Most of us have a lifetime of responding to the signals of others without regard for who we are or what we need or want. The "art of being" is the order of the day; the art of knowing and accepting yourself, living in passion and joy; embracing and valuing fun and leisure.
Every day we are bombarded by erroneous and damaging messages in the culture that tell us that personal happiness, having fun, and self interest are bad and wrong, evil in some way, and not worthy or valuable pursuits.
There must be a balance of work and play, seriousness and fun, activity and rest. Being in harmony with your true nature and living the life you were meant to live, means you must reconnect with that natural self and honor and affirm that self on an on-going basis. It means cherish your own desires, formulate your own values, and remain true to them.
Begin to take time for yourself without deciding that each moment has to be spent productively. In the beginning you may have to schedule this time to ensure that you take it. Many adults never become completely comfortable playing or even with the idea of having fun or spending leisure time.
Here is an exercise you can use to help you uncover and discover underlying beliefs about fun, deserving to have fun, spending money to create the opportunity to have fun, and wanting to be with others or by yourself when you have fun.
Write each of the following partial sentences at the top of a blank page, then write at least ten different endings as quickly as you can.
Breaking free of other people’s limiting beliefs and values, exploring family dynamics, and challenging cultural models that may keep you stuck is life-long work. Ironically, part of the work is learning how to create and enjoy leisure time; recognizing and acknowledging the value of fun (play) and bringing balance into your life.
Learning to have fun, and enjoy yourself and others, affirms a vital part of all of us and is necessary to build and maintain good self-esteem.
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
Ask Dr. Jackie:
My wife and I have been married for 6 years. In the beginning, we would have sex once a day, and now we have sex about 3 or 4 times a week. While I am happy with this situation, my wife is constantly coming on to me, begging me to sleep with her all the time. I feel like I just can't keep up. I'm stressed about work and the bills, and all she wants is sex. I love her, and the sex is great; but there's more to life than just sex.
Are we doomed to have a life of sexual difference? Is there some kind of median we can reach here? I don't want her to cheat on me, but I just can't give her sex every single day anymore. Please help.
Dr. Jackie Answers:
The kind of sexual activity your wife is craving may very likely have less to do with creating a deep, intimate sexual connection with you and a sexual expression of her love for you than it might appear on the surface. This does not sound like a difference in sexual appetite. There are all kinds of reasons that people want or need to engage in excessive sexual behavior, and many of them are actually unhealthy. You are quite correct to say that there is more to life than just sex, especially for conscious adults who are intentional about building and maintaining a lasting, conscious relationship.
I think the answers to these questions will shine a light on some of the problem areas in your relationship that are causing your wife to want so much sex. It might be that sex is the only way she knows how to connect with you, or the only way she has been successful in connecting with you.
This is complex, and the sooner you two start talking to each other about these considerations the better.
Thank you for your question! I wish you all the best!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen.
I often focus on primary love relationships and family relationships, but this time I am going to take a sharp left turn and talk about business relationships.
This isn't really such a sharp departure; if you think about it. And here's why: Relationships drive everything in life.
Good business relationships result in smooth transactions and solid referrals. Sales people, who take pride in the products they sell or represent, take pride in their business relationships and don't have to resort to sleazy, pushy and obnoxious behavior.
Corporate politics can be kept to a dull roar when respect and integrity flow from the top down. Building healthy, solid relationships takes time. Building your good name and high visibility takes time. Building your business and wealth takes time; and all of these results depend on:
Healthy Business Relationships will thrive if we pay attention to our BEING; become our prosperous, healthy Self and then get to work creating our best life and love life for the rest of our life!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
Couples join forces with one another by forming agreements. Agreements are expressed in writing or verbally during very intentional conversations.
Most of us have never learned how to craft effective, explicit agreements. It is a skill we were never taught, even though it is fundamental to all relationships and a basic life skill.
This is a method I believe every committed couple should learn and use over and over again. It is also works beautifully with any two or more people who wish to make agreements that honor who they are and their relationship, and ensure that they end up in a Win-Win outcome.
15-steps To Elegant and Effective Agreements:
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
Effective Agreements
Life is an ongoing process of creating agreements with others. An effective agreement means more than getting another person to do what you want. It means buy-in and true commitment from both people.
