Kristin Armstrong Finds Love by Getting Out of Her Own Way
Kristin Armstrong Finds Love by Getting Out of Her Own Way
“Once you lift your own energy to match whatever it is you are wanting, suddenly there it is.”
By Kristin Armstrong
Illustration by KK Farinola
Architecture has always fascinated me. After living in many homes as a child, and living in Europe for years as an adult, I have a deep appreciation for the process and the art that make a structure significant. What makes a house feel like a home. What makes a building feel like a place of worship. What is it about the atmosphere of a restaurant that makes the food taste even better? Certain spaces beckon a deeper sense of invitation. Just as I believe we recognize certain people rather than meet them, some spaces feel like we have history there even when we visit for the first time.
Perhaps one of the most intriguing forms of architecture is the designing of a life. I seem to meet most of my clients in this place, when they are in the process of a personal renovation. Sometimes we meet in the rubble of a demolition, when a former structure no longer serves or resonates. This begets an entire new set of plans and construction. Other times we metaphorically tape plastic to seal off certain areas and they live in the midst of a remodel.
I love meeting people here, in this place of creativity and potential. Because there can be some pain or uncertainty inherent in the process, most people don’t appreciate it as much as I do, at least in the middle of it. But later, when they are inhabiting their new space, they are more apt to savor the journey from there to here in retrospect.
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Looking back at some of my own renovations, I can more clearly see where I have gotten in my own way. Before any plan can become a structure (or any dream can become a reality) it begins as a thought. And this is precisely where personal architecture originates, in our mind, in our thought life. I had thoughts that certain things were “easy,” and certain things were “difficult” — and I labeled them as such, and so they became exactly that. For example, I never thought it was hard to make a living, you just find something you love to do and do that. I didn’t infuse work with the energy of effort or struggle, so it never felt that way. Same thing with health or fitness — I thought it was easy to have good habits and so it was easy.
However, if you asked me about dating or love, I would have told you that was easy for some people but very difficult for me. It was hard to meet someone, or hard to date, or hard to sustain long term, blah blah blah. I infused so much energy of struggle and disappointment into that area of my life that it became exactly that. In my thoughts, I put so much resistance into that subject that my desire for a beautiful love and my belief that I could have it canceled each other out and I was stuck. Desire and belief have to align if we want to see something (anything) manifest in our reality.
I did this for years, without seeing myself clearly or assuming responsibility for my own block. It was like I was stepping on the hose and wondering why I couldn’t water my garden. I finally heard a quote that got my attention like the crunch of hitting something with my car, or stubbing my toe. Where you can’t think about anything else. It was this quote from Esther Hicks:
You can’t be a vibrational match for what you want and its absence at the same time. Make the absence irrelevant.
I mulled this over and over until a lightbulb finally illuminated the attic of my mind. Slowly I started shifting, infusing different energy into my thoughts about love, and into my conversations about dating and relationships. I started feeling so much appreciation for all the different kinds of love in my life that I started paying less attention to the absence of a partner. I felt happier, lighter, more radiant, more loving, more open, and more excited. I could see a beautiful couple walking on the beach and smile at their happiness instead of cringing with the internal ouch of absence. I could listen to love songs and feel my heart stir, open to possibility. Without understanding the awesomeness of what I was doing, I completely raised my own frequency from the low vibe of disappointment to the high vibration of love and appreciation. I practiced holding it there until it just stayed there. And once you lift your own energy to match whatever it is that you are wanting, suddenly there it is. This explains the old cliché my grandmothers and mom tried to tell me many times: “You will find what you are looking for when you stop looking, or when you least expect it.” In other words, when you stop focusing on the absence of anything, it won’t be absent for long. Once you really understand this, everything changes.
When all I could see was love, suddenly Love was staring right back at me. His eyes are blue and deep like the ocean and pull me in like the tide. Loving him is the easiest thing I have ever known.
Think about the thing you want The Most. The thing you think is hard to do, or be, or get.
What if it could be easy?
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