Tony and his wife had a Question and Answer video call with people around the world on Wednesday. Couples and individuals got to ask the tough question like:

• “How do you rekindle the passion when it’s gone?”
• “What do I do when it’s my lovely wife that fired me from my job?”
• “How do I find the person that’s right for me?”
• and many more in this 1 hour video session

Tony, in his usual style, cuts right through to the truth. Sage and he have been married 16 happy years and they also have those moments where emotions run high. He’s learned a lot about what to do, and what not to do, after diving into marriage at 24 and instantly becoming a father to a 17 year old.

Those of you familiar with my work will hear the influence of David Deida and understanding the polarity of masculine and feminine energy. There are also many other useful distinctions you can apply today. They lay out some practical tips for single people looking for the one and to the several couples that want to deepen what they have together.

Go beyond the marketed consumer version of Valentine’s Day, which tells you spending money on external things is what creates happiness, and instead deepen your understanding of your mate, or potential mate, in a way that actually causes love to flourish.

We can see the bias toward fear and cave-safety today. One of my favorite futurists, Faith Popcorn, coined the term “Cocooning” in the 1990s to describe her observation that Americans were trending toward hiding in there homes because the world seemed increasingly dangerous. This observation helped launch the Internet boom because she predicted that people needed online shopping and delivery because of this fear-based trend. We can see this back into the 1950s, after WWII, with the “nuclear family” which was a model of keeping a small family unit of two parents and the children, in their cave house (i.e. bunker), protected from the world. The idea that our parents could be harmful to our survival was also taking hold. Could it be that this cave person fear bias is encouraging the single parent home? It may be that the inner cave-mind is seeing relationships and other humans as dangerous to survival.

BUT, there’s hope! I’m VERY optimistic about Human Potential and our ability to learn and grow! Our minds CAN change and it only takes one person to begin to change their local culture. That’s what my clients do.

Here’s a short video by one of my favorite relationship teachers, Alison Armstrong, using inner cave-person awareness to describe what may be happening when there’s upset in a relationship:

Alison Armstrong - relationship expert

Of course, YOU’VE never had upset in one of your relationships, have you?

Since we’re all now highly evolved humans, we may think we’re evolved past the cave person. Our “evolved” emotions tell us it’s: 100% the other person’s fault, we’re right, they’re wrong, and it has nothing to do with being a fearful cave person. (Insert HUGE laughter here!)

I know YOU never think that, but maybe you know of someone who has? Just because we’re a bit more bald now, wear hair products, and have smart phones, maybe we haven’t completely dropped millions of years of adaptation for survival?

Next time you feel the slightest upset arising in a relationship, arising within you, STOP, take a deep breath, and remember this cave person video. Notice if the Negativity Bias of the mind is trying to get you to believe your survival is threatened. Instead, have the compassion to notice if you two are just caught in the cave dance to the music of mutual cave fear. Are you nit picking the other person, which says to them, “I don’t trust you to protect me.” Are you giving them a disapproving look that says, “I’m not going to protect you any more.” Check out if that’s the the Negativity Biased cave person speaking in your mind.

As Alison would say, connect with your Human Spirit instead. Notice whatever that means to you. Maybe it has you do something nice for them FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON. Maybe you just drop whatever the fear thought is, the need to be “right” and safe, and just give them a hug to show you care for them. Notice what higher value than “survival” you’re committed to, like compassion, love, contribution, growth, etc. Surprise yourself!

Do share with us, in the comments, any moments you’ve noticed the inner cave person and what you do to reach for your higher values and Higher Self. Let’s help each other overcome the inner cave person!

Atisha, a Buddhist monk in the 10th Century echoed what love really is:

“Love is the wish for others to be happy.”

Do you really love your mate, spouse, parents, siblings? Honestly? The moment you aren’t wishing for them to be happy, that’s not love. And if you only wish for them to be happy some of the time, you don’t really love them, you need something from them.

A headline yesterday from India reveals the kind of addiction people think of as love: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=13475321 It should be clear this man did not truly love his girlfriend. It’s the same kind of addiction and suffering promoted by Romeo & Juliet. Love defined by wanting to die. These two things don’t go together.

You can actually feel love even when you are alone! Do you wish happiness for yourself? Try it now, see, hear, feel yourself happy. Now, wish for someone you know to be happy, see it so. Imagine now everyone around you, in your city, on the planet, to be happy. Just see them as happy and notice how you feel. This is what love truly is, wishing all beings, including yourself, to feel happy. Not from what they have or are doing, but to simply be happy now.

From this place of wishing & seeing all beings as happy, now act. This becomes the action of love. You become an act of love.

As a Neuro Linguist (Brain Language Specialist), I study words carefully and how they affect us. Words create pictures and entire experience in our body. The meaning of words is so powerful, wars are wages over them. Don’t believe me? How about the word “God”? It’s d-o-g spelled backward but the ancient meaning has a great affect on entire cultures.

So here goes, the word “dating” is actually an 1880s America slang word for setting up many “dates” to trade favors for money. It was a very light kind of prostitution in new big cities where there were few women. Yes, it was slang for a kind of light prostitution in the 1880 cities. OUCH!

Ever feel like a date is all about trading? You know, you’re out with someone that physically turns you on or you don’t really like that much, hoping it gets better, and hoping there’s a good trade in there? Maybe, he hopes he gets laid and she hopes he’ll be a good husband years from now?

Did you see the hilarious Super Bowl Pepsi MAX commercial? I couldn’t have shown the problem with dating any better. Here it is:

The ad is so funny because it’s revealing a truth pretty much everyone knows but doesn’t talk about: That people are trading and stuck in their minds on dates. That’s great comedy. It points our the truth right in front of us.

To me, the ad points out two truths to save your friends from the nightmare of dating:

1. “Dating” is another word for “trading”. Each person is thinking about what they want to get in the trade.
2. Neither person is present. They are in their minds. They aren’t really even there.

When people learn this about dating, they often panic because American culture only has the training to date. (Other countries don’t “date” but we are exporting it quickly.)  So, what do you do? Only go out with people you actually LIKE! What a concept. Are you having fun with them? If not: STOP! Stop all the logistics and planning. Stop listening to your trading mind and be constantly curious who they are and if your are ACTUALLY compatible. Be present, have fun, STOP when that isn’t happening. When you practice having fun and stopping when you don’t, you learn to love yourself and practice not manipulating people to get what you want when it’s not fun.

Here’s a simple way to keep your mind clear:

Dating = Trading

Courtship = Relationship

What you practice you become.

So, pass it aroud. STOP “DATING”!

Instead, practice this new matra, “I am love.” What does that feel like in your body? Love does NOT exist outside of us! That is a false notion. The only love is within you. You ARE love. From this place of “I am love”, what do you love?

You may find that from “I am love” you love yourself. When you don’t judge or hate yourself, you now judge others less. You can love others. When “I am love”, I experience love with the sky, ocean, people around me or the world, the universe is available. Love simply IS.

So practice this week your new mantra, “I am love” and the beingness of love. You don’t need to talk about love, people will just feel it. Then, just maybe, they will remember THEY are love. And what if all humans remembered that they ARE love, not that love is some commodity, some external quantity, what would be possible?

Say inside, “I am love.”