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Dear Lover

Dear Lover

A Woman's Guide To Men, Sex, And Love's Deepest Bliss
by David Deida 2002 200 pages
3.82
1k+ ratings
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10 minutes
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Key Takeaways

1. Love Is Your Essence: Embrace Your Feminine Light

You are love, flowing with love, bright as love.

Your true nature is love. At your core, you are the embodiment of love's radiant light and flowing energy. This essence yearns to be seen, felt, and offered fully to the world. Your heart's deepest desire is to give and receive love without bounds, to be recognized as the divine expression of love that you are.

Embracing your feminine light involves:

  • Allowing your body to open and surrender to love's flow
  • Expressing your heart's yearning through your entire being
  • Offering yourself as a gift of love's radiance to all

By living from this place of love, you naturally attract and inspire deep connections with others, especially with men who can meet your heart's profound longing for divine love and recognition.

2. Trust and Surrender: The Path to Deep Intimacy

Your yearning draws him deeper, and when his claim commands your heart, you surrender more fully.

Deep intimacy requires mutual trust and surrender. For a woman with a feminine essence, this means learning to trust a man's capacity to guide your heart open more deeply than you can yourself. It's about surrendering to love's command, not just to a specific man, but to the divine love that can flow through him.

The dance of trust and surrender involves:

  • Choosing a man whose integrity and presence you trust to open you spiritually and sexually
  • Allowing yourself to be "claimed" by love, even when it feels vulnerable
  • Expressing your full range of emotions and responses to guide your man's loving

This path is not about weakness or dependency, but about opening to a love larger than yourself. It's a practice of softening your protective shells and allowing love to move through you fully, creating a depth of connection that neither partner could achieve alone.

3. Masculine and Feminine Polarity: Understanding Sexual Essence

Your sexual essence is your sexual identity. It has nothing to do with the gender of your body.

Sexual essence is about energy, not gender. Each person has both masculine and feminine qualities, but usually resonates more strongly with one. Understanding your core sexual essence helps you align with your deepest desires and attract complementary partners.

Characteristics of feminine and masculine essences:

  • Feminine: Flows with life's changes, yearns to be filled with love's presence
  • Masculine: Seeks purpose and direction, desires to penetrate life with consciousness

Recognizing your essence doesn't limit you; it helps you understand your natural inclinations and deepest fulfillment. A woman with a feminine essence may be highly successful in her career (a masculine pursuit) but still yearn for the deep surrender and opening that comes from being claimed by masculine presence in intimacy.

4. Stages of Love: From Neediness to Divine Offering

You are either allowing your life to be lived open as love, or you are settling for less.

Love evolves through stages of maturity. Understanding these stages helps you recognize where you are in your journey and what you truly desire in relationships.

The three stages of love:

  1. Neediness: Seeking validation and security from others
  2. Independence: Prioritizing self-reliance and personal goals
  3. Divine Offering: Opening as love for the sake of all beings

As you progress through these stages, your capacity for deep intimacy grows. You move from seeking love to fill a void to embodying love as your essence. In the third stage, you learn to open your heart fully, even in the face of pain or fear, offering your love as a gift to all.

5. The Art of Staying Open: Practices for Deepening Love

Love is a discipline, a constant practice and commitment to feel and love your shells, relaxing with humor and surrendering open through your love-softened shells that would otherwise suppress your energy and build walls around your heart.

Love is an art that requires practice. Staying open, especially during challenging moments, is a skill that can be cultivated. By developing practices to remain open-hearted, you can deepen your capacity for love and intimacy.

Key practices for staying open:

  • Maintaining eye contact, even during conflict
  • Breathing together with your partner
  • Relaxing your body, especially soft areas like belly and genitals
  • Feeling from your heart into your partner's heart
  • Expressing emotions spontaneously and authentically

These practices help you remain connected to your partner and your own heart, even when your instinct might be to close down or protect yourself. By consistently choosing openness, you create a foundation for profound intimacy and love.

6. Attracting Your Reciprocal: The Power of Authentic Yearning

You will attract and inspire a man who can maintain his integrity with the same consistency that you can offer your dance through love-softened shells without collapse or frustration.

Your depth of offering attracts an equal depth of presence. The level of love, trust, and openness you embody naturally attracts and inspires a partner of matching depth. This is not about perfection, but about consistent practice and authentic expression of your heart's yearning.

Ways to embody your authentic yearning:

  • Feel and express your deepest heart's desire without compromise
  • Practice opening your body to flow with love's energy
  • Offer your feminine radiance as a gift, not a manipulation
  • Trust love itself, rather than any specific person

By living from your deepest truth and offering your full feminine essence, you create a magnetic field that draws in men capable of meeting you at that depth. This reciprocal attraction forms the basis for a relationship that can continually open both partners to greater love and consciousness.

7. Living as Love's Art: Balancing Heart and Purpose

Your commitment to the 3rd stage art of devotional practice is what attracts and inspires a 3rd stage man of deep integrity.

Love and purpose can coexist harmoniously. Living as love's art means integrating your heart's deepest yearnings with your worldly pursuits. It's about bringing the fullness of your love into every aspect of your life, including your career and daily activities.