Successful Agreements
Your overall effectiveness in making and honoring agreements is greatly increased if you pay attention to three important elements:
These three pieces will provide a strong foundation from which to commit to your agreements and achieve more consistent and satisfying results.
The Road Map for Success
Success is an almost certainty when both partners keep their agreements. Success is certainly at risk if one person doesn't keep his or her agreements.
Most couples have hopes and dreams, and desires and expectations. They establish goals and make commitments that are developed from a joint visioning process; a process that expresses an inclusive vision of desired outcomes; their road map to success!
Another way to look at this is that we join forces with others by forming agreements. Agreements are expressed in writing or verbally during very intentional conversations. Most of us have never learned how to craft effective, explicit agreements. It is a skill we were never taught, even though it is fundamental to all relationships and a basic life skill.
Ask yourself:
Whether you are a committed couple or an amazing singleton, as they call it in the UK, let’s educate ourselves about agreements, commitments, boundaries, conflict, and fidelity. Let’s start risking being our deepest most magnificent selves! Join me and let’s start today!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
It’s Valentine’s Day again! Let Valentine’s Day this year be the bell of awareness ringing in your ear, reminding you to carve out the time to connect with the one who stole your heart. Retailers and Madison Avenue would like us to all rush out and buy chocolate; flowers, mushy cards and teddy bears. But consider this instead:
If he takes Fido out for his 10:00 pm walk every night, why not offer to do it for him the next four or five nights. Or if pulling the trashcans out to the street is his job, take the trashcans out for the next couple of weeks and give him a break. Or tell her that you are going to grab the kids and take them away on Saturday morning so she can have the house all to herself for several hours and then all meet up for lunch somewhere at noon.
You get the picture. Really focus in on the one you love and come up with the four most loving behaviors you can think of and then make a gift of your time and energy.
Don’t miss the sweetness and the joy you will both experience by reaching out and connecting with each other from the center of your being and the bottom of your heart. That’s the real meaning of Valentine’s Day.
Embrace the moment and the gift of your love. Make this Valentine’s Day the most personal Valentine’s Day yet!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
Relationships are like bank accounts. If you keep pulling money out without making deposits you will go bankrupt. What does the balance sheet of your love life look like?
You know, relationships are living breathing entities. Our investment of deliberate intention, and focused time, energy and attention is the order of the day. Your relationship can’t wait until it is convenient for you; or until you have finished everything on your to-do list; or until you are at leisure.
Being a successful Honey and being a successful career person at the same time requires some serious intention, investment and commitment from both partners. Relationships grow and flourish when both people show up and make consistent deposits. One person alone, even if that one person makes huge deposits, cannot build and maintain a joyful, satisfying relationship for both of you.
Do you spend more time each week watching television or commuting to work than you do alone with your Beloved? Or are you too busy to even have a beloved?
I think you’d agree that to keep that spark alive, you and your partner must spend quality, eyeball-to-eyeball time together.
Think back to when you first started dating. What did you do? What things did you both enjoy that you no longer make time to do?
Remind yourself and each other of all the reasons you fell in love.
Let your creative juices flow! Let your imagination go wild! Anything goes. This is the most important person in your life. Rejoice! Celebrate yourself and each other. Let this Valentine’s Day be your good reason.
And if you haven’t met your special someone yet, the person who matches your values and makes your heart sing; remember, when you are actively engaged in the life that you love you more easily attract the love of your life!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
From time to time I receive really uplifting or especially meaningful stories and videos from my Blog readers. The video in this week's post is one of those videos.
Read this story before you click on the video:
"The Internet can be an amazing place that gives us a unique chance to enjoy events we otherwise would never have the opportunity to experience.
Even at their young ages, the Cactus Cuties are already seasoned veterans. They have delighted audiences for years with their beautiful harmony and charismatic presence.
Our National Anthem is sung at a Texas Tech University Basketball game by five young ladies; the two on the right are six years old; the two in the middle are seven; and the one on the left is eight. The entire arena was completely silent throughout the entire song. You could hear a pin drop.
Their arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner" garnered five million hits on YouTube in only three months, touching hearts all over the world. While this video is almost two years old, it is timeless at the same time."
