What is romance? Romance, before it can be cultivated between two people, must first be done alone. Ever had the craving of looking into the eyes of another being, and feeling something - something you have seen only in movies and fairytales?  Of being completely, 100% accepted for you, flaws and all, and seen as a perfectly and magically beautiful.

Well guess what? You have this, you have it right now. 

      So many of us, most of us, have the formula all wrong. We are out looking for someone else to experience full acceptance. When in reality, we can't experience this with anyone or anything unless we cultivate it within ourselves. Being romantic has nothing to do with anyone else. To be romantic means to care, to do something with intention, with romance.

---

    For me, this is coming home and setting the stage for myself. Lighting candles, some incense, taking myself shopping for new essential oils, buying myself flowers, running myself a bubble bath, throwing on some Billie Holiday and making a tea in my silk robe…. Heating up some oil before applying it to my skin and making sure each part of my body gets the attention and appreciation it deserves. Romance is in the way you eat, the way you consume, the way you walk, talk, move, act…. and think. 

 

Do you ever wish someone would buy you flowers? 

Do you ever buy yourself flowers?

  

Do you wish someone would say the words “I love you?"

Do you ever look yourself in the mirror and say the words, “I love you?"

 

Do you wish you had someone to hold you in the night so you weren't so alone? 

Do you ever hold yourself, I mean wrap yourself in your own arms, and whisper to yourself before falling asleep, “I love you, I appreciate you…. goodnight and sweet dreams.”

---

 

---

    What I discovered along my journey is that by posing questions of the things I craved, I wondered if I was giving myself those things… I was able to challenge myself.  Oh! I need to cultivate that, become “one” with it, and then I would receive it. 

    Once you can achieve this skill, it becomes so easy. Whatever you want will show up externally because you will have created it internally. That which is below, is above. The plant won't grow without the seed, it's simple, it's nature. Just like you, you are nature too. :)

    For example, there was a point in my life where the romance just wasn't there. I don't just mean with another person, I mean romance, in general.  Romance begins with yourself. I was looking back on the days when I was 19 years old, living in LA in my Venice apartment. I had tall chandelier candles I would light in front of mirrors, flowers on every surface possible, twinkle lights strewn across in patterns on the walls, incense smoke lingering, deliciously smelling bath salts on deck for days for the frequent candle lit hour long bath - with Billie Holiday playing in the background of course. The prancing around in my robe as I set it all up for myself….

    I lived for those moments, whether alone or with another person. It began with me. I had all sorts of romance being thrown at me, I meant really really romantic stuff. I was basking in it....

    So I started asking the universe… Is it so much to ask? To have some romance in my life again? (At the time I posed this question I was in a relationship where the romance had died down a bit... or rather, we spoke different Romance languages.) Maybe a romantic holiday melting in front of a fireplace with a glass of wine… a midnight make out sesh, a beach nap that went on all afternoon until the sun set. The universe responded.

 

You have that.

 

    “I do?” I asked. The universe was right - I DID have that. It never went away! I just stopped giving it, her, attention! So right away, the romance began. When I went to the store, I bundled up several types of flowers so I could make little arrangements around my place. I got myself a new essential oil for my diffuser - one that was called LOVE POTION. Perrrrfect. It had frankincense, rose, and lavender in it.  The next morning I woke up and gave myself a big hug and a wide smile, “Today is going to be a reallllly good day”, I thought to myself.

--- 

    This time, on my 6am walk, I took the extra, extra scenic route. I listened to my jazz playlist- Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington… you know - the ones who know how to speak romance fluently in the form of music (in my humble opinion). On my walk, I wasn't thinking of anyone else. I was just savoring those moments with myself, imagining myself in a fancy dimly lit jazz and blues club, feeling the vibrations of the music, the taste of a little scotch on my lips.  Ellington playing Jeeps blues on the stage... just falling in love with each note as it vibrated across every inch of my being.

 

    Next song, Sam Cooke.... I imagined myself then on the deck of a lovely hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, hot skin from the day spent out on the water sailing. The strap of a silk slip dress slipping off one shoulder from the breeze.... my drink wet in my hand from the condensation, a kiss imprint on its rim. The trick is to not even try with these things, just feel them. Maybe you've never felt these things, or even been to this scene. But just imagine yourself in it, as your best version... so romantic, and so irresistible. Everyone looking at you, at your energy, wanting what you've got. 

 

I don't know what it is that you want.

    What is it? Wealth? Chances are you want freedom or security. And by feeling like you want those things, you are sending the vibration that you don't yet have them. The universe won't give you them until you merge with the feelings of having - that's what “getting into the vortex” means. Merging yourself with the energy of that specific vibration. Right now I am being shown a record player, when you pick up the needle and place it on a certain part of the record, it plays that part. It literally vibrates to the small ridges to create that certain specific melody. But you have to place it there. You can place it on another part of the record, on a different groove, and it plays a different song with a completely different melody and lyrics then the one before. 

 

    You want a hot girlfriend? A loyal boyfriend? You need to love yourself. Along my journey I have met many people who ask, “Can you set me up? I just want someone respectful, loyal, loving, romantic… (or whatever it is) is that so much to ask?”

 

    No, it's not so much to ask. But once again, these people are searching. Searching for something, someone, some feelings, which are external. They are avoiding the common denominator - their own self. They haven't yet merged with those things to became ONE with them and that's why they haven't manifested in their “movie” yet.

 

 

    Their own essence, they are denying themselves of love and acceptance. This is unfortunate, because the time they are spending looking elsewhere they could be discovering their own paradise. When two souls meet who are both in their own paradise, well, what's beyond paradise? Can you even imagine? It's a whole new world…. One you will never understand until you get to it. Someone could try to describe it to you, but people only understand what they have experienced on some level. 

 

How can you create those feelings within yourself? Here is another example… 

 

   I watched a great 60 minutes on 24k magic. Bruno Mars talks about how he was living at poverty level when he decided he would take advantage of his imagination. He began to cultivate a prosperity mindset, without even calling it that, by writing the song 24k magic.

 

    He said he would feel the feelings of what it would be like to have whatever he wanted, and whilst singing - which is being in the flow of ones own creativity and life force (creativity magnifies manifestation) - he activated the powerful forces within the universe. Right there, without even labeling it “the law of attraction," he was practicing it. 

---

---

    As below, so above. It has to begin at the root, and then it will follow. If you don't accept yourself, love yourself, cultivate romance within yourself, then don't expect any of those things to arrive from an outside source such as another person, an object, a new job, and new home. You have to feel good about what you have got before you can achieve otherwise. 

 

    Oneness talks about heaven on earth. This is not about the world changing. This is about you changing. When you change, the world begins to appear different. The world becomes heaven to you. The world is the same, but it looks different to you. When that happens, all duality ceases. The world just looks perfect, as it is.

 

  Often people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions to be destroyed.  We put a lot of energy into creating illusions, only to be left shattered and empty.  Our minds are conditioned to be on a track to keep putting ourselves out there, to search and find that someone to "complete" us. Break the cycle.  Find yourself.  Take every ounce of that energy and look within.  It is not selfish, and it is not narcissistic.  We search for something when we are incomplete.  Complete your own desires and you will become the most attractive magnet in the universe.  Not only in romance, but in life.