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?

We often get questions from readers with premature ejaculation problems

This is from my response to a reader who comes way too soon

I have some idea how frustrating that must be. Just about every guy has been too excited about knowing they are about to have sex. Usually its when you haven't had any in a while and you are so focussed on sex that you don't care who it is with. You just need it like you need air. You are just 'too ready'.

There are lots of articles on the web offering tricks and techniques that might help, but this is what I believe: We have sex on two levels, the personal, intimate connection level and then as physical beings that crave orgasmic sex. I want them both. In fact I need the intimate stuff before I can lose myself completely in the physical sex.

As long as you are primarily doing the physical sex, the guy who comes too soon will already be there just from the sex in their head ( sex IS mostly in our heads, anyway ). It just doesn't take much to push you over the edge. I suggest that when it happens you enjoy it! ( A BAD orgasm, No such thing! ) You are young enough and aroused enough that it should take no time to be ready again. Use that time to focus on your partner. All of them. Their entire body and everything they have to say and share. That time after your orgasm and before you are hard again is a great opportunity for you to get comfortable with being close to a woman, with touching her and being present enough to see how she responds.

I know you will feel at least some embarrassment. Just understand that's how you are right now and don't miss the opportunity to get physically close to a woman without worrying its going to happen. If she makes you feel bad about coming so soon, then I promise, you've already enjoyed her as much as you are going to.

The real solution is a partner you know and want to be with even if there wasn't any sex involved. Then the thoughts about sex aren't the only thing filling your mind. I'm talking about the kind of relationship where it is OK to be who you are. I'm afraid that as long as its just about sex, you will often find your brain has you way ahead of the action.

Our program is entirely focussed on getting that kind of close, intimate connection that lets you be whatever you need to be in the moment. The kind where coming quickly and easily is something you deal with together because you both want it. From what I understand about premature ejaculation, that is the only real answer.

In short:

• Let yourself enjoy your orgasm, you are obviously supercharged and ready for it so go with it.
• Use the time before you are ready again to touch and feel your partner. Ideally, establish good communication and learn to play with her body.
• Look for someone you trust and enjoy and work through the Great Sex program together to develop the skills you will need to help each other learn to have really fun sex.

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.

For the past couple of years I’ve been writing articles for Dan and Jennifer of the askdanandjennifer.com website. Lucky for me they live close by and Mike and I have had dinner with them a couple of times and I now consider them to be friends. They are a great, generous, and hardworking couple of kids. I’m proud to know them. They have an interesting website but – be warned they deal with a lot of sexual material. I personally think this is good thing because they answer a lot of people’s questions about things that are hard to get good answers about.

The Forum Questions

In the past couple of months I’ve been answering a lot of their forum questions – in fact I’ve been doing more of that then writing articles. It’s as fascinating thing to do because it gets to the hear of what intimacy means to people. Of course, sex and intimacy are not the same thing – but to most people they are deeply connected.

So many of us seem to have trouble with intimacy and sex simply because we are stuck in the fear based reactions of the Cycle of Egocentrism. Our old brain reactivity kicks in and we loose sight of ourselves and our partner.

Not so silly message

I watched a silly movie with my daughter yesterday, “Waitress”. It had the guy from “Serenity” (Nathan Fillion) in it so my daughter wanted to watch it. It was not all that well written and had a seriously slow pace, but it was cute. Two things struck me about this movie though. The first is that the waitress’s husband, Earl, (played by Jeremy Sisto) was painted as being a “bad husband” from the beginning of the film. The waitress, played by Keri Russell, never had one bit of empathy for him. Now, I’ll concede he was a painfully difficult person; he was somewhat abusive and controlling. But as the movie progressed it became clear he was also in a lot of pain, and horribly incapable of knowing how to connect with his beautiful, uncommunicative wife. When the waitress did connect with someone it was with a married man (Nathan Fillion) who was also her OB-GYN. This relationship contrasted with that of her marriage by showing her new lover as being emotionally caring, and sensitive to her feelings. During the narration she did she stated that she realized how great it felt to have someone really listen to her like what she felt and thought mattered to them. Obviously her husband didn’t have that gift.

