"How to Spot Narcissistic Abuse" by Darlene Dancer, JD, MFT

Source: Darlene Lancer

Narcissists don’t really love themselves. Actually, they’re driven by shame. It’s the idealized image of themselves, which they convince themselves they embody, that they admire. But deep down, narcissists feel the gap between the façade they show the world and their shame-based self. They work hard to avoid feeling that shame. To fill this gap narcissists use destructive defense mechanisms that destroy relationships and cause pain and damage to their loved ones. (Learn the traits required to diagnose a narcissistic personality disorder, “NPD.”)

Many of the narcissist’s coping mechanisms are abusive–hence the term, “narcissisticabuse.” However, someone can be abusive, but not be a narcissist. Addicts and people with other mental illnesses, such as bi-polar disorder and anti-social personality disorder(sociopathy) and borderline personality disorders are also abusive, as are many codependents without a mental illness. Abuse is abuse, no matter what is the abuser’s diagnosis. If you’re a victim of abuse, the main challenges for you are:

1. Clearly identifying it;
2. Building a support system; and
3. Learning how to strengthen and protect yourself.

What is Narcissistic Abuse
Abuse may be emotional, mental, physical, financial, spiritual, or sexual. Here are a few examples of abuse you may not have identified:

• Verbal abuse: Verbal abuse includes belittling, bullying, accusing, blaming, shaming, demanding, ordering, threatening, criticizing, sarcasm, raging, opposing, undermining, interrupting, blocking, and name-calling. Note that many people occasionally make demands, use sarcasm, interrupt, oppose, criticize, blame, or block you. Consider the context, malice, and frequency of the behavior before labeling it narcissistic abuse.

• Manipulation: Generally, manipulation is indirect influence on someone to behave in a way that furthers the goals of the manipulator. Often, it expresses covert aggression. Think of a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” On the surface, the words seem harmless – even complimentary; but underneath you feel demeaned or sense a hostile intent. If you experienced manipulation growing up, you may not recognize it as such. See my blog on spotting manipulation.

• Emotional blackmail: Emotional blackmail may include threats, anger, warnings, intimidation, or punishment. It’s a form of manipulation that provokes doubt in you. You feel fear, obligation, and or guilt, sometimes referred to as “FOG”

• Gaslighting: Intentionally making you distrust your perceptions of reality or believe that you’re mentally incompetent.

• Competition: Competing and one-upping to always be on top, sometimes through unethical means. E.g. cheating in a game.

• Negative contrasting: Unnecessarily making comparisons to negatively contrast you with the narcissist or other people.

• Sabotage: Disruptive interference with your endeavors or relationships for the purpose of revenge or personal advantage.

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• Exploitation and objectification: Using or taking advantage of you for personal ends without regard for your feelings or needs.

• Lying: Persistent deception to avoid responsibility or to achieve the narcissist’s own ends.

• Withholding: Withholding such things as money, sex, communication or affection from you.

• Neglect: Ignoring the needs of a child for whom the abuser is responsible. Includes child endangerment; i.e., placing or leaving a child in a dangerous situation.

• Privacy invasion: Ignoring your boundaries by looking through your things, phone, mail; denying your physical privacy or stalking or following you; ignoring privacy you’ve requested.

• Character assassination or slander: Spreading malicious gossip or lies about you to other people.

• Violence: Violence includes blocking your movement, pulling hair, throwing things, or destroying your property.

• Financial abuse: Financial abuse might include controlling you through economic domination or draining your finances through extortion, theft, manipulation, or gambling, or by accruing debt in your name or selling your personal property.

• Isolation: Isolating you from friends, family, or access to outside services and support through control, manipulation, verbal abuse, character assassination, or other means of abuse.

Narcissism and the severity of abuse exist on a continuum. It may range from ignoring your feelings to violent aggression. Typically, narcissists don’t take responsibility for their behavior and shift the blame to you or others; however, some do self-reflect and are capable of feeling guilt.

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Malignant Narcissism and Sociopathy
Someone with more narcissistic traits who behaves in a malicious, hostile manner is considered to have “malignant narcissism.” Malignant narcissists aren’t bothered by guilt. They can be sadistic and take pleasure in inflicting pain. They can be so competitive and unprincipled that they engage in anti-social behavior. Paranoia puts them in a defensive-attack mode as a means of self-protection.

