Kamini Desai Ecommerce

What they're saying:

One would think a beautiful young woman, daughter to a world renowned yoga master, would have all the wisdom she needs. But instead, she believes she can find what she is looking for in love and romance. This is the wise, profoundly authentic, and uplifting story of her journey through major romantic relationships that finally lead her back to her roots—and eventually to the seed of the truest relationship—with herself. Artfully weaving in the wisdom of her youth with real-life understanding, this book maps the pitfalls and pinnacles of external love as a gateway to internal fulfillment.

In her book, Life Lessons, Love Lessons, Kamini Desai shows how difficult lessons of personal relationships can inspire us to grow past limited concepts of ourselves and others. Every step we take in this regard helps free us to discover a deeper level of our own Being.”
Michael A. Singer, author of The Untethered Soul

“This book is about the empowerment that happens when one finds real happiness begins within one’s own heart, mind, and soul…returns the seeker to the source of love—oneself. EMPOWERING for women of all ages.”
Rajashree Choudhury, Bikram Yoga

INTRODUCTION

Measur ing Up
My dream formula for happiness was simple. Be the right woman, and find the right man. He would give me unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, unconditional presence. But first, to be the “right” woman, I had to fit the ideal I had manufactured in my head. I had to deny who I was–because I certainly wasn’t perfect. To motivate myself to move towards this perfect image, I withheld love from myself until I could match it. Since that could never realistically happen for any length of time, I denied myself the things I wanted most; acceptance, love, contentment, and peace. I cut myself off from my own source–in the name of finding it from someone else.

This self-imposed separation from love only fueled my need to experience it through someone else. But not only had I effectively cut myself off from receiving my own love, I also cut myself off from anyone who might actually love me. After all, if I didn’t fit my own picture of how I should be, how could I be lovable to anyone else?

The Possibility of True Love
Lest this start sounding cynical, let me say I am a romantic and an optimist at heart. I believe love is a powerful presence that has the potential to transform our lives. But the twists and turns of my life have led me to realize one thing.

Most of us think that people and experiences unfolding in certain specific ways are responsible for our experience of love. This creates dependency. But this dependency is an illusion. It is not that I don’t believe in love, I no longer believe dependency on another is the only way to experience it. In fact, love is something, that when understood, can be experienced anywhere, at any time. Like the sun that is always shining, love is always accessible.

But we as human beings tend to close our windows when our conditions aren’t met and shut it out. It doesn’t mean it is not there, but simply that we have chosen not to be open to its presence. If we can increase our capacity to remain open under circumstances that would normally shut us down to love, we can experience more of it in our lives.

The possibility of love is not person-dependent. Single, married, dating, divorced, thick, thin, successful or failure; everyone possesses equal access to love. This is because the experience of love happens within us. Sometimes another person is an agent of opening to life in that way. Sometimes it is an event, a great song or a stunning sunset. The point is, we are the ones who decide if we experience love or not. And those decisions change from moment to moment.

We can experience a loving, open-hearted feeling with someone one day and lose all memory of that love the next day when they’ve forgotten our birthday. The other person has not essentially changed. What has shifted is our choice to be open to the other person as they are. When we choose not to be open to the other as they are, we lose our love connection. This gives us a clue as to how and why we are always the masters of love in our lives.

The more we choose to remain open to our loved ones, partners, colleagues, and life events, the more love we will experience. Instead of relying on the other to create the circumstances that allow us to feel love, we decide to love outside of circumstance.

CHAPTER FIVE

We Get to Know the Other By Being Someone We’re Not
When we first meet someone, we don’t tend to present who we are. We present who we think we should be. A big part of that is constructed from what we think the other person will find attractive. So here we are, looking for someone who we can be ourselves with, but we don’t show them fully who we are.

▪▪▪

This became apparent to me the next day. Steve and I met in the lobby for our hike. He had a backpack all ready with water and a little picnic for us. I thought it was romantic. He had done his bit to please me. For him I was walking up a mountain, when I have no interest in hiking. It is uncomfortable, it makes me sweat, and because I rarely do it, I have to exert a lot of will not to appear as if I’m about to keel over from a heart attack. However, this was what Steve liked to do and I was going to do it with him. It was how I could plausibly spend time with him and impress upon him the myriad ways in which we were infinitely compatible with each other.

