Archive for the Self-Awareness

… at 3:30am on Monday, January 16, Griffin Silver Patmor made his way into this bright world.

WELCOME, our little man!

… we waited to know him to name him, and on his 11th day, he confirmed he is to be called Griffin.

around my 6th month of pregnancy, I had a dream where Griffin first came to say hello: as i was treading in a body of water, a little baby bedraggled and waterlogged creature paddled over to me. this curious one had a beak and feathers on top and fur and paws on the bottom. It gave me it’s paw to help get a thorn out.

it later occurred to me that my father used to read the original Alice in Wonderland to me, and that my mind had reached back to his story-telling for the symbolism: the body of water in my dream was a pool of tears, that Alice cries when she’s eaten something to make her very BIG. she then she drinks something to make her very SMALL, and finds herself in a pool of her own tears, which has caused a flood for the little animals. the part when Griffin swims up, paw extended, i guess Little G made that part up all on his own.

Whazza Griffin, you ask? (from wikipedia) The Griffin is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. As the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts and the eagle was the king of the birds, the Griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature; the king of creatures. Griffins are known for guarding treasure and are considered a symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine. Some have suggested that the word Griffin has the same root as Cherub.

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we are so glad you are HERE, Griffin.

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This is one of my favorite looks, after nursing:

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after 24 hours of labor at home, and an unplanned trip to the hospital (my first time in a hospital, ever!), resulting in over 48 hours of no sleep, here I am with eyes amazingly open:

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… my handsome husband, getting in rapport with our little bundle:

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… and just like that, after 9 years of being a pair, we’re a trio:

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… these photos are from Griffin’s first week; he’s now 3 weeks old. in my limited experience as a parent, i have to borrow the words from a papa friend of mine, it’s the hardest, best thing ever. Or from a mama friend of mine, it’s like having a blissful orgasm while someone is cutting off your toe with a dull kitchen knife. i am broken open to a higher octave of Love that was previously out of my reach. my soul is stretched.

With my due date imminent, I wanted to share some photos of me pregnant, since I’ll only be so for a few more days or weeks, depending on when the little one says it’s a go!

Taken in Kona, Hawaii by the amazingly talented photographer, Wendy Kay Yalom of wendykyalom.com who was also my wedding photographer! Get you some Wendy!

“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers … strong, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” ~ Barbara Katz Rothman

Photos by Wendy Kay Yalom of wendykyalom.com

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e.e. cummings

How do I make this the best year of my life? My newest expert video answer, use this link:

http://www.yourtango.com/2012126689/how-do-i-make-year-best-my-life-video

Big, Bold, Beautiful 2012 to you,

This one’s for guy’s eyes, but women, you’re welcome to be a fly on the wall. Which is perhaps a good spot to inhabit while taking a fresh look at the confusing, confronting topic of men and their porn habits!

While most of my work as a Relationship Expert and Coach is about the preventative, I’m simultaneously a pragmatist. There are fairly easy ways to prevent the unhealthy (but too often inevitable) issues that plague relationships, like dismal communication, habits hidden from our partners, discomfort with intimacy and lack-luster sex – just like there are fairly easy ways to prevent unhealthy (but too often inevitable) issues that plague our health, like weight-gain, lethargy, crappy food choices and chronic illnesses.

Ever a pragmatist, however, I take just as much stock in the ways things ARE as in the way they SHOULD or COULD be. I take just as much stock in ACTUAL behaviors as the ways we SHOULD or COULD behave.

The pragmatist part of me knows that about eighty percent of men watch porn. And these are well-meaning, emotionally aware, intelligent, all-around-good-guys we are talking about here. For whatever reasons (which I’ll touch on briefly later, compliments of my preventative part), men watch porn. Period.

Read the rest of this post at YourTango.

When you have the keys to how a man works, he gives you the keys to himself.

I have spent the last month interviewing a series of phenomenal men, asking them things like:

“What do you want most from a woman?”
“What would compel you to commit?”
“What makes you feel like a stud, a rockstar, a MAN?”
“What shuts you down and makes you want to leave?”

