Sexy (Instinctive, Feminine)

Personal loneliness or lack of connection amplifies sexual neediness, which prevents the acceptance of our own Sexiness. Because of repressive attitudes in the U.S. about Sexiness, this area takes considerable time to get balanced and self-actualized in. Women, during their adolescence, are forced to confront sexiness because it is seen as the entre to their future. Men, conversely, traditionally use smarts as a way to get seen in adolescence. Sexiness is therefore a state of mind where our comfort zone is always challenged by how others see us. Our acceptance of sexiness is a reflection of how much we recognize and make efforts to be considered Sexy in order to attract the partners we wish. Unless it is reinforced by others’ behavior, it is not easy to accept within our selves. This is why so many individuals have problems taking ownership of their attractiveness to others. Of course, this does not prevent us from acting out our sexuality to get the Affirmation, Acceptance or Adoration we think we need. When this occurs, it causes us to be unconscious about our own experience, which makes connecting with others and their experience much more important but difficult. In this way, we tend to live vicariously through others (celebrities, etc.)

Sexiness is typically defined in terms of a model look or cultural standard used to evaluate the general ‘physical attractiveness’ of a person. When we do not fit this standard, it means we need to fall back on being seen as unique or unusual and thereby, bringing out our flair through concerted effort (cosmetics, plastic surgery, and beauty aids). Of course, this standard is modified according to our parental type and our reactions to this type. The more pressure we put upon ourselves or the more difficulty we have in attracting those we want, the more fixed our idea becomes about how beautiful (or not) we are, and how impossible it is to feel Sexy. Sometimes Sexiness reflects how we have exceeded our expectations or beliefs about what is possible in connecting with another. The more out-of-balance this seems, the less we end up trusting them or being able to receive their Acknowledgement. In this situation, we tend to freeze up and become repulsed by the fact that we are not able to meet our partner where they want us to be. Other times, Sexiness has more to do with the behavior of our partners and their reaction to us. In this situation, we use their Excitement for us to become excited about them. In either situation, the key indicator that we are attached to Sexiness is Excitement. Aliveness is the primary quality that indicates conscious physical Attractions without attachment.

We experience greater attractions to Sexiness the more we deny or discount our own Beauty. Individuals that accept their outer Beauty may come to expect that their attractiveness gives them a certain power or influence over individuals who want to use their Beauty. The more we get locked into these patterns of associative thinking when we need somebody to match our fantasies, the less we are actually connected with our Creative Nature. This increases the level of Objectification that both we, and the people we are attracted to, participate in. What we do not realize is that this level of Instinctive attraction is a purely procreative drive designed to guarantee that we all participate in defining the diverse gene-pool expression of humanity. This is why we fall in love and lose our sense of balance in the pleasure of being sexual. The unintended consequence is that we can have children with partners that may or may not be aligned with us.

Many of us are caught up in religious beliefs that keep us from acknowledging our own beauty and sexiness. Many times this causes us to feel guilty around receiving pleasure. This creates a state of conditioning where we have upper boundary limits to how much pleasure we can experience with others. We see this most as a form of repression where we avoid honoring our sexiness for fear of the judgment of others. We may even have difficulty talking about the subject. Remember, our objective is to get clear what our truth is and eliminate our repulsions either to some attraction or to the fear that the judgments of others will negatively impact us. This is not to say that we should be pushing our beliefs or sexiness upon others but instead, we give space to our selves and others to be naturally who we are. Judge not others, lest you be judged. The irony of being repressed around our sexiness is that it drives us to embrace excitement more, which amplifies our desire to be seen as sexy by others.

In the diagram, we can see there are four ways to develop sexiness as an attraction. The first is to be repulsed by our apparent lack of beauty, which we name ugliness. Ugliness is a negative personal judgment based on the feedback of others. No one can make us feel ugly, but our personality can accept this designation when it receives no positive feedback from the world. The arbitrariness of being considered ugly is easily refuted when these individuals receive makeovers and others are surprised by how attractive these individuals naturally are. What this demonstrates is that ugliness is greatly enhanced by our belief that we are ugly. The more ugly we consider ourselves to be, the more we either need to be considered beautiful or we have given up and accept our ugliness. The attachment to Excitement confirms that only in our imaginations do we feel beautiful.

