Trading Sex for Jungle Tour

I read this great article today on CNN about how this college student, now a chocolate store owner, convinced a local African to take her into the jungle to live for two weeks. She had been unable to find a paid guide to take her, but this young man liked her looks. She didn’t particularly like his, but she didn’t care. She traded two weeks of sex for two weeks in the jungle. It turned out to be a great deal, she felt it more than worth the price.

The Powerof Sex to Get Things Done

The article goes on to talk about how a lot of women trade sex for services. The classic having sex with your handyman was the most obvious example. Though the article traced these types of trades back to ancient Egypt when Cleopatra “cemented her power” through having sexual relations with Roman rulers.

Biology of the Trade

The final paragraph in the article talks about the whole premise of trading sex for services being driven by biology. Dr. Chris Fariello, director of the Institute for Sex Therapy at the Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group based in Philadelphia, says a partner who provides more resources -- wealth, shelter, home repairs -- is seen as more attractive and stands to reap more sexual rewards. But until I got to the last line, I didn’t really get why having sex with your handyman was more than just a funny cliché. As Fariello puts it, "I don't get anybody in my office who says, 'My husband sits on the couch all day and eats bonbons, and I want to have sex with him all the time.”

What Does This Say About US?

This made me laugh out loud. But then I thought about what it is really saying. What this is saying is that our pre-programmed biological drive is to have a mate who takes ownership of their life and surroundings – and is capable of doing so. Whether male or female we have to add value to our partner in some form. Men are easier because they have such a strong biological drive for sex, but women, too need a man who adds something to her life. Men have often twisted that to mean (perhaps because of our American cultural emphasis on money) that if they don’t make a lot of money they can’t get a hot wife.

What this article makes clear is that women and men need the same thing - someone who adds value to their life. That could mean money, but then why do so many well-supported women give up married life in order to pursue something else? Obviously money is NOT it! Women want a man who does more that “sits on the couch all day eat(ing) bonbons.” We are biologically driven to find a man willing to take ownership of their life and surroundings. It changes everything. I’ve always said there is nothing sexier than a man standing in front of the sink with a sink full of dirty dishes and his sleeves rolled up. We want a man who is willing to work… Of course, what men want from us is a whole different article.

To be completely honest, that describes me to a T. My first husband was worthless, didn’t even feel that he needed to earn income, much less contribute around the house or with our baby. My second worked hard but contributed nothing to my needs, making our home or caring for our daughters. Now I have married a man who works harder than I do at keeping our home and family together. I’m crazy about him. Who knew it was biology?

What do you think?

Do you ever think you would trade your skill for sex or sex for a skill? I'd love to hear if you have nor have not, and what you think about it.

Government investigation

CNN had a report this morning that the government announced on Thursday there is to be a wide ranging probe into oil price manipulation and said it would get more information on the effect investors are having on the market. This is to be undertaken by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission

"There is a theory that the price of crude oil is being driven up not by supply and demand principles, but by speculators using what are called dark markets, markets that can't be watched by the public or regulators, to manipulate the price of crude," said Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland and a former CFTC official.

Victim of what?

I don’t know about you my instinct when things look foul is to look for someone to blame. I’d love to blame the oil companies or oil speculators or anyone convenient. And, it’s easy to see how we could lay blame on some of them. After all, in my lifetime I have never seen gas prices go up so dramatically without some kind of associated shortage.

Shortages?

Gas prices went up in the late 70’s and we had long gas lines, stations running out of gas and we could only buy gas on certain days in order to manage the shortage. It was scary. But not as scary as gas prices over the $5 mark, which is sure to come before the end of summer.

So what does explain this insane leap in oil prices? Even the government can’t account for it. I mean, sure, former third world countries with huge populations (China and India) could account for increased demand. That would surely create some shortage and make it harder to get enough wouldn’t it, along with the increased prices? But we aren’t seeing shortages: only increased prices.

But I AM a Victim!

