Have you noticed the moving target? Over the past decades, Corporate America has put their crosshairs on younger and younger kids. Advertising dollars are looking to gain lifetime consumers and brand loyalty, soon, out of the crib, by marketing everything from make-up to clothing to electronics and the latest move by Skechers to focus their Shape-Ups shoes for girls. Perhaps companies feel that if Joe Camel got in on the game, “shouldn’t we get our piece? It should be okay for us, shouldn’t it? After all we are not selling cigarettes?”

Advertising Gone Wild

I think we have to be careful to jump to too many conclusions that many ad campaigns gone awry are exploitative from the start. There are many good intentioned people who work for Corporate America who want to make this world a better place for our kids. They often believe that what they are selling would be great for kids, and while some have valid points and misguided intentions, others have gotten lost on the way to their year-end bonuses. “Lets help our girls look fitter, slimmer, feel good about the way they look… because looking good in our culture is the most important thing. Right? It is for the Kardashians, isn’t it?” Their intentions do not always add up to a good outcome, and sometimes it is downright exploitative, intended or not.

This blog is not just about Skechers. It is about a consumer-based culture that has been changing in a dangerous direction. This trend toward marketing more adult products to kids is in full swing and shows no signs of slowing down. “In a down market, expand your customer base. Isn’t that good economics? Kids will be our consumers one day so why not start them out now?”

Stimulus Overload

As I have discussed before, our kids and we are inundated with thousands of images everyday selling everything but our collective soul, and even that may be up for sale soon. Our boundaries are getting blurrier and blurrier as to what is healthy for our kids, and ourselves, and we can barely see our moral compass before our eyes. This is not about a conservative movement to control what our kids see and do, and it is not a liberal agenda to destroy a corporate culture. It is a concerted effort to point out that we are taking our kids’ childhood away with our own blind ambition. In this situation with Skechers, I can see that they may not have intended to create such a negative buzz, but just like the Elmo/Katy Perry debacle, those in the position to make decisions were numb to the deeper issues and the result reflected their own dysfunction and/ours.

The Balancing Act

Our kids require limits and balance and so do we. They deserve a childhood that brings them the joy of time spent together – one that offers freedom from addictions to toys, phones, televisions and computers. They deserve our time, patience and love, not our credit cards and wallets.

We are their eyes when they are learning to see. We are their ears when they seeking sound, and we are their voice, when they cannot speak. It is up to us to realize that we may have lost our way, and may be guiding them down that path that got us into debt further than any generation before us. That debt is not just financial, it’s emotional, it’s relational, it’s recreational, it’s sleep-deprived, it’s over-scheduled, and it’s farther and farther away from peace than it is war.

The Rear View Mirror

We often complain that being left behind is becoming a reality. Why is that? What changed in the last fifty years? The consumer culture is part of the problem, not the solution. We are looking more at what we can buy, than what we can learn. Furthermore, when companies are confronted about their ads, they claim ignorance. When parents are confronted with their kids’ behaviors and preferences they blame the culture.

We have become a society that blames others instead of taking responsibility for our actions. The less responsibility we take for our actions, the less we can learn. Integrity has to begin at the foundation and continue all the way up to the top floor. Where is ours today? Where is yours?

Parenting 101

People want an answer for how to stop corporate greed and marketing to kids. Don’t buy their products and have the self-discipline to turn the channel or the page. Here are a few more tips to good parenting. Take the time to talk with your kids about what they are exposed to – ask questions, don’t lecture. Give them limits on what they watch and compute and listen to, and how much they watch, compute and listen. Pay attention to what you spend your money on and theirs; don’t look to pacify them. Give your kids hugs and kisses, not Hershey’s Kisses and a happy meal. Take them outside and play with them, don’t just send them outside. Put your phone down, get off of your couch, turn off your I-pod, and be an example. Play games with your kids. Read to them. Don’t expect the school to teach them. Don’t complain about why our world is the way it is and why our kids are behaving as they are; do something about it. Be part of the action that will help your children and you get healthy, emotionally, relationally , recreationally, academically, socially, spiritually… Even Joe Camel wearing his Skechers won’t be able to touch that.

