Man Are from Mars…..

I know my husband since Oct. of 1982. I’ve been in an intimate relationship with him for 28 years and married to him for 26 and sometimes I haven’t the foggiest idea who he is. He’s like a beautiful being from another planet that has come into my life to give me more than I could ever have imagined. He loves me amazingly. He believes in me and my abilities – often some steps ahead of how much I can believe in myself. He is so known to me and yet – sometimes I’m almost breathless with the knowledge that how this happened – how we finally found each other is like some kind of play Directed by Someone beyond thought.

Now how does that sound coming from am a total proponent in the belief that we create our own lives? But I can’t quite wrap myself around having created so amazingly while being unaware that I was doing it. How did it happen? Am I really this powerful? Is he?Does anyone else feel this way? Do I feel this way because the contrast with my former life and relationship is so great?

The View from Mars

by Maia’s Martian

Yesterday evening Maia and I were talking  and she brought up the topic about how having sex too soon (whatever that means) in a new relationship sometimes seems to confuse things for women and not always in a good way.

Because I am wired and socialized as a Martian my first impulse was to think “the more sex the better and the sooner the better, what’s wrong with that?”

As I thought about my own experience however, I realized that there is more to it than that and so here is  the view from an older Martian after 25 years in a successful relationship:

The word intimacy usually is a more polite way to say “sex”.  Here is a more inclusive meaning of intimacy – INTO-ME-SEE -  which maybe means “through sex we are able to know each other.”

And that is the gift of an intimate long term committed relationship. You develop  a mirror to each other’s Soul. In simple terms you get to see the Real You and the Real Her reflected  through each other’s eyes on a daily basis. How incredible is that? Maybe women already know this but I know from being a man for almost 75 years that most men don’t know that is even possible.

Think of sex as a door that opens into a room where you will find this gift of discovering each other’s Soul.

The difficulty is that Martian DNA  is only about opening as many doors as possible. However, if doors are too easy for a man to open then they will never venture into the room and discover the gift.

Opening the door is easy, finding who you and she is (the Real You) takes a long term committed relationship.

So, in answer to the question of how soon to have sex in a new relationship, it is and always was totally up to the individuals involved and hopefully after reading this you are able to make a decision that comes from a higher consciousness.

Happy Marriages Have Issues, too

I really love my husband. I respect him. I am proud of him. I am proud to be in a relationship with him. So where does the evil little bitch that I can be come from? Is it from my past? Is it hormones? Is it morning blues? YUK!!!!

Here’s what happened this morning. I got up earlier than usual which for some reason brought me to my computer. That’s always a mistake first thing in the morning. I get pulled into work so now on top of the usual duties I’ve assigned myself in the morning – putting dishes away, making the Martian’s lunch, making his breakfast.  By going to my computer, I now subconsciously have taken on my career duties as well.

So the Martian, who had gotten up before me and was relaxing with a cup of tea on the couch started sharing stuff from work with me. He teaches high school science and physics. He asked me a couple of times if I was listening and I said “yes” although truthfully his talking and relaxing was beginning to annoy me because I was working, stressed, blah, blah, blah – you got it -

Now why would I think that working at 4:30 in the morning is more important than connecting with my husband and hearing a beautiful story about one of his students. It was so moving to him, he was choked up with feeling and I was WORKING!

Oy! Well, fortunately I saw my stuff quickly, apologized and – HOPEFULLY – learned something.

I promise to respect my husband. I promise to respect and appreciate my husband. And I love myself with my pimples, foibles and wrinkles anyway.

Remember when you were a kid and you wanted some things that your parents said NO to? I’m guessing it would not have been OK for you to express anger at your disappointment. Most parents are not so OK with that but where did those feelings go? They most likely never got expressed which means they are somewhere “in” you which means most likely they need some work – some healing.

In my work as an Emotion-Based Coach I meet both women who’ve had horrendous backgrounds and women whose childhood was pretty good. It’s the one whose childhood was pretty good who have the most difficulty in believing that their past might be the reason their relationships don’t work out or they can’t seem to do the work that makes them happy or anything else that isn’t working in their lives.