Clueless men and dissatisfied wives

I bring this movie up because it reminded me so much of some of the questions sent in to the forum on Dan and Jennifer’s website. Clueless men asking why their wives have no interest in sex anymore and dissatisfied wives seeking out connections with other men because their own husbands don’t know how to connect with them emotionally.

“Bad guys”

Now, I realize how I just framed things makes it look like it’s the guys fault for not being emotionally available. The truth is that it’s not their fault, and it’s not entirely about them not being able. Men are frequently raised to hold all sign of emotions inside and are not given a vocabulary with which to express their feelings. They are not supposed to need any kind of affection or nurturing from anyone past about the age of three. Then we marry them and suddenly they are expected to know how to give and receive nurturing and to talk about feelings; and if they don’t they are a “bad husband”.

When we put people in categories of “bad” and “good” were are limiting them – and ourselves – as human beings. And it absolves us of any responsibility for what occurs when we label someone else as the “bad” one.

My “bad guys”

I did this during my first two marriages. I was caught up in seeing how “bad” my husbands were at being husbands. I believed I was the innocent victim wanting intimacy with men who were incapable of expressing it. I had no desire for sex with them because I didn’t feel the least bit connected with them. And that, I believed, was because of them.

What I know now is that they and I came into the marriage with baggage from our pasts. We all do. And I was no more capable of intimacy than they were. I had to learn how to be empathetic for them, and for myself, in order to allow myself to experience the intimacy I so desperately wanted. To do that I had to let go of the belief in “good” and “bad” guys. Getting out of what I call the Cycle of Egocentrism changes everything.

Is there a “bad guy” in your life?

Tell me what you think? 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.

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.

Be patient, I’m going to RANT

A lot of us in Texas, and I suppose, around the world are shocked and amazed at the public turnaround on the decision to remove the 440 children from the FLDS compound in West Texas. I mean, I am glad that if CPS acted without proper authority the Supreme Court overruled them. CPS in my experience has seldom done things correctly. I have seen them remove children from parents who loved them because their spouses or boyfriends who were then incarcerated had abused their children. I have even had cases where bruised and battered adolescents were told to “Go home and mind your parents”. I’ve seen them investigate cases where kids were clearly being abused and send the child to treatment and let the parent remain in the home to have the child rejoin them with no consequence or follow up after returning from treatment. I’ve seldom seen CPS do the right thing, so it is no real surprise to me that they screwed this one up, too.

What about the kids?

My dismay is that these poor kids have had such an awful ordeal. First, they are brought up in a culture that cuts them off from any knowledge or exposure to the modern world. Then they are taught obedience to an authority that dictates to them who and when they shall marry and have children, no matter their tender years. I understand there were dozens of children under the age of 17 who were “married” mothers. The boys were taught that they, too, were to grow up and marry someone the “authority’ selected for them and to have sex with their “underage wives.”

These kids have been yanked from everything they knew, exposed to the “outside world” and given sanctity and safety for a month or so and now they are being returned to the world they were torn from. I suppose it is hard to know who the abusers are since the members of the sect deny any “abuse”. Oh, I suppose girls get pregnant by divine intervention. At least that must be how the Texas Supreme Court sees it since I have never seen more clear evidence that SOMEONE is abusing a child than that they are under age and pregnant in a cult where the BOYS never marry under age 17.

This is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen and I don’t understand what in the world is going to protect those kids from further abuse.

The New FLDS Policy

The newest thing is that they say they no longer will have a policy of letting under age girls marry. HELLO they were NEVER legally married in the FIRST PLACE. What is to prevent them from continuing an illegal practice that was never overtly practiced???

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t think these cult members who have been practicing their perverted version of Mormonism for over a hundred years. This is NOT a matter of “Religious Freedom”. It is a matter of CHILD SAFETY. Oh, and of course, polygamy itself is illegal in Texas, too.

Maybe the authorities are just stepping back to make a better case later, but in the meantime these children continue to be exposed to further abuse. What of the girls who are under age and “married” to their older cousins and uncles? Wont they go right back into the subjection of forces sexual relations with their “husband”? What is to prevent it? It is what they “believe” to be their rightful place.

