the time I spent being “present” for love was low on my priority list.
My priority list went like this: my work, my dog, my relationship…yikes, I know.
I wanted to change that but I didn’t know how, because I was stuck in a thinking of “this or that” when it came to love and work, and I wanted my business to be successful more than I wanted to be in love.
Whoa. You can see I was in a funky spot. And remember, that was ONLY 2 years ago. #lifehappensfast
So I prayed for the openness to see a solution(and I am not religious).
Then BAM, just like that, the Universe delivered a solution, that came dressed up as an opportunity for me. A friend offered to buy my business. This at first seemed like a fun idea to entertain and I was flattered he asked.
But Align Spa had been my heart and soul for nearly 11 years, so the idea of selling it was scary, and a bunch of things came up for me to emotionally sort through:
- What would I do if I didn’t go to my spa everyday?
- Who was I outside of my spa?
- Did I have an identity or any interests?
- Was I interesting outside of the spa world?
Yup, I was having a mini meltdown, good thing I’m in the relaxation business.
After a short deliberation, I chose not to sell my spa, because the business and the people in it are so close to my heart. However the ceremony around the possibility of selling it, and what that woke up in me, was a PRICELESS soul-scaping opportunity, should I choose to take it.
And of course, I took it.
I took those inner questions head on, and decided to take the entire winter away from my business to explore who I was outside of being JUST a spa owner. I’d been talking about writing a book, so I could put my time into my writing…
So many people thought I was crazy.
And they just didn’t understand that the idea of sitting in a coffee shop with my laptop, enjoying my soy chai tea (in a mug of course), felt like a dream come true.
My dream is to empower more people to step out of their comfort zone and into their creation zone, where magic happens. And I knew a great way to do this would be through writing.
This “why” (for taking the winter off) didn’t make sense or feel “big enough” to many people.
I heard that I was making a mistake, I heard how writers don’t make any money, and I heard how my business would go south if I wasn’t there physically holding space for it every day.
Sure I heard all of it, because it’s important for those close to me to express their opinion, and I honor that. However I didn’t take their words to heart, and I reserved the time off for myself anyway, to write and speak my truth.
This was me making space for me.
Good thing, because after I met Adam in Costa Rica, I already had asked for time off, so I spent the winter of 2013 falling more in love with life, Adam and myself, while letting go of what I thought my life was going to look like.
That was exactly what I needed to learn, how to let love in, and not being attached to the how.
The Universe helped me create space for love right after I reserved space for myself to grow.
That’s huge.
4. Stop shoulding all over yourself.
People told me I shouldn’t move to Costa Rica, people told me I shouldn’t jump into a new relationship, people told me I shouldn’t have broken up with my 90% awesome man the way that I did (I’m sorry).
People told me that I shouldn’t be with a man so much younger than me, people told me that I shouldn’t be with a man without a credit card and people told me that I shouldn’t let go of my house, sell my car and put my dog on a plane to Costa Rica.
I heard them and honored where they were coming from, their own experience of the world, which is different than mine.
The way I was living my life was against the norm. And against the norm makes a lot of people uncomfortable, because it’s confusing to see a different way than your own that ALSO works.
We all do life differently, and as long as you’re not out to consciously hurt anyone, different is awesome.
That’s how we evolve.
Sure, I totally could have listened to every one of those people who shared their advice with me, and taken on their “shoulds.”
But why? It’s not their life I’m living, it’s mine.
So instead of dialing in to their list of should or should nots, I prayed for my highest good, blessed their advice and thoughts for what’s best for me.
And from that space, I paved my own way with choices that aligned with my heart.
And I believe that I’m totally winning in this love and life thing (on my terms).
Here marks the end of this particular recipe.
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I hope this helps you see that there is no one right way to “do” Love, because you don’t “do” love, you BE LOVE, and let the magic unravel from there.
But I believe there ARE some steps you can take to radically prepare and open yourself to love, so it can find you more easily.
Because it will.
And that’s what I hope this recipe does for you.
So in summary, let’s look at this recipe one more time:
- Let go of people that aren’t in alignment with where you want to be.
2. Get CLEAR on who YOU want to be in your love life
3. Make Space for who you want to be in your love life
4. Stopping shoulding all over yourself.
Take what works for you, add your own spices and take out what doesn’t align. And yes, there are always exceptions, and I’ll use one here: You SHOULD be happy and you SHOULD enjoy your life.
And should you ever find yourself in NW Pacific Costa Rica, I invite you to find us on Instagram and say hello in person:
Our “address” is @ahhasanctuary.
And if you’re ever in Park City, UT please visit my spa, Align. You’ll feel the love there too, I promise (www.alignspa.com).
Note: These are all “shoulds” that I think will work FOR you, in helping you create the sacred space for yourself in which love will grow and flourish.
Catch you another time, be well and in love, Harriet.