Respectfully,

Dr. E…

www.DrEPresents.com

Nursery Rhymes can be great teachers, and not just for kids. Many are not aware that the origins of many nursery rhymes were based in the monarchies when people did not have free speech and would create parodies of political situations hidden in the subtext. The great fact about many stories and parables is that they can be timeless, and so many of them are still apropos. So what can Humpty Dumpty teach us today?

Humpty Dumpty Sat On A Wall

How often do kids get in trouble for fibbing, manipulation of the truth or outright lies, and how serious are the consequences that we impose on them – grounding or time-outs, mouth washed out with soap, spanking or even physical beatings that cross the lines of abuse? How often to we ask ourselves why they are doing it or where they learned it? I think that for many of us, we have to look no farther than ourselves and then to society to find the answers to our questions.

The most basic motivation for a lie is to create an alternative truth or “shell” around ourselves that misdirects from our actual truth. We tell lies for some of the following reasons: to avoid pain, appear as greater than we are, create or feed fear, avoid our own fears and inadequacies, undermine or usurp others, create doubt, avoid responsibility… As you can see, many of these reasons overlap and are based in a lack of integrity.

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

I often tell people who come to see me that you can’t grow up in France and not learn to speak some French. More times than not, kids are a mirror to the adults around them, within their family and their culture. They are like passive sponges and their actions are often just reflecting back what they see. I think we also have to consider that the act of lying is an aspect of the human condition, and while this may be the case, it does not mean that we cannot aspire to a higher standard and level of behavior, especially as adults. What this translates into is the idea that we create an ideal self that we want to believe in and want others to believe in. The lie hides our real and our feel and the more disparity between the real, feel, and ideal, the farther there is to fall.

Issues of lying, manipulation and lack of integrity in our culture are reflecting on us from all angles. In our families, our political culture, religious culture, sports culture, corporate culture, the media… The problem is that many people believe that this is just the way it is. We believe that this is acceptable behavior, and many people strive to see how well they can play the game, whether it is lying about doing homework, responsibility for manipulating political facts, abuse of steroids, cooking financial books… We all may have our justifications for why we lie and manipulate the truth, but what we all need to see is that the reasons are self-motivated first.

All The King’s Horses and All The King’s Men

We often don’t like to look at the darker side of ourselves, and our denial can lead to our undoing and pain and even death to others around us. The consequence of this undoing often leads to more lies and manipulation to further cover our tracks. The question is, when will it stop? When do we say enough, not just in society, but within ourselves?

We can look to the rest of the world around us and blame them for our actions and manipulations, or we can look to ourselves and take accountability.

Couldn’t Put Humpty Together Again

Other people cannot put our lives in order and resolve our inability to look at our truth, however we are also ultimately responsible for the manipulations and falsehoods that we present to others. The stories, lies and manipulations that we put out there do not solve problems, they create more, and as we have seen so many times around us, the results can be tragic. Don’t the children of our generation and future generations deserve the truth? Do you have the courage to live in your truth?

Stay Tuned…

Dr. E…

www.DrEPresents.com

In all seriousness, where has this journey taken us? Well, for as long as time has been ticking we have been and will continue to be beings that are anthropologically, genetically, physically, emotionally and spiritually driven to engage in sexual relationships with others. That has not been the issue of this series. I am all for people having sex. The issue is how we go about pursuing sex and how, in many ways, we have become slaves to our cultural beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and language of sex. IMHO, sex is one of the most sacred experiences in which we can engage with another person, and it is important that we see it that way for ourselves and others to preserve our self-respect and others’. Probably the most important subtext to this series has been the effect of our attitudes and the influence of various cultural issues on our kids. Honestly looking at all of these factors when it comes to ourselves, it is the influence of our issues on our kids is often the hard part.

Lost and Found Along the Way

It has not been my goal to come across as judgmental, nor holier than thou. I am not taking a religious nor political point of view; I am more focused on the health of our collective spirit. Sometimes in life, we become distracted by that which looks and feels inviting. This is not always in our best interest.

