Dr. E... » Religion

Your Body Is Not A Disneyland Part 8: The Morning After, or It’s Really Not You, but I’ve Gotta Go

admin — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 19:14:37 +0000

It has been a long road, but this will be the last post in my series about sex and how we treat our bodies, and just look where our fling has taken us. We started out in Part 1 with the sex talk, in Part 2 talked about love, Part 3 became lost in the throws of passion, Part 4 took a road trip with Vanessa in our guest post, had to stop and do our homework in Part 5, became distracted by the TV and media in Part 6, our real, feel, and ideal in Part 7, and now it is the morning after, and I have gotta go. I am feeling smothered.

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…

Your Body Is Not A Disneyland (Part 1)

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:57:53 +0000

You don’t have to look too far today in our society to see that sex has overtaken many aspects of our culture. It is on the television, on the covers of many magazines, in almost every corner of the internet, and our children seem to be immersed in innuendo and direct sexual content.

I would not call myself old-fashioned, nor would those who know me, but I feel that our culture’s attitudes and behaviors about sex are out of control, and we seem to be more and more desensitized the more we are exposed to this. I will say that I believe that human body is a work of art and should be appreciated. I am not in favor censorship. I am in favor of good taste and mutually respectful behavior that models and emulates a respect for ourselves, each other and our bodies.

Many of you may have heard the song Your Body Is A Wonderland by John Mayer, which I am sure has inspired many a couple to be moved to an amorous exchange, to put it lightly. However, in our culture I feel very concerned by the trends that we are seeing with our teens and young adults. What I feel that I have observed is that too many people, young and old, are treating their bodies like amusement parks, letting almost anyone take a ride who in interested. What I feel that we are losing is our self-respect, blurring our boudaries and don’t understand what love and intimacy truly is.

We are humans that seek pleasure, and many a medical scientist and/or fan of Sigmund Freud would state that seeking pleasure is part of our hard wiring. We can look back to our roots as animals and find neurochemical reasons why we would seek pleasure. I also look at us from an intelligent design view and can see why sex would be made to feel pleasurable.

In future installments of this series, I will discuss our concept of love, our blurred boundaries and societal issues, as well as a few other tidbits. I hope you will become a part of this discussion as I continue this series.

Respectfully,

Dr. E…

Love Versus Judgment: Which Way to Truth?

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:51:49 +0000

I had an interesting talk with a client once about judgment and the influence that it had on their life. It really got me thinking – and it doesn’t take much to get me thinking. The discussion we had headed toward the concepts of Love versus Judgment. Through this discussion I felt that we came to some powerful insights, for them and for me. Perhaps the most powerful insight was the conclusion that Love is the opposite of Judgment. Let me help explain how we came to this conclusion, and why it is important.
For many of us, we have been taught that the opposite of love is hate. The more that I have come to understand emotions, I would have to disagree with this long held belief. I see love and hate, back to back to each other at times, looking in different directions, and if love turned to hate to embrace it, hate would still need to look away. I see that we often feel hatred to protect us from the fear of not feeling lovable and/or from seeing our own flaws and inadequacies that are based in our judgments and others which often leave us feeling unloved. This is not opposite, Hate is just protective.
So just how is Love the opposite of Judgment: Let me count the ways…
• Love is an emotion. In its purest form, love is the most powerful emotion that exists. It is the light that shines through all darkness to every corner of our universe. Judgment, on the other hand is devoid of emotion. In its purest form, it is pure logic and is extremely powerful to refute. Judgment can, however, evoke emotions in others, because of the strength or lack of strength in the logic used to support any judgment. However, regardless of the emotions that one feels, judgment is still not an emotion.
• The power of love can draw even the most distant people together. Love traverses race, religion, age, gender, income, political affiliation – there is almost nothing that love cannot draw together. We can see the power of love in the most unlikely of marriages and friendships. Judgment, on the other hand, almost always serves the purpose to separate and categorize. It often contributes to creating hierarchies and divisions in families, neighborhoods, politics, nations and religions. Judgment often justifies war and genocide. Even when it does serve to draw some people together, it still serves to separate others.
• Love often lacks objectivity and in its truest form is unconditional. It neither evaluates nor questions — it just is. The very nature of Judgment is conditional. It requires questions and answers, and while one would hope it is based in truth, it often is not.
• Love often hits us like a ton of bricks. There is not much that is subtle about it. Like a teen crush or a running, jumping hug from your child, love can knock you off your feet. There are times that love can sneak up on us, but not very often. Judgment is often very subtle, and many of us do not realize when we have formed judgments, whether those judgments are fair or not. Judgment is tied to our opinions and world views, and while sometimes we hold onto some judgments as truth, they are often based in opinion, conjecture, rationalization and justification. The subtleness of these influences often lead to arrogance and tease us into defining a false truth. Propaganda often uses pieces of truth combined with subtle misinformation to feed false judgments.
• Love does not consist of stratifications. Judgment often depends on stratification. The person judging is often seen as or wants to be seen as having a higher status than the person being judged. The need to be seen as or consider oneself as above or below others feeds this stratification and further judgment.
We live in a world that requires both love and judgment, to some degree, but in my impression, too many corners of our world have settled on judgment as the way to truth, however, when if we really feel deep down inside, Love feels so much more true. Of all the times that I have heard that “Love is blind,” I have seen that many more times when “Judgment is blind” and feeds hate, ignorance, prejudice… Even in the eyes of absolute truth, hate can close its eyes and rely on previous judgments to maintain its view.
The irony is that billions of us have chosen a religion and/or spiritual path to follow for supreme guidance. We look to our “supreme being” who we have determined to be the cornerstone of our beliefs to help us define our direction, assist with our moral compass and serve as a model of our life aspirations. The various prophets of religions throughout history consistently taught us to love one another and not to judge. Unfortunately, our religions are often based in judgment and the ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, strong and weak. I ask you, is this the definition of love that any of our conceptions of God would wish for us to engage in? Some may think yes. With this in mind, even our own definitions of our creator are based in judgment, not love.
Just like we have light and dark, hot and cold, night and day, we need opposing constructs. Quantum Physics supports that the universe would not exist without them at a physical level. Opposites do not have to be bad or wrong. I believe that we are here to find our own truths in balance with others’. These truths may be ever evolving, and don’t have to be based in judgment, but instead, many points of observation. As for the discussion of judgment versus observation, I will save that discussion for another day.
After all, “To err (in judgment) is human…To love, divine. While the act of judging may be a human predisposition, I would ask that we challenge ourselves to aspire to a higher standard. We may not be perfect, but we can aspire to perfection. Rather than judge, choose to observe, grow, evolve and love…