Malignant narcissism can resemble sociopathy. Sociopaths have malformed or damaged brains. They display narcissistic traits, but not all narcissists are sociopathic. Their motivations differ. Whereas narcissists prop up an ideal persona to be admired, sociopaths change who they are in order to achieve their self-serving agenda. They need to win at all costs and think nothing of breaking social norms and laws. They don’t attach to people as narcissists do. Narcissists don’t want to be abandoned. They’re codependent on others’ approval, but sociopaths can easily walk away from relationships that don’t serve them. Although some narcissists will occasionally plot to obtain their objectives, they’re usually more reactive than sociopaths, who coldly calculate their plans.

Get Help
If you’re in a relationship with a narcissist, it’s important to get outside support to understand clearly what’s going on, to rebuild your self-esteem and confidence, and to learn to communicate effectively and set boundaries. Doing the exercises in my books and e-workbooks, particularly Dealing with a Narcissist: 8 Steps to Raise Self-Esteem and Set Boundaries with Difficult People will help you make changes. If you feel in danger, don’t believe broken promises. Get immediate help, and read, “The Truth about Domestic Violence and Abusive Relationships.”

© Darlene Lancer, 2016

Darlene Lancer, JD, MFT,is a licensed marriage and family therapist and an expert and author on relationships and codependency. 

The Unrecognized Reason Men Have Affairs~ Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP

An Unrecognized Reason That Married Men Have Affairs

By Suzanne Phillips, Psy.D., ABPP 
Evolutionary theory, gender differences, stereotype, media myth and cultural expectations invite us to recognize that men have more sexual desire than women both in frequency and intensity, are wired to have many partners, have more difficulty with monogamy and that as such, married men are more likely to have affairs than married women. The reality is that while married men have more affairs than married women –The difference is not that great.

• In the largest most comprehensive poll of its kind in 1994, Edward Laumannand colleagues found that 20% of women and just over 31% of men in their 40’s and 50’s reported having sex with someone other than their spouses.
• Young and Alexander in their 2012 book, The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex and the Science of Attraction accept a rough estimate of 30 to 40 percent infidelity in marriage for men and women.

The other reality is that while extra-marital affairs by definition involve a romantic and emotional relationship that has a sexual or sexualized component, research suggests that sexual drive is not the primary reason married men have affairs.

Based on interviews with 200 cheating and non-cheating husbands, M. Gary Neuman, author of The Truth About Cheating, reports that only 8% identify sexual dissatisfaction as the reason for their infidelity.

A Rutgers study reports 56% of men who have affairs claim to be happy in their marriages, are largely satisfied and are not looking for a way out.

An Overlooked Reason

I suggest that one overlooked reason that men find themselves in the midst of an extramarital affair is that men don’t talk!

• Thanks to their biology, neurophysiology, culture and psychology most men rarely express worries, emotions, sexual issues or physical concerns about themselves, to friends, family, or colleagues, much less to their partners.

• As the show, “ Married Men Don’t Talk” suggests, men will talk about everything from kids to sports but they don’t discuss marital issues.

• In their research on men who stopped seeking sex from their partners, Bob and Susan Berkowitz, report that 44% said they were furious, felt criticized and insignificant in their marriage; but would not or could not talk about it with their partners.

• M.Gary Neuman found that 48% of the men he interviewed reported emotional dissatisfaction as the primary reason for cheating. The men reported feeling unappreciated and wished that their partners could recognize when they were trying. They did not talk to their partners about this.

The rationale I have heard from men and found corroborated in the research is that:

• They fear talking will only cause more anger and rejection
• They anticipate that if they start talking about issues in the marriage, their wives won’t stop talking–a reality that may simply reflect the clash of gender differences in handling stress.
• They fear hurting their partner with their honest feelings.
• They feel self-conscious about performance issues and unwittingly send a message of avoidance, disinterest or rejection.
• They silently blame their partner for boring sex but don’t consider verbalizing ways of enlivening the love life.
• They don’t read the non-verbal cues or consider the cues they are sending.
• They see the defensive posture their partner takes—not as a cover for her feelings of rejection; but as anger and accusation.
• Paradoxically, they see themselves as protecting themselves, their partner, and their marriage with silence.

As such, many married men are emotionally alone. Unlike women who turn to other women to vent, garner support, and hear other perspectives and feelings— men too often “ suck it up”, remain locked in their perspective and can’t find a way to speak about what they need. This leaves them vulnerable to the attention, affirmation and complication of an affair.

Do they look for the affair?

Some men never stop looking for the affair – they are serial cheaters whose affairs have nothing to do with relatedness to another, intimacy, sharing, pain or silence–They connect as conquest to bolster a well hidden but fragile ego.

Over 60% of men who have an extramarital affair, however, say they never seriously imagined themselves doing it until it actually happened.

