Charlotte Kasl, author of If The Buddha Married Tells Us How to Have Love Endure Over Time!
Just For Women
Alissa Kriteman
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Episode 38 - Charlotte Kasl, author of If The Buddha Married Tells Us How to Have Love Endure Over Time!

Following her success with If the Buddha Dated, Charlotte Kasl again brilliantly bridges together powerful Buddhist philosophies with modern day applications in If the Buddha Married to help those who are committed to staying in love.

In this episode we cover:

  1. The Proven Traits of an Enduring Relationship
  2. Conscious vs. Unconscious Sex
  3. The Roots of Affairs, How to Avoid one/How to Heal from one
  4. How to make a Good Relationship, Great

Bottom Line?

If you are married or in the process of getting married, this is one interview you want to hear.  In this interview Charlotte gives us useful exercises to help us uncover what might be getting in the way of us having deeply satisfying life partnerships.  Don’t miss the parts about how to Avoid an Affair and Conscious Sex – she gracefully approaches these touchy subjects with so much sensitivity and love, you’ll be glad you listened in.  Grab a paper and pen – or better yet – get her book – so you too can begin whole new approaches to loving yourself and your marriage!

Transcript

Transcript

Announcer: This is Part 2 of a two part podcast. If you would like Part 1, you will find it at PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Alissa Kriteman: Welcome to “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex”. I am your host, Alissa Kriteman.

This show is dedicated in bringing you the most insightful and useful information available today to help you manifest all your love, intimacy, romance and relationship dreams.

Today on the show I am happy to welcome back Charlotte Kasl, PhD, author of the highly acclaimed book, “If the Buddha Married: Creating Enduring Relationships on a Spiritual Path”.

Charlotte Kasl: You want that attraction to be strong. In all these couples that last, they just liked each other and they adored each other, and there was an emotional attraction almost from the outset. Now, some people it happened they were friends a long time and then there was this cosmic look one day, and they were lovers, you know, in their hearts.

Post-traumatic stress really makes that difficult because a person is managing so much angst and anger and rage and fear and hurt and pain. And when they get triggered which happens easily because you’ve got so many triggers from your childhood experience that the person just is – all they can do verily is cope with themselves and think about themselves and put a protective wall around them, and the ‘us’ is just gone at that point.

Alissa: In our last interview we discussed her book, “If the Buddha Dated”, and I am very excited to talk today with Charlotte about the Buddha and marriage. We learned so much about spirituality and some of the basic ideas of Buddhism as related to the dating scenario. Now, we’re going to get a little bit deeper into some of those concepts and marriage.

Welcome to the show, Charlotte. We’re glad to have you back.

Charlotte: Thank you. I’m glad to be here.

Alissa: On today’s show we are going to delve into such topics as “The Proven Traits of an Enduring Relationship”, “Conscious Versus Unconscious Sex”, “The Roots of Affairs: How to Avoid One, How to Heal from One” and “How to Make a Good Relationship Great”.

For those of you just getting to know Charlotte Kasl, she is a licensed professional clinical counselor, certified addiction specialist, Reiki master healer, consultant and teacher. She is the author of many books, including “If the Buddha Dated”, “If the Buddha Got Stuck”, “Finding Joy”, “Many Roads, One Journey”, “Moving Beyond the Twelve Steps” and the classic book, “Women, Sex and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power”. She also designed a 16-step program. Well, it’s an empowerment program, and it’s really transforming lives across the globe.

Charlotte, again, I’m so excited to talk to you about “If the Buddha Married”. One thing I wanted to start off with is your work is such a unique blend of Buddhism, Sufism and being a Quaker with a background in psychology. Tell us a little bit about that. How did you get to all of those paths? What’s at the heart of those disciplines that has them work so well together?

Charlotte: Well, the core of them is that you learn to listen inside yourself, to your own nevis truths, and it’s becoming aware of your own experience, your body, your sensations. What is this experience teaching me? What am I really feeling? What is true here?

That’s very different from – well, they told me this and here’s the rules and here’s what I should do. What feels right deep down inside? You create an internal resonance with yourself. It’s not taking on rote teachings and blindly believing anything.

There’s that wonderful book, “If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him” from Sheldon Kopp years and years ago, and it is like, don’t take on external guides. Listen to teachers; learn from them but keep going into yourself. At the core of this is listening, understanding, stepping aside of the ego to find out who you really are.