I was wearing my cutest jeans–which molded to my rounded hips, and held in my tummy to perfection. My hair was neatly braided and casually thrown over one shoulder. I wore a red tshirt to highlight my golden complexion and dark eyes. A jaunty little red and white Italian scarf wrapped around my neck, I was ready to impress.

The first few hundred feet were not so bad. I could actually talk to Steve in a normal tone of voice. This is going well, I thought. We’ll walk like this for an hour tops, then sit down and have a leisurely picnic by the lake. My fantasy lasted until we started climbing in earnest. This was not the hiking I had done in the mountains of New England. These were the Italian Alps with genuinely steep trails! And, I’d forgotten about altitude! Any fitness I did have would be further compromised by the ability of my body to absorb oxygen at this height. All I could hope was the mountain lake was not far away. Neither Steve nor I knew the exact distance. The trail rose ahead of us step after step, turn after turn. The jeans that had once felt so endearingly formfitting now inhibited my every step. I could feel my lungs struggling to take in air. I desperately wanted to gasp to be able to keep going, but that option was ruled out. Heavy breathing in front of men I’m interested in is not a good look for me.

Steve, suddenly feeling completely at ease in the midst of my seemingly incredible listening skills, continued to chatter on, telling me about his life, his relationships and what brought him to the workshop. But his voice was background noise. All I could focus on was breathing in and breathing out without wheezing, putting one foot in front of the other with legs that were threatening to collapse under me at any minute. Why was I doing this again? Ah yes, love. And getting love meant impressing the person who could give it to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked, breaking into my reverie.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I managed to get out before needing to catch my next breath. Breathing in the middle of a sentence is a dead giveaway. I stopped and pretended to take in the scenery. I willed my heart to slow down, my breath to become even.

“Beautiful view isn’t it? I enjoy taking my time and enjoying the landscape as it unfolds,” I said.

Lie! Big lie! Even now, I could only partially take in what was in front of me. I was completely preoccupied with trying to stay upright and look as if this was an enjoyable jaunt in the woods. What I was really trying to say was, “I’m exhausted, and I don’t think I can go any further without taking breaks at five minute intervals.” But did I say that? No way. That would blow the picture I was carefully trying to construct.

Three hours and many stops to “enjoy the view” later, we finally made it to the lake. My legs were trembling uncontrollably; my red and white scarf was dark with sweat. But I had made it!

The lake was stunningly beautiful. Just like those pictures you see of mountain lakes. Flowers still in bloom. Green meadows and mountains rising on all sides. Not a single soul to be seen but us. This was what I had suffered for.

We walked halfway around the lake and then stopped to put our feet in. I was covered with sweat and desperately needed to cool off. I also thought it would be very adventurous and spontaneous if I suggested we go in the lake. Steve had his bathing trunks. I put his t-shirt on over my underwear and went in headfirst. It was glacial. I could hardly take a full breath. In the time it took to talk Steve into the water, my whole body had gone numb. I suddenly felt my leg begin to cramp up. I didn’t say anything but suggested we go back to shore.

We sat in the sun to dry out, still frigid with cold and without a towel. Steve warmed me up as best as he could, and we sat in companionable silence. I felt comfortable. I felt I could be myself. Though, if that was the case, I’m not sure why I needed to go through my whole charade. Nevertheless, I settled back and began to enjoy the fruits of my labor in earnest. I felt all my struggles had been worth this reward.

As we began to set up for our picnic, my muscles began to involuntarily cramp up. First it was my feet. I tried to stretch them out, attempting to hide just how painful it was. Severe leg cramping did not fit this romantic moment.

“It’s okay,” I gasped. “My legs are just a little tired. I probably just need to stretch out a little.”

Steve did his best to help stretch my feet. Finally, unable to contain my pain any longer, I let out a strangled cry.

Steve looked at me, shocked, “What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” The cramps had spread to my calves, then my hamstrings and quads. It was excruciatingly painful.

I had no choice but to tell the truth. “My whole legs …” I managed to get out as I tried to reach for my legs.

