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.

I always assumed that sexless marriages resulted from the wife's lack of interest and the husband just giving up. He stays in the marriage for whatever reasons (there are many), and gets sex from wherever he can get it or not at all.

Since the birth of www.thisisgreatsex.com, people at social gatherings are interested in talking about their sex life with us. In particular, women.

It seems I've had it wrong. I'm trying to think of the last time I heard a man complain about not getting enough, not counting actors playing to the same stereotype I had.

What's going on here? Why are these women not getting the sex they want and need? More to the point, why would a married man not want to have sex with his wife but want to stay in the marriage?

We are physical and emotional creatures. We experience emotions in our bodies. It takes a lot of disconnect or acting to hide what we are feeling. Masking what we feel is a crucial life skill. We all have to do it. Boys have to learn it particularly well in a world where emotions are often seen as a sign of weakness. Shots of emotionally and physically tough athletes in tears after losing, or winning, a championship helps us learn how ignorant that is. Emotions fuel us. They are life!

Yet so much of our society teaches us to hide our feelings. Particularly our boys, who become the husbands of unsatisfied wives. So whenever something hurts, instead of feeling it, boys are taught to tough it out, hold it in. It really is no wonder that when a relationship inevitably exposes or even causes pain that they withdraw. They just don't want to be hurt. This classic self-protective behavior insulates them from the pain. It also prevents them feeling anything good, like the experience of lustful sex with their partner.

So, what is a wife to do?

Your partner built a thick, impervious barrier between you for reasons that make perfect sense to him. The distance is needed partly because of the discomfort your relationship naturally causes AND because they perceived that was what you expected. Too bad you can't just take the good and leave them with the bad parts. It doesn't work that way. It's pretty much all or none.

So it starts with being careful that your behavior, not your words (self-protectors get that way because they have been tricked by words before), accepts them as they are. In fact encourages them like you would a friend trying something scary. Earning that kind of trust doesn't happen quickly and it always involves setbacks. If you want his joy, you are going to have to be able to handle his anger and probably some hurtful things along the way. There was a reason you wanted him to keep it all to himself, wasn't there?

It's hard to change all of this without some help. The Oh Wow this changes everything and Great Sex websites present a practical model to guide you. Particularly when you do the online seminar and workbooks together, they present a framework that keeps you moving forward even when you just can't do what you know you are "supposed" to do.

Oh, and don't forget to ask for help. The program includes email help from both of us.

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?

Ed Youngs'Challenge

The challenge Ed Young the minister of the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas started as of today has turned the Christian world on its ear. His challenge as many of you may have heard is for all the married couples in his congregation to have sex daily for the next seven days. The uproar this has created in the news and the Christian world is funny. At least it is to me.

Sex every day?

What is so strange about the idea of having sex every day. I mean, I am a woman and while I understand that many women are appalled at the idea of having sex every day, it makes complete sense to me! Why is it such an unwelcome a thought for so many people?

When you use sex as a weapon or as a tool for trade or do not have an intimate connection with your spouse then I suppose the idea of having sex every day. But the reality is that when 60% of married couples say they are unhappy with their sex life and 40 million American couples say they have a sexless marriage this is an important issue.

Clearly if the idea of having sex every day is a problem for you then odds are there is a problem in your marriage.

Joyful sex

Intimate, joyful sex is the heart and soul of a good marriage. If you can’t imagine “making time to make love” (to quote Ed Young) then you’ve got a problem.

Amazingly making sure that you make time to make love will create more connection and intimacy and is the best divorce buster!

When kids know their parents are being sexually intimate they feel more secure just because they know their parents are connecting and showing caring for each other. When you are playing sexually with your spouse you are increasing your sense of well being personally and your relationship is transformed.

But of course, the truth is, it’s hard for some people to reconnect sexually when they have been distanced for a period of time. Heck I have known couples that have not had sex in years and years. Now, that is sad. Learning how to begin having sex at all is a start that can be really hard in and of itself.

Intimacy

Ed Young says it reveals your true self to your partner when you are having sex. Well, yes, I can see how that is true. If you are insecure that is going to show up in the bedroom. If you are fearful of intimacy you it will show up there.

How do you overcome all the blocks? Ed Young has a lot of good thing to say about that but I have to say, he’s not a mental health expert so he might be missing some of the more subtle points.

Bottom line is that he’s right in some really important ways and I am glad he’s opened up this topic in such a pubic way. Intimacy and sex have been separated so much in our culture but research has shown that even men (whom most people think of as being able separate sex from emotions) need emotional intimacy to reach peak sexual enjoyment. Getting to deep sexual intimacy is often complicated, but oh, is it ever worth it. Should be some happy faces at next Sunday's service!

What do you think?

Is it a crazy idea to have sex every day? Is it possible to be unselfish and giving to our partners sexually to the extent of having sex every day? Comment below!

Only a few of us think that the way we participate in sexual activity is addictive, but often the beginnings of sexual addictions show up in covert ways that we may miss if we are not attentive. I just spent three days at a symposium on addiction and the speakers there reminded me of just how ubiquitous sexual additions are in our society.

Most of the time I tend to think of men as the ones harboring secret sexual addictions but, of course, women are just as subject to sexual addictions as men. We really are not that different, are we?

Strangely, most sexual addictions have little to do with sex, other than the fact that the behaviors take place in the context of sexuality. Exhibitionism is really about wanting to feel the power of having shocked someone. Pornography is about fantasy. Most of the others, like sadomasochistic fetishes are all about regaining a sense of power and control. Strangely enough, even the avoidance of sex can be a “addictive” behavior according to Maureen Canning of the Meadows Treatment Center.

The end of athletic sex

As a wife who avoided sex over the course of many years of my previous marriages, this one got my attention. I was, as many women are, quite able to enjoy a courtship and “honeymoon” phase of an active and athletic sex life during the beginning phases of my relationships. But, as the relationship moved out of the fantasy stage and into the reality of a real, day to day set of interactions, sex disappeared. It didn’t disappear because my husband wasn’t interested. No, it disappeared because I became angry and disgusted with his continuing to be happy with sex as the lifeblood of our relationship. Once we were married I think I expected our relationship to magically blossom into a real intimate connection. Never mind that I had no clue how to do that. But I was certain it was my husbands fault because HE was such an angry, avoidant, workaholic. Certainly I was the innocent victim of his deliberate withholding of time, attention and kindness. So, I withheld sexual contact from him because I was so angry with him. I never thought of it as being addictive behavior.