Men Cheat with Women They Know

• Reflective of the fact that it is not just about sex, affairs often start with people who are known already as colleagues or friends. More than 60% of affairs start at work.
• Suddenly the man is faced with someone who responds to him with time, attention, interest, soul sharing and appreciation. Given the connection for men between thinking about sex and arousal, the  positive attention of a female friend is easily eroticized and the temptation is great.  It seems so much easier.

The Sexual Fix

In many cases, once the sexual interest is acted upon and the infatuation tripped, there is such a flood of neurochemistry that judgment is clouded with denial. There is the illusion that the affair can go on forever and exist side-by-side with marriage and family. Nothing will have to change–It always does.

But if Only My Wife…

Men often wish to hold on to their marriage by trying to find in their partner what they are finding in the affair. Given they are not sharing what they feel or need, their partner has no idea that the rules have changed. What the man often misses (true also of women in affairs) is the fact that he is acting differently to this outside person in a way that he has not been able to do in his marriage.

Affairs End Painfully

• Inevitably, affairs are uncovered and many people suffer.
• In his research, M. Gary Neuman reports that 68% of men described feeling guilty after the affair.
• Relationship expert Charles J. Orlando, author of The Problem with Women…Is Men, suggests that while men might have liked the affair for a time, they tend to despise themselves after their indiscretions. “After all, he’s betraying another human being who he claims to care about, so that takes its toll on every part of his psyche.”
• In the aftermath of an affair and in the crisis of a potentially lost marriage, men need the benefit of support–be it a group, therapist or counselor– to self-reflect, to find the words, to examine his behavior, feelings, relationship with his spouse, his affair and his marriage.
• The betrayed spouse needs support and help in dealing with the trauma of infidelity, the loss of trust, as well a reconsideration of her marriage, feelings, needs, sense of self and relationship with her partner.

Repair and Renewal

• Sometimes affairs result in divorce. Statistics from 2004 suggest that 27% of divorces are due to extramarital affairs.

• If both partners want their marriage, however, a marriage can survive an affair. Many partners have journeyed through the guilt and pain to mutually repair and renew their marriage.

If a man can find the feelings and words to engage with his partner in a process of apology and forgiveness,if he can speak and listen, reconsider the mutual rejection and anger, clarify the sexual needs and trust the love —he may well have a marriage he can speak about.

"Are You Making Love or Just Having Sex?"

Elliot D. Cohen Ph.D.

Are You Making Love or Just Having Sex?

Find out what love-making really is and how you can do it.

Posted May 06, 201

Source:

It is often said that “making love” is just a euphemism for “having sex.” To be sure, these terms are frequently used interchangeably. Unfortunately, this common use (or misuse) can mask the important distinction between these two activities. Indeed, many people who have “good sex” mistake it for love only to find out that their apparent lover was not the person with whom they cared to spend their life. 

This is not to proclaim the moral, or prudential, superiority of making love. Indeed some would prefer to just have sex. “Sex alleviates tension,” said Woody Allen, “Love causes it.” Still, it is important that one gets what one bargains for. 

Of course, making love (as distinct from being in love) necessarily involves having sex.  But having sex, even great sex, is not necessarily making love—just as a nice cool beer is not a glass of wine. Truly, some may prefer the taste of the one to the other, and a beer may be the drink of choice on a given occasion (say, at a Knicks game); but it would indeed be unfortunate if one ordered a glass of Merlot in an intimate setting and was served a Budd. 

So are you making love or just having sex? Are you getting what you really want? And if not, how can you get it?

The first of these three questions can be answered only if one knows the difference between having sex versus making love. But this, in turn, requires pinning down the meanings of each.

According to philosopher Alan Goldman, sexual desire is desire for contact with another person's body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent.

Goldman claims that sexual activity is not necessarily a means to any further end. For example, procreation is not the essential purpose of having sex; so you are not doing anything wrong (that is, misusing your body) if you are having sex without trying to get pregnant. Indeed, according to Goldman, there is no essential purpose to sex beyond fulfilling your desire for contact with another person’s body. 