You do the same then in a relationship -- really listen. Instead of have your arguments being formed while they are talking, try to understand. How can I get into being in their shoes? What’s going on with them? Can I empathize and feel because empathy and the ability to feel for another in a healthy way is really core to close and these enduring, wonderful relationships. The title says ‘enduring’. I would also say vital, alive, joyful, fun relationships.

I interviewed a lot of couples 40 years later. They are still making love. They grin at each other. They obviously adore each other and very close.

Alissa: Well, that is a great segue into my next question which is: What are the traits of an enduring relationship and how do we cultivate them?

Charlotte: You know, you can cultivate some but I would go back to say it is really important how you pick out a partner because everything that has been written that has been researched is that there should be a wonderful feeling in the beginning. There is a flow; there is an ease; there is a joy; there is a connection.

If people get with someone because they are encouraged because – well, you can’t be so fussy or they’re a good bet or they’ve got a good degree or they’ll give me status or well, let’s pretty good but I don’t feel too excited. That is not where you want to start an enduring relationship. It is really paying attention to all those signs at the outset.

Now go to, if you are in one – those traits, one is that ability to hold the other person in your heart, you know, that you think of them even if you’re upset or hurting. There is a barrier to ever wanting to hurt them, and you create this ‘us’ place that is much more than the two individuals. It is referred to in the Christian ceremony; you cleave to each other as one.

The one part is that your energy is really merged together, and there is that alchemy that it is your bond, your little looks of the eyes, your little smiles that you can read and you understand and you know them and the private jokes you have built up over the years, those kinds of things.

Unlike the idea that opposites attract, generally people who share a lot of interest do better, not always. People have managed; I’ve seen it. Generally, the people who have something that they can share values, they can share doing things together. The core values are the deepest. The things that you like to do that are different, that can be managed pretty well.

Alissa: Are you saying that it is important for us to sit down before we really commit to being engaged and getting married that we talk about these core values and there is enough of an authentic love and desire for this person?

Charlotte: Absolutely. You want that attraction to be strong. In all these couples that last they just liked each other, and they adored each other, and there was an emotional attraction almost from the outset. Now, some people it happened they were friends for a long time, and then there was this cosmic look one day, and they were lovers, you know, in their hearts.

But, then it is mind and intuition and hormones because you want to know, if one wants to live in the country and raise goats and you like New York City, well, you had better talk about it because somebody is going to have to give up one part of that for the other, if you’re going to live together.

Values are extremely important. If you think you are going to have children, what’s that about? Do you want children? Not children? What kind of faith do you bring them up in? Or any faith? The values are a very, very deep thing.

Alissa: I have a question. If a woman and a man get into a relationship but they are pretty unconscious and maybe she’s getting into it for security; maybe he makes a lot of money, he’s a very powerful man. And in her mind she’s thinking, OK great, he’ll be able to care for me, take care of the kids, they’ll go to good schools, etcetera etcetera. But, then they get into it for a little while, and that dynamic starts to rear its head and problems start happening.

What do you suggest for people who wake up in the middle of their marriage and realize, wow, we didn’t talk about core values. We didn’t talk about important things that we should have talked about then. How do people get to agreements in places of love in the face of waking up kind of four or five years into it?

Charlotte: This is where you do what you should have done earlier. You sit down and you really pour out your heart to each other and you listen. It starts with – you know, we have a lot of distance. We’re bored together. Our sex life is going down the drain or it’s perfunctory or we’re arguing more or just keeping away from each other. Can we talk about it? What’s going on here?

See if you can get down to the feelings because analyzing it doesn’t do it. Emotion is where we make change. Emotion is where we connect. If someone gets to saying, I feel so lonely here. We haven’t sat down together and been together or felt that love. Now, the way to kill that from the other part is to say, oh, I feel fine, and there you see the pattern in a relationship.

The ‘us’ place is if one person’s hurting the relationship is hurting. You never discount if one’s hurting. Oh, honey, let me listen. Let’s sit down, and let me reach deep and find out. You know, you are right. We have been distant. If you can get down those deeper layers because often it sounds like this before you go to the deeper layers. You’re always going away. You never showing me you care. I don’t think you care any more at all and you shut down. The other one says, Yeah, but you are such a nag. Of course, I go away. I’m busy. My life is busy. Don’t you respect that? I earn you lots of money.

OK, that’s the superficial level, drop down. That lonely part I just talked about, and then if the other one often comes up with something like, you know, I do keep distance and sometimes I just don’t know what to do for you. I don’t know how to please you. Sometimes, I feel just like a jerk, and I really need help with what to do.