Pervasive addictions

But if you re-frame how you think about what addiction is, you can easily see how it really is an addictive process. As Maureen Canning says, most sexual addiction is really about power and control. I was clearly attempting to get a sense of power in the relationship by moving into the Self-Protective withdrawal position. I put up barriers to prevent myself from feeling vulnerable to his angry, avoidant behaviors. I did this in an attempt to get power and control over feeling like his Victim.

How many wives do this? I asked Maureen if she new of any other resources for information about this form of addiction she calls “Sexual Anorexia” and she directed me to a book by Patrick Carnes. I have not yet gotten a copy of the book but I do think it’s fascinating.

Offensive behaviors

A lot of unhappy husbands will probably relate to this scenario. Maureen talked about the “offending” quality of this behavior. I have to admit I never would have thought of myself as doing any “offending” by this behavior, but I was clearly damaging my relationship. The word offending does bring up legal or even criminal meaning, but one simple definition is “wrong”. And it was indeed “wrong” of me to withhold sex in order to meet my own power and control needs.

But don’t you offending men take heart at this either, because addictive relationships generally require two addicts. The partners to the Sexual Anorexic are obviously the “Co-dependant” in the relationship and just as addicted in their own way. One partner is generally a “Sex Addict” and the other is the “Sexual Anorexic”. Both are just opposite ends of the spectrum from the other.

The more classic “Sex Addict” is the one who gets a sense of power and control by engaging in some form of sexual activity. Of course, the sex act itself is mood enhancing and can be a way to alter an unhappy mood.

Where is the real problem?

Sex is not meant to be about power and control or even mood enhancing. Sex is supposed to be intimate, passionate play with your partner. Any other covert use for it is “wrong” or “offensive”. If passionate play is not how either of you experience your sexual relationship then there is a problem.

So what do you do if you are using sex addictively?

First of all you have to just recognize that you are using sex (or your sexual power as in Sexual Anorexia) in a way that is harmful to your relationship. Once you recognize what you are doing you have to stop the offensive behavior and deal with the feelings that are buried underneath the behavior. This can be a simple but uncomfortable process, or it can be a complex and debilitating one. If you begin the process of eliminating your sexual addictive behaviors and find yourself feeling overwhelmed – don’t hesitate to call a professional because, like any addiction, if it is severe enough it can be life threatening. No joke, the feelings underneath the sexual addictions can be very intense and lead to severe withdrawal symptoms. Take care of yourself as you open your eyes to how you may have been unwittingly causing harm to your relationship.

Any addictions on your part?

Let me know what you think or if you can relate. Comment below.

Stay or Go?

That’s the question addressed in the series of short stories about women struggling in a bad relationships. Each of these stories have different women, different relationship issues, and different outcomes. What is the red threat that holds these stories together?

I guess O thought it was the fact that these women all struggled to find themselves and to muster the courage to do what was right for them, whether it be addressing problems head on and fixing the relationship or leaving.

Egocentric positions

The interesting thing to me is how much egocentrism existed in each of these articles. Each woman felt they were alone in their marriage, and the decision was up to them. Each flailed about on their own with the decision instead of recognizing the issue as being about a lack of intimacy that was present in the marriage, not just the man.

My own choices

I remember making similar choices twice before in my life. My first to marriages were stuck in a battle for each of our survival and neither of us fared well in the process. Growth as an individual is impossible if the marriage is not growing too, but growth of the individual is magnified if growth is happening in the marriage.

Making unilateral decisions every day

The funny thing is that in unhealthy relationships we make unilateral decisions about the marriage every day, sometimes every minute. How do we do that? We do that by becoming reactive to our partner and putting up barriers to hold them away from us emotionally. Sometimes it’s all we can muster. I get that. I lived that. But if we are to push for something more than just mere survival we have to be more compassionate.

What compassion really means

Being compassionate means that we stop seeing our partner as the enemy, the “bad guy”, the “wrong” one. It means we accept that all of us are not perfect, including us. When we do that there is a chance of really experiencing closeness, and perhaps even great sex. It changes everything!

What do you think?

Are there times when you just have to accept that your partner is in the wrong and keep your protective boundaries up? Comment below.

O Magazine published an article in September about the difficulties women have with saying what they want. It was a silly, fun article with references to words I don’t believe are really words (like “wanty”) but it hit home.

We have all been bred to keep what we really want to ourselves. It’s what I would call a “Victim” reaction to having desires because one sure way to never get what you want is to never let anyone know what it is you really do want. But how many of us men or women, have spent most of our lives trying to guess what others want and how to avoid saying what we want?

Hiding starts early

Case in point my own desire, from an early age, to play the piano. I guess I never came out and told anyone but I know that any time I got near I played on it. If the other kids were playing outside, eating ice cream, or any other fun activity - if there was a piano around, I was playing it instead. So I was amazed when my mother said she never knew I wanted to play.

My own inability to say what I want has shaped my life in many ways. I am not sure how I learned the lesson, but I obviously did.

Emotions make it harder

Now, don’t get me wrong its not that I can never say what I want, because that is not true. I have learned to ask for what I want from waiters, cashiers, and other service people. I can even ask my friends to do things with me. But, if it is something that has some kind of emotional weight, it has not always been easy.

Women get the impression you are pushy if you make it clear what you want and don’t back down at the first sign of dissent. We get labeled as “bitchy” if we insist on getting what we want. Of course, men, in similar situations would be considered “strong”. But I don’t think men are any better, over all than women at asking for what they really want. Emotional things, things that would seem to make them “weak” are strictly forbidden for men to ask.