I think we can take Goldman’s account of sexual activity as a working definition for developing and contrasting the idea of love-making. Inasmuch as sex is a desire for physical contact with someone else’s body, it is a mechanical activity. Rubbing, touching, caressing, kissing, sucking, biting, and, of course, intercourse, as fulfillments of a desire for physical contact, are all sexual activities in this sense. Here, a key word is “mechanical” because these activities are essentially ways of mechanically stimulating or arousing oneself. Per se, they are self-regarding. They seek self-gratification—fulfillment of a purely self-interested desire. As philosopher Immanuel Kant stated, “Sexual love makes of the loved person an Object of appetite; as soon as that appetite has been stilled, the person is cast aside as one casts away a lemon which has been sucked dry.” Here the idea that “sexual love” is self-regarding is clearly articulated by Kant. However, for Kant, it is in the transformation from self-regarding to other-regarding sexual activity that sex partners begin to see each other as persons rather than as mere objects or things.  Thus he says, “under the one condition, that as the one person is acquired by the other as a thing, that same person also equally acquires the other reciprocally, and thus regains and reestablishes the rational personality.”

Such reciprocal sexual activity is, for Kant, possible only in the context of monogamous marriage where each sex partner gives the other a contractual right to the other’s body. In this case, mutual desires for physical contact with one another’s bodies are gratified by each sex partner. But while this mutual sexual agreement (whether inside or outside the context of marriage) may be a precursor to love-making, the latter takes more than mutual consent to let each other satisfy a sexual desire. This is because such mutuality is still mechanical and focused on one’s own state of arousal as distinct from that of the other and therefore fails to capture the intimate character of love-making. So Kant’s idea of “sexual love,” even in its mutual sense, is not truly that of love-making.

So what else besides mutuality is involved in love-making?

As distinct from mere sex, love-making dissolves the chasm between “you” and “me.”  The resolution, however, is not “us” because “we” can still be divided. Instead, in love-making there is the mutual consciousness of unbounded unity without partition. “Love,” says psychologist Eric Fromm, is “in the experience of solidarity with our fellow creatures.” It is, explains Aristotle, “composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." In making love, your loins are mine, and mine yours.  The titillations of mine are yours also, and conversely. My past, present, and future; my hopes, dreams, and expectation; and yours, coalesce as one--not two--persons. There is resignation of separateness to inclusion of the other.  It is an ecstatic resonance that defies any breach in Oneness. 

It takes two to Tango, and so too does it take (at least) two to make love. Unreciprocated love-making is unsuccessful love-making. The flames of love-making are quick to die when one gives oneself, body and soul, only to be turned away. Where the other seeks only a body, wanting only sex, love-making is squandered even if it is not (at least at first) apparent to the one attempting to make love. It is a counterfeit if based on pretense because there is duality, not unity, and there is manipulation and objectification, not authentic, mutual respect.

As philosopher Martin Buber would express it, the intimacy of love-making is at the level of “I-Thou” as distinct from “I-It.” Thus, you cease to be an object or thing and instead become “Thou.”  I am bound up with you as Thou and you with me. Of course, as Buber reminds us, the unity of the “I-Thou” is not permanent and I must at some point begin to see you as an “It.”  For example, in touching each other’s body, each does what he or she knows is most erotically felt by the other. Here there is a sort of delicate, momentary analysis and deliberate targeting of a body part. But instantaneously each becomes Thou again with co-mingling of not just body but soul. In making love, there is thus a virtually seamless reciprocity between I-It and I-Thou.

There is also powerful symbolism in love-making as depicted. Foreplay gradually builds to climax as in the unfolding of a life of two living as one.  As such, making love is inspirational, for it signifies and embodies two mutually living as one. 

Erich Fromm maintains that there is separateness as well as unity in love; “In the act of loving, I am one with all, yet, I am myself, a separate, unique, limited mortal human being.” Here, Fromm is careful to stress that love (in all of its manifestations and not just in romantic love) is not bondage and subjection to another human being or denial of one’s autonomy. However, the mutuality of love-making as depicted here guards again domination, for the goal is not to control the other but instead to lose oneself in the other as the other in oneself. 

This has implications for the cognitive, perceptual, and symbolic aspects of love-making. When one merely has sex, one perceives the other as an object of pleasure, as Kant describes. In mere sexual activity one may seek to dominate, control, and even humiliate in order to elicit sexual pleasure. Indeed, there are as many ways to cognize and treat one’s sex partner as there are ways the human animal can satisfy a sexual desire.  But, love-making is unifying whereas these cognitions are relational and assume logically distinct beings.  For example, masochistic sex—thinking of oneself as lowly and servile relegates oneself to something less than and therefore distinct fromone’s sex partner.

