Once you decide that you are ready to be in a relationship the Universe, indeed, begins to turn to make that happen. We are all co-creators of our world, and if you look at the people you have attracted and the relationships you have experienced so far, that will confirm for you what you’ve been vibrating out into the world.

 

The good news is that you don’t like what you’ve been getting, you can change that. The first thing is to accept responsibility.

 

Now, I’m not saying that if you attracted violence or cruelty that it was your fault. Every individual you have a relationship with had the choice to be kind, to do good.

 

It is important to understand that relationships are often a mirror; a mirror that shows you the deepest part of yourself. If you are feeling unattractive, you will attract someone who will prove that to you. If you are feeling afraid, someone will mirror your fear to you. It is very important how you feel about yourself. You must access the feelings of self-love and self-respect so that you attract someone who mirrors that goodness back to you.

 

It is also very important what you want from a relationship. What that looks like is very unique and individual. I highly recommend looking at previous relationships and identifying what you liked about them.

 

Or even better – what you didn’t like; about them as individuals and also about them within the context of your relationship. You might really enjoy someone who is funny on a date, but then realize they are never serious enough when real life happens.

 

Ask yourself -- do you want someone who is very talkative? Or prefer someone who is more quiet and introspective? Do you want to be touched, hugged and snuggled? Or do you prefer some physical space? Do you want to be one of those “joined at the hip” couples? Or would you just like someone to hang with on the weekends to Netflix and chill? Are you looking for a long-term relationship? And what is long-term, anyway?

 

Each relationship that has come before has helped you to develop your understanding of what you want, and what you don’t want. And be okay with that! Humans can be deeply contradictory; remember being honest with yourself is the key. Only then can you be honest with this other person and together be honest about what is happening in the relationship.

 

When you have decided you want to “call in” love in your life, remember to be patient. Not now doesn’t mean not ever. Here are some great manifestation tips:

 

1.     Start telling your friends that you are interested in meeting someone. Not in the way that you are asking people to set you up, but just by voicing this out loud you begin to put more energy behind it.

 

2.     Make a list of attributes that you want in a relationship. It can be very general. Example: “I want to meet someone who will be fun to date, who is authentic and interesting and who I can have a good time with.”

 Or, it can be more detailed: “I want to meet a man who is kind, compassionate, funny and smart. I want someone who is a good conversationalist, educated, employed and good looking. I want to feel attracted to him; I want to feel safe and heard by him. I want him to be supportive of me and my work and help me to grow to my greatest potential. I want someone who wants to be in a committed relationship with me and who will be honest and caring. I want someone who enjoys traveling, cooking and playing Scrabble. And I want him to be good in bed and sexually attracted to me.”

Remember -- none of those things are too much to ask! Write them down, and speak them aloud – particularly during a New Moon.

 

3.     Honor the relationship sector of your home. You can locate this area of your by using the Feng Shui Bagua; the Bagua is a tic-tac-toe shaped layout that indicates the various areas of the home and how they relate to certain energies. You can by decorating it with warm colors that inspire the feeling of love in you. Place in this space photographs of your happily paired relatives or friends. You can add symbols of love like hearts or doves; or use pairs of objects, like two candlesticks, or a pair of vases. This can be a quick simple fix until you decide you want to really put some energy behind this idea and then ….

 

4.     Create a Relationship Altar. This is also best consecrated during a New Moon.

 Ritually telling the Universe what you want in a relationship is a great way to honor your desire and put energy behind it. If your home is not a straight-forward shape where you can easily build the altar in the relationship sector, or if you share space with someone and the relationship area is not accessible, you can create a larger altar and use the back right corner of the altar (the relationship sector) for your Relationship Altar.

Place objects on the Altar that represent what you are looking for. A pair of red or pink candles; a small healthy plant or a vase of vibrant flowers; a photograph of a happy couple that you know, or even a photo of two hands clasping each other.

