June 12, 2009
femininspired self-expression
Lee and I had shared several hours together when she told me, her friends think she’s crazy. They accuse her of having done an 180 degree turn. But she hasn’t turned from who she is. She turned in how she expresses herself.
She was always a bit of an adventurer, but now she’s expanding her horizons. her friends think she’s crazy. She knows she’s becoming sane.
She’s femininspired.
June 11, 2009
Dating dialogue – intimate questions
Meryl
I do my very best to use your Power Phrases in all aspects of my life, business and personal. I am preparing myself to date soon and searching for the man of my dreams. One thing that I read and hear often is not to divulge much info in the first few dates.
What do I say, how do I change the subject smoothly, when the guy asks questions I do not need or want to answer right away?
My response
Not my expertise, but how about,
• I’d like get to know you a bit better before we talk about that.
What do you think? What I like about it is that it implies you do want to get to know them better, so it’s not a shut down. Once I said, “too much too soon,” and that was not well received.
Have tons of fun!!!
the Power of “The Secret Power of Tears”
Note from reader: I just read this weeks newsletter and “The Secret Power of Tears” and “Art of Crying” poem and guess what……..
I cried and cried and cried, and discovered so much (about myself, feelings and emotions) reading that one page.
Thank you to you and Jeffery, and PLEASE dont stop doing what you do.
May 20, 2009
Feeling the love http.pandora.com/
I added a Mellisa Etheridge station to my Pandora stations. It’s bringing out the Divine Feminst in me – feeling the love blended with power.
http://www.pandora.com/
What music empowers you?
Gentle Power The power of a thousand butterfly wings
His advice sounded too gentle. That’s why I almost missed its significance. I needed to hit the problem head on, didn’t I?
Sometimes I do. In matters of love and friendship, often not.
I addressed the problem with all the force of a feather pillow. I addressed the problem with all the power of a field full of flowers. I addressed the problem with all the pressure of an open heart laid at my beloved friend’s feet.
I solved the problem Or perhaps…we solved the problem. Or…the prblem got solved. Thanks to an gentle friend advice and the “power of a thousand butterfly wings.” (Moody Blues)
February 8, 2009
Congratulations! It’s working!
“I’m not getting along real well with Amy right now,” Dillon confessed. “I get into relationships, and everything goes great, and after about six months, all these issues come up.”
“Congratulations,” I responded. “The relationship is working.”
Dillon was surprised but relived to hear my response. He was glad to know that something wasn’t dreadfully, fatally wrong.
“Look,” I told him, “I’ve always heard that the first six months of a love relationship are free. Then they start walking you through your fire. If you connect on a lot of levels, that fire will burn a lot hotter than if you don’t hook up so much. The fact that this person can drive you crazy means that she’s touching you on a really deep level. If she wasn’t, you could float along.”
When relationships start to bring up issues, some people try to sweep those issues under the rug and pretend they don’t exist. That’s a formula for bumping into the same problem again and again. In great relationships, partners untangle the mess and uncover the lesson in each collision. They walk through their fires and right out to the other side.
Dillon was guilty of jumping to a negative conclusion about something Amy had done, not listening when she tried to explain herself, and pressuring her to agree with his version of events. Amy was guilty of shutting down. She was shocked by Dillon’s harshness and stunned into silence.
Dillon could have won an academy award for best actor playing Amy’s father. Amy could have won an academy award for best actress playing Dillon’s mother. These two young adults triggered an emotional regression in each other that had them operating on the level of about age five.
But guess what! As adults they have more resources than they did when they were five. Sure, they never learned to handle those behaviors with their parents, and it’s a bit embarrassing to be five years old with your sweetheart when you’re in your late twenties. But when an adult walks through a fire they were not equipped to handle as a child, they come out stronger for it.
After all, Amy loves her father and Dillon loves her mother, and Amy and Dillon love each other. They love each other enough to admit what’s happening for them.
And that’s why their relationship will continue to work beautifully.
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Related posts which may interest you
- Intimate Priorities: Make love last by putting your partner first.
- A G-Rated Tantra Interview
- Keep the bulls out of your china shop ~ how to keep your heart from becoming calloused
- Transcend the Guilt Trap: A glowing memorial and a set-up for regret and remorse
- What does it mean to be appreciated as a woman?
February 5, 2009
Keep the bulls out of your china shop ~ how to keep your heart from becoming calloused
Over 20 years ago, I heard an AyurVedic doctor say that it’s important to have commitment before becoming intimate with a partner because without that commitment, the heart becomes shaky and calloused. (AyurVeda is an Indian System of balancing and healing the body.) He explained that intimacy naturally opens the heart, and if it opens in an environment that isn’t tender, callouses form to protect it. That made a lot of sense to me – and made me wonder if the failure rate in our relationships is because we so regularly violate that awareness.