If you are anything like me, their answers will shock you in all the best ways, move you to your core, restore your hope in love – and make you piss your pants laughing at times.

Watch your email inbox over the next days and weeks, because I’ll be letting you know when the videos are ready for your viewing pleasure.

In the meantime, check out these choice tidbits … let me know your favorite moments from the video and WHY … and get yourself read for the Man Whispering video interviews!

Enjoy,

I first created this Mini Relationship Tip four years ago, almost to the day.

I’ve added to this oldie but goodie, and I know you’ll find a gem of “life alchemy” in here for yourself.

You’ll definitely NOT want to skip reading this one because at the end there is a piece of uber personal, amazingly timely news.

Getting to Good

August 2007:

Like an acme safe ala cartoonland, I recently feel like I got hit on the head with EXACTLY HOW to have my life and relationship be great, gorgeous always full of fun and delight.

Only instead of landing like a ton of steel, this landed like a drizzle of honey on a bed of feathers.

The price to earn pleasure is not pain and suffering.
The price to earn pleasure is enjoying what is already here.
It is pulling your head out of your own a.s.s. and looking around and acknowledging all the good that is already present.  The best place to start is approving of and appreciating what is SO.
It is looking around at this green earth and the flora and fauna and crazy humans
inhabiting it, and finding it good.

The key to getting the good stuff is to start with the good stuff.
And the key to getting things to be better is to start with the good stuff.

Sometimes things in our life or relationship are really the opposite of good, right? They suck, they are hard, they are bad. I know.

The law of physics, so to speak, around having things get better is that things have to first start from a place of GOOD before they can get BETTER.  Good goes to better.

If things are bad, and we only focus on that they are bad, they get worse. Bad goes to worse.

You have to notice the things that are good or find something good about the crappy thing that’s happening before it
can get better.

The law looks something like this:  bad –> good  –> better.

You can’t get from bad to better, you have to get to good first.  The key is to start with good.  Then, things are good – I mean, that’s pretty great, right?  And what if things got even better?

Too abstract? Let me give you an uber personal, amazingly timely example:

I have a “pinch me” relationship.  It floors me constantly and there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t feel grateful and blessed for this work of art we’ve co-created.  Throughout the eight years my husband and I have been together, we’ve had one point consistently come up where we are not on the same page: around whether to have a child together.

And we were having a really crappy time figuring this one out, in fact we almost broke up a few months ago with how much we were suffering trying to figure it out.

An esteemed teacher pointed out to us that we were having a terrible time and losing big time, while we were figuring it out.

(Enter visual – safe falling on LiYana’s head).

Could we have a great time figuring this hard, crappy, bad thing out?  What in the world would that be like?

I took this to heart in the biggest way possible. I looked at my tendency in problem-solving: freak-out, get overwhelmed, play the victim. I looked at my tendency in working through impasses: back-down, feel defeated before starting, suffer.

As we talked further about it, it turned out that my husband’s biggest fear in having a child together was losing me. He could see (easier than I of course) my defaults in problem-solving and working through impasses. When he thought through having a child, he loaded up my freaking out, getting overwhelmed, playing the victim, suffering and feeling defeated. He loaded up losing the bright, vivacious woman and lover her cherished. And he was right.

I asked myself, would it be possible to celebrate, enjoy, find pleasure, have some humour while working on the bad stuff?

What has happened since then is amazing – a deepening of love, appreciation, a clarity around what we both fear around having a child, and what would be amazing about it.  All the while a greater sense of partnership and so much more fun and enjoying each other.

The most remarkable thing is that as my husband saw the fruits of me really taking this on, he started to see that he might not lose his bright, luscious love to the inevitabilities of child-rearing. He saw that I could enjoy ourselves no matter, and that changed the tide in him. Where he was a NO to a child, he became a maybe and then a YES.

We would never have gotten to this place without the power of “getting to good.” Ever. In fact, I doubt we’d be together at all.

We both pulled our sorry a.s.s.es out of “bad” and got ourselves to “good” and it keeps getting better and better and better….

These are things I’ve always known, but sometimes they alternate between peeping and sleeping in me, but now they are roaring and won’t shut up.  Thankfully.