Then, your heart stars to open. So you open the minds, and you open the heart, and you open the listening, and then you get two people who are starting to come together again because we connect through that emotion of vulnerability and saying, here’s what I’m feeling. Here’s what is going on with me. I want to reach out and touch you in the night, but you pull away. Can you talk about that?

Alissa: What do you recommend for people who just can’t seem to get past the anger? They can’t get to that vulnerable place where they can say, wow, I feel stupid. I haven’t been able to communicate with you. I have been avoiding you, and the other person is just too angry to even hear.

Charlotte: Sometimes, it is good to go to a counselor, and I recommend, by the way, for people who want couple counseling to go online to Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy, EFT. For couple therapy there is the EFT that is the Emotional Freedom Techniques, but this is a form of counseling couples that is just so in alignment with everything I believe. It is based on understanding, listening, revealing emotions. It is an attachment model. It is not, go off and do homework so much as -- How do we connect? Where are those connection points? How can we get that thing where we feel together?

Alissa: What’s the name of it again? Emotional what?

Charlotte: Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy.

Alissa: Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy. OK.

Charlotte: It’s under EFT, and it comes out of Ottawa. Susan Johnson has written a couple of good books on that.

Alissa: Susan Johnson. OK. Great. You mentioned earlier something about the ‘us’ place, getting into the ‘us’ place. Let’s talk about that a little bit more. How can we create more of that ‘us’ place or creating the experience of ‘us’?

Charlotte: Well, what we were just talking about is a lot of it. Let’s get together and reveal ourselves. It’s a protective feeling around the relationship, and it’s kind of like a bond. It is an attachment. It is a connection. And it is hard to just make it happen, but you certainly can spend more time together, more talking together and sharing your values and what’s happening inside.

And then, it is also thinking of the other person, you know – leaving notes, showing up with a little something they might enjoy, the flowers because you saw the flowers and that color just makes you think of your partner. Doing little things for each other it’s, like, never letting the vitality of that kind of thing that you do when you’re courting or in love go away.

Alissa: Yes.

Charlotte: Sweet things that you do for each other. Now, it has got to be real. You can’t just be phony about this stuff. Sometimes, when you start to do it, it can kind of wake up some feelings inside.

 Then, again, as a therapist for 30 years, when I hear someone’s story and I hear what they have been through, you just love them. You just care so deeply because you understand what they are coping with. If people reveal what they are coping with and talk about it, then you come together. One of the big problems in relationships is we get to a pursuer and a distancer, and that’s kind of what I described earlier.

It is to not go away when you are hurting. Reach out. Can you cry on your partner’s shoulder? Can you take their hand? Men tend to want to go off more alone and maybe a little of that, but in a healthy, happy relationship they both come together with their vulnerability. He can come home and say, I feel like a jerk. I just blew it. I just feel lousy and not come home and say, I want sex and reveal what’s going on.

Alissa: Right. Right.

Charlotte: I would say, you know, I want to include same-sex couples in this conversation because we can’t say ‘married legally’ except in a couple of places. I’m talking about marriage in the spirit. There are people without that certificate who are very deeply married, and people who have it who aren’t really married because they are not bonding in that deep, deep way.

Alissa: I’m sure the dynamics are a little bit different but I wonder now that you bring that up in same-sex couples. But the roles, I think what you are saying, the roles still happen and someone polarizes one way – pursuer, distancer. I don’t think it necessarily matters when we are talking about spiritual relationships or even relationships in general.

Yeah, there is a place where we have to realize there are dynamics going on and we’re being polarized in certain ways and that we can still come back and use a lot of these tools and techniques, regardless of the form of the relationship.

Charlotte: What will enter into the conversation a lot more with gay and lesbian couples is the extent to which people are open about their identity and the safe places they have and the friendships and the community aspects of where they feel safe as a couple. Because couples are embedded in community and we need to support other people. One of the things for healthy couples is both partners have good friends they can sometimes talk to, process things with and they have a life that belongs to them.

They have this safe shelter which is home. They can come there and they may have real differences sometimes and disagreements but it is not to one up or win so much. It is to connect and get it worked out. The thing of being open, for instance, if two people have fancy jobs where they are not out and they are often drinking a lot and isolating from other people and nobody knows really that they are a lesbian couple, although actually a lot of people do. But they don’t talk about it. It creates a kind of deadly isolation.

Alissa: Sure.