For years I’ve been recommending friends get a book called “Getting to I Do” – whether they want to get married or not. The author provides three criteria before becoming intimate – consistency, (no dropping in and out,) longevity, (thinking long term) and exclusivity (no other intimate partners.) Even for women who don’t want to get married, those criteria can prevent a lot of damage.
Think of the inner sanctuary of your heart as being like a china shop. You’ve got to be careful who you let in. A bull can do an awful lot of damage very quickly.
Of course, most of us are a bit clumsy, and particularly in new relationships, we can unwittingly cause harm. But when you have consistency, longevity and exclusivity, you can repair the damage together when it happens, and learn how to avoid future breakage. My philosophy is, if you want in my china shop, the agreement is if you break it, you help fix it.
It’s important to set boundaries to protect the sensitivities of the heart in friendship as well as love. My friends and I operate on the “if you break it, you help fix it” philosophy as well. But intimate relations touch us at unparalleled depths, and that’s where we really need to keep the bulls out of our china shop – so that our hearts can stay sweet and uncalloused.
“As a reminder not to kid yourself, I link to Johnny River’s song lyrics, “The Snake.”)
February 2, 2009
Intimate Priorities: Make love last by putting your partner first.
An important awareness
My father married my step mother when I was 15. I was completely supportive, but I remember feeling a sting the first time I became aware that he was now loyal to her first. Even then, however, I knew it was appropriate, and I also felt freed by the order of his priorities. I credit his loyalty to his new bride as one of the reasons my father and step mom have been married over 40 years. Many parents never make that loyalty shift when they remarry.
Being a mom, forgetting to be a wife
Even in a nuclear family, priorities get can skewed when a baby is born. I remember my (late) husband telling me he missed me after we had a child. I’m sure he did. I was so busy being a mother; I forgot to be a wife. Many women displace their husbands. Men to it too – although they are more likely to place their careers over their intimate partners.
Everything we do signals the person who gave everything to be with us where they stand in our pecking order. It’s whether we consider our partner when we dress in the morning. Or whether we take the call from a friend when our partner is initiating a sensitive discussion. It’s whether we’re willing to step out of our comfort zones for them. It’s whether we act like it’s a pleasure or a burden to do things for them. It’s how forgiving we are when they make mistakes.
This is not to suggest that spousal whims should be prioritized over children’s needs. Love doesn’t ask partners to betray their principles or forgo legitimate concerns. It is to say that no matter what else is going on in life, we find the time or we make the time to send the message to our intimate partner that we have placed them on top in the throne of our hearts.
The true measure of your priorities
Take a look at what you say and do in the course of an average day. If you were an outside observer, what message would you get about your priorities, loyalties and commitments? I can tell what you’re really committed to if I look at your calendar and your checkbook. I can tell where your heart is by seeing where you spend your time and your money.
Where do your priorities lie? And how’s that working for you?
It’s working great for my father and my step mom.
October 13, 2008
Poison Phrase ~ Performance
Why on earth do we refer to how we relate intimately as
- Performance ?
I can think of a gazillion problems with this term. It’ like we’re putting on a show after which we expect to be scored. I do not want a man to perform for me, I want him to relate to me, love me and celebrate life with me. And, nothing shuts love down like the idea that they have to “perform” with the person who holds the keys to their heart.
While I’m at it, I also don’t like the word,
- Impotent.
I’ve had my world rocked by people who I’ve never even met – it takes a pretty potent person to do that. Some of these people are/were female, but if I knew for certain that any of the men who have influenced me deeply were unable to obtain erections, I would still consider them to be incredibly potent.
It’s bad enough that we continually check each other out for how we do or don’t measure up out in the world. Why would we turn intimacy into a proving ground? That diminishes an expression of the heart into an expression of ego and power, and undermines the very purpose of intimate relations.
August 26, 2008
Transcend the Guilt Trap: A glowing memorial and a set-up for regret and remorse
I received word that a former sweetheart of mine passed away last week. We had remained amicable, casual friends in the over ten years since our short romance. I was happy to hear that he died peacefully in his sleep and I wished his spirit well. The news of his passing didn’t trigger much emotion in me.
i was surprised to hear how much emotion his passing triggered in my friend “Nancy.” She had decided they weren’t a match after three dates with “Joe” last spring. Apparently Joe had been more impressed with Nancy than she was with him. After a glowing memorial which presented Joe as super human, several people came up to Nancy to ask how she was doing, telling her how much Joe cared about her, loved her and what a crush he had on her.
Nancy reacted with guilt and remorse for not having given Joe a chance. It took a while for her to realize that she and he were no more a match than he and I had been, and despite his glowing memorial and his infatuation with her, she had made the correct decision to pass on his offer of more.
Endings often bring up unresolved issues, and although the news of Joe’s passing didn’t trigger much in me last week, our breakup did trigger a tremendous amount of emotion in me many years past. It took a skilled guide to help me realize it wasn’t about what I thought it was about and to help me move on. I tell that tale in a chapter in my Unite and Concur eBook. You can download that chapter free at The Great Inner Divide.