Melody's got an Oprah playing in the next room and I've been listening in. And I'm just furious. In the rush to assign blame for domestic violence we ignore the real cause and guarantee that it will happen again and again. The same people who laugh at Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign (well not all of them because I laughed at it, too) seem to think the answer to violence is to just say no.

It's not that Oprah and the rest are clueless, its just that they refuse to open their eyes.

I know what we all learned about T/F questions that have 'all' or 'never' in them, but this time the correct answer is TRUE.

People (like the other animals on this planet) don't get angry until they are hurt, or even worse, believe they are about to be hurt. If you don't think that watching your relationship, your world, dissolving out from underneath you is painful, well, I don't know what planet you are from. It's horrific. It questions everything you have tried to believe about yourself. A woman in that situation is angry, too. If her fear shows up as physical aggression, no one will ever know. A man will absorb the rage and certainly not report it. It's more likely that in the failing relationship her anger will just mean she is cold, distant, and unsupportive. Or she may be looking for a verbal fight where she wins control by emotionally punishing the man until he simply can't bear it any more and must resort to violence to regain control.

Or, hopefully, walk away. From his wife, his life, his children, pets, home, everything. I did. I still spent a night in jail because leaving isn't even enough in this county, if you take your children with you.

So, I don't think it does any good to point fingers, particularly around our romantic relationships where even the participants usually don't understand what is going on. I'd rather focus on the solutions.

Much of it hinges on the concepts and understanding that are the basis of the Great Sex Seminars. They provide a way out of the mad cycle. You can be sure I'll blog about that later on.

One other area that really is a tragedy and sets up so many marriages for failure is the way so many boys are abused. They are forced to live in emotional deserts. If we didn't teach them from such a young age that their feelings were less than worthless, that they needed to be kept hidden where no one can know, then maybe they would be better equipped to survive relationships. They might even thrive.

Sexaholics and sex addicts, I'm not really sure if there is a difference. Wanting to have lots of sex seems perfectly OK to me. It's a lot of fun, it feels good, and it provides an intimate and joyful escape from the world. But when we use it to escape from life all of the time then we have the makings of a classic destructive addiction.

It really is tempting when the world is closing in and you just don't know how you can keep on keeping on. Escape into something! Drugs, alcohol, sex. At least if the sex is with your partner it's safe and harmless. Like all addictions, sexual addictions jump from being harmless diversion to a problem when we choose them over living.

The driver in addictive behavior is a fear of pain. Mounting fear amplifies the pain to the point we just can't go there. We find something to occupy our minds and drugs and sex do a fine job of this. Until we can regain control of our fear driven imagination, it is unlikely we will ever overcome the lure of escape. After all, we are human!

This kind of fear is natural and normal. Giving in to it is destructive and painful. It takes the help of a trusted companion to change this perception. First they have to gain your trust. You have to believe they won't hurt you and they absolutely be there to help you when you hurt anyway. That's a tall order and much easier to do in the context of an existing relationship.

Learning you really aren't alone is the first step in regaining some perspective. The pain isn't as big as you thought it was. With a clearer perspective about what you need (instead of the unreasonable expectations we only imagine other people have for us) and what really matters you may find there really isn't much discomfort at all. That new perspective and your assured companion really does change everything.

The real key is controlling your panic. As you will learn in the Great Sex Online Seminar, our primitive brain is so fast at making decisions (bad ones!) that we go into panic before we have a chance to think rationally about anything. Working with the cycles, you can learn to see other's differently. Even more powerful, you will see yourself differently and begin to have sex because you enjoy it, not because you need to hide.

Domestic violence is so misunderstood. We all just want it to go away. Somehow we imagine that if we punish the perpetrators harshly enough, it will stop. This attitude is clear when supposedly fair minded people like Oprah are prompted by the Rihanna and Chris Brown incident to declare that a man who will hit you once will hit you again.

I'm reminded of a recent incident my son had at school. You see, they have a zero tolerance policy for socially unacceptable behavior. Well, there was a "mouthy" (principal's word, not mine) girl calling my son names and generally harassing him. She just wouldn't leave him alone no matter what he said. Until he used the "N" word. I suppose if my son were black, it would have been OK. Instead he gets three days suspension. Oh, and the girl who was verbally abusing him, well she didn't do anything wrong! In the workplace, this would be considered harassment and as an adult you could choose to leave. Not as a student. You have to stand and take the pain from the bully until you retaliate enough to be singled out by the authorities. A high price to pay for personal safety, don't you think? What message do you think our schools are sending to kids like my son?