In contrast, the language of love-making involves thoughts (and perceptions) that unite rather than separate, divide, or alienate. “Two hearts beating as one” expresses a unifying metaphor, although it is not very sensual; while “I want to feel you all over” can be very erotic but still objectifying. “I want to get lost inside of you” can be both erotic and unifying. Unifying thoughts can be deeply personal and can replay in the mind’s eye moments of intimacy and solidarity. They can reflect tenderness; an adoring (or adorable) look; or the instant when you knew you wanted to be together for an eternity. They can be ineffable and unspoken; simply expressed; or set into poetic verse. “One half of me is yours,” speaks Shakespeare’s Portia ( in his Merchant of Venice), “and the other half—my own half, I’d call it—belongs to you too. If it’s mine, then it’s yours, and so I’m all yours.” In its diverse nuanced forms, from Shakespeare to the average Joe, the language of love-making symbolizes, and invites, the coalescence of two into one. In contrast, compare the dis-unifying, objectifying nature of the four-letter language of just having sex.

Adapting a metaphor gleaned from the neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus, the unity experienced in love-making may be compared to an axiomatic system.  Each axiom is essential to the system and cannot be understood apart from it; but the system itself is over and above and distinct from any of its axioms.  Similarly, the unity of love-making is not possible without the two lovers, but it is over and above and distinct from them.  So, in this sense, there is still distinctness in unity.  But it is the Oneness of love-making that itself admits of no division.

Accordingly, it is essentially this unifying aspect of the activity of love-making that largely distinguishes it from mere sex.  And here is a central “how” of love-making that follows from it:  Surrender yourself to the other; sensually coalesce; and trust that the other reciprocates.  For, like religious experience, love-making has an element of faith. If you attempt to have sex without such faith, then you will only have sex. 

Transcend the self-interested desire for sexual satisfaction so that your sexual partner’s self becomes yours, and conversely, making the goal of other-regarding sex moot.

So, do you have to be in love in order to make love?  To get a handle on an answer to this question you might consider what I have had to say in my blog on How good are you at making love?  In any event, my considered judgment is that it can help to be in love.  But this doesn’t mean that one must be in love.  For I suspect that many people make love well before (if ever) they are actually in love. 

Given its powerful symbolism, building a loving sexual relationship, as here described, may even pave the way to a more loving relationship beyond the bedroom. Try it out. The taste of wine is what you may crave. But sometimes one may also want a tall, cold one. So it doesn’t mean you can’t, when the mood is right, just have sex

Bruce Springsteen-Greatest Performer of All-time

For those Sprinsteen-lovers, this is interesting!

Here’s Why Bruce Springsteen Is The Greatest Performer Of All-time

Bruce Springsteen @ Perth Arena. Show pics by Jackie Jethon

Jan 23rd 2017 | 2:34pm | Daniel Cribb

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“We are the new American resistance!” US rock icon Bruce Springsteen yelled to a packed Perth Arena, advocating for tolerance, inclusion, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, gender equality, and so much more.

In stark contrast to the bold figure commanding the unwavering attention of thousands of people, a more casual, softly spoken Springsteen addresses the media during soundcheck. “Our hearts and our spirits are with all the millions of people who marched yesterday, and The E Street Band, we are part of the new resistance…art’s job is to witness and testify.”

The band’s execution of more than 30 songs over three-and-a-half hours was flawless and they made it look so easy. But it was during soundcheck that we see even after forty years, they’re still honing their craft, having been in rehearsals in Perth since Wednesday.  

"Oh yeah, I got it, I got it,” Springsteen says to guitarist Steven Van Zandt after some brief notes on the Land Of Hope And Dreams outro.

Four hours later and the epic chorus soars across a sea of people, and although the crowd is a lot bigger, The Boss remains just as affable and down to earth as he was earlier.

There’s a wealth of homemade signs littering the crowd – some requesting songs, others a dance, and one reads “Springsteen 4 President”. As hit after hit crash into one another, there’s little time for in-between song banter, but the energy coming from the stage says it all, with The E Street Band truly in sync and loving every second of it.

The set takes numerous unpredictable turns after opening with an orchestra-fuelled version of New York City Serenade, courtesy of some local musicians, and every member has their moment in the spotlight; even drummer Max Weinberg is perched on a podium.

Saxophonist and nephew of original E Street Band member Clarence Clemons, Jake Clemons stole the show on numerous occasions, unleashing gut-wrenching solos while pianist Roy Bittan was a driving force.

Despite being one of the more endeared members of The E Street Band, Van Zandt often faded into the background, only reminding punters of his presence with the occasional harmony or by leaning over The Boss’ shoulder.

Tom Morello was a key element of The E Street Band during their last Aussie tour and while his absence could be noted, longtime guitarist Nils Lofgren was on fire, with Springsteen also taking on more guitar solos throughout the set, bending his strings to oblivion on numerous occasions.

