SHiNE Couples Coaching with Candice Schutter
Practice Presence in a Loving Container for Conscious Communication

An intimate relationship is meant to be an environment where the best of you is witnessed, reflected, and fostered. Yet, over time we too often become entrenched in the stagnancy of a comfort zone, and we lose sight of the ever-changing needs that are alive and real in the moment. Basing our awareness on the past, we make countless assumptions - thinking that our knowledge of our mate is complete and without flaw. In doing so, we miss out on the potential for heartfelt connection in the present.

SHiNE Couples Coaching is a container in which you and your partner can be fully present for one another. Candice will offer many tools and assist you to:
- Identify Energy Leaks present in your communications
- Balance heart-centered talks with Empty Listening
- Create tangible strategies to foster connection daily
- Differentiate your journeys to become singular souls on a shared journey of learning and transformation

FREE 60-min coaching session for 1st time clients.
Contact Us to book your session.

Once again, I choose the road less traveled.

It seems that the past ten years of my life has been about paving new pathways. My most recent choice - to recommit to a relationship that has experienced so much recent upheaval - is perhaps one of my most courageous endeavors to date. And it is good. I feel a healthy dose of exhilaration traversing the brilliant landscapes of these ever-greater altitudes. For a time, the fog was thick as I navigated the unknown twists and turns - reason would have me take the first exit as my light continually bounced back at me with a blinding force, daring me to look my own reflection in the face. Nevertheless, I made the choice to move forth with my course set for an unknown destination. And may I be so bold as to say that I am the better for it.

In the aftermath of disaster comes the opportunity to begin again. Sometimes, a new path is in order. Yet, quite often in relationship we are invited to stay our course along a more conscious trajectory.

I am learning to experience true intimacy as many small deaths of self in the Divine Mirror of partnership. If we are willing to look directly at the co-created offsprings of our union, more of ourselves can be revealed to us. In essence, two people willing to meet the gaze of one another fully - even if once their eyes once flitted to and fro with fear - have the sudden potential to experience a communion of love unparalleled.

It is human nature to flea from vulnerability. Most relationships reach many critical points - those pivotal crossroads that are inevitable when two hearts are sharing a path, each with unique desires. And so emerges the opportunity to learn how to truly love and grow in the company of another. In some cases, in a time of crisis, one or both parties may be unwilling to self-reflect... to peer beneath the surface in order to rise above the drama of circumstance. Sometimes the pain of the moment is so debilitating - especially when old traumas are triggered by the choices of someone whom we love - that to stay is to face an inner demon for whom we are unprepared to wage war. In these times, sudden splits occur. Yet certainly too, there are times when an experience is there to unearth an incompatibility that requests that a relationship shifts, changes form in an organic fashion. It is the wise and practiced partnership that can navigate such shifts with grace and open hearts.

I have felt the tug of both realties in the past few months... yet have somehow landed in a space in between. Gazing around at the sea of destruction all around me, I see opportunity. And I feel tremendous gratitude. My partnership is brand new... it has been devastated in order to be RESET by a force much larger than the both of us. In the aftermath of calamity we have been able to discover one another brand new. Once the story line of our distant hearts dissolved... all that was left was a wondrous sea to explore - how did we lose sight of one another?

As much as I feared what it meant to re-enter such a space of vulnerability, I feel met by a wise force of forgiveness and grace that is neither naive or weak-hearted. In fact, it is the most empowering love I have every known. It says, I will not run from this heart of mine. I face its journey with willingness.

May I continue to surrender to this path of love that reveals me to be more than I once was.

My apologize for the singular focus of late. I have shared much in this blog, as my feminine has been guiding the journey of awakening through a transitioning with another. I have practiced bringing peace, heart space, and understanding to myself and my relationship. And, it seems that recent embodiment of radiant feminine love has caught the interest of someone who sees my potential... who showers me with the potent force of his integrity and commitment to serve my highest good.

Today, I was swept off my feet into the arms of love. I fell into the embrace of a exceptionally powerful lover that sees me as the sacred gift that I am. This Beloved He pulled me close to him with such a force, it took my breath away! His aim, he said... to protect me from myself. I have attracted the masculine love of my dreams... and it comes from within. It is a love that dares my divine feminine to accept nothing less than its equal. The Beloved She within me (radiant love) has met, enchanted, and wed The Beloved He within me (trusted direction). I am the child reborn of their union.

