By Bella Shing
Drew and I manifested the most magical week on the Big Island, Hawaii last week. We stayed with dear friends in a gorgeous 5 bedroom house, about 10 steps away from the beach where many wild dolphins swim.
It’s the same bay we visited last summer and loved. But this time, we manifested a much grander and more convenient place to stay as well as friends to boot! Instead of having to drive half an hour from Kona to get here, we literally could walk outside and jump in the water. We are both just amazed at how our feedback mechanism with the Universe works. We tell it what we like and what we don’t like and it gives us better!
This speaks to something that I have been wanting to communicate lately. Recently I saw John Gray speaking at an event and he said something that was very much in alignment with what I teach, that in a relationship, a woman’s job is to be happy and a man’s job is to make her happier. In fact, he spoke of how women often want more “romance” and expect the man to provide it, but that the men can’t do so if the women don’t know how to embody it.
I can’t agree more. In this article, you’ll find some wonderful tips for how to create romance within, because once you find the magic within your own life, it becomes much easier for a partner to create it with you.
IT’S A COMPLAINT that I hear often from women than men aren’t romantic or chivalrous anymore, that they don’t understand what women want. And again and again, I’ve found that while there are indeed men who don’t have a romantic bone in their body, in my experience, men are oftentimes much more authentically romantic, than dare I say, women?
You may be shocked to hear this, but think back at the moments you’ve spotted men being romantic. As women we are fed so many ideas about romance and taught to desire it that we have collected an arsenal of images and conceptions of what romance is…and we are constantly measuring men against pre-fabricated notions of Stewartian (as in Martha) love. Whereas men haven’t had much input. So what I’ve found is that when men express love, they are absolutely original in their proclamations. Or when Bill Gottlieb was ready to propose to Emily Mindel, he knew how much she loved the NY Times crossword puzzle. She did the puzzle every day without fail. So Bill called Will Shortz, the crossword editor at the Times, to see if he could create a puzzle for them.
On the day the puzzle appeared in the paper, Bill pretended to read the paper as Emily worked on it at the cafe, Soon Emily found her own name, and then with “Microsoft Chief, to some” BillG (his name). And when Emily knew the answer to “1729 Jonathan Swift Pamphlet”, which was “A Modest Proposal.” She started to get it. The clincher was “Paul Abdul 1992 song” which was, “Will you marry me?” He got down on his knee and she said, “Of course!”
If you don’t have a Beloved in your life yet, you still get to have romance. In fact, I’ve discovered that in my own experience and with women who manifest incredible relationships that emanate romance from within. Not only is it possible to be enamored by all of life but when you are feeling this way, you do become the protagonist of your own love story, and the relationship you want inevitably comes about. In fact, one of my top passions in life is to feel romanced by the Universe. But what does that look like exactly? It was only when I started to write down “landmarks” that I would know that I was getting what I wanted. A few of my markers are:
a. Travel and adventures with friends b. experiencing beautiful performances c. having the universe speak to me using the language of symbols and serendipity d. eating incredible food
So, last Saturday night near the Kona Airport, Drew and I got into a boat with friends and sped out during a golden sunset to a place where divers would sink night lights so that the plankton would gather. The plankton would attract the manta rays we were told. As night fell, we got suited up in wet suits and snorkel gear and then jumped into the water once it was dark. The only light came from the stars, the moon, the scuba lights, and these hand lights we were all given.
We waited floating on the surface, adjusting to the bluish spots of light, columns of silverfish, and bubbles that tickled us from the scuba divers. It felt like being in a champagne glass, and then they came, flying in, from the dark, stealth-like, looking as if they were going to glide right into the divers with the lights. At the last second, they suddenly curled backward into elegant back-flips- STINGRAYS! They seemed acquainted with the ritual, happy to see the divers and playfully circling and barreling on the bottom. And then…the lights were directed at us who floated on top, and we started to feel the peppering of plankton (tiny little shrimp) against our faces and masks (I was so hungry, there was a brief moment that I contemplated being a filter feeder myself, but I resisted). And then I saw the face of the manta ray, a wide mouth the length of my arm, coming up towards me. So excited, the 6 of us, gathered together like sardines, getting water in our snorkels.
Spluttering, I’d clean out my mask only to find that the manta rays were getting closer, only a few feet under me now. I could hear the gargled “wows, and OMGs” from Drew. “LOOK DOWN!” he said, and I did, to find it coming straight for me. Awed, intimidated, I tried to aim my pathetic little light elsewhere, but to no avail. He was coming and in seconds, he was doing backflips inches from my belly. Belly to belly we were now, human and playful fish dancing in the bluish light, bubbles, and laughter. Riding back on the boat, at top speed, bouncing under a towel with Drew, the moonlight shining our way, we felt so alive…I pondered how was it that I attracted this experience because it wasn’t something that I consciously felt like I had been asking for, and when I returned home, I looked up the symbolic meaning of the Manta Ray.
From Ann Williams-Fitzgerald’s “The Wisdom of Manta Ray is Ebb and Flow. The Message: If Manta Ray has glided into your life today, ‘Spirit’ is reminding you to go with the flow of life – you can afford to glide along. There is no longer a need to thrash about but instead sit still and wait, that very thing you need will gently float on up to you. Then I realized, looking at my “landmarks” for romance that this experience fit perfectly under “beautiful performances” as well as travel and adventures with friends. It was the Universe’s offering of Romance that was far better than anything I could have imagined, and indeed, romance and love like all manifestations require no assertion, but rather simply allowing… allowing it to float on up to you.
All my love, Bella