Divorce and truth telling

It’s no wonder our divorce rate is so high. Because if we remain in a place of being unable to communicate what we want and need from our partners we are stuck in the helpless, Victim, position with no hope of escape. Unless of course our partner is astute enough to glean what it is we want from our manipulative behaviors. Of course, hiding our sexual reality has become such a commonplace thing that according to a Lavalife survey even 53% of men fake orgasms (82% of women do).

Rescuers often can figure out what their partners want, but we don’t always get it exactly right. Guess work is like that, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t.

Taking ownership of our wants and needs is the only hope we have of really getting what we want instead of some close approximation. Our partner’s may be pretty good, but nobody can always guess right.

Do you know what you want?

Someone commented on the O Magazine article that she had not addressed the whole issue because she hadn’t addressed how you even KNOW what it is you want. A lot of us are so out of touch with ourselves, our bodies and our emotions that we have no clue what we want. That makes it even tougher to ask doesn’t it?

Learning to connect with our bodies and emotions is the first step in being able to identify what we want and need. I love the series Mad Men on AMC. It portrays the social environment that set us up to never say what we want or know what it is we need. My favorite characters are the mysterious Dan Draper and his wife Betty. Dan (not his real name but, that’s the identity he assumed) doesn’t have a clue what he feels and is constantly in search of something that will make him feel something. Betty, his sweet, picturesque wife is equally clueless because she is not supposed to need or want anything other than the house and home that Dan provides her. Betty reminds me of my own mother during that period, dressing up to look the part, but always a bit out of place.

Isn’t that how we all feel when we deny ourselves awareness of what we want and need? Learning connect with our bodies and emotions and then being courageous enough to speak our truths changes everything.

What are you not saying?

Almost everyone hold things back from their partners. Do you? What do you not like to say? Do you tell your friends what you do and don’t want? Your family? I’d love to hear. Comment below.

Trading Sex for Jungle Tour

I read this great article today on CNN about how this college student, now a chocolate store owner, convinced a local African to take her into the jungle to live for two weeks. She had been unable to find a paid guide to take her, but this young man liked her looks. She didn’t particularly like his, but she didn’t care. She traded two weeks of sex for two weeks in the jungle. It turned out to be a great deal, she felt it more than worth the price.

The Powerof Sex to Get Things Done

The article goes on to talk about how a lot of women trade sex for services. The classic having sex with your handyman was the most obvious example. Though the article traced these types of trades back to ancient Egypt when Cleopatra “cemented her power” through having sexual relations with Roman rulers.

Biology of the Trade

The final paragraph in the article talks about the whole premise of trading sex for services being driven by biology. Dr. Chris Fariello, director of the Institute for Sex Therapy at the Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group based in Philadelphia, says a partner who provides more resources -- wealth, shelter, home repairs -- is seen as more attractive and stands to reap more sexual rewards. But until I got to the last line, I didn’t really get why having sex with your handyman was more than just a funny cliché. As Fariello puts it, "I don't get anybody in my office who says, 'My husband sits on the couch all day and eats bonbons, and I want to have sex with him all the time.”

What Does This Say About US?

This made me laugh out loud. But then I thought about what it is really saying. What this is saying is that our pre-programmed biological drive is to have a mate who takes ownership of their life and surroundings – and is capable of doing so. Whether male or female we have to add value to our partner in some form. Men are easier because they have such a strong biological drive for sex, but women, too need a man who adds something to her life. Men have often twisted that to mean (perhaps because of our American cultural emphasis on money) that if they don’t make a lot of money they can’t get a hot wife.

What this article makes clear is that women and men need the same thing - someone who adds value to their life. That could mean money, but then why do so many well-supported women give up married life in order to pursue something else? Obviously money is NOT it! Women want a man who does more that “sits on the couch all day eat(ing) bonbons.” We are biologically driven to find a man willing to take ownership of their life and surroundings. It changes everything. I’ve always said there is nothing sexier than a man standing in front of the sink with a sink full of dirty dishes and his sleeves rolled up. We want a man who is willing to work… Of course, what men want from us is a whole different article.

To be completely honest, that describes me to a T. My first husband was worthless, didn’t even feel that he needed to earn income, much less contribute around the house or with our baby. My second worked hard but contributed nothing to my needs, making our home or caring for our daughters. Now I have married a man who works harder than I do at keeping our home and family together. I’m crazy about him. Who knew it was biology?

What do you think?

Do you ever think you would trade your skill for sex or sex for a skill? I'd love to hear if you have nor have not, and what you think about it.

Who is to blame?

In a what her lawyer refers to as a “silly” case involving Joel Olsteens’ wife, Victoria, a litigious flight attendant has filed charges against Mrs. Olsteen. The flight attendant, Sharon Brown, claims injury after Mrs. Olsteen allegedly pushed her against the bathroom door and elbowed her breast. Mrs. Olsteen was apparently upset that her flight attendants had not attended her so well. Someone had spilled a liquid on the arm of her first class seat and none of the attendants would anything about it. Reportedly, Mrs. Olsteen became quite upset and demanded some attention to her needs.

I love this kind of thing because it so clearly illustrates how even the (apparently) most evolved of us can get triggered into primitive responses and look like idiots. Now, I don’t know if Mrs. Olsteen actually did as Ms Brown claims, but clearly the women were upset. Neither of them chose to respond, both were, rather clearly operating from a survival mechanism that resulted in both feeling hurt and angry.

Survival mode

When this kind of primitive response kicks in our brains don’t work so well. Ms Brown has apparently been involved in other disputes of this kind so I am guessing she has a bit of the Self-Protector in her and doesn’t have a clue how this impacts other people. Not that it justifies the reported behavior of Mrs. Olsteen. But it does help us understand and have some empathy for her frustration.

I can picture it now. The beautiful and extremely well dressed Victoria Olsteen gets on a plane expecting to be comfortable and well taken care of as is reportedly the usual case in first class (though I certainly wouldn’t know for sure). She sits down in an outfit that is undoubtedly worth more than everything in my entire closet combined and discovers something on the arm of her chair that could ruin her designer garb. She asks for help since this is not really her territory; it’s the flight attendants. Yet she gets no response. She can’t get comfortable and knows she will not be able to relax until the foreign substance is removed. She asks for help again and now she is getting panicked. How is she going to manage to be in a plane for (however long) and relax?

