Your Unfolding Path May 2002	Click Here to See Carol's Current Column
	by Carol Adrienne, Ph.D.

Knowing When It’s Right

An Intuitive Approach to Improving Relationships

I’ve been eagerly awaiting my friend Nancy Rosanoff’s book, Knowing When It’s Right, An Intuitive Approach to Improving Relationships, and it’s now available in bookstores. This wonderful book gives very clear steps on every aspect of relationship no matter whether you are trying to find a new romantic partner, get married, end a marriage, improve your relationship with your children, or let go of someone you love. The intuitive approach reveals how you really feel despite social programming, fears, and anxieties. For those of you who responded to my questionnaire (which is now closed, by the way) about finding a "good" man, I’d highly recommend reading this book to find some of the answers you may be seeking about this whole question. The book clears up a lot of misconceptions about what intuition is, or why it seems hard to distinguish true intuition from the fears and demands of our ego. Nancy’s four main principles are:

• Be Direct: Begin by trusting what you know and take the next simple step. We often don’t trust our gut feelings or put them aside, and then wonder why we end up so confused and uncertain about what we "should" be doing.
  
  
• Follow Positive Flow: Move toward what has joy and vitality. The ego sees everything as a problem to solve, and thrives on both thinking up endless options and staying stuck, rather than moving in the direction of what feels good.
  
  
• Use Your Power: Continually open up the way you think about what is possible. Too often we think up worst-case scenarios that keep us feeling helpless. We stop ourselves from taking exploratory steps that will provide useful information.
  
  
• Trust the Connection: Act with the confidence that you are part of something much larger that will support and guide you. Fear comes from feeling that we have to do everything by ourselves, and when we can’t even see what to do, we feel helpless and small.

In Chapter Two, Find Your Flow: Attract and Meet Others Intuitively, Nancy says, "The intuitive side of attracting a relationship begins with knowing that you do not know completely whom you want to attract. All you know is what you feel right now, which is that you feel ready to share your life with another person. Attracting a relationship…can be deliberate or spontaneous. Both are appropriate and both use intuitive skills."

In an interview, Nancy, emphasized that "Relationships do not happen the way our idealizing mind would like them to. We tend to strategize and think that we have to do more, or gain more control, rather than open up to the present moment. Relationships need to be navigated, not strategized. To navigate, ask yourself: what is happening in my life right now? How do I feel about that? What action is needed now? In contrast, the strategizing mind focuses on the future and asks: how can I get what I want? How can I fix this relationship to be what I want? What will be the outcome of this relationship?"

Nancy suggests the following ways to intuitively encourage the natural flow:

• Know the difference between control and resonance
• Navigate, don’t strategize
• Trust what you want
• Make room for what is coming

I asked Nancy what she meant by knowing the difference between control and resonance. "Control is wanting to pick the right person," she said. "I always hear people say, ‘I must have faulty intuition because I always pick the wrong person.’ That’s controlling—wanting to find some ideal person, rather than being open to who shows up and how they make you feel. Whenever we feel we have to be a certain way in order to be comfortable with another person or for things to ‘work out,’ then we are trying to control things.

"Resonance is moving with what feels good, with people who make you feel like yourself when you are with them."

What does she suggest for people who would like to attract their next partner? "Two things. If you’ve been searching too hard, or you feel as if you always end up with people who don’t work out, you are not resonating a clear signal. One thing I suggest in the book is to make a list of all the things you’d never do to meet new people. Look at this list and imagine someone who would have the personality to do these things. One of my students said, ‘I would never walk down the street with a sign on my chest saying, I’m looking for a date.’ When she imagined someone who would be comfortable doing this, this imaginary person told her, ‘If you don’t tell people what you want, you won’t get it.’ My student realized that she hadn’t even told her friends that she was interested in finding someone. She started talking to friends about her desire to meet someone, and all of a sudden people started giving her names. She started dating right away, and just generally had more fun in life. I think we’re embarrassed to say what we want, or else we expect everyone to read our minds.

"The other thing I suggest if you’re looking for a partner," Nancy said, "is to spend more time with yourself. This may sound counter-intuitive, but I’ve met a lot of people who told me they met an incredible person just after they went through a period of feeling particularly peaceful and comfortable being with themselves. Someone comes along with whom they really resonate."

Why do you think that is? I asked her. "Well, I think you really have to recognize that each of us is an energetic and vibratory state of physical and spiritual matter. We know pretty quickly when we meet someone how we resonate together. We can sense an inner confidence in them, a sense of humor, or whether they are somewhat depressed or just quiet.