What does this have to do with domestic abuse? When we start to believe there is something in a relationship that fulfills some deep primal need for love, acceptance, touch, or whatever your personal need happens to be (I need all of it!) then that relationship becomes super-charged and dangerous. We give up power. We confess our needs. And when it seems they withhold what we need, we get very scared (remember ALL anger is based on fear that something bad is about to happen). We believe this person has the power to make us safe and maybe even happy. Not only won't they give us another fix of what we need, they are also heaping pain (more fuel for the fear/anger).

And if we leave, we lose all chance of having the comfort and safety we desperately need. Just like my son, we have to stand there and take it until we go far enough that someone intervenes. Often that means somebody (almost always the man) gets hauled off to jail and criminal charges. The other "partner" is declared the "victim" of this violent, depraved animal.

Assigning blame

Society, the police, and county prosecutors jump on the bandwagon. They quickly become a tool for the victim to continue beating on the perpetrator. It doesn't take much compassion for what someone like Chris Brown before you start wondering why there aren't more murders after domestic violence arrests and prosecutions. Presumably its because the perpetrators are forced to realize that their expectation of love and support from the "victim" wanes.

Trying to make the relationship is every bit as dangerous for the "perpetrator" as the victim. Their wounds heal much slower than any physical harm they caused.

Oprah's not wrong, just wrong-headed

It's not that I really disagree with what Oprah said, I just would add that a partner who ignores your pain to the point you have to resort to violence to stop it, will abuse you again.

You see, they are both victims, or at least they are acting like victims. We prefer to call the perpetrator a "self-protector." Like my son, they were just trying to stop the pain. Don't they have a right to that? In the self-protector role they are very hard to connect with emotionally. As a result, they don't have much protection when they let someone close. Just as my son is probably too sensitive because he generally doesn't expose himself to tough situations (bullies like that girl delight in find a soft spot) the self-protector is not very well equipped to deal with the skinned knees and bruises that are part of every relationship.

On the other hand, the victim wouldn't be inflicting such roaring pain on their partner if they weren't scared themselves.

Our Great Sex Online Seminar is such a powerful tool for letting couples get past their protective armor, that even experienced couple counselors are using it in their own relationships to get past obstacles that have haunted them for years.

What could it do for someone you know?

New Study on Anger

Validation

Wow I feel validated! I’ve been preaching for years the importance of expressing your anger and not shying from conflict. Now research validates its importance to the quality of our lives. Holding back our feelings has dire consequences, it seems.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we have license to attack each other, it just means we are encouraged to speak our angry feelings out loud.

Confusion between anger and violence

Those of us who grew up in homes where angry outbursts accompanied hitting, verbal abuse, throwing things – or worse – are often frightened of anyone expressing their anger, no matter how benignly they do it. Some of us are down right anger phobic, both of our own and others.

In my family growing up, the only people allowed to have their anger were the adults. If one of us kids smarted off or expressed our anger we were punished by being shamed with laughter, sent to our rooms and told we were being “ugly”. But the adults were allowed to hit us with belts, “green switches”, hairbrushes and their hands and to yell and scream as long and as abusively as they choose.

Of course, I didn’t want to be like that myself, and certainly felt ashamed if I ever found myself provoked to anger.

The result is that we think that any time anyone expresses anger they are being violent. We then put them in the role of “the bad guy” and think of whoever they dumped their anger out on as “the victim.”

Choosing to be rational

Many people growing up in very refined homes never witnessed anyone expressing anger directly and they internalize it and rationalize it away without ever having a chance to even let it come to conscious awareness. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist! Just because we renationalize it away doesn’t mean we haven’t felt it, and that it still doesn’t need release.

The physiology of anger

Anger is like any of our emotions, a necessary part of being a human being. We feel anger for a reason, again, like all of our feelings. Anger is there to tell us “Something is wrong. I need to do something about this!” When we fail to express the need to do something differently, we end up locking this “energy-in-motion” (the definition of emotion) into our bodies. The energy of the emotion of anger starts out in our root chakra and moves outward and upward through our bodies. But, if we block the flow of emotion and fight it down using our physiology to stop it (holding our breath, tensing our diaphragm, tightening our shoulders, gritting our teeth) we lock it into place so that it does not get expressed. Then, the effort of locking in that emotion takes its toll on the body. We experience stomach problems, breathing problems, muscular aches and pains, perhaps fibro-myalgia, some say even cancers can be triggered this way.

