Spirituality Is The New Sexuality: A Mantra For Dating In My 40s
Before you think that I belong to the bandwagon of abstinence and hiding my body behind religious dogma, think again. I like to think that the art of dating in this modern day era, ‘spirituality is the new sexuality’ is where two people physically meet to express what is felt in their hearts and souls. It is this new model I now use in my 40s as an approach to dating, a way that gives me connection through the freedom to love and relate with a deeper sense of connection.
In my early 20s, I was heavily involved with a love affair of relationships. I dated often with a superficial level that was only skin deep. “So many boys, so little time” was something I would tell myself, as the “boys” in my life floated around me, never serious with hard to see true intentions like a ghost in the snow. Did they really like me, were they just trying to be nice, and did I really believe sex bridged into love? It didn’t necessarily matter how I felt with them, or what they had to offer me, I always walked into dating from the standpoint of what they needed or wanted and from that, I received a huge amount of self worth and validation. I loved too young, too hotly, too incompatibly, and too unhappily, desperate to validate my struggles and craving someone to stand by me and tell me I was worth it.
The abandoned pieces of me went looking for love, actually they tried to grasp for love thinking, “if I don’t grasp at it like a mother fucker, I’m screwed”. It’s interesting the things that we say and tell ourselves and how that plays out in life. My desperation to find love, found a vibration to let me play out my desperation. More than once, I found myself in dating situations, typically around the edge of a bar feeling so very lonely, while attempting to drown out my inner shame. ”If you were a little more giving, he’d like you more” or “I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing or where to go from here, but sex will make it all okay”.
Alcohol, hormones, and sexual lust with an appetite for destruction mixed with lovers so inflamed by passion and desperation, temporarily fail to attend to the complexity and humanity of their partners. I went in looking for love only to find hollow trial and errors of relationship. Sex was short term relief from my low self esteem to help me believe that any sort of connection held a spirit of helpfulness with my best interest at heart. As it turns out, I was starved of meaningful connections in a world of transactional relationships.
Now in my 40’s, I know that is absolutely backward thinking. I’ve decided that the key to my dating life is that without that deeper, spiritual connection with someone else, it’s not worth my time. It is no longer about just the physical gratification of his penis and what I can do for it. Can I even say that? But it’s how I feel. And it’s really rather moving, as I cruise toward middle age having given up on my youth filled of tall, dark, and stranger fantasies, to have met and fallen in love with me and my inner divine feminine. Loving myself unconditionally is letting myself express tremendous joy as I am, and the basis of spiritual dating.
What I think about now is how I relate to myself first. I know who I am, I know that I want a deep, open minded, mature person to connect with over a cup of coffee, a nature hike, or maybe even a yoga class. And if it is at a bar, I need you to know you are staring at a woman who is your equal. This woman has experienced many of the same social, financial, and relationship obstacles that you have also encountered. She is also completely okay with being single and she is no longer looking for meaningless encounters. When you know that this is her new virtue of dating, to meet you where you are at the level of inner body, mind, and soul, and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll know it’s okay to move on.
I’m 43 and I feel the best I’ve ever felt in my body and I want someone who will respect it. I’m going to take my time getting to know you, as it’s my blossomed inner goddess that knows the strength of my self and that the right partner will be equally invested in satisfying my physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is spirituality as my sexuality; loving fully.
At 43, I want more than a marriage of the selfie movement joined with swipe right platforms inspired to captivate and capture the picture perfect look. More like a hologram, a “hollow-gram” a dating life and system of false appearances. I am at a point my life that I demand more than a world of social media, where image alone is everything. It was that philosophy that helped me lose grip on what was important when I was younger. I realize that picture perfect is actually trumped by chemistry. Chemistry comes in all shapes and sizes and I realize that the “types” of people I dated in my past stemmed from my beliefs in cultural programming.
Now as I date as a spiritually mindful 40 something, I realize the value of being true to myself and my personality, as it is so more efficient to be genuine from day one. I am with myself 100% and I’m with him 100%. That is really the nutshell of this entire thing. I am a solid individual who wants another solid individual living in reciprocity. Someone planted who I can equally grow with. It’s much healthier and fulfilling when two souls come together in joy and bliss rather than in desperation and loneliness.
I listen to the words my date has to share with an open, honest heart, and the empath in me listens and feels what he’s actually saying. As they say, when a personal shows you who they are, believe them. I pick up on their emotional cues and hear more about any residual trauma they might be packing with them. I honor where they’ve been and where they want to go. It is from there, I relate. It is from there, I choose best what works for me.
Spirituality is my new sexuality breaks free of all my past illusions and patterns of behavior. I now ‘happily-ever-after’ date and relate to someone’s SOUL, the “being-ness” of their heart.