It happened when I caught myself - quite literally - looking around the space of my life, once again asking the question: Why am I not being cherished and honored as the sacred gift that I am?

I know that our physical world is but a reflection of our inner reality. And so... I turned the mirror inward. I called a dear friend by phone who always delivers the truth. This elder woman was a tour guide on a journey within my own energetic field and its recent consequences. The results of my recent actions was undeniable. I have spent tremendous energy taking care of my partner, of the relationship, and of outer circumstances. Yet who was taking care of me?

It was then that a masculine force within swept me up in a proclamation:
"It is you who does not honor your beauty. It is you who must cherish you. It is you that must enter a sacred covenant without exception. And it is I who will show you how."

The Beloved He immediately began to guide me from within to take steps to nurture myself... drawing healthy boundaries around my body, my heart, and my physical space. With commitment and diligent understanding, He stands nearby as I tenderly landscape the perimeters of the sacred temple that is me. I am choosing to entertain thoughts, actions, and relationships that greet my heart with reverence. And through the gates of my self-love, only energies that meet the highest standards of love shall pass.

Thank you to Kali Rose for an illuminating reading today that shed light on my path. Thank you to Gail - my soul sister of truth - who reminded me what it is to love myself through my choices. And thank you to The Beloved He who embraced me with the force of the love that I deserve, so that I might claim it now.

Needing The One

My Love and I came together in a hungriness. We spent one fateful day together intoxicated by the idea of one another. As soon as our eyes locked we were staring at a vision of a life together. Only a day later, words of promise were implied in bold statements: "finally I found you"... "you are The One that I have been waiting for". The sudden buzz of such encounters left us both smitten and certain that we were the luckiest two people on the planet. In short, we were immediately convinced that the sensation of our own divinity (our SHiNE) simply had to be invested in one another... for that was what finding The One meant, right?

Now I am not one to entertain such musings lightly. I caution my clients to take care not to confuse the true Source of illumination with the vehicle through which it presents itself. Yet, I was a romatically-inclined woman hungry for connection. It had been three years since my last relationship. I knew in my heart that I wanted (and could have) a love of such depth and intensity as to spend a life together; nevertheless, I had no idea what that might look like in its healthiest form. My time spent in solitude was a preparation of sorts - undoing old ways of being with the determination to do relationship differently next time. I had even created a vision (on paper) of who I thought this man whom I would devote my heart to might be like. When he showed up, I was immediately sold by an energetic resume that aligned with my idea of the him-ness that would best suit me.

Not to mention, his words were intoxicating. I was his destiny! I was enamored by the idea that someone could feel such things about me. In my expressions of fear (that I wasn't sure I could say the same of him yet), he became ever-more confident in our union. He would meet my fears with the light touch of his conviction... and I would become immediately his again. As Deida put it so eloquently (see Part 1): "[his] adoration and neediness assuaged my fear and buoyed my self-sense." And, in turn, "my insecurity and neediness made [him] feel more secure in [his] ownership of [me]." At times, I was acutely aware of this dynamic. Yet even when I felt concern that our destined union was slightly laced with co-dependent landmines, I pushed it aside as fear of commitment. I was needed... and so I gave more of myself to us.

In essence, I see I was inadvertently attempting to realize my self-worth through another.

No Longer Needing The One

So I entered whole-heartedly... or so I thought. In truth, I was in a state of hopeful cynicism at best. I always felt there was a suspicious energy continually lurking in the shadows. As if somehow we were setting ourselves up for its unexpected emergence.

That inevitable revelation came in a painful realization...
We were not an energy invincible.

We shared more and more of our lives with one another, and eventually fell into a mundane existence where the intoxication that once unified us gave way to sobriety. And in the most unexpected turn of events, I suddenly discovered that my Love had drifted away from me towards the intoxicating Love of another. And, due to the impossible expectations that we had placed upon one other, we were unable to survive. For to believe that someone is The One for whom your love is destined is to believe that it could not possibly have cause to venture elsewhere. And so when that love leaks out - and there is a new source of fixation - inevitable confusion arises for all parties involved. The lovers are left wondering, "Could I be mistaken that he/she/the other is The One?"

I suppose it all depends on how we define The One. When we no longer feel the urgent and intoxicating NEED for someone... could they still be The One to whom our heart is called? When the hunger is no longer what is urging our heart towards communion, what else are we left with?

