This is a guest post by Ryan Orrock

During my life there have been great women who offered to be with me if I gave them one part of myself. This piece, of course, was a monopoly over my sexuality. If they could ‘own’ they would feel ‘safe’, they said; protected. They called it ‘commitment’, they called it ‘love’, they called it ‘integrity’.

There is really only one word for what this is – control.

Control born of fear.

They say, in effect, “If I can’t have 100% of your energy, time, attention, love, sex…then I want NOTHING! Because only EVERYTHING is good enough for me!”

But I don’t believe you can own people.

And rather than enjoy any of the beautiful energies and messages and experiences that were available from interacting with me, they had nothing.

These are some of the same women who complain about there being no good men …they live in self-constructed deserts of isolation and fear. Parched with thirst when the life-giving oasis is on the other side of the self-created fence.

I am angry and sad that people’s egos and need for control puts them on a path where they destroy so much beauty in their lives…But I can also understand because we all do this at times.

This is the same need for control that would cause a man to chop down an entire forest to put more numbers on his bank account.

This is the kind of control that causes people to go to other countries to kill people they never met nor have done anything to harm them.

This is the kind of control that turns our food into profitable, tasteless fattening crap.

This is the control that makes love scarce and makes us all lonely in a world with more amazing people than ever.

I went on a walk yesterday. During that walk, I was told something by the Wind…

The wind said, “Until all energies flow freely, there can be no peace.” No peace. No freedom. No happiness. Not until sex is free. Not until love is free. Not until money (if we choose to make it an energy) flows freely.

And some of the most ‘spiritual’ people I know feel that we need to own others, and put limits on their behavior to be ‘safe’.

I can only shake my head.

I invite YOU to be different. I invite you to be an intrepid explorer of a new way of being. A way not limited by the ‘traditions’ you have been taught. By the ‘concepts’ society chooses to sell you. It is a difficult and fearful path. At times you feel like the first person up your own personal Everest, in deep fog and without a map.

But, that ‘pearl of great price’–your freedom and your truth–though it costs every friendship, external validation, praise and trap of a ‘committed relationship’ you could have, is the highest, most beautiful thing that there is.

The price of living according to what is alive inside you, though it might seem high at times, is always worth it.

At the end of that path, you will find, as a wise man once said, “Hundreds of mothers and brothers and sisters and children and [lovers].” In fact, all of existence will be your lover. If you choose to let love flow, without blocking it through to anyone ‘preference’, all people can be be your family and every place will be your home.

This is what I wish you in the new year. A place to stand for your truth.

This new year is going to be a year to fight the battle of our love even more intensely than ever. To take even fewer shortcuts. To compromise ourselves even less. To not sell ourselves for promises of sex, security, belonging, or acceptance. There is NOTHING that you can give me that is worth compromising my complete perfect, beautiful self.

And people can call us what they want. Selfish. Changeable. Unreliable. Unsafe. Dangerous. That is just fine. All the labels and all the criticism and all the anger will not and cannot stop us from being the beautiful people who were put here on the planet to love all things. To love all people. To follow where love leads, no matter where it takes us. Because I know that love does not take. It only gives. Love does not harm. It only repairs. And love does not hurt. It only heals. To put barriers and rules and limits around it for any reason will just kill the beautiful thing that it is.

This is a perilous path. It is not simple for the strongest among us. It feels almost impossible to go alone. Which is why, I invite you this year, not to go the path alone. Let others support you. Through the dark jungles of fear and swamps of doubt.

We need each other’s support. We don’t have to do this alone. And thank God we don’t need to either.

Let’s support ourselves by supporting each other in this New Year. Let’s make this the most abundant loving peaceful happy year this planet has ever seen by banishing everything from our lives and hearts and souls that is small and limited and fear-based. Let us move confidently forward on the side of the love and truth and freedom that is inside us. And we will inspire many to join us–which will be the most powerful thing that can be done to save the planet and its people from the destruction that is currently being visited on it and us.

Further Reading : Understanding the friend zone and why men don’t have one

Ryan is a transformational force in the fields of sexuality, relating, and consciousness and the author of two books including “The Total Man and Complete Woman: A Comprehensive System for Living Healthy Sexual Roles”.

Cross posted at www.bayraba.com which is also Ryan’s official site if you want to contact him