The flight attendant, Ms Brown, obviously rushed, and stressed views Mrs. Olsteen as an obstacle to her goal of getting the flight off the ground. Both went into Self-Protect mode firing angry reactivity toward each other and hurting each other’s feelings.

At any point if one or the other had been able to contain their reactivity and have some empathy for the other person the whole incident could have been avoided. Of course, the onus to be responsible for the incident really lies with Ms Brown as a representative of the airline and a servant to the people on her flight.

A need for compassion

It seems to me that both of these women could use a course in the practice of compassion. Once they both moved into a place of empathy, respect and ownership the whole necessity of legal action would be removed. If Mrs. Olsteen did physically assault Ms Brown than she needs to apologize and take ownership of her part, but so does Ms Brown. Her job as a flight attendant to first class riders is to be there to take care of them.

Clearly she failed to do that. If there was no assault (only the other witnesses on the flight can say for sure) it would behoove Mrs. Olsteen to listen with empathy to what could have provoked this legal attack on her. Perhaps Ms Brown is financially stressed and saw this as an opportunity to help her recover financially from some terrible financial problem. Perhaps Ms Brown wanted to please Mrs. Olsteen and was hurt at how angry Mrs. Olsteen was by her failure to respond. Whatever the cause, both women own a part in what happened and if that is not recognized in the legal process it certainly should be in some kind of moral or ethical sense. I hope the Olsteens can recognize this because it changes everything. Once you allow yourself to step into compassion and out of the egocentric combatant role everything changes.

What do you think?

I’d love to hear what you think of this. Do you think Mrs. Olsteen was the bad actor in this case, or is this a case of overblown litigiousness? Did Ms Brown fall short of her job duties and cry foul to save her job? Comment below.

The Cycles and Teachers

Today I talked to a group of teachers about how the Cycles can work for them in their classrooms, with their administrators and within their own families. I was touched to tears as I told them of an experience I had with my Third Grade teacher, Agnes Conner who recognized the pain I was in and began helping me see value in myself. She did it incrementally, respectfully, empathetically allowing me to see that there was something in this life for me.

As I talked to them I realized what a hard job they have. Now, understand, I come from a family of teachers and know how hard they work and how little they get financially compensated for the most important job in the world next to parenting (also not financially compensated for). But today I thought about the task of trying to model the Cycles path for their students and with administrators whom have lost sight of their real task. One woman talked about how the current head of the Houston school district was hired after having bankrupt Corpus Christie’s school district. This administrator increased his own salary by 9%, she said, and then he told all the teachers in the district not to expect any raises in from 3-5 years. Next he started building stadiums and new schools and laying off teachers. Talk about failing to take ownership of the realities of the needs of the district!

Are the Cycles “Christian based?”

But in the middle of her frustration she turned to me and said “This is not Christian based is it?” I had ask why she asked that question. She said it is because at some point in my presentation she got chills and it sank in that the Cycles of the Heart is exactly what Christ taught. I hugged her and thanked her for seeing the heart of the model so clearly.

The practice of Compassion is more than understanding the words.

My Spiritual Path

I remember an experience I had at the age of 13. I had been exploring Christianity since I was nine, having walked across the street to the United Methodist Church to attend Sunday School by myself because my family didn’t attend, though my Mom said we were “Methodists”. By 13 I had developed a healthy spiritual life of my own and had read the Bible and learned to pray in a way that felt connected and had a real relationship with Jesus and God. One morning after a long prayer session I suddenly felt a calling to be a minister. I thought, “I’m a girl! And I’m only 13! How is that supposed to happen?”

Well, I did what I could. By this point I had really gotten a sense of what God is and that I could take it literally that “God is Love” as Jesus so often told. It became a sort of mission for me to express this newfound wisdom with the people I knew.

An opportunity arose for me to share this with my Sunday school class. Each of us were assigned to be in charge of a lesson for the class. One week a boy in the class brought popular music and talked about how this music drove people to use drugs and about how, as Christians we could not let the music induce us into that world. I was inspired to teach my lesson of love. I brought in some great popular music at the time about love. I don’t recall what songs I used, but it was 1969 so there was no shortage of music about love. I wrote a slew of poetry expressing my own feelings about the importance of and need for, Love in our lives. I dimmed the lights, lit incense, played the music and read my poetry. The room was filled with titters and inattentiveness. Of course, in retrospect I am certain these 13, 14 and 15 year olds could not yet hear what I was trying to communicate.

Teaching something foriegn

This is of course what the middle and high school teachers I talked to this morning are dealing with themselves. But now, unlike then, I understand the blocks to being able to express love and to be compassionate. The Cycles of the Heart is a model that clearly lays out a path to being able to practice the compassion that Christ, Budda, Mohamed, the Dali Lama and all the other great Spiritual teachers have taught. So I guess, as it turns out I am a “minister” of sorts, teaching people compassion.

The greatest Spiritual goal

It is the practical application of how to achieve the greatest Spiritual goal of being a compassionate person. Understanding the Cycles of the Heart and practicing it inside of ourselves and outside of ourselves in our relationships, in our workplace, our communities and in our world we really can “change everything!”

What do you think?

I know I have not blogged in a while. I’ve been going through some re-grouping of my life and professional direction in the past couple of weeks. It has not been easy and will not be an easy change, but it is absolutely what is right for me and ultimately, everyone.

I’d love to hear from you. Tell me what you think about what you know about the power of compassion or how you have applied the Cycles of the Heart to your life.

Five Deaths

I don’t know what drew me to the article. I don’t usually read these kinds of things too closely, they tend to resemble to closely the stories I hear in my therapy office. But today, I read an article in the Dallas Morning News about this family that died in a car crash this past week. Well, they weren’t really a family exactly. The couple, Geoff and Christy Hart had taken in three foster children who were in the car with them at the time of the crash. Maybe it was the fact that they were foster children that got my attention.

Evil Choices to blame?