What I am NOT saying

I am not saying it’s okay to blast people with unbridled attacks, either. There was a period of time when people used “I’m just having my feelings!” as an excuse to attack anyone and to dump their feelings off on others. I am NOT advocating this kind of behavior. What I am advocating is that we all MUST find a way to express our feelings of anger appropriately and consistently if we are to remain healthy and have strong, long lasting relationships.

A paradigm shift

The next time someone appears angry take the time inside to remember 1) this does not mean they are going to hurt someone (necessarily) 2) this person feels something is wrong in their world and may need some help. The shift that takes place when you begin to view anger in this way can change everything for you.

What do you think?

Are you able to handle it when people express anger? Or do you clam up and try to avoid the situation? Is it best to avoid anger and conflict at all costs? Let me know what you think. Comment below.

Look out, look out, the economy is falling!

Foreclosure's are up by 75%. What exactly does this mean? Does this really mean our economy is failing? Two years ago we sold our home in Richardson to move to Lewisville, where my husband's children live with their Mother. This was difficult for us to do because we loved our then home, but it needed to happen. It took almost a year to sell it, and then for less money than we had hoped.

The woman buying our home went into bankruptcy the following year and was unable to keep up her payments on the home. This amazing house went into foreclosure. On the surface it looks like a normal situation of someone not being able to make her payments because of her own financial difficulties.

What is really going on?

Over the past several years lenders have been given more and more leeway to do as they please in regard to loaning money to individuals. They can charge whatever rate they choose to, and they can set up loans that cannot ever be reasonably re-paid. The woman buying our beloved home, couldn't really afford the loan. Her mortgage broker designed a loan for her, that in the past, would have been illegal. But, in todays world, anything goes.

From the looks of the suit against Country Wide Mortgage company, she was not alone in receiving loans that were structured in such a way as to be impossible to repay. Funny, when the lender is trying to "help" us get into loans, we are so grateful. They appear as white knights saving the day, setting us up to be able to buy homes when in the past we might not have been able to swing it.

Rescuers in action

This is a classic example how rescuing works. The lenders setting up these loans had to have known the loans they were setting up could not work for these people. But, because they got their cut, their own percentage of the sale, and the law would allow it, what did they care? They were going to sell the loan anyway; little risk to their company.

Rescuers have an ulterior motive whether they realize it or not. I'm certain the individual sales people at the companies involved in setting up these untenable loans felt happy they were able to "help" their buyers get into a home. It undoubtedly gave them a spring in their walk to think they had helped these poor folks. This was the sales peoples pay off; besides their commission, of courses.

Rescuers turned Self-Protectors

Now, of course, lenders like Country Wide are desperately trying to justify the loans they set up. They are in court trying to make a case for why they did the things they did. They were just trying to help people get into homes. What is wrong with that?

The Victims

The victims of this scenario, of course, owned responsibility for their part in the deal, too. They signed the bottom line on mortgages they could not possibly afford to pay. They have to be held accountable, and of course they are; they lose their homes. Bottom line is they are the ones who pay the ultimate price of lost status, lost credit, and of course, a lost home. But, they are also the ones agreeing to the disastrous loan.

Who is to Blame?

Are the mortgage lenders to blame for a market allowing this type of sale to be legal? Is the mortgagee to blame for accepting loans they could not afford to pay?

The reality is that if you take the position of seeing good guys versus bad guys in this scenario, you miss the real point. Laws were passed allowing this type of mortgage. We are a democratic nation. We pick our lawmakers, we select our laws, and we, as citizens ultimately have to own that we allowed this situation to be legal.

Meanwhile, we look at the numbers and feel "Victims" of the "bad" economy the media is trying to sell us exists. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Am I being a "bleeding heart liberal"?

Is there someone we should be blaming for the current economy crisis? We could blame it on the war and the deficit. There are probably other factors I've missed. I'd love to hear what you think. Comment below using the like "comment" to tell me what you think.

Gary Michael Hilton a "Monster"?

I don't know much about what happened to Gary Hilton, but aparently he was a reasonably well mannerd saleman for a siding company. He worked for his boss, John Taber for nearly 10 years. During that time Mr. Taber didn't see anything unusual about Hilton.

