Podcasts

Let’s Talk About Sex

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SEXUAL SHAME INHIBITS OPEN, INFORMATIVE CONVERSATION

Have you noticed that when sex is talked about openly people feel uncomfortable? This is because of sexual shame. Many layers have been delivered from the time we were born.

I hold classes to help people remove this embarrassment and shame so they can talk more openly with partners, lovers, and even friends.

I’m going to talk about it now, and I will let you know if I feel any embarrassment as I go. (more…)

Sexual Scanning of People & Body Parts

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When he or she looks at others as if you aren’t even present. 

Having compassion for men who sexually scan may seem to be incompatible with our cultural shaming of men who do this. But it isn’t just an eye candy thing where they lift their energy a little for a brief period. It’s a search for something that will fill in the emptiness. It is a practice of avoidant attachers who haven’t been able to create a securely attached, ideal relationship, and so continue to feel a need they can’t meet. (more…)

6 Tips for a Healthy Sex Life

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Six Tips for Creating a Healthy Sex Life

Tip 1. Talking. With partner, or with others if not in relationship or dating. Introducing conversation will allow you to bring down the shame associated with talking about sex in an open, non-erotic way. People who have difficulty can’t talk about what they like, fear of performing, and so on. It is good to talk with others who are also learning how to talk.

You can look at things like how you get aroused, how your partner does, how you feel about orgasms, and all your attitudes that will help to have out in the open. (more…)

Shaming Prevents Taking Responsibility

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SHAME IS OUR WORST ENEMY WHEN WISHING TO LEAD A LIFE OF INTEGRITY

Shame, that dreadful emotion that includes feeling badly about oneself, or believing that we have been harmful, is actually a horrible obstacle to taking responsibility for what we have done and setting out to correct it.

Our culture seems to think that shaming people will actually change them. Well, it might change behavior. If someone knows that they will be the butt of shaming looks and comments they will not perform certain acts. But they haven’t actually changed. (more…)

When Arguments Go Circular

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BACK AND FORTH, AROUND AND AROUND – HOPELESS

A big issue for couples are these arguments where the shaming goes around and around. One starts, the second responds in kind. First is one example, and then the kinds of circular arguments.

Shame and defensiveness is the cause of this kind of arguments. They go around and around, and cannot resolve the issue in front of them.

He gets drunk, comes home. She finds this offensive, and has expressed this many times in the past.

She says get away from me, you’re drunk (more…)

Is Conforming a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

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IS CONFORMING GOOD? 

The answer is: it can be a good thing, supportive of community, as long as you don’t sacrifice in order to conform. It can be harmful to you when done to avoid feelings of shame, of not fitting in, and wanting to be “good.”

Conforming to the rules or expectations of others without examining them can lead to all kinds of hidden rebellion that may violate your own values. (more…)

The Wrong Side of the Bed – Make Use of a Bad Day

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You may be feeling good enough about life that you don’t need psychotherapy, yet you might occasionally feel really badly without knowing why. Perhaps you know that it will soon pass, or by the next day, and so you wait it out. But it doesn’t feel good.

I would like to suggest using those negative emotions to actually change the causes of them.
This is an approach that can make your life feel so much better. And, it is one of the skills that will allow you and your future mate to be transparent with each other, and accepting of the other. It is one of the major areas for preparation for love.

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Your Siblings Loved You and Hated You Too

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SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS CAN IMPACT LOVE RELATIONSHIPS, TOO. 

The emotions, conflicts, and relating styles can be projected onto lovers in the same way they are from relationships with parents. This may greatly broaden your source of information.

When recovering from addiction, childhood trauma, difficult marriages, and depression, parenting has been an obvious source of understanding why we do what we do. Self help books have addressed trauma healing, addiction healing, and most aspects of a troubled life. (more…)

Why is Avoidant Attachment So Hard to Stop?

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Avoiding others and not attaching is designed to make us feel secure. Odd, isn’t it? We have to take a look at how avoiding attachment actually did serve us at one point, and how it no longer does.

But let me say that there are ways! Elizabeth Wedington and I created a Practice presented in our book, Stop Depriving Yourself: A Self Care Practice to Remove the Obstacles to Living Life Fully available here October, 2018. It includes a 10 step guide at the end so that you can engage in the Practice on your own – often preferred by those liking the avoidant style. See my post, “Stop Depriving Yourself,” to read the Introduction.

The meditation developed by Dr. Joe Dispenza makes it easy for an avoidant attacher to work on the things they want to change. Here’s my article on this: Meditate Your Way Out of Avoidant Attachment. After meditating for years, I went to Dispenza’s YouTube lectures and guided meditations. I was sold. I have gone to his retreats, and do his meditations regularly. I could see that some clients who weren’t able to engage in healing old traumas and current life difficulties would be able to with this approach! Sure enough, when I started groups based on his methods it gave people a way to change.

I grew up avoidantly attached in order to preserve myself from my mother’s perception of me as evil. I developed an identity as an alien in order to believe that I didn’t belong in this culture in which I was seen this way – according to her.

I was able to go into therapy, but now doing Dispenza’s meditations, I find that I easily engaged in an ongoing healing on emotional, physical and spiritual levels. I didn’t have to process history, I just observed what I wanted to change, and how I wanted to be when I did. The forms of the changes were unexpected and quite wonderful. My life has expanded. So of course I started therapy groups using his meditation ands therapy. I am offering so much more to clients now.

Attachment theory has identified three basic kinds of attachment
Secure – this is the ideal where people remain together for life and have a supportive, well functioning relationship.
Anxious – the individuals are needy, anxious, clingy, and depend heavily on the partner.
Avoidant – Those with this kind of attachment style keep distance from the partner, and from others in his or her life. (more…)

Online Dating Advice and Tips

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ONLINE DATING, REALLY? YES. 

Millions of people are looking for love on dating sites. What makes it hard to find a person you would want to date on these sites? How can you narrow it down, omitting those who will be a waste of time?

First of all, just have a good time! View the whole thing as a place to be curious and see what happens. If you don’t have expectations of finding someone right away, you will have more freedom to be yourself, and be choosy. (more…)