The police said the guy driving the car that hit them could be put up on criminal charges because he was apparently driving way over the posted speed limit of 40mph when he plowed into their car. Senior minister Dr. Ronald D. Henderson said, “What happened was neither of God nor the devil. It is the result of evil in the world. It is the result of choices people make."

Of course the guy driving the Pontiac that hit the Hart’s car made some bad choices: fatal choices. But just saying he made bad choices doesn’t really explain what happened does it? Why in the world would someone be driving like that on a residential street?

The back story

Today’s Dallas Morning News reports that the driver of the Pontiac, police now say, was David Calhoun Jones, age 46. He is in critical condition himself and being treated at an area hospital. According the Dallas Morning News, “WFAA-TV reported that police said Jones, of Metarie, La., was running late to pick up his own children from his ex-wife when the crash occurred.”

Wouldn’t most of us be careful if we want to live to see our children? Perhaps we would, but what if there were a strong reason to have to hurry? In my experiences many ex-wives are so stuck in the Victim role with their ex-husbands that they become very difficult to deal with reasonably. So what they do is lash out in whatever aggressive or passive aggressive ways they can come up with to hurt their ex-husbands. They of course, then, become the Self-Protector, trying to get control over their feelings of being out of control.

The Cycle at work

What if Jone’s wife had a history of yelling at the kids if Jone’s was late? Or perhaps she would even refuse him access to his kids if he were as much as five minutes late? It was obviously important to Jones that he arrive on time to see his kids. I’d love to know the back story about what made it so urgent that he had to drive so extremely fast to try to get there on time. Making the right choices is not always as simple as it might seem.

If understand how the Cycle of Egocentrism works it changes everything in how we perceive what happens to us and in the world.

What do you think?

Ever felt that kind of pressure from an angry ex? Tell me your story, or just tell me what you think! Comment below.

Do you have an Empathy Deficit Disorder?

On Oprah.com there was a great article this week about empathy. The author of the article (Amanda Robb) reported that her own empathy deficit became obvious to her in her twenties after an incident with a roommate loosing her job. It seems this roommate had rich parents and, unlike the author, didn’t really have to worry about money. So when the roommate lost her job the Amanda responded with “"You'll have an amazing story for Jim's party tonight!"

Egocentrism

Amanda, it seems turned to therapy to get help for her problem relationships and began to learn about empathy from her then therapist. It was not an easy road for her because from childhood she had never experienced empathy from anyone. Her father’s death at age four sent her mother scrambling to provide for Amanda and her siblings, leaving little time for such fluff as emotions.

Moving toward Empathy

But Amanda did learn that to escape the egocentric world she lived in before empathy she had to go through a lot of grief. She says, “About six months into psychotherapy, I started using what I thought of as my therapist's ‘lines,” instead of saying her automatic egocentric responses. Still, she had taken the first steps toward empathy: faking it.

“If you want to act more empathetic, you follow certain steps: Instead of telling people what they ought to do, or becoming tyrannically optimistic, you offer sympathy, inquire about feelings, and validate those feelings. You'll be giving comfort to the other person, even if you yourself can't feel what they're going through.” Robb says.

The Wall of Grief

At first this worked to improve her relationships, and she was happy with that until one day, Robb says, “I began feeling something intensely when comforting friends: terror.” She was for the first time beginning to feel empathy for someone else. But to feel empathy we first have to walk through what I call “The Wall of Grief” which is first characterized by the terror Robb described. While finding empathy “profoundly uncomfortable” she acknowledges that it is the ‘emotional connective tissue” that keeps us from feeling alone.

The path to compassion for others and for ourselves is to walk through that discomfort and to be brave enough to let ourselves feel the terror, anger and grief that comes with “The Wall of Grief”.

The Rewards

Robb says, “If you have a romantic partner, he or she will someday believe that you are entirely wrong about something, and if you can see the problem from your partner's point of view, you'll be able to get through that conflict without smoldering in the corner or splitting up. If you work with someone you despise (and who despises you back), and you try to understand why that person dislikes you, then you stand a chance of not hating every minute with her at the office. If you live in a world that you would like to see less divided by ethnic, economic, and religious strife, you'll find that attempting to comprehend the needs of your sworn enemies is a prerequisite to any meaningful action you can take.”

The path to Compassion

This is the path to compassion: the painful, rewarding, joy of allowing ourselves to feel connected to others. It is something we have to learn, it is not something that comes natural to us. The natural thing is to stay in the “Cycle of Egocentrism” and fighting for our survival against others also fighting for their survival. The unnatural process of allowing in the feelings the Cycle of Egocentrism keeps us from feeling takes courage and commitment. The path to experiencing the compassion that is the result of that courage is the Cycle of Compassion: Empathy, Ownership and Respect.

The simple words do not convey the difficulty of the process but can simplify our understanding of path to compassion. But learning to practice the Cycle of Compassion changes everything.

Comments?

Have you had or do you have EDD?? Do you know someone who suffers from it? What has that been like for you? Let me know what you think. Comment below.

Blame, blame whose got the blame?

There was a story on CNN this morning about a dozen police officers beating 3 bound “suspects”. This was apparently caught on video so there is no question of what they did. Community leaders are going at it trying to place the blame. Some are blaming it on race, saying the police officers beat them because they are black. Local appear to agree because they claim this happens all the time. The police claim that stress is to blame. The officers involved had just lost one of their own that had been slaughtered on the streets on Saturday. One of their spokesmen claim the murder set the officers up to lose it on the men they were arresting.

Fear

When we understand that fear is always underneath these outbursts it changes everything. The men they arrested had just opened fire on a crowd and this is why the police arrested them in the first place. I can only imagine the adrenalin rush going through these officers after having witnessed this kind of an attack. Granted, they are supposed to be well trained enough to avoid such a travesty, but fear is a primal reaction that often has nothing to do with how we have been trained or even what we believe to be appropriate behavior.

Odds are, the men they arrested were behaving the way they did out of fear as well. I don’t know if they were gang members, but they likely were. Gangs operate entirely out of fear. The whole basis of belonging to a gang is fear. The members are recruited out of fear. When someone is being recruited the gang terrorizes them into joining, then terrorizes them to keep them from leaving. Yet being a member of a gang puts them at risk for attack by opposing gangs, thereby increasing the members fears. Undoubtedly their opening fire on the crowd was motivated by this fear. Perhaps there was gang member from an opposing gang in the crowd who had promised to kill one of the shooters gang members.