I do feel like a victim in this regard since I have no power to even understand what is happening with our gasoline prices. But, if I were to admit my part in all this I would admit to not having bought a hybrid yet. I could also say that I only just last week saw “Who Killed the Electric Car?”.

Owning our part

As Americans we have been sitting idly by as our planet has gotten in worse and worse condition, driving our Hummers and watching our video games with little real attention paid to the cost of carbon-fuel. If we are to own our part in this current situation we have to recognize that we are not victims. We all have some responsibility in our dependence on oil. The electric car can and should have been made available to the public, but we didn’t demand it, we just kept buying bigger cars; even when we knew better.

What can we do?

Rather than looking for the government to rescue us from the big bad oil companies we need to organize ourselves in a way that puts our resources into finding alternative, clean energy sources. Cars powered by electricity coming from windmills or thermal power? Now that could be clean energy. Maybe even nuclear power. More plants is a possibility. Let’s put our focus on what we can do rather than “woe is me!” Victim stuff. Now, that could change everything.

Comments?

What do you think? Do you have any ideas on this topic? Let me know what you think. Comment below.

Thinking Positive

Last week a friend of mine who is a great, positive, upbeat guy, came down with the flu. When ran into him last week I gave him a hug. His cheek burned into mine. I said, “Charlie, you have a 102 fever!” He said “Naw. I’m fine.”

This, of course, is the way we are taught to think positively about illness and not acknowledge that we are ill because doing so will make it reality. This is how anything with the potential to be viewed as “negative” is dealt with in the world of positive thinking. Ignore it and it will go away. Focus only on the positive things that you want and that is what you will get.

I’m a “positive thinker” from way back

Understand, I am a positive thinker from way back, but there are some obvious flaws in this type of thinking. I believe that we should always focus on the positive and use affirmations and picture what we want. This keeps us focused on our goals and helps us realize them.

Rescuing ourselves

But what I have come to recognize is that the practice of ignoring the problems that occur is a way of “rescuing” ourselves from the consequences of our choices. It helps us to keep ourselves from feeling the pain of what has occurred in our past and from feeling the results of our choices. It also prevents us from learning from them and healing them.

This is what we do when we pretend that hurtful things don’t exist or choose not to “dwell on the past”. These are words and practices that help us avoid dealing with the feelings about what has happened.

A lot of people rush to the practices of positive thinking because it will help them continue to avoid feeling pain. It is painful, sometimes, to face the consequences of our choices and to process through the pain of what has happened to us in the past. Our old wounds don’t go away simply because we don’t focus on them, no matter how much we desire it.

The consequences of ignoring wounds

Ignoring our emotional wounds is like continuing to walk on a broken leg, insisting that it’s not broken. Actually, it’s even worse than that, because emotional wounds fester in subversive ways that prevent us from functioning in our lives the way we want. Emotional wounds that are not addressed result in corrupted thinking and distorted emotional responses to others and ourselves. They end up sabotaging our every intentional positive thought. Our unconscious feelings and thoughts always override our conscious ones.

Treasure hunting

Inside every painful emotional wound lies a treasure. Each wound holds a piece of our personal power and our preciousness. Without being willing to open up those wounds and explore their meanings and discover their gifts, we are forced to be a Victim.

Any time someone is wounded they are a “victim” (as in the terms “shot victim”, “bite victim”, “rape victim”, etc.) until these wounds are healed. Carrying around unhealed wounds keeps us stuck in being a Victim.

Ignoring them using “positive thinking” as an excuse to avoid them is using “positive thinking” to become your own Rescuer.

Uncover the pockets of power

Making the choice to work through the wounds allows you to uncover the pockets of power buried there. This works in exactly the same way as the methods proposed by Robert Scheinfeld in “Busting Loose from the Money Game” (available in the Unity Book Store). In this book, Scheinfeld encourages readers to expand upon feelings as they come up and to deeply explore what the feelings are all about before letting them go. In doing this, he claims, you unlock the power to have everything you want in your life.

Unlock your full potential by allowing yourself to have full access to all the power hidden inside your wounds. Change everything by no longer hiding from the power you hold back by being your own Rescuer.