He understood and tried to massage them as best as he could. All I could do was point and nod. I had no choice but to be authentic. And right now, it was authentic agony. Here I was on our first date, trying to impress him. Instead, I had huffed and puffed my way up a mountain in too-tight jeans and, when we finally made it to the top, ended up writhing in pain on the ground wearing nothing but a wet t-shirt and underwear! Not quite the interlude I had imagined for myself.

The Heart Opens
When we first become involved in a relationship it exists in a state of rosy perfection. A unique coalescence of internal and external forces creates space for the heart to open and love naturally flows. We exist in a state of love where the mind takes a back seat to our open heart, and the obstacles of life don’t touch us in the same way.

We experience a sense of wholeness, peace and contentment far beyond the confines of the thinking mind. Separation, within ourselves and with others, dissolves. It feels as if the thing we have been missing and searching for our whole lives has arrived.

But there is one hitch. Because this expansive oneness seems only to happen in the presence of this person, we need them to continue to make us feel good. How do they do that? By being the person that caused us to open up to them in the first place.

And so, while the first experience of falling in love is spontaneous and effortless, we subtly try to secure this euphoria, trying to make it a constant state rather than a transient one. We unconsciously sense what the other wants and needs to maintain an openhearted stance to life. We take it upon ourselves to provide the other what they need to feel open, happy and in love.

And, if we’re in a relationship that “works,” the other will do the same for us. We only show certain sides of our character, playing up what pleases our loved one. And we don’t do it just for them; we do this for ourselves too. If they are our source, it is in our best interests to keep them in a state where they continue to shine love and affection on us. Essentially we stack the deck in our favor, to experience love, and avoid being deprived of it.

Often, we’ll even do things we are not particularly interested in. We may see movies we secretly have no interest in, or profess our love of hiking all the while trying to hide the fact that we feel as if our heart is about to leap out of our chest and land on the trail in front of us while doing it. Perhaps we let our loved one think we love to cook when the last time we saw a kitchen was when our mother came to visit. Or, we may hide the fact we secretly like to eat in bed every now and then and prefer tabloids to literature.

But this is not a one-sided endeavor. The other person is doing the same for us as well. They go to “chick-flicks,” wear shirts they normally wouldn’t be caught dead in, stop seeing the friends we don’t approve of, and very attentively listen to the same emotional dramas that will one day evoke a semi-comatose response.

In essence, we’re both playing roles in a carefully constructed system of exchange, an unconscious game of “I’ll be what you want, if you’ll be what I want.” That is not to say the other person does not have qualities we appreciate and love, but it does mean we tend to have a preference for those qualities that fit our ideal picture and make us feel good.

You Have Choices!

Shipping Policy for Inner Source

Shipping is available through USPS. Prices below are approximate.
USPS Media $2.62-$3.90 (1-4 books)
USPS Priority $5.28-6.29 (1-4 books)
USPS Parcel Post $5.39-6.66 (1-4 books)

Mail Orders

You may also purchase Life Lessons, Love Lessons by mail. Send $14.99 (plus shipping and handling; see list below), along with your clearly printed shipping address, telephone and email address to:

Inner Source
16220 N. 7th St.  Suite 2426
Phoenix, AZ 85022

Checks must be payable to Inner Source. Please include phone number and email should we need to contact you.

Shipping Costs (all sent by USPS Media)
1 book $3.00
2 books $3.75
3 books $4.50
4 books $5.25

Return Policy for Inner Source:

Defective products may be returned and replaced. Purchaser pays return shipping, vendor pays shipping on replacement product. Programs cancelled more than 7 days before the start of a program may be refunded.

 

If you are ordering 5 copies or more...

Shipping Policy for Inner Source Wholesale Items:

Wholesale price for books is $10.17 per book for purchases of 5 books or more.
The shipping will all go via media mail (allow 7-10 days):
36 books $11.35
20 books $9.40
15 books $7.45
10 books $6.67
5 books $3.94
Orders above 36 books can be sent by box. There are 36 books per box. Each box costs 11.35 for shipping

 

Please contact us by email or phone for wholesale orders.