Lessons from Iraq

Perhaps we should be learning from General Patraeus in Iraq. He understands that you can’t win a war on tribesmen by going in and blasting them to hell. We have to look at gangs in the exact same way. They are exactly like opposing tribes and if we don’t look at changing the system, in the way General Patraeus is doing, we will continue to have to deal with the kind of horrors highlighted by this attack in Philly.

Compassion

Compassion means letting go of blame. And I don’t mean standing by while people continue to hurt each other – we have to take ownership and protect ourselves and others from people who are afraid and out of control. But we stop the violence with compassion. We take ownership of the need for protection from their violent behavior, but we do it respectfully and with empathy. We recognize that they are afraid and that they are dealing with it in the only way they know how. We respect that they are doing the best they can, in spite of the awfulness of their behavior. We don’t blame them for their fear, we empathize with it and do our best to take ownership of the situation; meaning we try to change whatever it is that is causing the problems.

How do you see it?

This is what General Patraeus is doing. We desperately need to apply the same things to the wars happening everyday here at home. What do you think? Should we just round up all the “bad guys” and put them in jail or should we try to understand what is happening in the bigger picture and address the real problems? Comment below.

The power of projection

John Gottman is the doctor of love, at least love of the conventional sort—he's an internationally known researcher on what makes marriage last and what makes it fall apart. In his work at the University of Washington, he has managed to apply strict scientific rigor to what seems like the most subjective of areas, and he's popularized his findings in a string of best-selling books (The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the most recent).

Our search for the perfect person

He writes about the power of projection in this article from Seatle Weekly. He suggests that our power of projection is so powerful in the early stages of our relationships because we want so desperately to find the perfect person that we will project those wishes on to the object of our desire – whether they have the wished for qualities or not!

This of course sets us up for a disastrous relationship. We think we are getting something entirely differently than we actually get. I have had more than one couple enter my office saying “Where is the person I married?”

What changed here?

They, of course, think their partner has changed, when in actuality, their partner has not changed, but rather the awareness of who that partner really is has now come into the complainers consciousness.

Projection can work the other way around, too. When we carry childhood wounds (and, okay, tell me someone who doesn’t and I’ll tell you somebody’s not being honest) we have learned things about the world that we believe to be true. These are like the Four Agreements by Don Miquel Ruiz, we learn or accept certain things to be true about the world, then we go about proving them through the process of our lives.

Projections at work

For instance, I have a friend who gets really frustrated with her husband because he insists that she doesn’t “listen to” him. My friend is an awesome listener. That’s why she is my best friend, I always feel heard by her. I suspect this is one of those things being projected on to her by her husband. Of course, it could be that she projects on to him that he is never going to be happy with her.

Our wounding

You see how it works? We have some wound from childhood (my friend’s husband’s family never listened to him) and then we go about projecting this as an undeniable truth in our lives “no one listens to me”. It changes everthing when you can recognize your projections.

How about you?

Do you have something you project on to someone? I know most of my life I have projected that my anger is not acceptable (therefore pretending I don’t have any). Or is do you feel someone is projecting something on you that is not yours?

No innocents killed?

Al Qaeda “doesn’t kill innocents” according to it’s second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. He made his remarks in response to questions solicited on a Web site close to al Qaeda. Typical.

Typical Self-Protectors

Typical Self-Protectors blame their victims for their behaviors. A Self-Protector believes the person they are attacking is to blame for their misery. They cannot see the person they are attacking as innocent. They fail to see any other perspective, they twist reality to suit their own survival needs.

Bullies do that, too, don’t they? They convince themselves that the miserable little person they are beating up on has more power than they do. They pick on the person they perceive as smarter, more able than they in some way. Bullies decide that the person they are attacking deserves what they do to them.

Attacking and blame

When we find ourselves in a position of attacking someone else, we have lost our perspective on what is really taking place. Blame does that, it throws us into a distorted view of ourselves and our world.

When we blame and attack we lose sight of the other person entirely, we only see the world through our own, egocentric, position. We are hurting so we look for someone to blame for our hurt.

Look at the circumstances

When we fail to look at the circumstances that lead to the wound we are experiencing we loose contact with reality. But our brain response is that it doesn’t matter, we just need someone to lay the blame on so that we can protect ourselves.

Understanding that a man beating his wife feels a desperate need to get control can help us prevent it from happening in the future. Blaming him for his helplessness and throwing him into jail or paying fines doesn’t help us discover the underlying cause of his misery and subsequent reaction to that misery. Yes, of course, he is responsible for his behavior, but simply viewing his behavior absent understanding of the context shortchanges everyone, including the victim. How many times do victims return to their abuser? If we unravel the tangled web of what each party is experiencing and move into a different paradigm for understanding the patters, it changes everything.

What the world needs

This is what we need to do on a world scale, as well as a personal one. When we fail to uncover the intricacies of what is really happening when someone is attacking another, we fail to respond in a way that can prevent future conflict.

Is understanding the cause of something the same as blame?

What do you think? When we look for a reason something occurred, as reasonable people will do, is this the same as blame? Or is blame something else? Let me know what you think, comment below.

Watch out for those girls!

Yesterday CNN ran a story about women’s tendencies to revenge. Wow, this story certainly validates the statement “Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned”. Teri Garr took a hammer to a cheating boyfriends’ windows and wasn’t even arrested. Catch a guy going that and he’ll spend time in the slammer.

Women throughout history have been considered “the weaker sex” and always considered to be the Victim and rarely thought to be the Perpetrator in any conflict. We like to think of women as nurturing caregivers or helpless victims. We don’t like the view of women as the Perpetrator, so even when we do find them there, we justify their behavior by claiming that (as Teri Garr said) she really was.

Our cultural and biological bias

Our biology and our culture demands that we find someone to blame for anything that occurs and that we put ourselves (and everyone else) into defined roles. This helps our rational mind make stories out of what has happened that we can tell future generations and ourselves. This history making activity is as old as time and we still practice it today when we think of our own lives and the stories we tell ourselves.