"If we understand that our energy flows out and attracts to us events and people of similar vibration, then we have to ask ourselves, ‘How can I attract—or resonate with-- someone who’s right for me if my predominant vibration is one of searching?’ Searching is not a clear signal of who you are. The signal is ‘I’m not comfortable the way I am. I’m looking for someone or something to fulfill me.’ It’s irritating.

"When you are comfortable with yourself, your vibration becomes so clear that someone who resonates with your vibration will be drawn to you. When the signal is not defined, the energy message is ‘I’m not complete.’ You’ll attract others who are searching, but who are not comfortable with their life, either, and you won’t be attracted to them because you sense their insecurity."

In workshops one of the most frequent questions is: What is the difference between having a strong intention for something and trying to control? I asked Nancy to speak to that. "There is a big difference between having a strong intention to do or be in the world and asking the world to be different. A intention to find a person who is right for you comes from your own sense of personal security and a knowing that this is who I am--I know there is someone out there for me, and I intend to be open.

The other vibration of hoping to find someone is so needy it’s irritating. People who are always saying, "I’m looking for the right relationship, but it’s really hard to meet someone. There are so few good people out there, and so on. We’ve all heard the same old complaints. These people, for whatever reason, are more attached to the idea of looking and judging, rather than finding and relating. Their vibration is one of struggle, which is what they will attract. When you say, ‘I know it’s going to happen. I don’t care when it happens,’ there is a sense of ease, not struggle. It’s assumed that everything is in perfect flow."

How do you know when to end a relationship with someone? Nancy said, "The intuitive approach is not to take action, nor to fix something, nor be disruptive. Every situation in your life and every relationship has an energy of its own. It’s your job to follow that. People drive themselves crazy trying to figure out what’s going to happen in a relationship. We think we have to choose and direct, rather than realize that it’s our job to respond to what is. We try to resuscitate something when it’s clearly dead. We keep questioning what is because it doesn’t fit our picture."

I mentioned that I recently was consulted by a thirty-nine-year old woman, who is married to a man a few years older than she. Her dream is to have kids, but she feels time is running out, and she wonders what to do about her marriage since he isn’t showing a great deal of interest in children. She felt she had three options: One, get divorced. Two, stay and accept him the way he is and let him know strongly what she wants. Or three, drop the idea of kids and just be together. Nancy responded by saying, "There is a tendency in this case to give your power to the other person, to feel that you are at the affect of the situation. Compromise is not a good word because it usually means someone has to give up wanting what they want. The intuitive way is not to disrupt what is happening and do something forced, but to hold the tension of what you want and what is. Something needs to give. A broader world needs to open where that tension will be resolved harmoniously. One person cannot just give up. I suggest people identify the elements of the conflicts and use it as a meditation and live with that ‘soup.’ You are a cook and your soup isn’t seasoned correctly yet.

"Truly the world is an illusion and a complete mirror of our internal state. So if you give up your dreams to be with this person, you are holding yourself in a strait-jacket, rather than saying, ‘You know, I want both things. How can we do this?’ Watch what happens. It may be the relationship will break up. I keep discovering that the more I’m willing to be me, the more the world responds to me positively. I really think women are the ones who have to move first. Women are the leaders. We take the step into the unknown."

I asked Nancy what she could say about that edge between being committed to be who you are and feeling selfish? She said, "I think it becomes selfish when we demand that our partner or other people go along with our demands, or when we judge them for their choices. The crux of relationship is this idea of being who you are and not expecting other people to take care of you emotionally or make you feel good. It is not our partner’s job to make us feel good. A lot of people make that mistake. ‘Oh, you just hurt my feelings, how dare you.’ We start interfering with the flow. The important point is to feel you are freely choosing to be there and it’s not about them fitting your image. Physical and emotional abuse, of course, is a different story and usually requires professional support or intervention to resolve.

"It’s always important to remember we are never alone. We’re actually in this huge ocean of universal support, and it’s always flowing through us and wants our complete well-being. We can rely on intuition to connect us."

To contact Nancy Rosanoff for consultations, workshops, or keynote presentations email her at nancy@rosanoff.com or visit her website at www.rosanoff.com.

Carol Adrienne, Ph.D., is an internationally-known workshop facilitator and author whose books have been translated into over fifteen languages. Oprah hailed, The Purpose of Your Life: Finding Your Place in the World Using Synchronicity, Intuition, and Uncommon Sense (William Morrow, 1999) a must-read. Her new book, When Life Changes, or You Wish It Would: How to survive and thrive in uncertain times will be in bookstores June 2002. Email her at cadrienne@spiralpath.com or visit www.spiralpath.com for a complete list of events and private consultation schedules.

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