Life offers many distractions and temptations and so many things become a part of these distractions: work, play, relationships, television, internet, the media, drinking, drugs, social life, how we look, who likes and loves us… Many of these things I have touched on, and one of the common denominators of all these issues is often sex. It is ultimately up to us to take responsibility for what we focus on. It is my sincerest hope that you have grown through this exploration. These are some of the issues that I would like you to consider when considering your choice, not just in sex, but in life:

• Are we making the choice that brings us instant gratification, or making choices that look at our long-term best interest?
• Are our actions dishonoring our self and our soul, or are we loving, respecting and honoring ourselves?
• Are we looking for a quick fix, or are we truly looking for intimacy?
• Are our behaviors and attitudes carelessly affecting our children, or are we careful about what they see and hear?
• Are we indifferent to our children’s awareness and attitudes about sex/life, or if we are invested in what they are learning and doing?

I hope these become guidelines for you to use in your everyday life to help direct your choices for you and those you guide. Never forget the power that you have in what you create. No matter what you do create, do it from a place of love, and let that become its foundation. After all, amusement parks can be enjoyable when we ride them safely. When I’m done with this blog, I am going to Disney World.

The Pledge

I hope you will take the following pledge and will allow this to become a part of your everyday living.

I pledge to learn more about love, what it truly is and truly isn’t. I agree that sex is not love, but instead can come from a place of love. I agree to honor, my body, mind and soul and commit to the intention of acknowledging my mistakes in the context of sex and love and to learn and grow from them. I understand that to err is human and forgive myself and others is Divine.

I understand that sex is not a shameful or guilty act, and also acknowledge that sex, intimacy, trust and love belong hand-in-hand-in-hand-in-hand, and one without the others may not honor the creator’s intended design. I understand that it is my place to find my power and ability to love myself from within and will honor others as I honor myself.

Sex is not intended to be a vehicle of power, status or control, but a vehicle of love and connectedness that is the culmination of a respectful and healthy relationship based in Agape, Eros and Philos. I owe this commitment to myself, those I love, and those I will love.

Respectfully,

Dr. E…

What a truly inspiring week for the sum of humanity who witnessed the miraculous rescue of the Chilean miners. Whether one was involved personally or was riveted to the television, this event went a long way to redefining how we can all witness a news event as a positive outcome and challenge us to seek a more peaceful world. And my being an On-Air consultant to CNN Networks during their climb to earth was a once in a lifetime gift. Perhaps the most synchronous part was that the miners were reached on John Lennon’s birthday – “Imagine” that. As a psychologist, I am often looking at metaphors that life evokes, and the circumstance of these miners, rescued after being trapped below the earth, provides such an apropos metaphor for the world to learn from.

So many times in the history of mankind, we, as a collective, have created the circumstances that contributed to our traumas, and those who were supposed to protect us either caused the trauma or did not do what could have been done to prevent it. As a result, we feel betrayed, neglected, unloved, and our trust is shattered like a stone through a window pane. Through our experiences in this world, we are taught to hide our traumas and pains deep inside ourselves.

So many of us have so many wounds and pains that we feel helpless to know what to do with, and we believe that the deeper we bury them, the better off we should be. Sooner or later there comes a time in our life when something so egregious happens that we can’t just turn our backs to it. We have to act, there is too much to lose if we don’t, but we often don’t have the resources to find our lost selves and heal them. We require the help of others. But how helpless it can feel when we are trapped by our own negligence and denial.

So we work to dig and drill down to the depths of our soul traversing the various strata of our defenses, addictions, attitudes and beliefs of indifference, anger and mistrust, the efforts slowed by almost impenetrable doubt and fear, and still we press on, learning that failure is the process of learning on the journey. Quitting, not an option, we continue, refining our technique with proper guidance, until we reach them.

Still alive, we give them enough to sustain them until we can bring them to the surface, one by one, and the efforts begin again.