Some individuals who meet the generally accepted criteria to be considered beautiful, never really know their own beauty. This is the result of superficial confidence where we are always seeking to make a more substantial impact relative to others around us. In this position, we affirm our outer beauty but have real doubts about our inner beauty. We also seek compliments in order to maintain this façade. Since the feedback is conditioned by a country’s standard of beauty, anyone who does not fit this standard needs to deepen into their Creative Uniqueness to fully appreciate their actual beauty. Otherwise, the judgments of society unconsciously become our judgments, which limit our ability to see our beauty. When we possess superficial confidence, we keep presenting ourselves as if we are beautiful, not understanding why there is not more acclaim. We are used to others ascribing certain qualities of being based on our looks. When we get accustomed to this and we get older, it impacts us greatly because the acclaim is missing. What this means is that it does not feel like people do not want or need us anymore.

Another position is when we have no confidence in our outer looks but more confidence that we are beautiful internally. This is based on the experience that some people appreciate our beauty externally when they can see us internally. It is also based on the reality that individuals with similar compatibility factors will have an appreciation of beauty more likely similar to ours than not. What this points out is that when we accept our Creative Nature, it actually attracts to us individuals that have certain body type combinations or facial features that are similar to our own Creative Expression. For example, Sage women more likely have a group anchor body type. Another way of validating that we are taking this position is that we make no claims as to our own beauty and deflect acknowledgements whenever possible because of our own internal doubts and fears.

When we integrate and balance our inner and outer beauty, we are no longer attached to proving it. This indicates we have shifted into a state of Aliveness rather than Excitement. It also means that we have no need for external validation because we are self-validating. All the doubt, fear, and ugliness is transmuted into an acceptance of our nature as we are. This has the added benefit of balancing our Sensations and Feelings so that we are able to express ourselves with others and are able to read their Sensations and Feelings easily. It also means that we transcend our conditioning by being able to create Aliveness within us upon demand and naturally choose real experiences over the imaginary experiences of Excitement. One of the contributing factors to experiencing balanced beauty is when we also possess balanced knowing which is the result of accepting our own smarts and/or intelligence.

Lessons of Sexiness

Sexiness teaches us about trusting our selves to let things unfold. The more we are attached and fixated on sexiness, the more we are surprised when the relationship does not work out. This is because we seek unconscious merging to regain a sense of momentary wholeness through sex. The less we accept our beauty, the less we can be present with our partners. The more we are not present with ourselves and our partners, the more we need the support of excitement to compensate. Eventually, we learn that this compensation process has a lot of negative, processional effects. One of the processional effects is that we get attached to greed, which can lead to many forms of addiction. In order to have a balanced and natural view of sex we need to heal our out of balance attachments to it so we can be present with others, and therefore see more completely the full range of opportunities present with a partner.

Sexiness is merely the result of owning our beauty. When we learn that everyone has a natural sexiness based on who they are that naturally attracts creatively aligned partners, it means we no longer have to work at being sexy. Learning to trust that our beauty or handsomeness will show up for the right people allows us not to do any seduction or attempt to convince others that we are right for them. Otherwise, we are trapped by our attachment to a certain image to get a certain partner. The result is greater nervousness, fear, and a lack of self-confidence.

Instinctive Healing

Attractions, on the Instinctive level, reflect disconnections between Feeling and Sensation modes of operating where we seek to integrate our experience by having others “reflect back to us what we are denying.” We seek to unconsciously merge with others who can complete our experience. When this occurs, particularly during sex, our energy grows until we release it in orgasm. We are attached to how others make us feel good about ourselves. We become addicted to recreating any experience that excites us. When our fantasy connection between what we want and what we feel we need is interrupted, we are jealous. This occurs because we have associated Excitement with this special relationship and therefore need our partners to be scared of losing us. Any doubt that they do not need us or can operate independently of us is threatening. The addictive desire to continually possess and re-possess our partner is necessary to re-establish a shared sense of safety. How we possess is by objectifying our partner, creating our attraction by visualizing, imagining, and sub-vocalizing their need for us. We imagine that we are the center of their world and that their influence will heal our self-disconnection. This healing process seems reinforced when they possess the attributes that we associate with being safe. Objectification makes the differences between possession and passion hard to distinguish. Both qualify the relationship based on the presumption of aligned Intent, when the reality is very different.