Balancing heart and purpose involves:

  • Regularly reconnecting with your heart's yearning during work
  • Allowing your feminine energy to flow while maintaining professional boundaries
  • Seeing your work as an expression of love and service
  • Practicing presence and openness in all interactions

By living this way, you attract partners and opportunities that align with your deepest truth. You become a living work of art, expressing love's radiance through every aspect of your being and inspiring others to do the same.

8. Navigating Relationships: When to Stay and When to Go

If you really want to surrender open in two-bodied devotional trust, then choose and stay with a man whose train is already going deeper and further than you can open yourself.

Choosing the right partner is crucial for deep intimacy. It's important to recognize when a relationship supports your growth and when it limits you. Staying in a relationship that doesn't meet your heart's deepest yearning can lead to frustration and stagnation.

Considerations for relationship decisions:

  • Does your partner consistently inspire you to open more deeply?
  • Can you trust his integrity and presence to guide your heart?
  • Are you both committed to growing and practicing love's art?

If the answer to these questions is no, it may be time to consider moving on. Remember, it's better to be alone and open to the possibility of deep love than to settle for a relationship that doesn't allow your heart to fully blossom.

9. Expressing Emotions: The Gift of Spontaneous Responsiveness

Give your man your fullest expression in response to his self-deception or blunders, and allow him the opportunity to learn how to correct himself.

Authentic emotional expression deepens intimacy. Learning to express your emotions spontaneously and responsively, without accumulation or suppression, is a powerful gift to yourself and your partner. It allows for real-time feedback and growth in the relationship.

Benefits of spontaneous emotional expression:

  • Prevents buildup of resentment and unexpressed feelings
  • Provides immediate feedback for your partner to grow
  • Keeps the energy in the relationship fresh and alive
  • Allows for deeper trust and vulnerability

Practice expressing your primary emotions—those arising directly from your heart—rather than secondary emotions that come from suppression. This raw, honest sharing creates a dynamic and evolving connection that can continually deepen over time.

10. Embodying Love in Public: Radiance Without Exploitation

You simply carry on with your tasks at hand and continue breathing, feeling, and opening as love's light, without needing men to notice you.

Your feminine radiance is a gift to the world. Learning to embody your love and light in public spaces without seeking validation or exploitation is a powerful practice. It allows you to maintain your depth and integrity while moving through the world.

Practices for embodying love in public:

  • Remain connected to your heart's depth, even in professional settings
  • Allow your energy to flow fully within your body without "hooking" others
  • Breathe and feel the hearts of those around you without entanglement
  • Offer your radiance as a blessing, not a plea for attention

By mastering this art, you become a force of love and consciousness in the world, inspiring others through your presence alone. You learn to navigate social and professional spaces with grace, offering your gifts fully without compromising your depth or inviting unwanted attention.

Last updated:

FAQ

What's "Dear Lover: A Woman's Guide To Men, Sex, And Love's Deepest Bliss" about?

  • Author's Intent: David Deida offers guidance to women on understanding men, sex, and love's deepest bliss. The book is written as if Deida is speaking directly to the reader as a lover.
  • Core Themes: It explores themes of love, intimacy, and spiritual connection, emphasizing the importance of opening one's heart to divine love.
  • Structure: The book is structured into chapters that address different aspects of love and relationships, from yearning and trust to the art of making love.
  • Spiritual Element: Deida integrates spiritual teachings, suggesting that romantic love is a path to spiritual transformation and divine connection.

Why should I read "Dear Lover"?

  • Deep Understanding: It provides insights into the dynamics of love and relationships, helping women understand their desires and how to fulfill them.
  • Spiritual Growth: The book offers a spiritual perspective on love, encouraging readers to see relationships as a path to personal and spiritual growth.
  • Practical Advice: Deida gives practical advice on how to open one's heart and body to love, making it relevant for those seeking deeper intimacy.
  • Empowerment: It empowers women to embrace their feminine essence and use it as a source of strength and attraction.

What are the key takeaways of "Dear Lover"?

  • Yearning as Openness: Yearning is not a problem but a divine pull to open as love's offering, which is central to experiencing deep intimacy.
  • Trust and Surrender: Trusting a partner to open you to love is crucial, and this involves surrendering control and embracing vulnerability.
  • Art of Loving: Love is a living art that requires practice and commitment to deepen intimacy and connection.
  • Spiritual Sexiness: True sexiness is spiritual and involves being fully present and open, allowing love to flow through one's body and heart.

How does David Deida define "Spiritual Sexiness"?

  • Beyond Physical Attraction: Spiritual sexiness transcends physical appearance and involves the radiance of love and openness.
  • Presence and Depth: It is about being fully present with a partner, offering one's deepest heart and receiving theirs.
  • Energy and Light: Love's energy and light should flow through one's body, making them irresistibly attractive to a deep partner.
  • Devotional Surrender: It involves surrendering to love's flow and offering oneself as a gift of love's light.

What is the "Two-Bodied Play of Love" in "Dear Lover"?