What other abuse situation would we let this happen in?

In other situations where children are in a home where abuse is clearly taking place the child is NOT RETURNED because the odds are that they will be abused again. WHAT IS DIFFEREN HERE????

It is our job as a community to protect these children. We have let them down. I am disappointed and grieved that these poor kids don’t have anyone who will protect them. Their mothers and their grandmothers and their aunts and uncles all grew up believing that it is right for them to be subjected to this kind of treatment. Clearly none of them are going to protect their kids, boys or girls.

Man o’ man that CPS

CPS, “bless their hearts” are “doing the best they can”. They are going to “teach” these parents to parent??? How can they pretend that this somehow will protect these children. As long as the “husbands” have access to their “wives” the kids will be abused. It’s their “God given right” according to the FLDS beliefs.

A better solution?

From the beginning of this mess I have thought it was all handled badly. CPS went in with guns, armed to remove the kids from their “dangerous” family. It was heavy handed and frightening to participants and viewers alike. What I believe should have been done is that a number of CPS workers, social workers and psychologist should have gone in and taken charge of the kids on the compound itself. They should have separated the men and the women and began teaching them about child development, the law, and parenting. This would take months and they could continue to practice their religious beliefs while being taught a more humane way to treat children. Prosecuting the “polygamist’ marriages as they were discovered through financial penalties and incarceration only in the most hardened cases. In cases of men who have developed pedophilia as a result (we do have tests for this) remove them from access to any child (as we do in the case of other child abuse offenders) and even incarcerating those most likely to re-offend in the greater community.

What do you think?

Any other approach denies children protection, and traumatizes all the individuals involved without helping anyone only criminalizing the whole bunch as we did that fateful day we went in armed and bussed their children away from them.

What do you think? Was it right that we sent them back? What should we do? Comment below.

During the past month I have had the delight of watching two of my daughters graduate. One, my oldest twin, graduated from college with a BA in English Literature, and in 4 years time and over a 3.0 average. The other, my oldest, graduated from Law School and within the top 5% of her class. My youngest twin daughter will graduate from college with a BA in History, and double minors in Radio-TV-Film and Chinese, graduating Cum Laude. Looking back over the past 28 years, I can honestly say I couldn’t have wished for more for my girls.

Honestly, I was not always sure they would make it to where they are now. I always knew what they were capable of achieving, but it wasn’t always clear they would make it. They all had their challenges.

My lawyer daughter

My oldest was always amazing. I told her from the time she was three that she should be an attorney because she could make an argument better than anyone I knew. She had her problems in school, not academically, but personally. Many of her teachers did not appreciate that she was smarter than they and resented her. She was outspoken and unbelievably bright. Her father abandoned her when she was eight and she had a horrid relationship with her step-father. She never felt like she fit into the small town we lived in as she was growing up. Then, after I left her step-father and was a single mom of three, she fell in with the kids who smoked cigarettes (among other things). Still, she managed to keep her grades up enough to graduate, though school was not her first interest. I am sure because of the fact she had no real relationship with a father figure, she always had a boyfriend – some not so wonderful. She was rebellious at times with me, fighting to find a sense of herself.

Fortunately for both of us I knew not to fight her. I knew not to engage in power struggles and put her into positions that took her power away, but instead to allow her to find her own way. Keeping from engaging in either rescuing her or moving into “making her” do what I wanted to do, allowed her to blossom into the wonderful young woman she always had inside.

News proud

The oldest of my twin girls is now heading to her life after being the news editor of her college paper and dealing with a room mate with terminal cancer for the past year. She has managed to remain out of the rescuer role while still being available for her friend. Now, she is going to either Taiwan or New York City, depending on what job is offered to her. She is courageous, tenacious and kind. Whatever she ends up doing, she will keep that strong sense of herself. I left her father when she was only 7 and she was angry and hurt by our failed marriage. Yet she kept her self together and on the honor role throughout high school. It must have been hard for her because her twin sister was dyslexic and struggling all through school. She never rescued her sister, but always believed in her and encouraged her.

Wow, look at her now!