Love.

Love ultimately reveals The One to us. When all that I need from you dissolves into all that I have to offer in love with you... ultimate expression of Oneness is found. For it may in fact be that needing someone is just the opposite of loving them.


Loving The One

For me, I have determined that The One is a choice - a set of actions that say... now that I no longer need you, I choose to love you. And Love of The One says, I will love you even in this.

I have discovered - as this relationship is ending - that even in the face of a future that looks nothing like ever-after, I can only know The One in the moment. And so, he is The One. He is The One who will prepare my heart in redefining One-ness forever.

Thus...
The One is He whom my heart is open to without need to be filled...
And The One whom I love even when he no longer needs me to.

I am committed to treating this relationship with a new reverence. We once worshipped one another as The One (for the sense of promise we offered). Now, even in our pending separation, I still choose to worship my lover as The One... until death do us part. The One whom my heart is devoted to in loving... no longer in needing. And in surrendering my need, I can witness our death (be it on the horizon) without the hunger to salvage what I cannot in good faith make right on my own.

I don't need to. For The One happens through me... and another one will reveal himself to me. And I will say with confidence and conviction, "You are The One - for at the moment that needing dissolves into loving, true Oneness is found."

In the midst of making love, she began to speak to me. "I love you. I am yours forever. Nothing can break us apart." In that moment, it was true. We were love, and we were forever. Nothing could break us apart, since we were as one. But I could also feel her emotional need. I could feel her desire for security creeping in around the edges. Her confession was true enough, but it was tinged by hope. And beneath the hope of forever, lurked the fear of loss - in her and in me.

I wanted so badly to wallow in her confession of love. I wanted to feel that she was mine. That she had given herself to me for good. And, although this was true enough in the moment, similar things had been spoken before, and forever didn't last. As a confession of love in the moment, it was true and beautiful. But as a hope, it was a lie. We did not own each other, and never would. Our loving was as fragile as our personal fears were strong. it would take only a hurtful moment of emotional collapse and we would be broken apart. Maybe just for a few hours or days. Maybe for good.

In that moment of our lovemaking I could feel both truths. The truth that we had given ourselves to each other as a love eternal. And also the truth that we could leave each other in any moment, due to emotional closure or meeting a better intimate partner, in the inevitable event of death, or simply because we were distracted by a fresh piece of ass or chocolate cake.

Surrendering to the truth of our love was blissful. Mixed in with that love, though, was the need to assure ourselves that it would last. True love was mixed with fear. Looking into her eyes and feeling into her body, I began to sense that we were drifting more toward the need for security. We were beginning to grasp onto the emotional need for feeling love, that than surrendering into the open gesture of being and giving love.

I practiced to recognize my own need for her, and, to the best of my ability, I felt through my neediness. Even though a part of me wanted to own her forever, this part of me was really formed by fear. Her adoration and neediness assuaged my fear and buoyed my self-sense. Her insecurity and neediness made me feel more secure in my ownership of her. This dynamic wasn't love - it was emotional bondage.

By recognizing and feeling through this neediness, even as we were both beginning to slide into it, I rediscovered, magnified, and surrendered to the force of real love. Without saying a word, my authentic presence in love began to resonate her from sentimental need to deep-hearted devotion.

Her devotion was not to me as a separate person but to the love that we opened ourselves to through our relationship. Our attention shifted from the hope of a future together to the present depth of love that is always the truth of our very being, intuited in our deep heart.

- David Deida, Finding God Through Sex

Had I read this even three weeks ago, it would have seemed insightful yet of minimal relevance to my life. Now it resonates as a tone at the very heart of me as a woman in a loving relationship without hope for a future.

I am now an alchemist in love. I am learning, through practice, to transform neediness into loving communion. I now drink from a shared altar of physical communion where I am offering love for the sake of giving it... no longer invested in who or what might be in it for me.

My heart is being lovingly stripped of a habitual seductions born of adolescence... the seduction to offer (or withhold) sex, as if it is a commodity in relationship. Instead I am learning to gift myself the purity of loving (and love-making)... without the hidden agendas and need to control.

I am embodying what it is to love unconditionally.
I am learning to give love without need for it.
I am learning to receive love without need of me in return.