Here’s an example from a conversation I had this week with a really quite healthy woman who is considering going through YOU University with me as her coach. When she was a kid, her dad wanted her to become a golf pro and apparently put a fair amount of pressure on her to do so. She did not become a golf pro and knows intellectually that her dad wanted the best for her but I believe that the kid in her still needs to express her feelings around being pushed into something she didn’t really want to do and the somewhat powerless experience that kids often have even with the best of parents.

We all have situations like the one above in our past. Some of us unfortunately have much harsher ones but usually those women hurt so much, that they try to get relief by going to therapy or being involved in spiritual and/or personal growth programs and reading self-help blogs, books and ebooks. It’s the ones with the easier past who have a hard time believing that their “great” childhood could leave any negative impact on them.

It occurs to me that taking this self-assessment might help you get some insight into yourself and how the now is linked with the past.

Many people go through life with low self esteem. This is a sad, but true, fact that is made sadder by the fact that it doesn’t have to be that way. Every person on the planet is a special, unique person and deserves all good that comes along. Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves. Many of the littlest things in life can do so much to improve self esteem.

To improve self esteem you can:

• Smile at the people who come across your path today.
• Find something funny to laugh about.
• Turn negative thoughts into positive ones and see what happens.
• See what you can learn from what happens in your life.
• List all your positive attributes.
• Ask your close friends and family what they love about you – and let it in.
• Do something for someone that they don’t expect and let them express gratitude.
• Do something wonderful and kind for someone that they know nothing about.
• Compliment the grocery checkout person.
• Make a “To Do” list and check off each thing as you accomplish it.
• Do something that scares you a little.
• Learn something new.
• Forgive someone.

These things are so simple to do that you will be amazed at what happens when, for example, you do something nice for someone for no reason, do something that scares you a little, learn something new and you feel better about yourself. What have you accomplished besides spreading some joy? You have worked to improve self esteem.

There are endless possibilities to love others and yourself. And remember to accept what you can’t change. Give it a shot for a day or two and see how much better you feel about yourself.

Self esteem is not a static thing. If you pay close attention and focus on each day instead of making broad statements about yourself and to yourself, you may begin to see that some days you feel not so bad about yourself. Those would be good days to improve self esteem so that on your low self esteem days, you can begin to look back and see that you are doing something to change it. Even acknowledging to yourself that you are working towards feeling differently about yourself, will help you improve your self esteem. It is not very much fun to walk around feeling badly about yourself. It tends to be a self perpetuating situation where feeling badly about yourself supports you to do things that make you feel badly about yourself. Work done to improve self esteem will change your world and you are worth

What a great session we had today – which is the usual for us. Now that you have a coaching blog, I can express the enthusiasm and clarity I feel at the end of our session.  In the past I sometimes did this by email.

When I was commenting to you how stagnated I feel because I “should” be more focused on creating my website, you made me aware of “should”.  Thanks.  I will be working on the assignment you proposed and look forward to next week’s time together.  My assignment was to live with the inquiry of “What if I jumped right to going after being a life coach with no steps in between?” I’ll let that percolate for the week and see where it goes in me.

An Insight for Living

Got anybody’s attention yet? You know who you are. You love what you do. You can’t wait to….coach, see therapy patients, work on your website, write in your blog, go on facebook, create a new class, write a new ebook, etc.

You have working relationships with family, friends, partners, etc. You exercise several times a week and eat healthy. You have everything you ever wanted. So all your needs are satisfied, right?

• Then why do you feel a little bored?
• Why can’t you quite find the juice to express gratitude in a feeling way for all that you have?
• Why do you feel a little resentful of your loving partner when he/she is around and hasn’t done anything untoward?

The Secret:
YOU DON’T HAVE ANY ALONE TIME WHERE ALL YOU DO IS NURTURE YOURSELF. This is truly an insight for living.

No work. No giving – except to yourself. No supporting – except yourself. And, most important, no self-judgment about how much time you are wasting and could be doing something else because “I’m happy and lucky”, right?

It’s supposed to be an OLD story that women are only nurturers. Many fought for equal rights. Most of us observe that men watch sports or play sports or have a hobby with no guilt – just enjoyment. That is a man’s insight for living. Well, that’s one of our rights also.

What day are you going to take for yourself? Or, what hour? And what are you going to do that is just for you?