Trapped for so long in indescribable conditions, banished to the recesses of our unconscious, we understand that to feel our wholeness and resolve our shame we must bring them back into the light. As we widen the reach of our efforts, we are able to free our pain from our self-imposed tombs, and we bring our traumas to our light, and as each is exposed, worn, sickly, and wary of the light, they require time to regain their strength. Share they must their traumas and pains, no more to be buried and forgotten. Learn, we will from them They ultimately grow in strength from the light. Stronger they are to stand with us, changed forever, by facing our truth we realize that our shame was not suffered through the trauma, but was the result of our own disrespect of our self and our soul.

Through this we learn, as failure will teach, that the love and respect of ourselves and others leads us to understand that there is no price that can be put on our soul, nor one else’s.

But when the miner’s were rescued, their president spoke to the world of the “33” being strong and better for their experience, denying their own negligence and accountability. And the miners’ pain and their potential pain to come, should they bury their experience behind their shield of strength, indifference, and financial reward to come, as so many have before them, would only be borne by them as others would have moved on long ago. Shall this all be forgotten when we turn the channel?  I hope not.

I dedicate this not only to the indeterminable strength of the “33” miners, but to the indeterminable strength of the human spirit that lives in all of us.

Bless you all in your journey to healing, and God bless us all in our journey to truth.

Dr. E…

Get Slinky

I would like to provide you with a few examples that I have seen in the past two days. My daughter is four years old, and she likes to get on the computer and play on some of the dress-up sites. These sites are geared toward kids who can use the mouse and drag and drop clothing, shoes, jewelry… In other words some are very young kids who are learning to use the computer and may not have proper parent supervision. There are hundreds of these sites on the internet and many of them come with ads attached. The range of characters are from cartoon characters, to fairies, to young girls, teens and adults and actors and actresses. I am very conscious of how many of these characters are portrayed, and while there are many that I don’t allow my daughter to play on, still there are many more that have “Zwinky” ads on there that have many cartoon type girls with cleavage. These ads run on the side of many of these dress-up sites, and I talk to my daughter about these sites and that I don’t want her to feel that she has to look or dress a certain way to get attention.

The second example is related to Eureka a show that I was watching on the SyFy channel. This show is more of a technology-fantasy type show, and in one of the scenes, a woman is proposed to by a man, and in the process of her opening up the ring, she is wearing a tight-fitting tank top. The camera puts the center of the shot on her breasts with the ring to the side. The camera then has to pan up and to the right to focus on her face. What caught my attention to this shot was that the camera had to move so abruptly to the right to refocus on her face that I rewound to see the layout of the shot to really notice how quickly and subtly this was done.

Finally, the most obvious selling of innuendo was on America’s Most Talented. There is a female artist named Maricar, who in one of the shows did her act in a devil’s costume, purposely accentuating her bountiful cleavage. As if her artistry act wasn’t enough, they continued to fit her in to many of the segue shots after that with other contestants and then next to the host at the end of the show.

Dwayne the Bathtub, We’re Dwowning…

These were only three short examples, and I did not cover magazines, news shows, prime time television, kids shows and cartoons, commercials, billboard, advertising, suggestive wording and phrasing, adult-focused internet content (not pornography)… and the list goes on. As we know, sex sells, and often what it is selling has so little to do what the product.

We are inundated in sexual content, and we don’t even realize it. Now please understand, I realize that we are sexual beings, but how early and how much of our lives need to be inundated in sexually suggestive content. Remember, I believe the human body is a work of art, and is something to be appreciated, however, I do feel that there is a difference between appreciating the human body and selling sexual content. We may have become numb to it, but do our kids need to become numb to it also, and at what cost to them? If these patterns in our society are going to change, we have to choose to stop buying.

Up next… Part 7, The Dying Breed

Respectfully,
Dr. E…

I just finished the open audition for Your OWN Show and found it to be a very interesting experience. Mark Burnett (reality show guru) and Oprah Winfrey developed a reality show to have a competition for a talk show that a “Winner” of the competition would host on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).

