• Online magazine on spiritual growth

Paralllel magazine

Email Marketing Gone Wrong: From Christian Cupid to Spam Nightmares

In a fit of searching for a man “for pleasure and for life,” I somehow ended up on “Christian Cupid.”
I’m a content marketer, I know how it works: databases from one “dating site” easily migrate to another, and soon I’ll be getting profiles from a BDSM site, and then maybe from something even more liberated. And I’m mentally prepared that tomorrow my face might pop up on some “hey you, come over here, I’ll whip your ass with nettles, you nasty rascal! Turn around!” God forgive me, but anything’s possible)).
But “Christian Cupid” is not my kind of setup at all—same as any other religious one. Getting whipped with nettles isn’t my thing either, but I’m already prepared for such surprises in my inbox.

The kind of email marketing I wasn’t ready to sign up for was from supposedly respectable, God-fearing men. Professional deformation bears its fruit. It’s hard to surprise me.

Everything has not only its time but also its audience. Sexual preferences are intimate business, the “18+” theme is always hot, and how many of them in “Cupid” are just as randomly dropped in there as I am…

But where is the respect for the reader, and that very soukromí (as the Czechs would say)? You won’t scare me with openness and looseness, I’ve “seen things,” but there are fragile souls for whom sex is a forbidden topic—hidden, intimate, God forbid ever in the light…

Do we carry responsibility on our side not to send a person what they didn’t ask for? Are we willing to make the effort to give the reader a choice of what kind of content to let into their space? Or do we just not care, blasting out everything, hoping something sticks?
ThetaHealing Journeys: Returning to Who You Are
Imagine you’re holding a vessel with a warm, sweet drink.
You drink it to the last drop — and disappear.
You are gone. You merge with the interior of your home.
Dust particles in the air are more present than you are.
Feel yourself as emptiness.
No, you don’t feel yourself physically.
No, the brain isn’t there either.
Nothing is there.
You feel yourself, but you do not exist.
Yes, not at all.
No hands.
No heart, no brain, not even the new earrings.

Transport yourself to Piazza San Marco in Venice — see and feel the crowds of tourists walking straight through you.
Or pick any square you like. Or your grandma’s garden, if you prefer)).
No, people don’t bump shoulders with you; they don’t even see you. You’re not there. We don’t bump into air.
And yes, the pigeons don’t care either; they don’t see you.
How does it feel?
If you’re ready, lie down in the square.
Yes, right under the flow of people — let them walk across you. If you’re in grandma’s garden, imagine chickens instead of pigeons.
No, they won’t trip over you.
Now imagine rain starts to fall, and you are — a puddle.

Sink through the square… through the foundations of houses, tree roots, damp underground passages, water, through the soft and hard layers of the planet… feel the heat, the cold of the underground waters — fall into non-being.

There you are no one. There you have no gender, no job, no children, no loans, no passport, and no jeans that don’t fit. There you know no language, and at the same time you know every language in the world.

Stay in this state as long as you can. A few moments is fine. With practice, it’ll last longer.
No, don’t push away the thoughts that come. Fighting them makes no sense.
Turn them into emptiness. Use a magic wand or blow them away — whatever works.
When you’re done, imagine a glass of lingonberry tea in your hands. Sour as hell)). Feel the sharpness — and return to the world. To the place where you have some gender (your choice, it’s the 21st century, lots to choose from), you may or may not have children, you live somewhere, with someone… you have a job or a calling.

How does it all feel after resetting?
Coffee tastes better, definitely.
The floor can be washed tomorrow — no one will stick to it.
Hugging your beloved is priceless.