With his trademark Telecaster flung over his shoulder, Springsteen strutted back and forth to Out In The Street, shortly after securing his status of the coolest musician alive when sculling a beer presented by an audience member.

Every song was played like it was not only the last tune for that show but the final song he would ever play, with Springsteen screaming the final chorus of Darkness On The Edge Of Town with show-stopping conviction.

He ventured back into the crowd once again and took position on a platform in the middle of the room. A toddler perched upon someone’s shoulders nearby looked on in awe during Darlington Country, a sure sign that the iconic songs will be endeared for generations to come.

Three hours into the set and there was no sign of an end, as the band dished up The Promised Land, American Skin (41 Shots) and The Rising before leaving Springsteen on the stage with just an acoustic guitar. "Let's see if I remember this,” he said, spotting a sign requesting Blood Brothers. A minute to figure out the chords and he was off.

The intimacy was short-lived, though, as in a blaze of glory the house lights turned on and the intro of Born To Run saw a sea of people rise from their seats. Three audience members were plucked from the crowd during Dancing In The Dark before a touching rendition of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out was accompanied by imagery of the late Clarence Clemons.

"I don't think I have anything left," Springsteen said, as a glittering cape was thrown over him and he hobbled off the stage. The charade came crumbling down quickly as he burst back onto the stage to finish Johnny O'Keefe’s Shout and rounded out a set of quality and quantity with Bobby Jean, cementing his status as the greatest performer of all time.

My kid, and USA for Africa – "We Are the World" Michael Jackson 1985 HD Version

To My Daughter .. this is celebration of only one of many events when you were young...I LOVE YOU!  I STILL know all the words!  Bet you do, too!

Last night as I was falling asleep, I heard this song on the radio. It catapulted me into my past, and that of my precious daughter. As I wrote on the 15th, I knew I had the beginnings of a child who showed compassion, passion to make the world better, and urgings to see people as "one".

This was especially poignant when she was almost 7. When she heard this song, she wanted me to write down the words for her. ("for next year, Mom, when I can read better").  Ha! She had them memorized in a day! And we sang it together for a couple of hours until she felt she knew them. She continued to talk about the song and its essence.  She was getting it, I thought.  Some of her remarks during that process moved me deeply. The values in the song had me loving it, too.  To this day, my eyes haze over whenever I hear it.

So she came to me about a week after her "ordination" into junior "fund raising". "Mom", here is what I want to do, but you will have to help me on a big part of it." I listened hard, because she was indeed goal-focused when she wanted to be. (Math homework? Well, maybe not so much at times!)

"So, mom ... the children in Ethiopia are  starving to death.  I want to help them. I want to go to lots of homes, ... like, um, Trick 'n Treat on Halloween.  I want you to carry my boombox, playing this song the whole time. And I will knock on doors and ask if they could give a little money to help them. But what shall I do to let them know I am not really keeping the money for myself?" ("Hmmmm, alert to scams, the parental side of me thought!)

So we took a day making up a flyer. We made sure that a bank was mentioned, as the place the money would rest until we could send it. (37 top artists collaborated ... a great piece!) It said that 20,000,000 copies of the song were sold, obviously winning the Grammy! It said that $63,000,000 was raised by this global venture, for the famine in Ethiopa. Thus, Live Aid was born, amassing numerous stars and performers. It was staged at Wembley in England and broadcast all over the world. Top flight!

I think every kid I knew was really "into" it. (She definitely thought that was cool, but the fact that Michael Jackson was a significant part of it, could not have made it even more worthy of her attention!) Nothing ... I mean NOTHING ... could get her to a TV faster than she when it would come on ... and if it was in the middle of dinner...well her dad and I just giggled and shook our heads about the smoke she left in her trail! Inside, I was joyful, as I saw these values being breathed in by her. (Kleenex!)

I was delighted with her "staging competency", and we set about for the big evening! We took the sheets to a copy machine, then went out for a milkshake after to celebrate her special event! She was so-o-o-o revved up! And really? So was I! Entering a kid's world sometimes is enormously joyful!  Of all the stars, I'd be hard pressed to say which were my faves, but the energy coming forth (like Cyndi Lauper).Gotta say Stevie Wonder and Bruce "The Boss"
Springsteen knocked it clear out of the park with their segment! And it was poignant to see the whole Jackson family there.  I could listen to it over and over! All of them ...transcendent!