I am not much of a purveyor of many reality shows (I do like my American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance), and never saw myself involved in one, but the opportunity to “win” a talk show on the Oprah Winfrey Network seemed to be too big an opportunity to pass up, especially when I have been working on developing my own show for the past year. Apparently that is what about 10,000 or so other people thought too.

I didn’t want to do this audition at first, because I am a more conventional person when it comes to business and have been pitching my show through the more established channels. However, when three separate people told me I should do it and then my Intellectual Properties Attorney said, “You are crazy if you don’t try this.”, I thought I better give it a whirl.

Today, I am never amazed by the number of people who get involved in reality-based shows. So many of us want to be stars, and we often see these opportunities that will bring fame and fortune to be the answers to all of our troubles. Often they are just the beginning of others.

What I loved about the idea of this show was to see so many people who had some really good ideas, and those with dreams who were willing to put themselves out there. Thousands invested in their dream and saw themselves in their OWN studio on the air, daring to dream big. It seemed that others just wanted to be part of the experience so they could have the memory.

As someone who has worked for years on being in the media to share a message I strongly believe is worth sharing, I have to be honest and say that it felt difficult to see all of those people out there wanting something that I have worked for for so long, who likely have not worked as hard as I have. But I also acknowledge that it is my own ego that had me feeling that I was more deserving than many of my compatriots out there for such an opportunity.

The process began with an application. I spent hours on this and tried to put as much of myself into this as I could. I worked off and on for a week on the application. I found it to be a great exercise to reflect on my life, my goals, and to really help me focus on what I want. The next step was the “big day”, the open call audition at a Kohl’s store in Atlanta (sounds a little cheesy don’t you think).

So, I decided that I wanted to be fresh for the day and got a hotel ten minutes away from the Kohl’s store so that I would be able to maximize sleep and not have to worry about the drive. I had my wife and daughter come along so we could spend the evening together, and they would be part of the memory. I went to bed at 11pm. Little did I know that my brain would wake me up at 2 am, more than two hours before I intended to wake up. So my plan for 5-6 hours of sleep turned into 2 hours of sleep. I got out of bed at 4:15 to get ready and then arrived at 5:15, only to find that there were hundreds of people in line waiting already.

While waiting in line, I struck up some conversations with others to hear their stories—everybody has a story. By 5:45 the line was moving and by 6:45, I was given number 874, and per my number, was supposed to be back between 11 and 12. When I looked behind me, there were still another 400 people in line.  In seeing all of those people in line, I had that internal fear that all of these people are going to take my opportunity away from me (after all, the was MY OWN show). The Reality – it wasn’t my opportunity to be taken.

So I returned for my first round. According to the producer, the 20 others in my group and I each had :30 to 1:30 to pitch our show. I was the only man in my group… hmmm great odds. I heard some great ideas and some that seemed like someone just wanted to be on TV. It came to my time, and I felt that I nailed the pitch. It was as I practiced it: I presented my qualifications as an expert, defined the pain to be healed, presented the solution, remained concise, incorporated humor, and ended with my sound bite, all in less than :90. I saw heads nodding, got the applause, and the producer commented on how well I ended the pitch. I felt that they would have to be crazy not to select me for the next round (100 were people selected for the next round of interviews from the 1200 or so that showed up).

So I celebrated my success and waited for the call. It wasn’t if they were going call me, it was when… I also realized that there were many factors that they may be considering for entertainment purposes for the reality show that were beyond my control. I went home and waited for the call. My wife, daughter and I had a relaxing evening, and I waited…   and waited…        and waited. I quietly thought, “Are they calling the best first or last?      How could they pass me up?      I am perfect for hosting my OWN show… Oprah is going to love me…  Why are they not calling me?     This competition is rigged…”

I was feeling the resonance of all of my past rejections in my life, and while I wanted to feel cool and calm about it, there was a part of me that felt that I will never get where I want to be—to change this world. “How could they do this to me?” There was also the balanced side of me that realized that there are likely many others just as qualified as me, if not more. I had to also remind myself that this was not my first choice to do this reality show, and I really was not enthused with the idea of being on it in the first place, so why did I feel so upset. I felt like it was a blind date, and my not so attractive date left me with the dinner check.

