Should you stay or should you go? It's a daily question. Not just a relationship end point question. When you think about your partner as the enemy have you already left the relationship?

Why is it we have such a hard time connecting with each other? We all have this urge to connect but end up clueless and lost. Askdanandjennifer.com forum questions illustrate how common this is...

Why is is so hard for us to say what it is we really want? We even fake orgasms rather than tell our partner what we want and what we like.

A CNN article says women's history of trading sex for services is a biological thing. What is it we are doing? Why?

How are ethics and compassion related? The heart of ethics is understanding how to be compassionate with the people in our lives. But why is this so hard to do?

An unexpected summer guest leaves my family with an even more unexpected gift.

Talking to a group of teachers this morning made me think about some of the evolution of my teaching the Cycles of the Heart. It started with a "calling" at 13...

African Americans deserve more respect than Jesse Jackson gives them.

Many of us experience empathy deficits. Why does empathy matter? What difference does it make if we have it or not?

My experiences over 13 years of camping at the Kerrville New Folk Festival have shaped my life and the lives of my kids. This year had something surprising in store for us and Kerrville will never be the same.

Workplace conflict is a costly and time consuming issue for any company. Understanding how to avoid it is more than just learning rules and steps. Making a paradigm shift can transform conflict at work.

With three of my daughters graduating this year I have earned some bragging rights. How they got there was not always easy, they certainly had no charmed life.

How can we explain the kind of bloody horror occurring in the streets of Chicago? Getting caught up in the Cycle of Egocentrism is a deadly business. Are we any different?

Projecting our desires and our wounds on our partners can cause all kinds of damage in our relationships. What are you projecting?

In a typical self protector comment, Al Qeada's 2nd in command issues a statement that they don't kill innocent people. How can we make sense out of a statement like that?

When women feel like a victim there is no telling how they can react these days. Actress Teri Garr is a role model for bad behavior.

Jamiel Shaw, Sr's son was shot down and yet he turns to the community with a message of compassion. Could you do the same? Is this the right response?

Wow. Its official. Expressing our anger helps us live longer. But does that mean it's okay to dump our rage on people?

Positive thinking training sometimes gets us to thinking we "shouldn't" feel the "bad" feelings and keeps us away from exploring our emotions. Is there a good reason to let ourselves feel that "bad" stuff?

Why do we give? What we are taught is to give without regard for self. Is this right? What is it we are really called to do?

Playing the blame game in the Spitzer ordeal is part of the fun of the media frenzy. But what purpose does this serve and how does it help deal with the aftermath?

"Potty Training" is what parents need, not kids. When we try to "train" our kids through manipulation or control what is it we get? Is the result what we really want?

Barack's friend and supporter blew it. He tried to frame Obama as the poor helpless Victim and ended up betraying the person he was trying to help.

In the US we have not always treated our veterans well. How are our new vets going to handle things as they are today? How did we set ourselves up to view them the way we do?

What is the answer to domestic violence? Is it locking up all those "evil s.o.b.s"? What if we, as women took our power back by not keeping ourselves stuck in the "victim role?

Martha Beck's article was right on but she missed some key points. Simply thinking positive is not enough to change the hurt inside that keeps us from being able to heal.

Empathy requires us to step out of our shoes to see things from another's eyes. Some of us do it too much, what happens then?

We select our president hoping for a hero. What happens when he turns out not to be one? What does he become? Can we pick a president based on something else, something more human?

Heath should not have ended up this way. He was talented and in pain. How does our way of coping with pain affect everything?

The different sides of Britney appear as a consistent set of roles typical to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Does she have this disorder? Is she that different, in some ways, from the rest of us?

Vets suffering from PTSD often return home in terrible shape and little support, resulting in abhorrent behavior. They attempt suicide, they beat their wives and their children, and are generally violent and angry. What happens if someone else has these behaviors? Could we consider that they may be in pain too?

Understanding why someone would do something so heartless as to murder his wife and "hi-5" his son afterwards is difficult. There has to be more to the story than we can really know.

The big news this morning is that Iran is a threat to our security. How do we handle threats to our security both on a National scale and a personal scale? Are there other options than reactive "fight or flight?

Merry Christmas!

There is nothing better than being with family. The memories together, the fun times when every one is laughing and joking around. But there is also nothing more stressful. My daughters and I have been talking about what it is that makes it so stressful.

Expectations

During the holidasy all of us have expectations about what it will be like when we are together. We all want it to be loving, fun and "miraculous". I know how excited I was to have my kids all together under the same roof for the first time in a long while. And it was a lot of fun. Of course, it's gotten very complicated. My oldest daughter has to spend time with her husband's family. MY twins have to spend time with their Dad and his family at their various get togethers. My step children are all obliged to be with thier other family, too. Then of course there is my parents and siblings, and my husbands family and siblings. It gets even more complex when you add in OUR step parents.

During all those get togethers the expectations is that every one will be happy and everyone will get along. Luckily, mostly they do in my family. Too much time together can make it ugly, but the amount of time we end up spending with each of the above groups tends to go smoothly.

Realities

The realities freqently end up quite different than our expectations. And, just becauase of the expectations, we tend to be on edge, trying to control everything to make sure it lives up to those expecations. Attempts at control, however generally lead to disaster since insistance on control is an addiction to a fantasy.

My kids love each other butu don't always communicate that well. I laugh at this since I am supposed to be a communicator, but I have brought up children that don't know how. Communication requires being willing to face inconvienient or unwelcome differences of opinions. My daughters tend to avoid these. Hmmmm, wonder where they got that.

Anger

So many of us are anger phobic. This tends to force us into manipulating the situations around us since being direct could incite someones anger. Then, when someone is unhappy, we are unhappy with them for not going along with the program.

Being willing to listen to another's anger is a gift few of us are capable of giving, yet the bottom line of good communication and good relationships.

Not letting ourselves listen to another's anger is one of the ways we think we are "protecting ourselves".

Jenna and Doug

Jenna was really unhappy with the way Doug was acting when he went to her parents home. Their 3 year old son had gotten in an altercation with his younger cousin, who was about 17 months old. The younger child had taken something from their son and Doug was furions. He could not understand why Jenna's parents didn't jump up and punish the 17 month old for this behavior. Doug was sure that this, like many other instances he could recall, just validated his belief that Jenna's parents favored the 17month old cousin over their 3 year old son.

Jenna could not understand why Doug was so unhappy. She continually told him that he was wrong for feeling the way he did, and expecting unreasonable behavior out of the 17month old.

Then Doug got to what was underneath. Doug had been feeling left out of Jenna's family for a long time. He felt that they had never quite accepted him and he felt hurt and alone at family get togethers.

The consequences of holding back truth

Jenna had thought that Doug was just unreasonable and irrational. She had been uncomfortable for years when they spent time with her family because he had never acted like he wanted to be there. Doug had never told her about his feelings, or the pain that lay underneath. His parents had often left him alone in his bedroom on Christmas day as they drank their way to obliviion.

Jenna gave him the best gift he could have recieved for Chrismas that year. Listening to his wounding and holding bach her reactivity long enough to listen to him allowed her to present a precious gift to him. She gave him compassion.

Discussion about how anger phobia keeps people from getting close to each other and destroys any real chance for intimacy.