In Teri Garr’s story she is the victim, and her cheating boyfriend is the bad guy. But can you imagine his story? “There I was eating my dinner after leaving work and this crazy b**ch starts breaking out my windows with a hammer! Then I called the police and they did nothing! Can you believe it?”

Good guys and bad guys

When we categorize the people in our life stories as being the “bad guy” and “to blame” for what occurs and put ourselves in the Victim position then we can leave the story with a clear conscious that we have done “nothing wrong”. We have a logical explanation for what has happened and we can view ourselves as blameless in the situation. We are good while the other guy is the bad one. Whatever behavior we choose to take retaliation on the bad guy is acceptable since they are the bad guys.

When we are attacked, when our sense of safety and well being in threatened, we have a right to fight back don’t we? After all, not doing something to fight back would be considered weak wouldn’t it? Isn’t that why we have the death penalty in Texas, to punish the bad guys? Isn’t that why we go to war, to defend ourselves from the “evil doers” of the world? At least that is what our president told us.

Self Protectors

When we find ourselves thrown into this (what I call) Self-Protective role, we end up being perceived as the “bad guy” by the other person don’t we? I’m sure Teri Garr’s boyfriend (now, “ex” of course) thinks of her actions that day as being that of a perpetrator. He and his property were attacked after all.

Blame drives the game

What blame does is to assign all responsibility for something on to someone in order to meet our survival needs. We either assign all responsibility for something on to someone else in order to preserve the idea that we are perfect, or at least, not all bad or we accept all the responsibility for something in order to reinforce the idea of our worthlessness.

Blame is all black and white. There is no complex formula that includes partial equations. It’s a simple 1+2=3. But life, as in math, is seldom, if ever, that simple.

Is there another way?

What if we stepped out of the simple equation and started seeing the complexities that are the realities of our lives and our world? How would that change your perceptions, not only of your own life, but of the world?

The US Rescuer

Throughout our national history the United States has been the worlds Rescuers. We give more per capita than any other nation in the world. We take our wealth around the world and help developing nations in whatever ways we can think of (whether that’s the help the country wants or not) and then we move on to our next project. Yet on September 11^th, 2001 the US became, not a Rescuer, but a Victim. We then responded by becoming a Self-Protector, fighting against the perceived perpetrators. Now, of course, the world sees us as the bad guy.

What if we had looked at the equation differently?

What if we had done as I thought Donald Rumsfeld was going to do when he said we needed to look at the circumstances which led to this event? We helped Afghanistan beat the Russian invasion and then left the country broken, and without the means to heal itself. Charlie Wilson warned the US government that it would leave Afghanistan as a time bomb. It was a bomb that exploded in New York City on that fateful day.

It really does change everything when you start to look at the fractions in the equation instead of rounding off the numbers. When you do this you get a much clearer picture. What was going on with Teri’s boyfriend that he would “cheat” on her? Did he think she cared more about her career than him? Did he feel his needs didn’t matter to her? When someone “cheats” then there are obviously intimacy issues within both parties. One person’s acting out on the problem is not good ethics, but they are not to blame for the problem.

What do you think?

Is it easier to think of the world in terms of blacks and whites? Does it make more sense to view people as either the good guy or the bad guy? Tell me what you think. Comment below.

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.

The slant of a headline

The CNN headline yesterday was "Ethnic hatred fuels more Kenya violence", I beg to differ. Fear is what fuels violence. When we are afraid we move into a stance that requires us to do whatever we have to do to survive the situation. Behaviors that are abhorant to us become acceptable when we feel threatend. No matter who we are, or what our values are, when we are threatened, our fear instinct engages us in the need to protect ourselves.

What is really going on?

I don't know the history or full story about what is currently happening in Kenya. I'm not sure that's clear to anyone. But I do know that author and journalist Michela Wrong told Al Jazeera that that the fighting wasn't simply an ethnic split, but was really about the divisions between rich and poor. She is reported to have said: "That's the ugly surface of a much more profound split [but] there is a sense that this was an elitist government, it was a government that was really only interested in itself, in its own particular group."

People in Kenya, it seems are afraid of starving to death. Wouldn't that stir you to action? Fear for our survival is key to our being able to survive. It's a natural, necessary, part of being a mammal, being a human being.

It's easy for us to sit back in our armchairs from our rich country and see this as merely a tribal battle involving long histories of tribal fuedalism, but rarely is that enough to drive human beings to horrific violence. Something immediately dangerous will do that.

How often do we fail to recognize when someone is afraid?

When someone is screaming at us or acting hostilly toward us, what is really going on with them? We don't usually stop to think about this. We usually are frightend ourselves of their behavior and we put up our own defensive barrier to protect ourselves from the perception of their attack. Often, the anger and hostility is not really about us or even aimed at us, yet we do what is instinctive, and we react from our own fear.

Transforming conflict into compassion means being able to recognize the fear behind someone's aparantly irrational, or even violent, behavior. When we can do this, we step outside of our own immediate sense of threat and look at the world through another person's eyes.

This can happen even in radical situations.

Even in the radical world of the pain and horror of Kenya, if the powers that be were willing to negotiate with each other and let go of their own egocentric positions (i.e. self-centered) and step into each other's shoes, change could happen. Knowing how this model affects our selves and our world could "change everything."

Can you do this?

When was the last time you felt someone angry at you or throwing a fit in yoru presence and you thought, "Hmm, this person must be afraid. I wonder what is going on."? Is this a rational way to react when we feel threatened, or is it stupid because the other person, could, perhaps do something to hurt you. What do you think? Comment below and let me know.

What Drives a Person to Murder

Mark Jenson and his son were seen laughing and hi-fiving each other the afrernoon following his wife's death. Either the man and his son are cold hearted, perhaps even psychopaths, or there is more here than meets the eye. When a person commits violence against a (previously) loved one, there has to be some history that perhaps has not been revealed, perhaps never will be, about the nature oftheir intimate relationship.