August 2011:

We’re officially pregnant with our first child, one who was planned, dreamed of, and who will be welcomed by two pretty large hearts who have spent four years practicing “getting to good” even when times are hard. It’s a magical little world we’ll be welcoming our little one into.

I might get this slightly wrong, but here’s the essence of a great quote:

“Your enjoyment is your blessing on all creation.” – Vic Baranco

So, this week:

1. Do a little inner inventory: what is your tendency when things get hard? When you feel defeated? When you are stressed or overwhelmed?

2. Try “getting to good” first: try your version of celebrating, enjoying, finding pleasure and having some humour while working on the bad stuff.

3. Leave your first thoughts from #1 and #2  in Comments, so we can all see how this is for you!

I promise you, this is pure life alchemy, friends.

My best to you, LiYana

(published in YourTango.com August 1, 2011)

(Published in YourTango.com, July 16, 2011)

When I heard the news of another prominent figure involved in a sex scandal, did my eyebrows raise? Did they wryly raise further when I connected his last name with the subject matter of his sexting? I don’t mean to be too cynical, but the answer to both counts was nope. I wasn’t exactly surprised. Were you?

This isn’t an article about the scandal Weiner has brought to his post as a government official. It isn’t about the hurt he’s brought to his wife and family. It isn’t a “how could he do this to us?” cry for mending morality. It isn’t even a straight-out plea for the privacy of all humans, regardless of their office.

This is an article exploring some reasons (albeit totally made up and fictional on my part) about why he may have done it. And not the convenient reason so many may have come to – because he must have been a weak-willed, sneaky, narcissistic, cheating excuse for a public servant. While that may or may not be true, the reasons I’m fascinated with lie in an often-unexamined place: the shadowy psyche of the erotic mind.

Would I find texted pix of your willy erotic? Not so much. Bear with me.

And I also ask you to bear with me as I make a bunch of likely inaccurate assumptions about the inner sexual workings of a man I’ve never met, likely never will meet, and whose life I feel shouldn’t be a subject of public scrutiny or mockery in the first place.

We look for cracks in our leaders, the same way we are simultaneously horrified and fascinated by a crime scene. We want them to be inscrutable gods and goddesses, examples of how it should be, flawless examples of human beings in whom we can trust. I mean, would you really want a leader who is fallible and vulnerable having her hand on the nuclear “deploy” button? Would you want him guarding your house and family at night? Making decisions that will impact your bodily and economic well-being? Like it or not, that’s what we’ve got.

Ever had a fantasy that involved experiencing or doing something that in “real” life you’d never want to experience? Ever had a fantasy you’d share with a stranger but you’d be ashamed to share with someone you were intimately connected with? Ever wonder why sexual fantasies are so often kept secret and in the dark? What’s at work here? Why the connection between sex and shame? Are we all twisted beyond any hope of help?

Ten years ago, before my transition into the field of relationships, I had a private practice in New York City in which I’d work with clients to their heal bodies and emotional eating issues entirely through self-awareness, lifestyle adjustments and holistic nutrition. Enter Christina, who came to me with uncontrollable cravings for ice cream. She’d polish off a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream each night. Every night. That’s a whole lotta ice cream.

Even the word cravings can conjure up associations with being sinful, bad, lacking in will-power and undisciplined. But I’d learned to respect cravings as the body’s best attempt at a signal for something direly needed. Christina and I started by deconstructing the facets of her ice cream cravings, in order to deconstruct – and dignify – what he body was really asking for.

Ice cream is cold, milky, creamy, sweet and fatty. Additionally, for Christina, it provided an emotional sense of comfort and of treating herself. So I suggested a couple of radical things. First of all, I didn’t tell her to eliminate ice cream. The focus wasn’t to take anything away, just to add in more of what her body might actually asking for, but was settling for through the ice cream.

I prescribed more fresh salads and fresh vegetables to cover the “cold” element. She was to add healthful fats like olive oil and avocados on her salads to cover to the “fatty” element. And she was to add in some sweet root vegetables like squashes or sweet potatoes so her general diet would have more natural sources of the “sweet” element. Often, a craving for milky substances is an attempt to “mother” ourselves. Since there’s no more nursing for most of us adults, we often substitute other comforting – and milky – things. We looked at the places in Christina’s life where she was hurting and needing “comfort,” in essence needing the mothering kindness she was trying to get from the surrogate teat of ice cream.