Instinctive attractions are defined by the requirement that we maintain personal safety through unconscious compromise and role-playing. We seek partners that act as we expect they will. When this occurs we believe it is kismet, our destiny that “they have arrived” in our life. We commonly choose people who are familiar to us because they reflect our parental creative patterns. This pattern also includes how this person may be less repressed and/or creatively denied than our parents, which reflects our growth. We fixate on this internal image and refine it into “a type” which we are then able to articulate with others. At the same time we unconsciously want it to be as different from our parents as possible. In this way it is easier to maintain the fantasy that our partners will be able to heal our parental issues at all costs. We hope they will see and accept us in ways our parents did not. The primary indicator that we are choosing a parental pattern is Excitement. When we are Excited we feel both thrilled and afraid as we are swept up, pushed on, and pulled forward by seemingly irresistible attractive forces.

Sexuality

Any imbalance between Sensations and Feelings amplifies the senses of smell, sight, and hearing so that internal fantasies compete with outer reality. Excitement becomes the organizing principle to develop the “me” persona, which is why entertainment becomes so important at the instinctive level (to distract us). Any imbalance between Emotions and Thoughts amplifies the sense of taste, producing cravings and appetite out of balance with what is required. Intensity becomes the organizing principle to develop the “I” persona, which is why self-centered interests and acquiring what has been denied become critical to prove who we are. Any imbalance between our Feelings and Thoughts amplifies the sense of touch, producing longing, envy and the need for comfort and ease. Repulsion becomes the organizing principle to develop the “we” persona, which is why we attempt to make sure others agree with and support us before we become connected to them.

In Unconscious Attractions, we can see how two individuals repressed in opposing ways actually create an attachment to each other. Harville Hendrix popularized the concept of an Imago match, which represents these imbalances externally brought into balance by our choice of partners. Imago matching is the easiest form of unconscious attraction because we do not have to confront any of our growth issues. In fact, Imago matches are incredibly threatened if either or both partners grow in unilateral ways. What we want to do, at all costs, is to maintain the outer safety and security of our current desire to be with each other. From the Higher Alignment perspective, the need to control our relationship growth is impossible once we have tasted the possibility of contributing in an authentic manner. The highest attraction is the ability to love ourselves for making authentic contributions that support and uplift others. The example in Diagram 4 is of a Dynamic defense style woman with a Disarming defense style man. Dynamic defense style women accept their Sensations and Thoughts and deny their Feelings and Emotions, which makes them extremely attractive on a personality level to Disarming defense style men. This is indicated in the diagram by the plus sign (when we are accepting ourselves) or a minus sign (when we deny ourselves).

The opposite is also true, that Dynamic defense style men, who accept their Sensations and Thoughts, are greatly attracted (on a personality level) to Disarming defense style women, who primarily accept their Feelings and Emotions. The situation is more complicated for Distant defense style individuals, because they are partially accepting but also partially deny their Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, and Thoughts in different ways. The key principle is that on the personality level we always seek out partners who represent what we internally deny in ourselves. This reflects that we are caught up in a sense of scarcity, and do not realize the long- term difficulties that occur in these types of relationships. The more we deny our experience, the more we get caught up reinforcing sensory distortions that make us addicted.

While Harville Hendrix believes we need to heal and neutralize these issues in relationship, the Higher Alignment perspective is that we need to choose partners who will minimize this addictiveness. Initially, this suggestion is shocking to some, because then they do not have the immediate sexual, defensive, or fantasy-based experiences they seek. When we operate in instinctive, idealized, and defensive patterns, most of our experience is pre-constructed and requires no creative interaction on our part. We will soon cover how denying our experience produces sensory distortions that are reinforced by being with addictive partners. What would happen if we chose individuals with the same biases? We would naturally heal ourselves because our common problem would cause us to seek a common solution. The first challenge is to enjoy being with a same defense style individual. While this initially may feel repulsive, it forces us to learn to love ourselves for who we are and to acknowledge what we have denied internally. Being with an individual with Aliveness, Wisdom, and Awareness would be a large step in our self-discovery that would show us we are not our craving, appetite, longing, envy, avarice and need for comfort and ease. These are Personality Desires, which become amplified because we have denied aspects of our own inner experience.