Turning Conflict into Compassion

When we can move into a place of deeper understanding of what happens in our brains when we percieve each other, then we have a chance of seeing conflict from a new perspective. In the extreme case of murder, there certainly has to be some things that went very wrong in the intimate relationshps of the family for this to have occurred.

What we know about how our brains work is that certain kind of rections occur in the brain, often without our conscious awareness that trigger a sense of threat. When the people around us are not aware of or sensitive to our primative reactions to that perceived threat, we can get pretty determined to protect ourselves. Our behavior may appear outrageous or even crazy to those around us if they don't know or understand why we feel so threatened.

Empathy and Ownership can Parlay Conflict

When someone we love or even just care about, reacts in a way that seems unreasonable or outside of what we percieve to make sense, there is more going on inside that person than we know. Paying attention to and responding to that persons pain can go a long way to transforming the conflict.

Then, if we can find something in what the other person has expressed that we can own as our part, the other person then can see that we are not blaming them. When we can say (for instance) "I can see that something I did upset you, can you tell me what it was"' We move out of the blame game and eeper into understanding.

What was really going on?

I am fairly certain we will never know what happened to trigger Ms Jenson's death. But what we can be fairly certain of is that someone felt really threatened and someone else failed to notice. When this happens violence is much more likely to occur.

What About You?

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt really threatned and no one noticed or cared? How did you respond? Or, have you seen someone behave really crazy and not understood the threat they were experiening? Tell me what you have experiened.

Privacy and Boundaries

Now, if Britteny had asked for Dr. Phil's help, or if her family had asked him to intervene, that would be one thing, but barging in on her uninvited is purely rude. Personally, I am thrilled a pyschologist is involved, I am not so thrilled it's Dr. Phil. The poor girl needs real psychological help of a kind that, I am quite certain, is beyond Dr. Phil's skill set.

She Fits in My Expertise

In 1989, I went to work at a hospital where I helped troubled teens with all kinds of issues, from sexual abuse, familial allienation, and mental disorders to drug and alcohol addictions. Girls doing things outside of the media's eyes, that are very similar to Brittney.

Then, in 1996, I went to work at Charter Hospital of Dallas where I learned all about Dissociative Disorders and other Trauma related disorders. In 1997 I co-directed a Trauma unit at Timberlawn hospital.

I learned enough about Trauma and Dissociation to write a book. Life for someone traumatized results in pretty crazy-appearing behavior. Brittny Spears behavior falls right into the category of those who have been traumatized.

Prayers for Brittney

I pray for that girl. She needs someone with trauma experience to help her. My fear is that her family will get their way and take away her rights without giving her the help she desperately needs.

I was never a fan or cared much about her until all this started. Now my heart goes out to her. She has been used by her family and the media to sell magazines and make millions of dollars. She is lost little girl who needs help. Doesn't anyone see that?

Tell Me What You Think

What do you think? Do you think she is just as spoiled media star acting out for attention, or does she need real mental help?

What Happens When We Feel Threatened?

When we feel threatened what do we do? We attack back! At least this is what we do when we are in survival mode. We believe that it is the only way we can survive the threat. It is an instinctual, brain driven way of reacting to the perception of threat. Our brains go into a primative mode of "fight or flight" that sends us into a kind of (brain) chemically induced reactivity.

George Bush, Jr. seems to think that is where we should always come from in response to threat. And, its a tactic that has worked well for him politically until recently. People are often motivated to vote out of fear. Fear tactics tend to work well during elections. There was an article about this in newsweek a while back. If you follow elections, you can see how this has worked. Gulianni still envokes 9/11 to get voters on his side.

Is there another reaction possible?

What if there were another way to respond to the perception of threat? What if we could use a different part of our brain to respond when we feel threatened? We do have a part of our brain, in fact, the bulk of our brain, that is set up to think rationally, to ponder difficult solutions and to do more than react. This higher thinking part of our brain evolved since we became humanoids. Our primative, mammalian brain is the part of our brain that reacts to threat with the "fight or flight" mode.

When we choose to use our thinking brain we can often come up with more compassionate reactions than just merely fighting or fleeing. This is not to say there are not times when that is the rational reaction. But what if we could come up with a compassionate response when we are feeling threatened? How would that change our immediate world? How would that change the world at large?

What would another possible response be to Iran?

Do you think there could be a response to Irans threats that the US could take that could provide us with a different outcome than Iraq? I don't know, I am not a politician, but I think it is worth considering. Could compassion work on the world stage? Tell me what you think!

Will Smith Got it Right

Today's top celebrity news story was about Will Smith's comments regarding Hitler. Here's the quote:

He says, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.'

"I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

There Are No "Bad Guys"

While it is hard to imagine anyone doing anything worse than the methodical torture and slaughter of six million people. But the truth is that he really thought he was helping the world. His fouled up ideology meant that the world needed to be rid of an entire race of human beings. But he loved dogs and was a vegetarian.

He was not born evil. He was not, in fact, purely evil, in spite of having ordered many evil deeds done. But he was like all of us in some ways, a human being trying hard to make the world a better place.

Our Human Nature

It is our human nature to look at people and events with an eye toward discovering who is to blame. We expect to find some kind of closure, some kind of understanding of what has happened by finding a culprit. It helps us reach a kind of conclusion about what happened. "Oh, this happened because of this" ends the discussion on a topic.

What If Things are Not that Simple?

Hitler had to be stopped, no question about that. What he was doing was horrid. And if he had survived to have faced the music, the international tribunals would undoubtedly have chosen to put him to death. Somehow the idea of justice comes with the concept of punishing those who have done evil. I can't see how killing a man for killing six million people is justice. Seems to me therapy would have helped him discover the wrongness of his deeds and then the remainder of his life he would have to live with the consequences of his actions.

But most of us are no Hitlers. While many of us do things that are horrible and must be stopped by someone if we can't stop it ourselves, it doesn't make us evil. Like Hitler we didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' We do what we think is right at the time and then have to live with the outcomes. Sometimes we are right they are good, sometimes not so much.

What do you think?

Is a person evil if they do evil things? Are we good at core led to bad decsions by our life experiences?

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?