In the span of the one-month experiment, she lost about 10 pounds, had eaten ice cream less than a handful of times, and was considering for the first time going off of her anti-anxiety medication. Christina’s body responded extraordinarily well to some healthful substitutions that satisfied the spirit of her cravings, if not the letter of them.

In the vein of deconstructing food cravings, let’s take a look at what it is that Weiner (allegedly) did. He texted and/or tweeted his private junk to potentials other than his wife. He did it in secret, ideally with the aim to not be found out. Where for Christina it was ice cream, Weiner’s erotic cravings showed up as exhibitionism and the titillating thrill of (hopefully) getting away with something. What might his erotic cravings be asking for on a deeper level? And might these cravings have some innate dignity to them?

If you have the chance, run out and get yourself of a copy of The Erotic Mind: Unlocking the Inner Sources of Passion and Fulfillment by Jack Morin. After reading his astonishing book several years ago I began to ask if there might just be some fantastic, potentially liberating intelligence to our sexual cravings. Perhaps our erotic shadows have a code language, akin to other types of cravings, that needs some deconstructing and understanding, rather than more shaming or repression. Perhaps there is even a powerful force at work behind sexual scandals that is actually strongly life-affirming and deserved of respect?

Morin suggests that sexual obstacles in one’s youth create lifelong scripts for arousal. Drawing on 351 respondents, straight and gay, who discussed their erotic lives with him, Morin developed an “erotic equation”: attraction plus obstacles leads to excitement. This formula is neither tidy nor predictable. Feelings ranging from exuberance, joy, anxiety, humiliation, naughtiness and anger can intensify arousal and turn out to be aphrodisiacs. Which begins to explain why the best sex – or most potent sexual fantasy – is dynamic and risky rather than static and safe.

Which sexual obstacles showed up in your youth? In what ways did your plans to overcome them get entangled in your sexuality? If you were the geek or nerd who could never get the girls, perhaps (as you’d take your frustrations our on yourself) you’d plan for ways to “get back” at them later by never allowing them to “get” you. If you were of the Catholic school meme, perhaps guilt and the naughty thrill of doing something you were not supposed to do showed up precisely alongside your first sexual awakenings. If you felt unseen, unwanted and invisible when your sexuality started to bud, perhaps you dreamed of a time when you could exposed any part of yourself, inspiring only delight and arousal from others.
Which obstacles – and plans to overcome them – might have been Weiner’s ?

Morin claims that understanding our peak sexual experiences and fantasies – and the obstacles that came with them – offer the greatest opportunity for self-discovery and, thus, revitalized sexual experiences. In essence, he says that deconstructing erotic and sexual elements can bring them out of the shadows. Rather than exposing himself to text recipients other than the woman he vowed to be faithful to, the question becomes how could Weiner honestly and openly incorporate the element of exhibitionism into his erotic world? Rather than deceiving his wife and his constituents, how could he bring the elements of “almost getting caught” or “being naughty” into his sex life?

Additionally, how could he explore the line between secrecy (doing something you wouldn’t want anyone to find out about) and privacy (having an inner world that is yours and yours alone, hurting no one) and hence open up some much-needed lines of communication with his spouse? In personal relationships, while secrecy can be a killer, privacy can often actually help preserve the relationship.

Should Weiner have been afforded a blanket of privacy? Should any public figure or leader? While I wouldn’t count myself as qualified to make that call, we should consider for ourselves what the line is between privacy and secrecy. It’s a line our very own government is in the process of blurring the boundaries of as I write.

I am in no way dignifying the fact that Anthony Weiner was doing stuff he didn’t want anyone to know about. There’s no dignity in deceit. I do believe that if you’re holding a public office or commanding the public eye, part of your preparation and job description should include getting a handle on your kinks so they don’t run away with you and your career. But that’s another article.