What do you think, am I crazy?

Can feelings really hold the power to your unconscious will? Can you really discover the secret to having everything you want by simply allowing yourself to process through your unprocessed wounds? Or have I gone off my rocker? Tell me what you think. Comment below!

Giving?

Over the past year I have been listening to a lot of people talk about the need for giving as a spiritual path. Authors are writing books, conducting lectures, even hosting radio shows. Oprah has introduced "The Big Give" game show where earnest competitors strive to be the one to give the most in a few days time.

Of course the injunction to give is not new by any stretch. For generations churches have implored us to give money and time to build the church and the churches services. For generations we have given, we have built churches and we have built foundations, charities, and funds to help those less fortunate.

And of course, Zig Zigler, who is now 81 years young has been saying “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” since 1984. He's right, of course, because helping others builds trust and establishes ourselves as having value to the other person. When we have value to others we are more likely to get what we want.

What is Giving really about?

Helping others and giving to others feels good and ultimately lifts us out of our shame. It allows us to feel worthy and others appreciate us.

Of course, if we don't give, we are subtly (sometimes not so subtly) told we are takers and should be ashamed of ourselves. This shame hooks into an old sense of shame that we may have carried with us since childhood. So we give because we don't want to feel that shame. Then we give again because giving just lifts us temporarily out of the shame, it doesn't fix it. The cycle of feeling shame then giving then feeling shame and then giving never ends.

People who preach "Giving"

What I am tired of us people who preach giving and are takers themselves. Typically, this is the "preacher" who takes money for prayers that he never sees and lives in a multi-million dollar mansion. It's typical of "socialites" who raise money for charities and pay for their designer clothes with the funds they collect.

The hypocrisy of it irks me, but I do have compassion for them. I know they are doing the best they can, because they themselves feel horrid about themselves. The only way their feel their lives have merit is if they obtain the financial and social status other's "giving" does for them. That really is very sad.

Oprah's Giving

We all love how much Oprah gives and we admire her delightfully refreshing attitude of giving that so few billionaires express. I love so much about her, but I also see her gaining weight again. She has expressed a knowledge that this is emotional and about her having not gotten to a place of self love. What I know is that if we are not fully in a place of self love then we are in the Victim place. Being in the Victim place means feeling shame and powerless, going into a Rescuer mode and giving to others can relieve that pain for a while. Of course, Oprah has so much money and so many resources she could spend the rest of her days giving, most of us would like to see that continue. Personally, I wish for her that she could look at what motivates her giving and deal with the unwarranted shame that is undoubtedly underneath.

Irony.

One of the ironies in all this clap trap about "giving" is the idea I have often heard preached that we Americans are "all about me" and "materialistic". Yet there is no other country that gives so much per capita as the United States. We give through our budget to provide foreign aid, we give through our churches, our corporations give, our foundations give, and individually we give more than any other nation in the world. Yet I continually hear about how focused we are on ourselves. We are a nation of Rescuer's in fact.

Does giving have to come from shame?

What if we got out of our shame and gave from an entirely different place? What would that look like? I don't think those slimy preachers would live so high on the hog. I think more money would actually go to helping people. We'd spend less time focusing on getting more for ourselves, too, because we would not feel the need to prove our value.Now that really does change everything.

Are you a Giver? Why?

I'd love to hear your thoughts about this pet peeve of mine. It is not fashionable right now to question this new "giving movement." But it's not the giving I have an issue with, it's why we do it, and who do we think we are judging those who don't choose to give as being "less than"? Shame builds upon shame when we do this to others. Its shame we don't deserve. Comment below.

As a note:

I give more than 30% of my fees to clients who cannot afford to pay their full fee. I don't give a lot to "charities" and I don't spend a lot of time wondering if I should give more. I give to these clients because it makes me feel good to see them get better. I have a lot more to say about the "giving movement" so check in later for more.

Wohooo~ The Texas primaries actually matter!