I packed it in at about 11pm and went to bed. It felt like Christmas came and went, and Santa Claus didn’t show. So I woke up the next day with my Hang“OWN”ver, realizing that one more opportunity to reach my goals of changing this world came and went. One more opportunity to have my hopes, dreams, goals and expectations fulfilled fell to the ground like a Ming vase off of a museum shelf. The feeling felt so familiar to all of the other times in my life when I experienced losses and perceived betrayals. When things like this happen, I have learned to stop and look inside of myself to find these times and places where my emotions emanate from and honor the emotions and memories that came with them. I knew it would take some time to adjust to the “loss”, and continued to remind myself that this opportunity to get my show off the ground wasn’t the way I wanted to do it. So why did I feel the loss that I did?

Well, what I realized was that my Hang”OWN”ver wasn’t that I truly felt badly about feeling rejected by the show. The experience dredged up the emotional resonance of past rejections that I suppressed and did not want to feel. With that realization and my acceptance of my journey, I had rebounded by Sunday night, and I resolved myself to continue to work toward my goals that I had set. The gift of this experience was that it helped me to renew my commitment to myself, my wife and my daughter, appreciate my practice with my clients who have taught me so much, and reinforce my goal to continue to work toward my show. It is me who chooses how long I stay down and when I choose to get up.

If there is one thing that I have had to learn is that life is what happens when you are making plans. I will refer you a blog I wrote last year, Reach for the Stars and Land on Uranus. I look forward to what the Universe has in store for me. And to all of you who made it to the next rounds in the Oprah Winfrey Network’s Your OWN Show, I wish you all the best. To all of you who put yourself into the process and didn’t make it, I wish you all abundance, and hope your Hang”OWN”ver doesn’t last too long. As Casey Kasem says, “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.”

BTW, Oprah, call me…

Respectfully,

Dr. E…

Did you ever take a moment to think about how you learned to speak a language? Did you just wake up one day and start talking? No. Over time you were exposed to the language. You initially had no idea what people were saying, but as you grew older, you understood more and more and tried to speak. Your brain continued to develop and you understood more and more and learned to speak better and better.

The next issue is where in the country you grew up. Different places in any region have different slang terms, accents, vernaculars, and depending on where you grew up, you believe that you have no accent and the terms you grew up using are “normal” to you. So, have you had any “bangers and mash” lately? Ask a Brit what that is, if you don’t know.

So, why am I talking about language, when I was talking about sex? Well, we acquire our knowledge and beliefs just like we acquire language. Now, here is what I would like you to do. Take a look around your house and your neighborhood. That includes what’s on your TV shows and commercials for ALL ages, computer emails, websites ads and pop-ups (especially your kids), magazines and newspapers, clothing styles, including words, name brands, phrases on clothing… Also do this for your kids. When you are looking at these items, I want you see if there is anything in the content that is sexual. This does not mean that they showing skin (for example, a show about a medical issue versus a commercial showing a bikini), but is there direct or indirect reference that could be seen as a sexual nature.

Do this for a week, and if you really want to be scientific about this, write down the number of things that you begin to notice and keep a tally. What you might expect is that you may first not notice as much, then may become more aware and notice more and more. I expect that what you notice will be biased by the “language” that you grew up with. Just as with language, sometimes we don’t realize our slang is “slang” until we listen to ourselves and others. Be aware of how much you were accepting of and were just accustomed to the content.

I don’t want to taint your assignment very much, so I won’t say much more. Good luck with your assignment.

Until next time…

Dr. E…

How Do I Love Thee???

Let’s first look at our concept of love. We have one word that describes so many different emotional states, and this lack of attention to detail to this very important concept is a major problem in our culture, IMHO. There is a popular urban legend that says that Eskimos have more than one-hundred words for snow, and while the figure has been grossly exaggerated, the idea is that concepts that are important to a culture will have much more specificity than those that aren’t as important.