The threats of shame, disapproval or massive loss are seemingly not enough to prevent sexual scandal. Our deeper sexual cravings almost always trump our ideals for morality. That’s some powerful ju-ju that’s driving us, despite our loftier intentions. Perhaps a sincere and vulnerable look into the secret heart of our arousal could create some balance and healing. Maybe confronting the unresolved feelings that produce “troublesome turn-ons” in our fantasy world might allow us to act more congruently in the “real” world. Perhaps deconstructing our erotic cravings, and acknowledging the desire to give and receive love that is at the core of them all, might just restore some much-needed dignity to our sexual selves.

“Most of your sexual desires, no matter how weird or kinky they may seem, are rooted in your need to give and receive love or your need to experience a specific part in the spectrum of [sexual] energy. These needs are natural, although if denied or hidden they can grow into ‘pathological’ forms that require healing. If you don’t embrace these desires in yourself with compassion, you can create an inner division that results in an energetic kink.”

~David Deida

Courage (from the French word for “heart”): to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.

I got that from a fabulous Ted Talk with Brene Brown, which I have conveniently placed below for your viewing pleasure.

It will take 20 minutes out of your day, but it may just give you some courage to have real Courage.

“What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.”
~ Brene Brown

Watch it here, and don’t forget to leave your thoughts below:

I’ve just been reading the edgy new book, Se*x At Dawn: Prehistoric Origins of Modern S*exuality, by authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha and boy, are my eyebrows singed!

[Se*x At Dawn author] Ryan explains the difficulty of trying to restrain se*xuality using the metaphor of being a vegetarian. “What we are saying is that you can choose to be s*exually monogamous for your whole life if you want to, but this is a choice like choosing to be a vegetarian. It can be an excellent decision morally, ethically, health-wise and on many different levels, but simply choosing to become a vegetarian does not mean bacon will stop smelling good.”

I’ve found that one of the hidden blocks to our personal power and joy as women is our competition with other women, whether overt or unspoken.

A unique way to turn this around and have way more access to your own lit-up power, came from Dolores (an alias!), a reader of my Love 3.0 website:

“dear liyana,

i just read your (long) bio

AMAZING

you are AMAZING

i had to stop comparing myself,
because that’s silly. I would rather just
be lit with the inspiration of who you are.”

Is THIS woman amazing or what?

I’m not saying that she’s amazing because she’s ladling praise on me. While that’s something I appreciate, what catches my eye is that she didn’t let herself get taken down by comparison. She turned it around. She got lit up with inspiration to light up herself.

THAT is a sign of a powerful woman.

As I said earlier, I’ve found that one of the hidden blocks to our personal power and joy as women is our competition with other women, whether overt or unspoken.

It’s been a long time (more than 5,000 years or so) during which men have held the key to the resources. Big time resources. Food. Shelter. A place in the community. Care for our children… It’s only been a short amount of time, not even a couple hundred years, since women are no longer really dependent on men, at least in most of the western world. But our bodies and brains are going on over 5,000 years of “reality” rather than the last few hundred.

For 5,000 years and more our cells and brains have been bathed in life-or-death competition – and that doesn’t just melt away with a paltry few hundred years and a handful of few generations. There are parts of our brains (not the rational parts) that simply laugh at the freedom and equality available to us over the last 200, 100 or 50 years. It’s extraordinary, unprecedented, but also painfully recent to our cellular memory. We can’t blame ourselves for having DNA that instructs us to beat out the other woman so we can stay alive, fed, clothed, housed, and our children looked out for as well.

So, this week, Get Lit.

Notice that woman (or women) in your life you compare yourself to. Maybe you feel envious of her, jealous of her, that she doesn’t deserve what she has or is, or that she’s more than you’ll ever be.

Rather than having it take you down, use the thing you are comparing to get inspired. Rather than seeing her as a threat, notice how you can see her as an inspiration, pointing the way for you to step into an aspect of yourself – your own unique, radiantly lit-up expression of Woman.

Allow her to be the spark that ignites you and sets you aflame. Get Lit.

The ability to empower others, while empowering ourselves, is a sign of true power.

And don’t forget to leave me your comments - there’s a link just under the title of this Mini Relationship Tip!

Enjoy, LiYana