The more we stay fixed in our personality self-perceptions, the easier it is to maintain unconscious attractions with others. This reflects that we are holding on to the idea that our partner supports or serves our capacity to get pleasure, acquire power, or be seen in a way we find difficult to honor within ourselves. The problem that arises is that if we discount our ability to change, our repressions will keep undermining our sense of integrity, naturally reducing our attractions to others over time. To repeat this, our inability to experience completely, as a unit, our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions, and Thoughts, make it impossible to create an energetic integrity in our attractions with others, which means they will diminish over time. This is why we can feel a strong sexual attraction to someone only to have it peter out. It is our idea of an experience that actually reinforces the experience we seek. Once the entrancement to another breaks, it is hard to re-initiate.

The only way out of the dilemma is to grow in a complementary manner, which reduces our dependence on others. Many couples have been able to maintain relationships by working on them, by making continuous efforts to grow in a manner that supports the other. While this is possible, it is difficult to maintain for any length of time. This reflects the fact that each area of growth triggers in us a fear that the other does not need us as much any more. This means we have to find new ways to counterbalance the old ways that we are losing. For example, if a partner grows in their ability to be present in their Sensations and Feelings, and no longer needs to express themselves sexually with the same degree of excitement, it will likely trigger (in their partner) the need to find another way to contribute. As a counterbalance, the other partner will need to be more present with their Emotions and Thoughts, so their partner will feel more dependent in terms of their need to be provided for. The challenge is to recognize that this need for equity and balance, on the personality level, dooms us to constant restructuring, which products little net effect. Remember that on the level of unconscious attractions, everything is based on quid-pro-quo polarities.

When we do heal our relationship to our Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts, we experience the capacity to create conscious attractions with others. Instead of negative compromises that our partner must fulfill, we now own our attractions internally, in a congruent manner that allows us to be fulfilled by our attractions. When we are able to experience our own Aliveness, Wisdom, and Awareness, we recognize that we manifest opportunities to re-experience these qualities wherever we wish. This also means that individuals trying to create leverage by being attractive to us will find it difficult, if not impossible, to get a hold on us. Their inability to compromise us will make us seem unavailable and/or scary to them. For example, if someone feels denied or discounted internally, yet desires a partner to see and accept them in a particular manner, it creates a disconnect in their ability to be seen and impress the other simultaneously. This individual may be frustrated by the unavailability of the person they want to impress, not recognizing that this reflects their own internal unavailability to themselves.

What is difficult is that we tend to see only our perspective in our interactions with others. We cannot understand how another’s perspective may have nothing to do with our perception of their experience. Learning to accept that our experiences do not have to be the same or even similar for us to grow in the same direction is critical. In other words, can we see the growth opportunity of different interpretations? Our defensive interpretation is not as important if we are able to operate in a creative manner with our partner. We will discuss this in detail later.

The opportunity is to recognize the source of our attraction so we are not caught up in the distortions of any unconscious attraction that manifests. When we know the source, we can see the non-reality of the sensory effects and neutralize them. In this section of the document we will not only provide a framework for identifying the source, but the correlations to sensory distortions that make our dissociated fears and desires seem “unusually real.” At the core of all attractions is our ability to love and accept our inner experience. This experience can be energetically segmented into Sensations, Feelings, Emotions and Thoughts. Whenever we distance our self from any one or more of these aspects of our being, it sets up energetic distortions that not only produce personality attractions, but sensory distortions as we seek to make up for our inner denials. Our denials (where we are out of balance) attract from the universe a particular response that we can either embrace or react to. We embrace attractions when we notice and place our attention where it is being requested. We express the pent up energy that reflects our imbalance by stepping into the lesson and speaking our Truth. We expand our connection beyond our Intent and Content to embrace a loving, open, Context (more about this in the next section).