From time-to-time, old habits surface. The desire to punish - or withhold love - pushes its way to the forefront of my psyche. My heart plays the part of the victim. And then the illumination returns to me... ever-brighter:

I am love discovering itself. Through the loss of love as a promise, I have encounters with love as unconditional. I can lose myself in love by becoming attached to it. Or, I can loose myself in love by becoming an expression of its bounty.

It's been less than three hours since my last post. Nevertheless, I feel called to reach out once again. It was as if writing about The Beloved immediately penetrated my heart... blasting me apart with Its force.

I felt grounded and composed after I wrote. Yet only minutes later, while in the shower, I was suddenly bombarded by a surge of energy in my body. My mind was having its way with me, taking me on many unhealthy journeys of the imagination. Suddenly, I was emotionally charged... not feeling too good, mind you. I got out of the shower, only to realize that I was quite late for an appointment with my herbalist and healer.

I rushed out of the house... wet-headed and anxious... to meet him. When I arrived, I was in an overwhelming state of suffering. The Beloved had indeed entered my heart... and in doing so it pushed emotional buffers to the surface. It was forced surrender... I was miserable in my vulnerability... raw and humble with an open wound visible for all to see. And this kind and compassionate man... Kyle Cline, who is a healer in every sense of the word... took my pulse, noted the tension, then held space for my release. His primary prescription... a hug.

I cried. I sobbed. And I choked on my own breath. I purged the emotion that strangled me... and tore down a stoic facade. I felt healing happen. He kept telling me how great I was doing... and reminding me of who I am.

He didn't allow me to stuff it. When I thought I was done, he would look into my eyes... and invite the truth. It still hurt, and I needed to cry through to the other side of the pain.

And only ten minutes later, Kyle checked my pulses... and my heartbeat had found its peaceful flow once more. ALL of this... the bounty of release... I am grateful for. The dams that burst forth inside my heart were there to hold in the pain. The Beloved had entered and blew them down as though they were just a measureless piece of the wind itself. (And it was my willingness to let the breezes whip through without the need to personalize or understand that enabled true release to happen. For how can we release something that we are holding onto via a story within?)

I share all of this as a reminder to us all. When The Beloved is invited, It enters. It will do what is needed to liberate the heart that longs for Its undivided attention.

And so at times, illumination can feel like a light so piercing that it brings us to our knees, wincing in pain. Nevertheless, when our eyes do eventually re-adjust to the light, we look around to find ourself resting in the center - just as the little "i" relates to unleashing SHiNE - and the pain is remembered as a flood of grace that left the landscapes of our heart ever-changed.

Through releasing my pain, I am washed clean.

I write to you in a moment of naked atonement (at-one-ment)... a moment of forgiving myself for the feelings of jealousy and insecurity that seduced a a suddenly barren heart into delusion.

In his book, Intimate Communion, David Deida calls it The Him-Shaped Void. It is the imprint left in the heart of a woman, reflecting the shape of the last one with whom she shared the union of her open heart and body.

It explains so much. It explains why, even when we know that the choice to separate from a relationship is the best thing for us, a part of us still hangs on defiantly. The heart cries, out... "give me the him-ness" to fill that space inside that yearns to be full again.

It took me years of defiance to realize that to love another with an open heart is not weakness at all. It is simply the heart of me seeking to partner in its strength and brilliance... and nature's way of making sure that I have intimacy in my life. And intimacy (in-to-me-see) is the mirror of truth; that is if we choose to look ourselves square in the face.

As life shifts, and the Him-Shape Void becomes apparent, we are vulnerable in the best possible way. There is a door open to another energy that can engulf us in a way that an imprint cannot match... the energy of The Beloved. Who is the beloved? Is it that perfect lover whom will ignite us to the core? Some might say yes. Although, I prefer to believe that our lover is a carefully-chosen companion in a unified mission... reaching out to reveal The Beloved as it can be experienced in the flesh.

I speak of The Beloved as it is viewed in Sufism - the Ultimate Beloved. It is when we approach union on a grander scale. We seek not to fall in love (and be filled with love) but to fall in love with Love as that space in which we are the filler. It envelopes us, and we spend our lives (in and out of relationships) learning how to let Love move in, as, and through us.