My youngest twin, graduating in August, has overcome dyslexia to become an honor student and will be graduating cum laude. She was, I was told, one of the most severely dyslexic children. But she was determined and loved reading. Then, with remarkable determination chose to learn Mandarin Chinese, even spending 10 months in Taiwan to immerse herself in the language. She loves learning and is planning on spending another 2 years there after graduation. She might have given up in grade school when the kids teased her and teachers pressured her, but she didn’t. She avoided becoming a victim and took ownership of her life.

I still have two kids left, my husbands’ children from a previous marriage, and they are on a clear path to success as well. His oldest is going to New York University and just returned from a stud abroad program in London, and will be heading to Australia in July. She fought to find herself in spite of her difficult relationship with her mother, and dealing with her parents divorce. My husbands’ youngest, his son, is now in middle school and an A student, despite behavioral problems that were overwhelming in elementary school.

What made it work

Understanding the Cycles of the Heart has changed everything for me, for my kids and for my new marriage. I am proud of the fact that I have managed to avoid remaining in the victim position myself. It would have been easy to do, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, two divorces, and been a single mom. Knowing how the Cycle of Egocentrism can ruin your life and relationships I fight to keep my automatic brain from dragging me down its tyrannical path.

I can’t help but believe that my ability to remain (mostly) in the Cycle of Compassion is why my kids are where they are today. I thank God for my having stumbled across this model. It really does change everything.

Cult Abuse of Chlldren

What might have happened if the mothers and children of the Branch Davidians had been captured instead of slaughtered that day in April, 1995? Would it have been that different than what is happening today? A cult that uses women and children as their sex slaves in the name of religion is one that cannot be allowed to continue.

What they are brought up to believe

Yet the children, male and female alike, in this bizarre sect have all been brought up to believe in their “faith” s as a natural, precious, and fundamental part of what it is to be a human being. They go about their lives believing, as they have for generations, that this is truth and the way to God’s Kingdom. Each and every one of them is raised to accept this view of themselves and others. They each believe in what they were conditioned to believe since birth. Their accepted worldview rejects or technology, and our modern ways and the knowledge of psychology and the acquired wisdoms of the past 150 years. Ignorance was their choice. It is always the way of cults in general. Outside knowledge of other’s beliefs is not only discouraged but punished. No new knowledge can be allowed into the closed system because new knowledge would destroy the system.

Who is going to be prosecuted?

Do you prosecute the women who were brought up to believe that marrying off your children to much older men is acceptable? Do you prosecute these same women for abandoning their young sons that were thrown out of their “families” because there were too many of them? Do your prosecute the men, who were brought up to believe it is their rightful place to have many young wives and force them to have sex with them as they please?

Clearly Criminal

Clearly all of the above constitute legal abuse and crimes that are normally punishable by law. Yet what happens when we begin to view this case as a case of programming, not unlike that of Patty Hearst? All of the members of this sect were programmed from birth to see their lifestyle as the only choice acceptable by God as they understand him.

Is it our role as a legal community to imprison them for their crimes, as we did Patty Hearst, or is our responsibility to them something entirely different? What if we could view them not as perpetrators of horrors upon innocent victims, but as victims themselves worthy of our compassion?

The Travesty

Some people already are seeing the travesty that is likely to occur to these people and have been protesting outside the courtrooms where we attempt to find “justice” for those our courts are attempting to protect. Unfortunately there are no “bad guys” here to prosecute. The system was the problem, not the people involved. All of these people were caught up in a system that was dangerous and just plain wrong. But there are no bad guys are there?

A different perspective

It changes everything when you try to look a situation from the prospective of compassion rather than the old egocentric view of seeing everyone as a good guy, a bad guy or a victim. When we impose our legal system on these people by prosecuting them for doing what they earnestly believed was the righteous way of living, we become what our forefathers fought against. We as a community become the perpetrators by prosecuting this group for their religious practices.

Clearly abuse is abuse

But what they were doing to their children was wrong. There is no question about that is there? Raping children of the age of 12 or 14, abandoning children (boys) who were not going to be useful in continuing their patterns of multiple marriages to one male is all wrong. Morally and ethically we cannot let it continue, but we have to stop it in a way that does not make anyone a criminal.