Oops, one more detail she wanted ... a tiny copy of the United States flag, and that of Africa. She cut them out, and we pinned them to her teeshirt.  What a beautiful sight!  Huge brown-doe eyes, floor-sweeping lashes, and missing teeth! Well, I can't describe how proud I was of her.  I put Kleenex in my pocket, because I knew I would really need it that night.

As we were walking out of the house, she told me her "game plan".  From our street,  you could look down on about 40-50 homes. It immediately became clear that she wanted to go to every single one  of them. And this was the kid that sometimes rolled her eyes at a request to clear the table!  I went back inside to change into sneakers!

The first home, at the top of her young crucible, was a neighbor two doors down.  I stood outside, the boombox emanating the song.  Her back and shoulders were so straight as she walked up the driveway, and you could just feel her zeal for this. She tripped on the man's step, but recuperated in a flash, avoiding a total face-plant, and was knocking on his door.  (Mom's thought here:  the strength and confidence of that diminutive fist knocking. How did we get to "here" so fast?  Kleenex time! And we had barely started!)

When the neighbor answered, he looked irritated, perhaps interrupted.  She stood quietly for a moment looking at him directly (awesome intuitive response, I thought!), and then started her little speech. Her little voice never wavered as she asked him for a little money to give to these children in Ethiopia. Almost before she finished, he cut her off   with a grumpy, "NO!" For some odd reason, they continued to look at one another.  Then, I heard my daughter say, "You don't have to give quarters, but if you have some pennies, they would be okay....." (Mother or not, this pitch would have surely gotten me!). So he dug around in his pants pockets, and finally came up with four pennies. When he handed those to her, she looked at the coins for a few seconds in her palm. Was she counting them? What next, I thought. She stuck out her hand to shake his, and said in the utmost innocent, gracious   voice, "Thank you, sir. The children in Africa will eat better now." (Kleenex coming out again!)

When she got back to me, the man's door was closed, and I complimented her on the impressive way she had handled that whole thing. "Mom". she said. "he knows 4 pennies can't get much food. He'll think about that." And she skipped merrily on her way to the next home.  For her, it was a highly successful "cold call" ... regardless.

At the end of the evening, she had amassed $32 and some cents.  Her father had said we would match whatever she collected.  You might have thought she had made a million dollars! In her world, she did. And when we went to the bank to prepare the check, her eyes shone brighter than any dime!

Listen to it! Put this on full-screen! It gives you goosebumps! A great piece!
Yup, Kleenex again!

(FYI - I wondered why everybody was using songsheets.  Apparently there were numerous factors which made the taping session impossible for all of the artists to appear together. So, this date was the only one open. Thus, this final recording was done on one night.  No one had even seen the words yet. After what is said to be a 9-hour session, this was their "final word"!  All that makes this even more electrifying!)

"Sex in the Senior Years" By Louanne Cole Weston, PhD

As I sit here ready to post this link from Louanne Weston, I am shaking my head. No pun intended towards Dr. Weston's article.  I will explain myself ... oh, Lord, I can see the emails coming!

Sex is a hot topic, and no less so when you are a senior.  I frustrate myself with the online articles which seemed to put sex into the category of having to use a cane when you f**k. I think it is the mindset you have.  To explain....

Well, I was 14.  My father was a physician and had his offices built onto the other end of our house. It was good for us kids, because if a patient was a "no-show", Dad would pop out and have some tea, and check on all of us. Plus, he did not have to include travel time into his schedule. We would earn extra money by helping him copy and mail out the statements (no computers then!), lick all the envelopes, clean his office rooms, and assorted other chores.  One perk for me was that even in off times, we'd run into some of his patients...and chat for a couple of minutes. That was always nice.

At the end of the year, as we had graduated into some of the more complicated billing, we had the year-end wrap-up. (And wouldn't ya know that came during Christmas break!)  The schedule was always the same. Dad would due all the tallies for the year contingent on his accountant.  And we were called to gather round.  Dad had no qualms whatsoever of explaining briefly his bottom lines.  He would show us his gross earnings. Then, he showed us the list of his expenses.  I always remember that his liability insurance was always staggering. He wanted us to be more frugal around the house. Stuff like that sticks.

I recall once when he and many others were asked to volunteer to give polio shots at the local high school.  All the docs were generous with their time, and that went off without a hitch.  There were about 50 docs who volunteered. Very sadly, one woman out of a couple thousand contracted polio. As a result, the liability insurances of all the doctors were clobbered, but all were accepting because her life was thrown into great difficulty.  An ancillary message for me that season, was observing some of the docs wail like babies because of that. My Dad was always into the question, "What did you learn from that?"  or "What did you observe?'