So, just how do we “love” things, let me count the ways… You can love your mom, your dad, your kids, your sister, your brother, your friend, your uncle, your aunt, your cousin, your teacher, your boss, your student, your country, your team, your school… You can also love a sunny day, an ice cream cone, the beach, skiing, baseball, football, as well as your pets. Some even say that they love sex.

The question is, even with this short list of things we may say that we love, do we love them the same way? I think not. Yet we use the same word to describe so many states of emotion. Do we have some words that describe different states of love? Yes, but our use of the word love is somewhat careless and leads to a lot of confusion that I firmly believe affects our relationships and attitudes toward intimacy and sex.

It has been said that Sanskrit had 96 words for love and ancient Persian had 80. Greek has three: Agape, Philos, and Eros. I will explain those, because it takes a takes a lot less time to convey the point, and we all know that blog are supposed to be brief . Agape is considered to be a more spiritual love. It is described in the Bible as to how God loves man, and I would describe it as our admiration and connection to people on their journey in life. Philos or philia is a brotherly type of love and overlaps into how parents love their children, how siblings love each other, friends love each other, and even how some people may love their pets. As you can see only three words is already getting a bit sticky. The third type of love is eros, which describes a romantic type of love. It involves the attraction between two people that is sexual and ranges from physical attraction to blind infatuation.

Well, what happens when we only have one word to describe so many states? It leads to emotional confusion and a great deal of discomfort. Let’s say that a girl loves a boy in a philos way, but the boy feels eros? They both love each other, but the boy is feel that he wants to take the relationship to the next level, while the girl is enjoying the closeness with the boy. She may then feel pressured by him to take the relationship where he wants to go or fear losing him and the love she feels from him. They both “love” each other don’t they? But does it mean the same thing, and are either of them ready for sex?

Age Is A Relative Term

What I try to teach people, as young as twelve years old through adulthood, is that in order for any intimate long-term relationship to survive, both people have to feel all three components as the relationship develops and grows. Too many times, people in our culture believe that feeling that eros attraction, which is often as strong as a mind-altering high, is enough to take a relationship to the next level. Eros will always wear off, because that is, in part, a neurophysiological experience (I will explain more about that later). The problem is that when the eros wears off, what are the two people left with? Too many times they are left with nothing, and the relationship dies. What happens when either person wakes up and one finds themselves pregnant or they find themselves married?

Developing a deep friendship (philos) and admiring the person (agape) that you are in a relationship are crucial to a successful relationship. It is easy to open ourselves up to our more primal urges and let emotion take over only to find ourselves in the walk of shame the next morning, but I feel that we were born with the ability to reason beyond our more primal self and learn to respect ourselves and those we relate to. We owe that to ourselves.

In my next installment, we will discuss “The Ultimate High…”

Respectfully,

Dr. E…

Whether or not it is the media, our desire for fame and sensationalism, or our tendency to hold people we admire up to unrealistic standards, I see the issues of our fallen idols as much of an issue of our society as I do of the individual who has transgressed.
We live in a culture of extremes: good/bad, right/wrong, strong/weak, win/lose. This all-or-nothing world view has its consequences, because there isn’t much in between the extremes.

We are programmed from very early on to be as good, strong, and right as possible so we can be seen as winners. We also learn to hide the bad, wrong and weak, because we believe that “losers” aren’t worthy of love. But how do we view those who we feel are better than us? Well, either we idolize them or try to destroy them. There usually aren’t in betweens. What options does this leave the person held up to idol status? Do they want to expose their humanness or hide it? Furthermore, when a person has been put in idol status, the human tendency is to believe it.

The Imposter Syndrome

Imposters are all around us, and you would never know it, because they don’t want to be seen in that light. An imposter is someone who has risen to a level of power or status that is higher than they feel they have earned or deserved. I am sure we have all heard the phrase, “Fake it ‘til you make it”. This is a great demonstration of this concept. Almost all imposters feel terrified to be found out, and they feel like they are constantly living a lie. The result can be an incredible amount of stress, and almost a desire to be “found out”. Then the gig is up and the pressure to be perfect is up, but then who will love them?