"The Beloved is all, the lover just a veil.
The Beloved is living, the lover a dead thing.
If Love witholds its strengthening care,
The lover is left like a bird without wings.
How will I be awake and aware
If the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth.
If you find the mirror of the heart dull,
The rust has not been cleared from its face."
.........Rumi (Mathnawi Book 1, 34)

In my recent experience, The Him-Shape Void adapts upon becoming vacated. The lover is given the blessed gift of being left alone to create a miracle within her own heart. She uses emptiness as a welcome contrast to connect to an abyss-like rapture always available to her. She is penetrated by a force that exceeds the potentials of the flesh. She is occupied by The Beloved - by Love Itself.

From here, yes... this is the place from which I want to love. I hereby profess my love for The Beloved and immerse my heart in its spaciousness. I am swallowed whole by Love, and revealed completely vulnerable. I am not vulnerable to the actions and choices of others (which I cannot control). I am instead vulnerable in my total surrender to The Beloved's sacred commitment to me... When your heart growls with hunger, it is then that I am there. Find me by sending Love forth, pushing It through the resistance to unleash My Presence unto you.

Does this mean that I am to be without lovers in the flesh? Oh, certainly it does not. It means that I do my best to create an atmosphere in and around my heart that seeks not the fullness of another... but one that reflects the bounty of us both. I become a mirror of the most-infinite and most-pure depths by entering the covenant of The Beloved. I then offer that bounty to the lover of my choice.

I want to participate in the Highest Love. My horoscope this week reads: "Always focus more intensely on the pleasure of giving the beautiful love you have to offer than on your hunger for the love you have always wanted to get."

The Beloved impregnates my heart so that I am no longer hungry. My feast is found within.

"Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth
until the hour of separation."
Kahlil Gibran

As a facilitator of brilliance in others, I have found that sharing my path is always relevant. For a time I thought that I must keep my reality under lock and key... not revealing my personal journey publicly. To do so would mean certain vulnerability. Through my work unleashing my own SHiNE, I have realized that hiding is a narcissistic pursuit, and a presumption that I must be kept safe from potential humiliation.

Humiliation... perhaps it's really nothing to fear at all.

Humility is among the most powerful allies on my journey. And my process of self-discovery IS the medicine that I am meant to dispense. (I believe the same is true for you.) So to bare my soul's deepest yearnings and vulnerabilities is to walk the path of brilliance for me.

The image above so perfectly reflects the space of my heart right now. A tearing open to reveal new light... and the insights born of death. The most intimate relationship in my life to-date is ending. My lover/companion and I shared a short-lived but deeply-felt love for one another. And as I write, we currently share a home, a bed, and a life together. Nevertheless, we have been initiated by circumstance to let one another go...

It has been a tremendous blessing to love... and to lose. I welcome the pain, for beneath it lies the potential for more joy. Perhaps it is not that the heart breaks when love is threatened, but instead that it breaks open... revealing blessings and truths that can be used to transform the ways in which we love ourselves and one another.

If indeed our partnerships in life act as Divine Mirrors so that we might see ourselves better, may we be willing to stare the truth in the face with fearless curiosity. May we see how we are reflected in the choices of those whom reside in and around our heart. And may we seize the power to love under any circumstance.

What brought an end to my relationship was painful to be sure; yet, I know better than to cast myself a victim in a drama that I helped to create. And I am learning to let go of self-righteous towards what I perceive to be the mistakes of others. I receive the love that I am ready for in each moment... and anything less, well, I must look within to find the strength to reflect love where it is lacking.

For the past ten days, I have felt the pain of a broken heart. Ironically, the Love that I now offer - ever since pain tore into me - is an enlightened evolution of the love that I thought was sufficient up until now. I am cracked wider than ever before, and I am filled with gratitude for the pain that burrowed into the core of my potential. I now have the opportunity to love in a manner that transcends personal gain, self-gratification, and attachment to outcome... or even hope of reciprocity.

This recent journey is teaching me what it is to bask in the brilliance of the Feminine. In moments of weakness I discover the Strength and Power of what it is to be a woman. I take my heart that has been broken... blasted wide open... and I treat it as an altar. Each day, my practice is to embrace humiliation (the brilliant gift of forced humility) and prostrate repeatedly before my tender, open heart. And it speaks back to me in a message of grace, like a whisper within...

She says to me...

"Neither hunger for love nor withhold your own.
My sweet, dare to be love itself!"

Thanks for bearing my heart witness.

Yours Bursting Open,
Candice