"How To Choose The Right Mate"

by Clarissa Pinkola Esté

Hi! I’m doing things a little different this week: wanted to pass along Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ wisdom after binge reading Women Who Run With The Wolves and How To Love A Woman.

Gender aside, its solid fucking advice for anyone and everyone — like, it really moved me. Maybe it moves you, too?

Let’s boogie.

12 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN CHOOSING A MATE:

1. Choose someone as though you are blind.

   Close your eyes and see what you can feel of that person (of their kindness, loyalty, insight, devotion, their ability to be concerned with you, their ability to care for themselves).

2. The biggest difference between a life long lover and a flash in the pan

   — is a lover who has the ability to learn.

3. Choose someone who is willing to be like you: strong and sensitive.

4. Choose someone who when you hurt them, they feel pain and are willing to show it. And when they hurt you, they see your pain and feel sorry.

   This is very important! Their ability to perceive your pain is crucial because mistakes will happen many times. If they show no reaction or reach out after 24 hours of rupture and conflict, something is either wrong with their feeling function or they have given up on you. They no longer allow themselves to be human in your presence.

5. Choose a person who has an inner life: pursuing a passion, an interest, etc, and wants you to join them on their journey somehow.

6. Choose someone with similar passions as your own so you can do things you love together. This can be the glue of the relationship, and it can be as simple as drawing a hot bath together or taking nightly walks around the block, too.

7. Choose someone who has similar values about children, money, religion, life views, etc. Not everyone is going to align in all of them but aligning in some of them will bring harmony and decrease friction in a longer term relationship.

   It’s easier to soar when the pragmatics of a relationship are taken care of.
   (^ I read that and went: whoa)

8. Choose someone who is compassionate, willing and able to listen, gives equal time.

9. Choose someone who can laugh at themselves, preferably a dynamic where you two can try a non-cruel joke in the middle of an argument or a difficult conversation and end up in tears laughing.

   
   At the very least, someone who can de-escalate conflict in real time very skillfully. It’s a skill worth waiting for in a person (!!!). And if you or your person do not have these traits, you can learn (see #2).

10. Be able to overlook certain faults and characteristics with grace. No one is perfect but if it’s a dramatic and intolerable characteristic like abuse or alcoholism, or anything that takes them away from their soul, or someone who can not face you after making a mistake.. Do NOT ignore!

11. Be friends, really establish a friendship with your lover. Would you do for your lovers as you would for your friends?

12. Make sure that when you choose, you’re choosing someone who makes your life bigger rather than smaller.

But also…

“There will be bloodshed in learning to love, you may go through the same hoops 4 or 5 times and hobble away missing a leg wondering what on earth you’re doing there — what you’re doing is trying to discover the true names of your loved one so that you call them up into consciousness.”

• Clarissa Pinkola Esté

Happy mating,
Kat𓍯𓂃𓏧♡

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ᝰ.ᐟWhat’s Alive:

• Currently listening: Alexander O’Neal album on vinyl

• Currently drinking: Intelligentsia - Diablo, Home Pour Over

• Currently reading: VINTAGE ‘78 PLAYBOY ISSUE FT. DOLLY PARTON (found it at a record store for $15!)

• Currently obsessing over: vintage playboy magazines (super sexy, inspiring and impressive graphic designs + it feels like a fun research experiment to read a magazine written for the male gaze regardless of what i think about it)

• H2BH news: I am holding off on a paywall in my newsletters for now but you’re welcome to upgrade your subscription to paid if you’d like to support either way! It’s only $5/mo and it supports me doing this work <3

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