I remember, cleaning his office  that day, and others,  while he was out on house calls (remember those days of house calls?).  I'd always look at the books which were so far over my head, I had no interest whatsoever.  But then I noted a new one.  It was a volume on sex (apart from missionary stuff!).  Since soldiers were then coming home with all sorts of debilitating injuries, this was a major treatment issue for many of them.

Well, this 14-year-old was as wide-eyed as she could be.  So, I read and read and read. And came back other times to continue reading. The best part was how the book normalized the desire, complexion and completion of sex.

There were so many ways to achieve sexual satisfaction, it was dizzying!  In addition, at that age, I was merely playing with future ideas.  But my eyes were opened for life! My then-young memory was struck with the way the book presented the information (complete with zillions of pictures!) in a very natural, accepting way.  The message was "if two people are consensual, then it is okay". When I started on my sexual path later, and went into marriage, that was a good and remembered message.  I have always seen sex as another language ... one never to be completely mastered, but one to always be studied, loved, and "spoken". Today, I feel the same. There are so many seniors that barely even dare to whisper about it. That's the women, and the men are compliant and they have their own conversations more privately.  I lapse into my junior-high lingo, thinking that is just plain stupid!

This is one of the recent pieces I found that was positive.  I posted it because I thought it was ludicrous to have a lot of negativity, in general,  be the case. So, I know I will be looking into the topic more, e.g., bringing it up more in conversations.  When you study to be a therapist, you are given some good ways to have fun with it! Teensy- weensy mind-benders ... you know.  Right?

Also, get some different music...SO not kidding here.  Some rap or rock, or African drumming can be incredibly rousing!  Metal! Don't forget the rhythm of blues! While you might never play it in other circumstances, go for it ... bet you will fall into the cadences!!! Perhaps the only word from article below, and which is necessary for mountain top delight .... L-U-B-R-I-C-A-T-I-O-N!

This is a time of life to just have fun and realize just how passionate you really still are!

Nothing has really changed in a way, except the fierce successive contortions you could have at 25 are clearly just a bit slower now! Advantage: women's team! More is the same, than not.

So, Tally ho!!!!!!

Sex in the Senior Years

During the last two decades, several studies have left little doubt that seniors have sex well into their 60s, 70s, and beyond. But what quantitative studies don't always show is what senior sex is like -- including its pleasures and problems.

Take the case of a couple I counseled recently. Both were in their 70s, and both were worried about their sex life. The problem? The wife wanted to have sex more often than the husband. As a result, she feared that her spouse no longer found her attractive, and he felt bad about his low libido as well as his short-lived erections and inability to satisfy his wife’s desires.

Challenges for Seniors

Such physical and psychological problems in relation to sex are not all that unusual among seniors.

Certain medications, such as those used to treat high blood pressureand depression, can reduce libido. So, too, can declining levels of testosterone in both men and women. Nerve damage caused by diabetes and other conditions can impair a man’s ability to get and sustain an erection. And low levels of estrogen can thin and dry a woman’s vaginal tissues, making intercourse uncomfortable.

On the emotional front, long-simmering relationship difficulties may dampen desire, as can shame about an aging body. And either partner can suffer a dramatic blow to his or her sex life if the other partner is incapacitated by illness or injury.

Senior Sex Treatment

Many problems that affect senior sexuality can be treated. But studies show most seniors don’t talk about sex with their doctors, perhaps because they were raised to believe such talk is taboo.

In the case of the elderly couple I counseled, the man saw a doctor, who gave him testosterone supplements to increase his libido. I also coached the couple on ways to enjoy sex without intercourse, including oral sex and other forms of foreplay, so the man could free himself of some of his performance anxiety.

Sex Tips for Seniors

Last I heard, my septuagenarian patients were sexually happy and healthy -- and enjoying new modes of intimacy.

Ask your doctor if your problem has a medical cause -- and a solution.

Use lubricant to help with vaginal dryness.

Experiment with masturbation to satisfy unfulfilled desire.

Kick things off with foreplay. Older men need more touching to get an erection, and older women need more touching to get lubricated.

Powerful thought from Henri Bergson

Some years ago, I came across this quote from Henri Bergson, a French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century and after WWII in continental philosophy. His depth about many topics is compelling, IMHO. 

This following quote has been over my desk for years, and is always an impetus when a certain part of my "internal flame" is wavering. I also discovered that those who also liked it were folks I wanted to know.

"Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them  from birth through social conditioning.  They begin sensing that something is amiss and start looking for answers.  Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others are oblivious to, and so begin their journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance."