Monday, January 18, 2010
What do you want?
So I am sitting with a group of girls on a get-away weekend and they want to know when I am going to get to the sexy stuff. Well...I am soooo comfortable with saying it. My experience is that there are some who are very uncomfortable hearing me say it. Thus my struggle is this...what do you want me to say? How comfortable are you with hearing me say it?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
What Do You Need?
You never know what you don't know until you need to know it. One of my children's favorite stories is about the day I realized I didn't know how to cook.
As a young bride I had exhausted all the recipes on the back of the Bisquick box in about a month. We were on a tight budget and I was trying to make every penny count. We'd been eating various versions of the ham my husband had gotten as a Christmas bonus along with some form of baked dough. Now I was to the end portion of the ham. Placing it in the wedding-gift crock pot, I seasoned it up (maybe I smothered it...) with all the fancy (and mysterious) herbs from the wedding-gift spice rack. Then I covered it with barbeque sauce. It was the first time I cooked something with no recipe. I waited in eager anticipation. Of course my new groom would be dazzled!
Here are his exact words, "What is there about ham, that ham always is?" Hu? A riddle? He repeated himself, "What is there about ham, that ham always is?" (This is where my children scream out the answer. "It's SALTY!!!") One taste of that herb crusted, 10-hours baked, smothered salt-lick and I burst out into tears. Then my true-love added in a quiet voice, "and I am not going to eat Bisquick again for the rest of my life."
We all have stories about the things we didn't know and the scarey, silly, crazy circumstances that revealed it to us. I find that people have missing information in four general categories. Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Physically would be the "how to" stuff; cook, type, change a tire. Mental is the intellectual stuff that we gain through school, training and philosophy. Spiritual would be the truths of God and scriptural instruction as they apply to our lives and troubles in the here and now.
Most everyone I speak with agrees with me that we all have deficits. And we are all responsible for them. We may choose not to find or fix the missing pieces. But they are still our responsibility. It gets a little trickier with emotional stuff. We don't know what we are missing until we begin to have struggles in life because of other people. We feel unloved, disrespected, unwanted or unheard.
What we don't realize is that this pain hurts in THIS particular place because of something within us. Something missing. When I ask people have they felt this emotional pain in other relationships besides the one with their spouse, reluctantly they admit, "Yes".
Their next, immediate question is, "How do I fix it?". The good news is, I have the answer. But before we go there, I'd like you to sit with this information for a while. Sit there on the park bench, or the therapist's couch with Unloved or Disrespected. We are going to help get rid of them, but I want you to make sure you know exactly what they are, and exactly why you want them gone. There is some work ahead and I want you to spend your energy on something that will actually work. So, what do you need?
As a young bride I had exhausted all the recipes on the back of the Bisquick box in about a month. We were on a tight budget and I was trying to make every penny count. We'd been eating various versions of the ham my husband had gotten as a Christmas bonus along with some form of baked dough. Now I was to the end portion of the ham. Placing it in the wedding-gift crock pot, I seasoned it up (maybe I smothered it...) with all the fancy (and mysterious) herbs from the wedding-gift spice rack. Then I covered it with barbeque sauce. It was the first time I cooked something with no recipe. I waited in eager anticipation. Of course my new groom would be dazzled!
Here are his exact words, "What is there about ham, that ham always is?" Hu? A riddle? He repeated himself, "What is there about ham, that ham always is?" (This is where my children scream out the answer. "It's SALTY!!!") One taste of that herb crusted, 10-hours baked, smothered salt-lick and I burst out into tears. Then my true-love added in a quiet voice, "and I am not going to eat Bisquick again for the rest of my life."
We all have stories about the things we didn't know and the scarey, silly, crazy circumstances that revealed it to us. I find that people have missing information in four general categories. Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. Physically would be the "how to" stuff; cook, type, change a tire. Mental is the intellectual stuff that we gain through school, training and philosophy. Spiritual would be the truths of God and scriptural instruction as they apply to our lives and troubles in the here and now.
Most everyone I speak with agrees with me that we all have deficits. And we are all responsible for them. We may choose not to find or fix the missing pieces. But they are still our responsibility. It gets a little trickier with emotional stuff. We don't know what we are missing until we begin to have struggles in life because of other people. We feel unloved, disrespected, unwanted or unheard.
What we don't realize is that this pain hurts in THIS particular place because of something within us. Something missing. When I ask people have they felt this emotional pain in other relationships besides the one with their spouse, reluctantly they admit, "Yes".
Their next, immediate question is, "How do I fix it?". The good news is, I have the answer. But before we go there, I'd like you to sit with this information for a while. Sit there on the park bench, or the therapist's couch with Unloved or Disrespected. We are going to help get rid of them, but I want you to make sure you know exactly what they are, and exactly why you want them gone. There is some work ahead and I want you to spend your energy on something that will actually work. So, what do you need?
Monday, January 4, 2010
Echad: A Unity of Multiple Parts
How many pieces of you are missing? What have you cut off from yourself in order to be accepted? What has been stolen from you through life-wounds. What has been broken in your heart?
Let's pretend you were destined to live in Eden. What does the perfect, unsullied, unbroken you look like? Can you describe your ideal heart? Spirit? Body? Mind? Eden-dwellers were complete in their multi-faceted personhood. It was only when they disconnected from the source of their original wholeness did parts of them begin to crumble.
Immediately you see emotional crumbling with Cain's anger, relational crumbling with the murder of Abel. Read on down the line through the stories of how the facets of humanity began to shatter and break away. Spiritually, physically, sexually.
Once humanity had Jesus back in their lives they were given the chance to begin to become whole again. The Echad - or unity of parts. Not simply being combined, but having harmonious agreement.
Before there can be satisfying relational connection, there has to be a wholeness beginning with the individuals. Otherwise your broken stuff mixes with their broken stuff creating a toxic stew. Most of the time that sludge shows up in the idea that "If they were different, I would feel better." Ah, here's a little clue. If you have thought that the other people in your life were your problem, you probably have something missing of which you are simply not aware.
Take an individual inventory. Imagine yourself as the ideal Eden you. How do you measure up physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally, sexually? What parts have you lost because they weren't connected to the source of life? Find it, graft it back into yourself, let the sap flow, and regenerate. Unify the multiple parts. If you're gonna have a great relationship, ya gotta have all your parts.
Let's pretend you were destined to live in Eden. What does the perfect, unsullied, unbroken you look like? Can you describe your ideal heart? Spirit? Body? Mind? Eden-dwellers were complete in their multi-faceted personhood. It was only when they disconnected from the source of their original wholeness did parts of them begin to crumble.
Immediately you see emotional crumbling with Cain's anger, relational crumbling with the murder of Abel. Read on down the line through the stories of how the facets of humanity began to shatter and break away. Spiritually, physically, sexually.
Once humanity had Jesus back in their lives they were given the chance to begin to become whole again. The Echad - or unity of parts. Not simply being combined, but having harmonious agreement.
Before there can be satisfying relational connection, there has to be a wholeness beginning with the individuals. Otherwise your broken stuff mixes with their broken stuff creating a toxic stew. Most of the time that sludge shows up in the idea that "If they were different, I would feel better." Ah, here's a little clue. If you have thought that the other people in your life were your problem, you probably have something missing of which you are simply not aware.
Take an individual inventory. Imagine yourself as the ideal Eden you. How do you measure up physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, relationally, sexually? What parts have you lost because they weren't connected to the source of life? Find it, graft it back into yourself, let the sap flow, and regenerate. Unify the multiple parts. If you're gonna have a great relationship, ya gotta have all your parts.
Wholeness
Long before you have any sexual experiences you are a sexual being. Of course, that is not all. You are also a physical being, a spiritual being, an emotional being, a relational being, a gender-specific being and a sexual being. There are also more facets to you than I've named; social being, loner being, perfectionist being, sports being. You get the idea.
The foundational issues I encounter most in working toward satisfying sexuality with my clients is that they COMPARTMENTALIZE their sexuality away from all other parts of of themselves. What if a person was able to be more complete and excel physically, emotionally, and relationally (along with all the rest)? What if an individual was able to incorporate their sexual self into their identity. They would be growing closer and closer to the original plan God had for them in the Garden of Eden. Complete and whole. The Hebrew word for wholeness is one that is known to us, Shalom. It means that nothing is missing from us, nothing is broken within us. It signifies a peace that comes from having it all, from being whole. Ah, delight! Sexual Peace.
The foundational issues I encounter most in working toward satisfying sexuality with my clients is that they COMPARTMENTALIZE their sexuality away from all other parts of of themselves. What if a person was able to be more complete and excel physically, emotionally, and relationally (along with all the rest)? What if an individual was able to incorporate their sexual self into their identity. They would be growing closer and closer to the original plan God had for them in the Garden of Eden. Complete and whole. The Hebrew word for wholeness is one that is known to us, Shalom. It means that nothing is missing from us, nothing is broken within us. It signifies a peace that comes from having it all, from being whole. Ah, delight! Sexual Peace.
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