  • Mutual Openness: It refers to the practice of two partners opening beyond themselves to become one love, merging their energies.
  • Deep Communion: The focus is on achieving deep communion, where both partners feel and breathe as one heart.
  • Beyond Self-Enclosure: It encourages moving beyond self-centeredness to feel and offer love as a shared experience.
  • Spiritual Practice: This concept is a spiritual practice that prepares individuals to open as love through all interactions.

How does "Dear Lover" address the concept of "Yearning"?

  • Divine Pull: Yearning is seen as a divine pull to open as love, not a neediness to be filled by another.
  • Heart's Openness: It is the heart's natural state of openness, inviting divine love to flow through.
  • Emotional Expression: Yearning should be expressed through one's body and heart, allowing love to emerge fully.
  • Invitation to Depth: It invites a partner to meet one's deepest heart, fostering a deeper connection and intimacy.

What advice does David Deida give on "Trusting Your Man to Open You"?

  • Choosing Wisely: Choose a man whose depth and integrity you trust more than your own ability to open yourself.
  • Surrender and Guidance: Trust involves surrendering to a man's guidance, allowing him to open you to love's depth.
  • Reciprocal Worship: Both partners should worship each other's heart-depth, recognizing each other's ability to open them more than they can alone.
  • Mutual Growth: Trusting a partner leads to mutual growth, where both individuals open more deeply than they would on their own.

What does "Offering or Betraying Your Heart" mean in "Dear Lover"?

  • Heart's True Desire: It involves recognizing and offering one's heart's true desire for love and connection.
  • Fear and Protection: Many people betray their hearts by building walls of fear and protection, blocking love's flow.
  • Vulnerability and Openness: Offering one's heart requires vulnerability and openness, even in the face of potential hurt.
  • Divine Expression: The heart's offering is a divine expression of love, meant to be shared with a partner and the world.

How does "Dear Lover" describe "Masculine Insensitivity"?

  • Lack of Awareness: Men often lack awareness of the subtle energetic messages women give, requiring women to amplify their responses.
  • Exaggerated Expression: Women are encouraged to express their pleasure and displeasure more overtly to be noticed by their partners.
  • Deep Man's Response: A deep man will respond to a woman's exaggerated expressions with correction and deeper presence.
  • Communication Challenges: The book addresses the communication challenges between men and women, emphasizing the need for clear and expressive communication.

What are the "Three Stages of Loving" according to David Deida?

  • 1st Stage: Focuses on physical attraction and neediness, where love is often conditional and based on personal gain.
  • 2nd Stage: Emphasizes independence and self-reliance, where love is more about partnership and equality.
  • 3rd Stage: Involves devotional surrender and mutual worship, where love is a spiritual practice and an offering to the divine.
  • Progression and Fluctuation: Individuals may progress through these stages or fluctuate between them, depending on their personal growth and relationship dynamics.

What are the best quotes from "Dear Lover" and what do they mean?

  • "You Are Love": This quote emphasizes the idea that love is the essence of one's being, and the heart's deepest desire is to live open as love.
  • "Yearning Is the Key to Love": It highlights the importance of embracing one's yearning as a divine pull to open and offer love fully.
  • "Love Is a Living Art": This quote suggests that love is an ongoing practice that requires commitment and creativity to deepen intimacy.
  • "Trusting Your Man to Open You": It underscores the significance of choosing a partner whose depth and integrity can guide one to love's fullest expression.

How does "Dear Lover" suggest handling "Ending Relationships and the Him-Shaped Void"?

  • Recognizing Unfulfillment: Acknowledge when a relationship doesn't meet your heart's deepest desire and be willing to move on.
  • Time Limit on Suffering: Set a time limit on enduring an unfulfilling relationship, allowing friends to help assess your growth.
  • Him-Shaped Void: Understand that a void remains after leaving a relationship, which can only be filled by a deeper love.
  • Attracting Deeper Love: Focus on opening your heart to attract a partner who can love you more deeply than before, filling the void with divine love.

Review Summary

3.82 out of 5
Average of 1k+ ratings from Goodreads and Amazon.

Reviews of Dear Lover are mixed. Some readers find it deeply insightful and transformative, praising Deida's understanding of feminine essence and relationships. Others criticize it as repetitive, sexist, and overly focused on spiritual sexuality. Positive reviews highlight the book's ability to validate and empower women, while negative reviews argue it promotes harmful gender stereotypes and lacks practical advice. Many readers note the poetic, sometimes erotic writing style, which some appreciate and others find off-putting. Overall, the book seems to resonate more with those open to spiritual and tantric perspectives on love and sexuality.

Your rating:

About the Author

David Deida is an American author known for his work on the spiritual and sexual dynamics between men and women. He has written ten books, translated into 25 languages, including "The Way of the Superior Man" and "Finding God Through Sex." Deida conducts workshops on spiritual growth and intimacy and is a founding associate of the Integral Institute. His academic background includes research and teaching at various universities, including UC Santa Cruz and Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Deida's work often explores themes of spirituality, sexuality, and personal growth, combining elements of tantra, spiritual practices, and relationship dynamics. His writing style is known for being both poetic and direct, often evoking strong reactions from readers.

Other books by David Deida

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