Flourishing Today

Most women become bonded to a man, after having sex, and men don’t always feel the same way. (Photo by whatmegsaid on flickr)

“Hi there, I love the relationship advice you’ve shared in the past, and I’m hoping you can help me! I recently met a guy I really liked, and had sex with him. I think it was a mistake, because now he’s acting distant. I want a more serious relationship but when I told him afterwards, he became impatient and sounded frustrated.

What should I do to have a relationship with him? Please help me!”

Firstly, you and he are already are in a “relationship.”  Even a casual relationship is a relationship. You and he are relating, just not in the way you were hoping for.  Unfortunately, you’ve stepped into one of those painful landmines and relationship myths that many women hit at one point or another.  The landmine is, that most women become bonded to a man, after having sex… and men don’t always feel the same way.  The myth is, that if we have sex with a guy, that he’ll want a relationship with us (the same way we do with them).

"You'd be my type, if you were a penguin." Sometimes we crush on someone because they're so different from what we're used to, and know it wouldn't be a good idea to pursue it. (photo from flickr: followtheseinstructions)

I got a question from a reader the other day, which I’m sharing here:

Does having a crush on someone, while in a relationship with someone else, count as cheating?

Firstly, considering the person asking the question, I’m going to answer this from a traditional, monogamous point of view.  And, like most things, it would depend on how you define cheating.  My off the cuff answer is “No.” In fact, crushes are normal, healthy things. My boyfriend isn’t going to get in trouble for having the hots for Sigourney Weaver and I’m not in trouble for crushing on Johnny Depp.

Feeling overwhelmed?

For those of you still on that mad-cap dash through Christmas, you’re probably all too aware of time. Deadlines need to be met… trees decorated… travel plans coordinated… shopping finished… wait, that’s my to-do list!

But whether or not that’s my to-do list, here’s a tip to help you get through the crunch.. and onto the punch!

I use Google Calender a lot to help co-ordinate my calenders, and Christian's -- especially around the holidays when so much needs to happen.

First, let me start off by apologizing for not getting this post out sooner, in time for friends and family who celebrate Hanukkah!  Happy (day-after) Hanukkah, and  congratulations on surviving 8 days of holidays.  You deserve to be appreciated for pulling everything together, especially when the holiday surprised many (including myself), with how soon it came!

For my friends who celebrate Christmas:  You’re probably just ramping up, aren’t you? I know I am.  This year I even took on being accountable for some of the stocking stuffers, as the first holiday after my dad’s passing.  Little did I expect how the holidays were going to hit me, but then, we rarely expect how the holidays are gong to affect us, even when we think we’re prepared.

So here are a couple tips, for getting through the rest of the month:

Take some time to identify your priorities: You’re not going to be able to get everything done by yourself.  If you try, you’ll probably be ready for the mad house, come January.  Take some time to make a list of the priorities.  To get a good picture of what’s going on, I’ll make my list first, and then mark them with RED, YELLOW, and GREEN.

• Red are items that are critical, and MUST happen.  These are things like making necessary travel arrangements, making sure you get to a child’s holiday play/event.  These are also things you need to do to take care of yourself, in order to stay sane in the next coming weeks, like 15-20 minutes of meditation a day to handle any building up stress.

• YELLOW are items that are important, but the world won’t stop if they don’t happen. In my world, these are things like, making home made pies.  Yes, I need to make sure the pies I committed to happen, just like I need to get my step-mother some gluten-free recipes.  But they don’t NEED to be homemade, and I can wait until I’m in San Francisco to look up recipes if I can’t get it done beforehand.

• GREEN are items that would be nice to accomplish, but they’re not worth losing your sanity over.  For me, these are things like Christmas cards. I’d love to have the time to hand-write Christmas cards the way I used to.  I don’t have that kind of time and I’m not going to punish myself because they don’t happen.

Schedule them out: Putting tasks on a calender can help prevent that last minute jumble.  If you know you’re doing your shopping online from 8-10pm after kids go to bed, then you know when shopping is going to happen and how to manage your time around 8-10pm.  Christian and I use Google Calendar heavily, to co-ordinate our schedules, especially during the holidays.  Being able to pull up both calendars and see where/when we have time blocked out can help keep us from scheduling into the other person’s time – especially if we’re seeing something critical.  It also gives us a way to help each other.  If I see a task like “Pick up Honey-Baked Ham” on his calendar, I can offer to grab it while I’m taking care of “Pick up Gluten-Free Pecan Pie” on my calendar.

Already feeling stressed out? (photo by BLW Photography- under Creative Commons)

The Holidays are the perfect time to observe the polarity of humanity.  People love them, or they hate them.  Or they love the idea of them, but then spend the time being stressed out, pissed off, and overwhelmed.

And as therapist and collaborative strategest Dena Plotkin points out: it’s a perfect time to remember, you can’t please everybody.

Everybody is pre-loaded and ready to blow.  They’re remembering years of holidays with families & friends. They’re remembering the good times, and the times they’re paying a therapist to recover from.  They’re feeling pressured by an invisible critical psycho/ego that lives in their head, about shopping, cooking, cleaning, scheduling, organizing, planning, and executing.  They’re mapping out their plan, or they’re freaked out because they don’t have a plan.  They’re down because they don’t have a lot of options, or they’re overwhelmed because they have too many options, and no one wants to hurt anyone’s feelings.  And then feelings get hurt anyway.

Man plans, god laughs.

Kuma, one of the wonder pups!

One of the things I quickly discovered when I started working for myself, is that there is a luxury in having a boss. A boss gets to stand over my shoulder, checking on my tasks, to-do lists and productivity. They get to make the calls, be accountable, and my job is to do my job.

As an entrepreneur, I don’t have that luxury. I have to decide my tasks, priorities, objectives and deadlines. I need to figure out how my time is best used, and what kind of tasks will give me the most gain and leverage. Sure, I have clients and commitments, but it isn’t quite the same.

That’s why at 11am, I was just getting started working….

Because instead of being a responsible boss and getting myself rolling, I spent 45 minutes playing with, and cuddling the cutest puppies, PJ & Kuma. They should qualify as a controlled substance because I’d much rather be playing with them, than knocking off my ever-growing to-do list.

While working with the MFT Community here in Los Angeles, I got the chance to talk with Negar Khaefi, MFT. She’s been working with adults in Santa Monica, who struggle with anxiety, panic, trauma histories and abuse histories. She wrote an article, highlighting how sometimes we struggle in our relationships, with the simple word “No.”

Enjoy!
Kaye

“NO” is not a Dirty Word

Along with Depression and anxiety comes social isolation, difficulty developing and maintaining friendships, and other relationship problems. Generally, individuals who suffer from low self-esteem find it hard to interact with others because they are worried they won’t be liked. One pattern that I have noticed in my practice is that people who have trouble socially typically have trouble also expressing their own needs. They go out of their way for others as an attempt to be liked and accepted.

When asked to do something, they will almost always agree to do it. Here are some common patterns:

• Saying yes to invitations to movies, concerts, plays, or parties that you have no interest in.
• Saying yes when asked to pick up or drive others around.
• Saying yes when asked for money, sometimes when you don’t have enough for yourself.
• Saying yes to requests to use your home for events, or as a motel.
• Saying yes when offered drugs, even if you don’t do drugs.
• Saying yes to sexual advances, even when you don’t want to.
• Surrendering your belongings to be borrowed by others, even if you need them yourself.