I hope you enjoy the Cactus Cuties as much as I did!
Until next time...
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
The dating process is one of the most universally perplexing processes. The art and act of dating confounds even the most resolute of people dating. Dating requires that you be forthcoming, take some risks, become a good observer and listener, and trust and act on your observations and intuitions.
One essential reason to become a good observer is to be able to recognize unacceptable behavior and stop dating someone ASAP. Dating is a process and part of the process is to be an active participant and to be proactive in your decision-making and choices.
Don’t let dating just happen to you.
Recently a friend of mine canceled a mid-week dinner date with a man she had been dating a few weeks. When she called him (the morning before the scheduled date) he wasn’t home so she left a message on his answering machine explaining that she had a business conflict and look forward to seeing him soon.
She returned home later that evening to find a message on her machine in which he made accusations, called her names, and hung up abruptly. When she called him to talk about his unacceptable message he was remorseful and apologetic. He said canceling dinner hurt his feelings, and when he called to see if she was all right and she wasn’t home, he became worried.
My friend observed how this man behaves when his feelings are hurt and he is worried. She believed what he told her about himself and had the courage to stop dating him because his behaviors are not behaviors that match her value for being treated with kindness and respect by people she invites into her world.
I can already hear some of you groaning and saying, "But this was only one experience…"
For all of you who are giving this man the benefit of the doubt, I invite you to review your own relationship histories.
People tell us about themselves from the very beginning. Have the willingness and courage to hear them accurately and believe them!
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!
Rituals and celebrations are ways to intentionally create meaningful connections with special and important events and people. Many of us already celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and various holidays including rituals we may not even recognize as such.
I invite you to stretch beyond your comfort zone and experiment with the idea of ritual by starting with a ritual blessing yourself!
Here is an example of a ritual celebrating YOU! Dr. Barbara Ardinger created this Self-Blessing ritual. You can find the complete version of this ritual in her book A Woman’s Book of Rituals & Celebrations.
The Instructions:
Spend a few minutes gathering twelve things or representations of things (photographs or symbols) that you believe make an accurate picture of you. These things can include your daily organizer, car keys, a favorite object from your grandmother or a book you bought yesterday.
Sit in the middle of the floor and arrange the objects around you. Behind you place three things from your childhood; things passed down to you. Before you place three things new to your life; recent acquisitions, evidence of new interests. To your left place three left-brain things; things associated with numbers, logical thought, order, business, rational, logical and intellectual thought. To your right place three right-brain things; things associated with art, creativity, comfort and luxury, feelings, the religious or spiritual part of you life, beauty and nature.
If you can, distribute these evenly throughout the four quarters. Don’t worry if you cannot and your circle ends up lop-sided.
Now light a pink or green candle and set it before you. Read the following blessing or tape it beforehand and listen to it:
I bless myself
and these things around me
these things that make the circle of my life.
I bless myself
and my past
For in blessing my past
and these things that I bring from ages past
I become who I am now.
Good or bad, cheerful or painful, my past is a blessing,
for it has formed me
shaped me
held me
released me
thrust me into the present.
I bless my past in me.I bless myself
and these things to my left and right.
I bless myself
in my present
the two halves of who I am today.
For in blessing both my intellect and my emotions
and these things I gather into the life I live now
I recognize who I am now.
Left and right
rational and spiritual
words and images
austerity and comfort-
I bring divisions together.
My present blesses me
for it is how I am in the world
how I think and feel
how I act and live.
It pulls me out of the past
and thrusts me into the future.
I bless my life as it is today.I bless myself
and the things that point to what is to come.
I bless myself
and my uncertainties, my potentialities, my future.
For in blessing what is new in my life
I move forward what I can be:
unknown but shown
unpredictable but mapped
potential to be fulfilled.
My future is waiting for me
more of who I am is waiting for me to be reborn.
I bless my life as it is now,
every day of my life.
Sit quietly for as long as you want to, feeling the energies of the things in the circle of your life. Contemplate who you have been, who you are now, who you are becoming. Realize that you are blessed in your life, that you are a blessing to other lives.
At the end, blow out the candle, put all your things into their proper places and go on with your day.
Remember, only YOU can make it happen!