Last week we looked at bisexuality and the six kinds of love. Most of the social media regarding bisexuality is eros in nature, and most of that is based on erotica rather than passion. That’s okay. There is a place for that in the bisexual life whether it is with the same partner or a variety of partners. These experiences fill a need for our strong sexual drives and our need to experience love making in a variety of ways. It is part of the process of sexual identity, but it does not have to stop there.

In an amazing book by Elizabeth Gilbert titled “Eat Pray Love”[1], she tells about her journey (literally and internally) to find philautia or self love. As stated in the last blog, our love forms and sexual encounters should all lead to greater understanding and love of our Self. One of the strategies Gilbert used is self-talk, believing that the other voice comes from the inner or Higher Self or perhaps from a higher power that functions in unison with our Higher Self. What she does is write in her journal how she is feeling and what questions she has about life, and then sits back and waits for an answer that comes in the form of a written response from her inner self. During one of her moments facing depression and loneliness, she came up with this response:

”I am here. I love you. I don’t care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay up with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it – I will love you through that as well. If you don’t take the medication, I will love you too. There is nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

Beautiful isn’t it?  Sends a shiver down my spine and urges me on to loving myself more and respecting myself more. On her journey, she leaves behind a failed marriage and a hot sexual relationship (both with men) and eventually finds Pragma or intimate partnership with another man. Just recently, she has divorced again and found pragma with a woman[2]. This suggests that part of her journey was coming to terms with her bisexuality. The process of finding her Higher Self opened her doors to intimacy, first with a man and now with a woman.

You see, our sexuality, like all forms of sexual identification, is just biological. As bisexuals, we are either biologically men or women, but we are more than just sexual beings.  Our bisexuality is also psychological; it is part of the way we think both at the conscious and subconscious levels. We are a collection of cognitive and behavioral patterns established in our neural pathways with a sprinkling of genetic predisposition and a whole lot of environmental experiences, some good and some damaging to our inner soul. But we are more than that.  We are spiritual beings with an inner or Higher Self that longs to be heard and to guide us into a higher level of living.  We have to learn to listen to that inner voice before we can arrive at the core of our humanity – the intimacy and connection with our Higher Self. We can then connect with others and help them understand and harmonize with their own higher self. Then when we can evolve together, we can experience a whole new level of intimacy. Then the sex can become even hotter as it is more focused on making love rather than just having hot sex.

[1] Gilbert, Elizabeth. Eat Pray Love. Penguin Books. London, England. 2006. (page 54).

[2] Schaub, Michael. “Eat Pray Love Author Elizabeth Gilbert Announces Lesbian Relationship”. The Los Angeles Times. Sept 2006. . (https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/09/07/eat-pray-love-author-elizabeth-gilbert-announces-lesbian-relationship.html)