Place something on the Altar that represents you – for example I used a small sculpture of the Goddess Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth, to represent me. For my symbol for the man I wanted to call in I had a Shiva trident and a rudraksha bead which also represents Shiva. I added a piece of quartz crystal and a piece of rose quartz. And finally I included a solid stone heart to represent the solidity of the relationship.

 Stand in front of the altar and speak aloud what you want in a relationship. Perhaps light the candles and say a prayer or meditate. Keep the area clean, keep the flowers fresh and the plant watered. And see what happens!

 

 

As a related topic, I wrote a blog called Shakti Wants Shiva a few years back; you might find this interesting if you are a woman who has often felt conflicted about craving a relationship.

 

Shiva Wants Shakti

By Jill Loftis

 

My mind has been quite occupied lately with the subject of love; the idea of love; the structure of love relationships, of all the various aspects and ins and outs and ups and downs of love and loving.  

I have also been digging into tantra yoga as introduced and taught to me by an amazing tantric ParaYoga teacher, Katie Silcox.  One of the fascinating and appealing aspects of tantra to me is the worship and connection to the Goddess; the Divine Mother.  

If you haven’t noticed, yoga philosophy as taught today tends to be a little dude-centered.  The asana classes are packed with women, but the leaders, the lineages, the authors – mostly men.

Tantra brought me to study the pantheon of Hindu goddesses (highly recommend  Sally Kempton’s book Awakening Shakti).

All the various Goddesses and Gods of Hinduism represent various aspects of the energy that is the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine.  Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva seem to get a lot more attention; but maybe that’s because there are so very many MORE aspects of the Divine Feminine.  

Women are complicated.  You knew that, right?

This beautiful study of the Divine Feminine has allowed me to appreciate all the aspects of the Goddess within myself; to realize I can be a warrior like Durga; or terrifyingly fierce like Kali.  That I can embody the abundance of Lakshmi; the creativity of Saraswati; the anger of Chhinnamasta; the sensuality of Lalita Tripura Sundarii.  And when unsupported, as dry and withered as Dhumavahti. 

It has also made me realize this:  that it is okay to desire, want and work towards finding my Shiva and uniting with him.  That I can be a complex, intelligent, strong, independent woman and want a man in my life.

And not just a man in my life; it’s not hard to find someone to hang out with.  But it is hard to find someone to love who loves you in the way you need to be loved and allows you to love them to the best of your capability.  To be your friend, companion, playmate, comforter, supporter, lover, helper.  Someone to adore who adores you right back.  Who cherishes you, nurtures you enough to call you on your stuff and doesn’t run when you call him on his stuff.

All that?  That’s hard.

So many of my friends are strong, brilliant, accomplished, amazing and beautiful women.  They confide with lowered eyes that they would like to meet someone.  Yet there is this feeling that everything should be okay if you are all those things and yet have no beloved in your life.  

But it’s true, when you don’t, you miss him (or her in some cases); you are looking for that person who brings you to balance; the Shiva to your Shakti; the Divine Masculine to unite with your Divine Feminine.  The sacred union that harmonizes you.

Vickie Iovine has these great books on child rearing, and I remember reading them voraciously when my children were little; seeking advice, help, gosh, anything to help me figure out how to raise these little creatures!  And she wrote a lot about getting children to sleep in their own beds – a struggle I had with all three children.  She writes in one chapter about putting a child to bed with their stuffed animals and the child complaining that they wanted a “live” thing to sleep with – and she proffered the idea that we all spend our lives looking for the perfect “live” thing to sleep with.  She’s got a point.

We want a helper AND to someone to help; a playmate AND co-worker; someone we can tell our successes and secrets.  Who we can laugh and cry with.  Who sees and nurtures the tender little girl that will always live within us, but who can also see the sensual, sexual adult woman and create a safe space for that passionate force to be embraced, enjoyed and explored.  

Shiva; I’m pretty sure Shiva craves Shakti; together they become greater than the sum of their parts; or as Shellji would say “two together strongly are as four against the world.”