Charlotte: Alcohol is very high, and it is much higher when people are in the closet. It is almost kind of legendary that coming out of the closet, being more open and sobering up often goes together with gays and lesbians.

Alissa: Yeah. I can totally get that. Also, you know, it just tends itself to people, straight gays, whatever… You are talking about the extent that they are open. A lot of people have had trauma, wounding, from their childhood sexual abuse, things of that nature that they aren’t willing to admit either which has a huge impact on a relationship. I really like that concept of – What is the extent that you are open and willing to admit who you are as an individual?

Charlotte: Absolutely. That concept of ‘us’-- post-traumatic stress really makes that difficult because a person is managing so much angst and anger and rage and fear and hurt and pain. And when they get triggered which happens easily because you’ve got so many triggers from your childhood experience that the person -- all they can do verily is cope with themselves and think about themselves and put a protective wall around them and the ‘us’ is just gone at that point.

They’ll have a blow-out or a tantrum or just want to hide or scream or get away or something. At that point they are back in a very, very young and terrified place, and they are not in tune with the other person at all because sometimes they will come back later and say, what did you say anyhow? One person said, it never crossed my mind the impact of my behavior on you. That’s the perpetrator inside them.

You know, all of us who have had trauma need to know we’ve got that perpetrator partly in us. We need to face that and make friends with that part and change it. It certainly can be processed and changed a lot. I’ve done 30 years of therapy with trauma survivors, and people go through bad relationships, troubled ones and I see them over and over get into good relationships because they can create enough, because they process so much of the material that they don’t trigger out so much. On a zero to 10 they don’t keep going up to a 9 and 10 all the time.

At a three and four you can still think about the other person, but it’s like, if the car is rolling off the highway and crashing into a ravine you are just thinking about yourself, right? For someone who has had trauma it feels like that a lot of the time. You get a little angry at them, and they feel like you are leaving them and they are falling into the abyss, and you were just a little upset over something.

Alissa: Good news. Good news to know that there are so many kinds of ways we can get help for ourselves if we find these things rising up in our relationship.

We are going to take a short break to support our sponsors. This is Alissa Kriteman, your host of “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex”. I’m with Charlotte Kasl, PhD acclaimed author of “If the Buddha Married” and we will be right back.

Announcer: Listen to “Sex: Tantra and Kama Sutra”, a weekly Internet audio program from PersonalLifeMedia.com. Learn ancient secrets that turn on the soul of sex at PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Alissa: We are back. I’m Alissa Kriteman, your host of “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex”. We are speaking with Charlotte Kasl, PhD, author of “If the Buddha Married”.

Before the break, we were talking about – What are some of the ways that we can create more ‘us’ consciousness, things like pulling together versus isolating, opening up and talking about ourselves, being vulnerable?

Now, I want to talk about sex. One of the things I want to talk about is revisiting something you said, Charlotte, in our interview with “If the Buddha Dated”. We were talking about monogamy versus polyamory, and you said that people generally who are geared toward polyamorous relationships, there is a fear of them going really deep with one person and revealing themselves on a deeply vulnerable level. Can we talk more about that because I think it’s really important to talk about this because I think it is the root of why people have affairs?

Charlotte: Yes, because you are talking about not going deep into the oneness, into the ‘us’, into that deep sense of intimacy. When we don’t go in there, then we want new stimulation and new novelty instead of with our partner where we can’t seem to get deep and then we are longing for something else.

You know, the sexual act is not a big deal in one way. If it is just about the sex, you know, people – and I was around in the ‘60s and ‘70s – it’s an act, it’s something. But to commune with someone through the physical body, through exploring, through being totally, physically present is an incredible experience. Many people aren’t there. There is a lot of perfunctory sex.

I remember talking recently with a couple who for 25 years were having a wonderful sexual relationship and marriage. They say they have this agreement – never perfunctory sex. They have to feel connected and they have to feel close and they take time and make sure both people are really stimulated. The sex becomes an expression of the bond and the depth, and it also deepens the connection. It is circular in that way.

Alissa: Yeah, because I can see if the sex is off that is just like the playing ground for all kinds of things to happen in the relationship. One of the big things you talk about in your book is about people having affairs, the actual trauma it is of having affairs. I’m not sure that people are necessarily connected in with the impact that an affair has on a bond.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

Charlotte: Well, if they promise to be monogamous and there’s an affair, it means, OK, we’ve stirred up this relationship. What’s wrong in the relationship? How long was this in coming? How many years has this been going on? Who looked the other way? What’s missing? What needs to get talked about? Let’s open up everything and put it on the table.