Texas primaries don't normally count. This year we may very well determine who our next president will become. I've lived in Texas for more than 20 years, it's nice to feel a part of the election this time. And, wow, what an election.

Clinton or Obama?

Mixed feelings abound in my heart about both candidates. Clinton. Even the name brings back memories of "the good old days". We were at peace, our economy was booming and the future looked bright. Okay, well, there were some moral issues but lots of great presidents had them. Oh, wait, we're not talking about Bill are we? Hilary is the first viable woman candidate this country has ever seen. I love that idea. She is not the "motherly" type, but that's not what we need is it? We need someone tough enough to stand for what they believe yet capable of compromising to get things done. Ms Clinton has not really had that kind of reputation, but in this campaign she has done a good job convincing the public she is a "kinder gentler" version of herself. Mainly, I want someone tough enough to stand up to the credit card industry and change the legal loan sharking that is eroding our economy from the bottom up.

Obama. Okay, I'm like everyone else it has taken me the entire campaign to be able to say his name. I absolutely love the idea of a mixed race person in office, and he is a charming, handsome "Kennedy-ish" kind of man, with a "Jackie-O" type of wife. They could return us to Camolot. The image they present, and the knocking down of racial barriers he represents, are so appealing. But does this man have the experience, the world-stage knowledge to restore America's role as leaders of the free world? I hope so since it looks to me like he just might win, but I am not entirely certain. His position on the credit card rates is that it would hurt poor people to not be able to receive loans they can't possibly pay back. The short sightedness of that position scares me. What if he is that short sighted on other issues?

Change is here

Change is clearly in the works. Whoever we choose, the next 4 to 8 years will be a shift from our past, thankfully. I am grateful that we have the power of these two amazing candidates to choose from, frankly, I will be ecstatic to see either of them in office. My dismay at the blunders of our current administration has built from year to year. Of course, there are no guarantee's that Obama or Ms Clinton will do any better, but I can't imagine they could do any worse.

Rescuer's, perpetrators and victims

When we look to our president to rescue us from the disasters of the last presidency's mistakes, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. But it is what we tend to do. Our instincts are to look for someone to rescue us. We feel a victim of the last President's failures and we want desperately for someone to swoop down and change everything. We want our troops home; we want peace in Iraq; we want our economy restored; we want our housing market improved; we want national health care. Can one administration do all this for us? That is our fantasy and if they don't live up to what we expect of them they, too will fall from grace as far as our current administration (perhaps). We will see the new president as the "perpetrator" and ourselves, once more, as the victim of their choices.

Taking ownership

Of course our ability to elect our own leader every four years gives us some ownership of our government, which is what makes our country strong. Each of us owning some sense of responsibility whether we vote or not, keeps us from being inextricably stuck in the Victim role. That changes everything doesn't it?

GET OUT AND VOTE

Whatever we do, when we go out to the polls and vote tomorrow (in Texas) we are asserting our ownership of our government and the process of freedom. If we fail to do that in our national and local elections, we are putting ourselves in the Victim role. By not taking ownership of our part in our lives and in our wold, we are choosing to remain stuck and powerless. Personally, that's something I can't tolerate for myself any more.

What about you?

Are you going to vote tomorrow? Are you going to be a part of this historical election? Are the election results going to matter to you? Sometimes our lives are so out of control personally that what is happening in the world makes little impact on us. Let me know where you are at and if the election results in Texas matter to you or not. I'd love to hear about it. Comment below.

Look out, look out, the economy is falling!

Foreclosure's are up by 75%. What exactly does this mean? Does this really mean our economy is failing? Two years ago we sold our home in Richardson to move to Lewisville, where my husband's children live with their Mother. This was difficult for us to do because we loved our then home, but it needed to happen. It took almost a year to sell it, and then for less money than we had hoped.

The woman buying our home went into bankruptcy the following year and was unable to keep up her payments on the home. This amazing house went into foreclosure. On the surface it looks like a normal situation of someone not being able to make her payments because of her own financial difficulties.