Practicing Empathy

We have to put ourselves in their shoes and practice empathy for their situation. There are those in our culture (among whom I count myself) who oppose the everyday practice of circumcision as genital mutilation of our baby boys. It’s as wrong as the genital mutilation of girls that we have outlawed in this country, even when practiced for religious reasons. Yet we continue to practice this primitive mutilation of baby boys on a daily basis all across our nation. It’s okay to do it to boys, but not to girls. I don’t get that at all.

When we consider that the practice of genitally mutilating boys is a natural normal practice in our culture, it makes it hard not to step into the shoes of a cult that sees raping 12-14 year old girls as a natural and normal practice in theirs.

It changes everything when we begin to have empathy for their beliefs and understand that, like us, they have been brought up in a culture which finds some very bizarre practices to be normal and natural.

What do you think?

Is there a difference between taking innocent babies and mutilating their genitals and taking a 12-13 year old girl into a forced marriage and raping them? Can you find empathy for their strange beliefs or do you see them as a sick, perverted culture that needs to be punished? Tell me what you think. 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?

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.

Heartbreak Academy 101

Today’s Oprah article, Lessons from 'Heartbreak Academy by Martha Beck was on the homepage of CNN this morning.   I can find no argument in anything she says.  In fact she is right on about our loneliness not coming from our lack of having a partner, but from something inside of us alienating us from other people. 
As a young woman I was always lonely, whether I was married or not.  I did not have a clue how to connect with anyone, least of all myself. 

Indeed we do have to learn a lot of lessons from our heartbreak if we are to have any hope of getting out of the interminable loneliness that we often suffer from. I also agree that the source of that loneliness is a childhood or adolescence trauma or loss.  That event, whatever it was, led us to distance ourselves not only from other people, but also from ourselves.  It left us fearful of the feelings we hold inside, because at the time we experienced them we could not process them fully. We were to immature developmentally to intellectually be able to work through the impact.  So what we do is to separate ourselves from the feelings and sometimes even the memories of the things that stumped us. This leaves us alienated from ourselves, and of course, others. 

What is wrong with us?

It also leaves us feeling that there is something wrong with us.  Children traumatized in whatever way,  always feel “bad”,  the “bad” feeling is pain from the losses that occurred, but no one tells the child this crucial piece of information.  The child internalizes that “bad” feeling; they think THEY are bad.  So then we carry this sense that we are bad forward into our lives and our relationships.

“Positive Thinking”?

Telling ourselves this isn’t true seldom has any impact if it is just words like: “I'm fascinating, I'm beautiful, I'm funny, I'm important,” as Martha suggests. These words have to accompany a feeling of empathy for the child that we were at the time of the loss or trauma.  We have to have a logical understanding that we were not really as bad as we feel we are.  We have to then offer the child part of us the love and reassurance that the adults in our lives didn’t offer for whatever reason. This allows us then to extend empathy toward the little child part of us that is in so much pain. 

The keys are this:

1. Logically know that a child is cannot really be responsible for the things that happen around them and
2. Give the child empathy for the fact that you were a victim at that time.

Our capacity for Love

When we can do this for the child part of it opens up our capacity to love ourselves freely without reservation. That doesn’t mean that we are blind to our flaws, it does mean we are able to own what we do that is not so perfect along with what we do that’s great. It means we respect what we had to do in order to grow up even with the tragedies and losses we suffered. 

What’s the real problem here?

Of course the real problem with doing what either Martha or I suggest is this: in order to grieve the losses and process the trauma’s – we have to know what they are.  Most of us have pieces of our lives that we have repressed, suppressed or dissociated from our awareness.  So then we carry pain we don’t understand. We tell ourselves, “I have nothing to feel bad about.”  One thing can be certain: if you have had repeated failures at intimate connection you have a history of some type of trauma or loss you have not processed. The inability to become intimate with another person is a clear sign of having unprocessed grief or trauma from your past. It changes everything when you go to the source of the problem and stop trying to medicate it with fixes, like "the right relationship."

What about you?

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.

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?