Generally, if I’m working with the couple the affair needs to stop before we can really deal with the relationship because if they’re still doing it, it’s kind of like, still drinking or using drugs, you’re just escaping and you’re not really dealing with it. Both people really need to get in there. It’s often portrayed as the bad one went off and had the affair and the good one was the wounded one at home, but it’s about the relationship. They both have a part in it to some degree.

Again, that talking needs to open up and no phony forgiveness. A lot of people just right away, oh it’s fine. I forgive you. I forgive you. They say that out of terror that the person will leave. It usually just makes the other one feel more wretchedly guilty, if you can say, I didn’t like it and I’m angry at you for that.

What women say almost across the board when women have had affairs is, I felt like I was dying in the relationship and someone helped me wake up and feel alive and happy, and I felt wanted and cared about.

Alissa: Those are all the things you want in a relationship, right?

Charlotte: Alive, wanted, cared about, brightened up. Someone is talking to them with respect, with kindness, with that twinkle in their eye. When you feel like you are dying you’re getting into fights like free you are going to do something but not die.

Alissa: I think the important thing here is to allow the affair to be a vehicle for healing.

Charlotte: Healing, I would certainly say, is getting open, getting honest. The other thing is there has to be a point in time where you don’t drag it out and throw it at the other person because it’s now five years later and they’re getting in a rough place and one brings up, well, you had an affair or something or makes snide remarks about it.

There has to be a time, what will you need to have this forgiven now? What will need to happen is that person can voice what it was that they understand why they had that affair, especially with men. Women can get there usually easier, but with men it is hard for them to voice it, and they need to get there and say, yeah I get it. I was using it to feed my ego or to feel good or because it was there. I just… you know, my father did. When I go on a trip and I’m not near you, what harm does it do?

They understand what harm it does inside them as well as to the partner. We’re breaking a vow we made. If we take that vow seriously… I wrote in the beginning, I think it’s “If the Buddha Dated” but the basic vow of relationships is more than anything else, I want my self. I want my integrity and my goodness and my honesty, and I commit to that within me so I can give it to the relationship because if we’re totally out of integrity we’re going to lie to a partner. And the partner feels it. They may not quite get it, but they may start eating or feel nervous or anxious or depressed because they know something is wrong.

Often, if the man is having the affair the woman is picking up all the signals. There was a study on this. When the man lies about it the woman just goes nuts because she’s picking up the signals. She can feel it, and she actually gets relief when he just cops to it and says ‘yes’ because it validates her reality and her gut experience.

Alissa: It is so funny to see my fiancé’s face when I nail him on something. He’s like; wow that’s exactly what’s going on. It’s amazing that women can do that. I love it when men can just drop instead of adding that resistance like, no, that’s not the way that it is. It’s just there’s so much freedom there.

So say there was a rift in the relationship you talk about the art of apology but you add a deeper cut on just some sort of apology, like you said. Can you talk to us as we wrap up here? I could talk to you for days, but let’s end on the art of apology.

Charlotte: A real apology comes from the heart. It’s not that I was caught, so oh, I’m sorry. That isn’t an apology. An apology comes when you really experience the harm you have done to the other person. Unless you feel it, unless you see the wound in that person’s face and in that life that you participated in creating, you are not really apologizing. You have to feel it inside yourself to say, ooh I do feel bad, not just guilty but feeling like, I hear you and I get what I participated in hurting you. Then you can say you’re sorry, but, a big but, you have to then agree inside yourself to do what it takes not to do it again because I’m sorry gets really old in a hurry. It’s a very tired phrase.

Alissa: How do we not do it again? I know I’ve had friends even where they would apologize, and it would be this very, almost like, calculated, I’m really sorry. Did I hurt your feelings? I was unskillful in my words, but there was no feeling there?

Two questions. What do we do if the person giving us an apology but it’s not landing for us?

Charlotte: Say just that. You know, I hear the words, but my gut doesn’t feel secure that it is not going to happen again and soon. You have to enter into a deeper discussion about… OK, when those impulses come up to flirt with someone else at a party which is hurtful to your partner, if you have a bond you withdraw that sexual energy running on other people… You can’t just say I’m sorry and go do it again. You say I’m sorry and you look at what is this about inside of me, what insecurity is it or sense of power or hot stuff or it makes me feel important or whatever it’s about.