What is really going on?

Over the past several years lenders have been given more and more leeway to do as they please in regard to loaning money to individuals. They can charge whatever rate they choose to, and they can set up loans that cannot ever be reasonably re-paid. The woman buying our beloved home, couldn't really afford the loan. Her mortgage broker designed a loan for her, that in the past, would have been illegal. But, in todays world, anything goes.

From the looks of the suit against Country Wide Mortgage company, she was not alone in receiving loans that were structured in such a way as to be impossible to repay. Funny, when the lender is trying to "help" us get into loans, we are so grateful. They appear as white knights saving the day, setting us up to be able to buy homes when in the past we might not have been able to swing it.

Rescuers in action

This is a classic example how rescuing works. The lenders setting up these loans had to have known the loans they were setting up could not work for these people. But, because they got their cut, their own percentage of the sale, and the law would allow it, what did they care? They were going to sell the loan anyway; little risk to their company.

Rescuers have an ulterior motive whether they realize it or not. I'm certain the individual sales people at the companies involved in setting up these untenable loans felt happy they were able to "help" their buyers get into a home. It undoubtedly gave them a spring in their walk to think they had helped these poor folks. This was the sales peoples pay off; besides their commission, of courses.

Rescuers turned Self-Protectors

Now, of course, lenders like Country Wide are desperately trying to justify the loans they set up. They are in court trying to make a case for why they did the things they did. They were just trying to help people get into homes. What is wrong with that?

The Victims

The victims of this scenario, of course, owned responsibility for their part in the deal, too. They signed the bottom line on mortgages they could not possibly afford to pay. They have to be held accountable, and of course they are; they lose their homes. Bottom line is they are the ones who pay the ultimate price of lost status, lost credit, and of course, a lost home. But, they are also the ones agreeing to the disastrous loan.

Who is to Blame?

Are the mortgage lenders to blame for a market allowing this type of sale to be legal? Is the mortgagee to blame for accepting loans they could not afford to pay?

The reality is that if you take the position of seeing good guys versus bad guys in this scenario, you miss the real point. Laws were passed allowing this type of mortgage. We are a democratic nation. We pick our lawmakers, we select our laws, and we, as citizens ultimately have to own that we allowed this situation to be legal.

Meanwhile, we look at the numbers and feel "Victims" of the "bad" economy the media is trying to sell us exists. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Am I being a "bleeding heart liberal"?

Is there someone we should be blaming for the current economy crisis? We could blame it on the war and the deficit. There are probably other factors I've missed. I'd love to hear what you think. Comment below using the like "comment" to tell me what you think.

The slant of a headline

The CNN headline yesterday was "Ethnic hatred fuels more Kenya violence", I beg to differ. Fear is what fuels violence. When we are afraid we move into a stance that requires us to do whatever we have to do to survive the situation. Behaviors that are abhorant to us become acceptable when we feel threatend. No matter who we are, or what our values are, when we are threatened, our fear instinct engages us in the need to protect ourselves.

What is really going on?

I don't know the history or full story about what is currently happening in Kenya. I'm not sure that's clear to anyone. But I do know that author and journalist Michela Wrong told Al Jazeera that that the fighting wasn't simply an ethnic split, but was really about the divisions between rich and poor. She is reported to have said: "That's the ugly surface of a much more profound split [but] there is a sense that this was an elitist government, it was a government that was really only interested in itself, in its own particular group."

People in Kenya, it seems are afraid of starving to death. Wouldn't that stir you to action? Fear for our survival is key to our being able to survive. It's a natural, necessary, part of being a mammal, being a human being.

It's easy for us to sit back in our armchairs from our rich country and see this as merely a tribal battle involving long histories of tribal fuedalism, but rarely is that enough to drive human beings to horrific violence. Something immediately dangerous will do that.

How often do we fail to recognize when someone is afraid?

