The Disease of Being Busy | On Being. I saw a dear friend a few days ago. I stopped by to ask her how she was doing, how her family was. She looked up, voice lowered, and just whimpered: “I’m so busy… I am so busy… have so much going on.” Almost immediately after, I ran into another friend and asked him how he was. Again, same tone, same response: “I’m just so busy… got so much to do.” The tone was exacerbated, tired, even overwhelmed. And it’s not just adults. After we settled in, we went to one of the friendly neighbors, asking if their daughter and our daughter could get together and play. Horribly destructive habits start early, really early. How did we end up living like this? Whatever happened to a world in which kids get muddy, get dirty, get messy, and heavens, get bored? How did we create a world in which we have more and more and more to do with less time for leisure, less time for reflection, less time for community, less time to just… be?
Somewhere we read, “The unexamined life is not worth living… for a human.” W. "Come as you are" worksheets. If you’ve read Come as You Are – or even if you haven’t! – you may want copies of the worksheets to give to partners, friends, students, whoever. Here are PDFs of them! Here are the Come You Are Worksheets as they appear in the book (these are the ones that go with the audiobook, too) Or download individual worksheets: From Chapter 2 – the Sexual Temperament Questionnaire From Chapter 3 – the Sexy Contexts Worksheets and the Sexual Cues Assessment From Chapter 4 – the Stress Worksheet From Chapter 7 – the Turning Off the Offs Worksheet AASECT 2015 Powerpoint slides from my presentation “In the Middle… Of the Brain.”
Dr. Jenn's Den - Mindfulness Resources. Mindfulness is awareness in the moment & having compassion for your thoughts, emotions, & sensations. Here are resources to learn about the practice of mindfulness for personal growth, healthy living, stronger relationships, and fulfilling sexuality. Dr. Jenn on "Sex: Mind full or Mindful? " about female sexuality.
Elisha Goldstein is a psychotherapist and mindfulness guru. Polyamorous Relationship Dos and Don'ts - More Than Two. Polyamory adds a significant layer of complexity atop the already complex job of managing a romantic relationship. Building good poly relationships doesn’t happen by accident; in addition to the normal challenges anyone in a traditional relationship will face, polyamory offers a few challenges of its own. This is a simple guide to some of the “dos and don’ts” of polyamorous relationships. Of course, you’ll need the relationship skills that go along with any intimate interpersonal relationship as well! Don’t coerce your relationships into a predefined shape; let them be what they are Sometimes, people—particularly people who are already part of an established couple—decide what kind of relationship they want, what form that relationship will take, and then try to fit a person into that space. People are complex, and every person will have his or her own ideas and desires and needs in a relationship.
Don’t keep score And while we’re on the subject… And that leads us nicely to: As a corrolary: Attachment styles – a primer. How can it be that I’ve never done a post about attachment styles? I talk about it all the time with students – it’s useful stuff. It’s the kind of thing that makes people go, “Why did no one tell me that 10 years ago?” Some background: the attachment system, as I said previously, is an adaptive mechanism whereby humans experience a social bond with others. It helps us survive infancy and it ties us to our adult romantic partners. The way we attach to others in adulthood is shaped by the way we are parented.
There might also be some temperamental proneness to particular attachment styles, but the stuff I’ll talk about now is the parenting stuff. Very, very briefly, we attach securely when our adult caregivers (usually parents) are pretty reliably there when we need them. The abandonment thing is crucial: remember that infants’ lives literally depend on their adult caregiver coming back. We attach insecurely when our adult caregivers are less reliable. Secure. Anxious-Insecure. Why?