But then, something changed. Last summer Taber let Hilton go because his behavior had become eratic. Taber said that when Hilton contacted him just prior to setting up Hilton's arrest Hilton spoke of needing drugs desperately to keep the "demons" from filling his mind. Now, it seems Hilton is suspected in other cases as well.

How can you be "normal" for years and then become a "Monster"?

The hidden potential in seeing ourselves as a Victim in our life is that we will eventually decide enough is enough. When we choose the Victim role in our life we stay in a place of despair and misery. We tell ourselves that we are alone and feel put upon by the world. We believe ourselves to be worthless and yet angry that others treat us the way they do.

Living with this kind of self torture can send us in to a mental break down. Many peple, perhaps most who see themselves as the Victim, become depressed and lead miserable, sad lives. But then there is the occassioanal person who losses it altogether.

What Causes this Kind of Horror?

I think that would most likely describe Gary Michael Hilton. At some point he began trying to rescue himself from the "demons" that he carried around in his head of self torture, despair, self hatred, and an internal onslaught of self depricating thoughts. Drugs can work well to temporarily remove misery. We can get a false sense of bieng "okay" and feeling "well" when we use a variety of different drugs. This is exactly what makes them so appealing.

Unfortunately, these same drugs that Rescue us from misery, also become our downfall. They end up hurting us worse than the onslaught of "demons" in our brains. And, often, they end up making us even crazier and scarrier than we were.

As awful as the things that Gary Michael Hilton did, I don't think he is a "monster". I think he is a person who was in such tremendous pain that he did the only things he could figure out how to do to manage it. I can only imagine the kind of pain that man is in right now.

When we hate ourselves we end up believing there is nothing redeemable about anyone.

What do you think?

Do you think Gary Michael Hilton is a "monster", or is there more going on here? It's a sad story, espcially for Meredith Emerson and perhaps even Cheryl Dunlap, whose husband may also have been a victim of Gary Hilton. Hilton's life and any good he may have ever done prior to this nightmare are all lost now.

What is it with people? We seem to think that we can get close to others by just being around them and doing what the other person wants. Closeness is brought about through a sense of closeness that can only come from shared intimacy. Intimacy literally means: in-to-me-see from the Latin root. Without letting our partner “see into” us we cannot experience intimacy.

What people are afraid of being seen. So the idea of intimacy is really scary. I believe this comes from well meaning parents who try to get us to do what they want us to do by forcing us into their model of what we should be. Who we really are is discouraged, shamed, controlled and strictly forbidden.

The lesson we then learn is that it is not okay to be who we are.

The thing is, we learned to repress our thoughts, our feelings, our needs, our desires and our very selves in order to get along with those who raised us. Yet to be close to someone we have to unlearn what we learned. We have to learn to let ourselves risk being seen.

How do we know that what people are not going to reject who we are? That is the fear, of course, that no one will like us or want us if they really knew us. That comes from the rejection of our unpleasant feelings we received as a child.

When our parents, understandably punished us for our angry outbursts as a child, or shamed us for displaying anger instead of teaching us how to express our anger appropriately.

What if we were to learn that our anger is always appropriate? The reality is that how we express it is not always “appropriate”, but anger is like all of our feelings a normal part of being a human being!

We have feelings to provide us information. Happiness tells us that things are going well and that this is what we want. Sadness lets us know that we are in a situation we don’t like. Fear lets us know we are in danger. Anger lets us know something is wrong and that we should do something about it.

The problem people have with anger is that they don’t realize that it’s just a feeling. We might feel compelled to act on it, but we don’t have to react instinctively as our gut tells us we should. We have the option, as adults, to figure out what to do with that anger.

Unfortunately, most of us were not taught what to do with anger. Of course we watched what others’ did and that is what we learned. We might have learned that it’s okay to scream, yell, hit and beat others into changing what they are doing. We might have been so frightened by those behaviors that instead of mimicking them, we rejected them and chose to never express anger, thinking that the expression of anger was the problem. We might have learned, through watching those around us that using drugs and alcohol are how you deal with it. Many of us just learned to reject the feeling altogether and pretend that we don’t get angry.

That gets us back to my main point. If we ourselves reject our anger then we can be terrified at the idea of anyone seeing it. And since anger is a part of who we are, we then believe that if someone really knew us they wouldn’t like us.

Therefore we hide ourselves from others, especially those that mean the most to us. The more important someone is to us the less we want them to know us. The result is that we keep ourselves distant from the one person we most want to be close to!

So, stop hiding!

Tell me what you think. Which type are you? Do you hide your anger or what?