When someone is screaming at us or acting hostilly toward us, what is really going on with them? We don't usually stop to think about this. We usually are frightend ourselves of their behavior and we put up our own defensive barrier to protect ourselves from the perception of their attack. Often, the anger and hostility is not really about us or even aimed at us, yet we do what is instinctive, and we react from our own fear.

Transforming conflict into compassion means being able to recognize the fear behind someone's aparantly irrational, or even violent, behavior. When we can do this, we step outside of our own immediate sense of threat and look at the world through another person's eyes.

This can happen even in radical situations.

Even in the radical world of the pain and horror of Kenya, if the powers that be were willing to negotiate with each other and let go of their own egocentric positions (i.e. self-centered) and step into each other's shoes, change could happen. Knowing how this model affects our selves and our world could "change everything."

Can you do this?

When was the last time you felt someone angry at you or throwing a fit in yoru presence and you thought, "Hmm, this person must be afraid. I wonder what is going on."? Is this a rational way to react when we feel threatened, or is it stupid because the other person, could, perhaps do something to hurt you. What do you think? Comment below and let me know.

Rescuing the Economy

Now, I am like everyone else, I want our economy to improve. There are real problems here that have not been addressed, and as far as I can tell, have been ignored by the current administration. But cutting us each a check for $600 is supposed to help? Isn't that kind of like giving out wheat to starving people?

I am not an economist, obviously, and maybe I am speaking compleetly out of turn here, but this whole idea seems ludicrous to me. I remember how cool it was to get the $600 check from the government when our budget was in surplus during Clinton's second tenure. It feels really bad to me to be given money from a budget that is already deeply in debt. Again, I'm not an economist, so maybe there is a sense to it that I don't see. I was taught that what causes economy's to go down the tube is when our deficit is out of control. The opposite certainly held true, when we were in surplus our economy bloomed (the boom days of the 90's). How is going down further supposed to help?

Rescuing is Never a Good Thing

It seems to me an attempt to "rescue" our failing economy. Rescuing is when you jump in to save someone from something that is happening without really giving a long term solution, it's just a fix to the immediate problem. I'm not fond of rescuing in a small scale, say doing a child's homework for them because they didn't manage their time well and ran out of time. And I am even less fond of the idea of rescuing on such a large scale. I can't imagine the long term consequenses being a good thing, in resucing, they seldom are.

My limited economic education leaves me with the belief that a way to address the problem of our current economic condition would be to look at where our current economic problems exist. The biggest problem, to me, the "white elephant" that no one is talking about is: the unlimited interest rates that lenders can charge borrowers. When lenders are allowed to charge ANY amount they choose for borrowing money; where does that leave borrowers?

Stop the Loan Sharks

Credit card companies can arbitrarily choose to increase your interest rates to whatever they choose if you are even a day late paying your bill. They woo you in with a low interest rate and wait for you to slip up. We all do it sooner or later, no one is perfect. When that happens your income suddenly becomes eaten up with interest fees. How, then, are we supposed to get ahead or stimulate the economy by buying new things when we are paying exhorbetant amounts for the money we borrowed to buy things in the past. This alone puts decreases the average Joe's buying power significantly.

Woe be to the person who finds themselves in need of immediate loans. The "pay day loan" companies are legalizzed loan sharks. When did this become legal? I guess I needed to have paid closer attention to something that was happening because it was not so long ago that charging more than 20% interest was loan sharking. Now these sharks can legally charge 1000% interest, that's right, it's not a typo here, 1000% interest.

Where are Our Lawmakers?

Wouldn't it be more helpful to make loan sharking like this illegal? Doing that one simple thing would put millions of dollars into circulation and out of the hands of the loan sharking credit cards and "pay day loans" people. Talk about a sigh of relief, you'd hear it accross the country.

This is an election year. Why aren't any of the candidates talking about this? I'm currenlty an Obama fan, but ANY candidate that would put the illegalization of loan sharking (over 20% interest) on their platform would win my vote. It would be the best thing to happen to this country in the last 8 years.

What Do You Think?

What do you think? Am I wrong, are you an economist and have more knowledge about this than I do? I would really like to hear from you.