When do we ever allow our idols to be human, and even if they display humanness, do we explain it away, excuse it, blame others, or kick them to the curb? Did Tiger and all of our other idols ask to be put at that status, or did we put them there? Did he want to excel at golf? Yes, this is what he was programmed to do and what he ultimately chose. He excels at golf. When, in all that time he was on the course, did he learn to do relationships? Should he have learned integrity, values, and morals??? Absolutely. So, why was it that he defied his better judgment??? That answer we may never know, but that is more for our “idols” to figure out. Do you think he felt terrified to be found out? Only he knows.

Imposters have existed for centuries. So why now are so many idols falling? I believe the reason is because we demand more and the media and all of us almost feel that we own our idols and should have the right to know everything about them. The secrets that were kept in the past are no longer kept, and more often then not are sold to the highest bidder. In many ways the ways we go about this lacks integrity, but for our idols, we are demanding integrity. Isn’t this a double standard?

We also have to keep in mind that there are “two sides to every story”, and many times we aren’t even looking for the truth, or either person’s side. We would rather stand in judgment and form our own opinions and make them our truth.

Arrogance, The End of All Empires

If we look at history closely, we will see that the end of almost all empires was arrogance. When we tell people how great they are or treat them as if they are better than us, they can’t help but believe it. The same is true if you tell someone that they are a screw up. This is because in our culture, we have learned to get our power from other people. It starts with our parents and continues from there. We look for approval, love, acceptance, praise, rejection, punishment… We are not taught to believe in ourselves.

What we need to understand is that arrogance is a protective emotion. It is a false sense of “pride” that is often associated with a skill set that we have. What people who use arrogance do is often try to extend their skill set beyond their area of success. For a hypothetical example, Tiger, who is gifted in golf, extends his arrogance to other areas of his life, for example relationships, where may not have the same skill and mastery. He finds that he is lacking in this area of his life, but does not want to admit to this or others. He possibly feels that he is failing in some way and may be avoiding the problem by looking for others to support his ego, thus he engages in relationships with a number of others to disguise insecure aspects of his life. He may believe that the more conquests he has, the better he must be. Isn’t that how life works — at least in the golfing world. The problem is the denial in the weakness and other flaws because our “idol”, and those that idolize them, don’t want to see their humanness.

When we believe that we are better than others, we often develop a sense of entitlement and feel that we are above the rules, laws, morals and values of the culture around us. We believe that we can let the rules slide because we don’t want to believe that they should apply to us. When we idolize someone, we also believe the same things and feel that the rules shouldn’t apply to our idol, so we let things slide.

Seek and Destroy

Over the centuries, there have been so many times that the stars have fallen from the skies, whether they were in politics, music, theater, sports, movies or television. We have to recognize how we put these people in these roles in our lives, and how we all gave them power. Are they responsible for their actions? Absolutely. Are we responsible for ours? Is it difficult to live under the pressure and the microscope, and could that contribute to their problems? Yes. They still have their journey to walk in their life, and so do we.

Some people spend their whole life trying to live under that microscope, because they want to be fed by their worshippers. These individuals are in every corner of our society and it is up to them to understand their need to love this way. By feeding their ego, it only delays their growth.

How many people have to be harmed by our idolatry, curiosity and judgment? In the wake of this Tiger Woods nightmare, people are coming out of the woodwork, no pun intended, to trash an image and the man. It is as if we were all waiting for this to happen and/or feeling betrayed now that it did. We were waiting for the chink in the armor and then have sought to destroy something/someone that many of us created. The way we handle our fallen idols in the press and in ourselves is more an issue of society than anything else.

It is crucial to the growth and evolution of our society that we learn to find our power and belief in ourselves. It is also crucial for our “idols” and ourselves to remember that they are human and so are we. We all have our journeys in life, and we will all have our challenges. Let our fallen idols see the wisdom in healing their wounds. As you judge them, you judge yourself.

Can this exposure of our idols human imperfections be a good thing? Absolutely. As we expect them to live in integrity in all aspects of their lives, we should ask the same thing of ourselves.

Respectfully,

Dr. E…