You have to look at that and say, what is this about that I do that and that I would wound my relationship over this need to do this. Then, you could say to the partner, let’s talk about when we go to a party together about staying together or looking at each other or something. Let’s become a team.

I talk a lot in “Home for the Heart” about making allies to our rooter places. That’s how we can actually heal in a relationship. So, it’s like, OK it’s considered in the EFT language one of the dragons, that’s what a relationship is. One wants to flirt at a gathering so we externalize that. OK, that’s one of my dragons I have a sneaky desire to flirt when we’re out. OK, how can we as a team slay the dragon?

So, you’re not breathing fire on each other so much as you name the places. One might be I withdraw. One might be I’ll be nervous and talk my head off. How do we work together, maybe a little tap on the arm? It’s like, honey, I’m really am listening to you, and that might be the key that says, you don’t need to repeat it any more. It’s like people who never got listened to tend to repeat themselves. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just how it is. So then one says, God, you always repeat yourself. You talk so much. How can I be helpful to you? How can we slay this dragon together that when you get nervous you talk a lot?

Then the one will say, OK just tape me on the arm and smile at me, something. You work together on these things and that creates the bond again.

Alissa: I love it. This first step is being vulnerable enough to admit that yeah I flirt, yeah I talk a lot, yeah my voice gets really loud when I get excited. How can we work on that together versus maybe getting it wrong and get into an argument.

Charlotte: Right. And if we say it to each other like, boy you sure talk a lot. People just reel into their shame and feel bad because they know it. It’s like, honey, I’m going to say this gently, but it feels like sometimes you kind of break in and interrupt a lot, and I don’t know if you are aware of that. The person says, yeah I kind of am. I do it when I’m anxious. So there you’re already connecting. The other person says, I didn’t notice. I didn’t think I did or I think I’m really better. I’m better than I used to be.

Is there anything about that because when I’m talking and you break in and interrupt I feel like I have to repeat what I’m saying? I don’t feel connected. I want to go away. I get irritated. Is there some way we can deal with this, maybe, if you’ll hold hands if I’m talking or say, OK, this is talking time. Let’s have a talking stick, whatever.

What’s very interesting and I’ll tie this back to sex to close it. One couple who took kind of a listening thing where if you have a conflict you have a talking stick… One says what they are feeling and what they are going through. The other says, what they are feeling and going through not arguing but just relating the experience. When they have a conflict about, maybe, one’s working too much or one’s feeling lonely and they go through this really listening, listening, listening, their sexual life gets much better.

This one couple said, you know, we’ve been married for 20 years, and we’ve never had lovemaking like this. We make love for hours because there’s just nothing in the way.

Alissa: Nice.

Charlotte: That’s the point. The question I mentioned earlier – Are we creating separateness or closeness? And that when you get all that junk out of the way there’s nothing but love in there. You can relax into each other’s arms and bodies and kisses and hugs. You can be present because there’s not fear rolling through your body, and you touch with a consciousness as if you are touching someone for the first time. It is alive. It is real. It is just not robot like, oh well you might as well be rubbing a stick on them or something.

If you’re sensing in your fingers and in your hands that body and you’re really connecting the same way you connect when you really, really listen and get down in there.

Alissa: Charlotte, such great, great information for people wanting to have their marriages, their partnerships in whatever form really be solid and loving and from the heart.

Thank you, thank you for being with us today. Tell us again how we can find you.

Charlotte: You can find me on my website which I say is going to get improved soon, CharlotteKasl.com. All my books are listed there. We are going to be putting more pieces of the books on there too as time goes on.

Alissa: Yeah, really fantastic. Listeners, we’re going to be also talking with Charlotte about “If the Buddha Got Stuck” because your books are so fantastic, full of tools and techniques and meditations; all kinds of things that you can use in your relationship to create deeper intimacy and have more love present.

Also, listeners, if you want to shoot me an email let me know any comments that you have, ideas for topics you’d like me to cover. You can do that at [email protected]. Feel free to send me an email, and also there are always transcripts of this show and other shows on the Personal Life Media network. Just go to PersonalLifeMedia.com.

Charlotte, thank you so much again for being with us. Your work is incredible. I love having you on the show.

Charlotte: It is a wonderful pleasure. I so enjoy talking with you.

Alissa: Thank you. Signing off, I’m your host, Alissa Kriteman always expanding your awareness and choices here on “Just for Women: Dating, Relationships and Sex”.

Tune in next week for more juicy news you can use.

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