Gracefully confronting someone with a wrong, and navigating an apology can be very tricky, and very painful. Recognizing the difficulty of the action while at the same time honoring our own need to hear it, is the trick.

Christmas vacations and skiing with the entire crew is a fantastic adventure as well as as healing crucible.

Why is it we are so upset with Tiger for being what he was well known to be? Mostly because of our own fantasies...

Is it rude for men to leave the toilet seat up? Emily Post thinks so, but I disagree...

What is "selfless love"? Why do we convince ourselves that it's a nobel, altruistic thing to do for someone else. What is the price of that?

Why do fundamental Christians have a higher divorce rate than the norm? We can only guess but there are some interesting thoughts on the subject...

Speaking hard truths is difficult, but even more difficult if we dont' do it in a compassionate way.

Women are said to rediscover sex in our 40's. Does this mean we have to have affairs? What's the alternative?

The New York Times report that scientists now say that "true love" can last decades. What makes "true love" last? Why don't most of us experience that?

Fellowship Church's Ed Young's challenge to have sex every day for one week begins today. Married couples are up in arms not under sheets... well, they should be under the sheets (or on top) having the time of their lives... if not something is wrong.

It is splashed all over the media, Fellowship Church’s Grapevine, TX pastor, Ed Young, is challenging his married parishioners to have sex for the next seven days. Why is this news? Most religions encourage and honor sex in the sanctity of marriage. Even a stodgy group like North American Mission Board, an arm of the ultra conservative Southern Baptist Convention emphasizes the importance of good sex in marriage (see Sexual Response in Marriage).

What I find really surprising is the public, or at least some of the media figurehead’s reaction. Sex. For SEVEN DAYS STRAIGHT! They don’t think its possible and they sure don’t seem to think its really desirable. One CNN anchor even suggested that pastor Young would be an accomplice to rape since the women would have to be having sex against their will.

Based on the short video segment I saw, I think Young was trying to do two things: Expose the obstacles to a good, intimate relationship that included joyful sex AND suggest that sex every night is a reasonable and attainable goal.

To all of the nay sayers, I have to ask “Why not plan on having sex every night (and some mornings).” Here’s the deal, if you are really taking care of your partner, taking the time to enjoy them, how can you not end up having lots of great sex?

This is a topic that is near and dear to Melody and me. In fact, you can expect to hear much more about this from us in the next couple of weeks.

Until then, are you having the kind of sex life you want? Do you think it is possible to make sex and the rest of your relationship more joyful? Please email or leave us a comment so we can include what you think is important.

Emotional contagion or marriage as it is supposed to be

What makes for addictive sex? Perhaps it is what some experts would say, a thing that is so pervasive it happens in the beds of millions of women refusing their husbands.... or vice versa...

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 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?

Joel Olsteen's beautiful wife Victoria got her feathers ruffled on a flight in Houston and now she is on trial. Now she is getting flap for being "un-Christian" is this fair?

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?

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...

Five people were killed as a result of "bad choices". We all make them, but why? Understanding how we get caught in the Cycle of Egocentrism can help us sort it out.

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

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.

Beatings and gang shootings in Philly provoke questions of who is to blame. What if we could look the whole picture instead of looking at incident by incident blame? How would that change everything?

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?

"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.

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?

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?

What is it really that drives this kind of violence? Calling it hatred makes it something we cannot relate with doesn't it? But when we recognize the fear driving it, suddenly it's something we can understand.

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.

Dr. Phil showed up without an invitation to Brittney's hospital room. What was he thinking? Brittney needs more than his "tough love" approach can offer. I think he is over his head.

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?

Will Smith Got it Right

Today's top celebrity news story was about Will Smith's comments regarding Hitler. Here's the quote:

He says, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.'

"I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

There Are No "Bad Guys"

While it is hard to imagine anyone doing anything worse than the methodical torture and slaughter of six million people. But the truth is that he really thought he was helping the world. His fouled up ideology meant that the world needed to be rid of an entire race of human beings. But he loved dogs and was a vegetarian.

He was not born evil. He was not, in fact, purely evil, in spite of having ordered many evil deeds done. But he was like all of us in some ways, a human being trying hard to make the world a better place.

Our Human Nature

It is our human nature to look at people and events with an eye toward discovering who is to blame. We expect to find some kind of closure, some kind of understanding of what has happened by finding a culprit. It helps us reach a kind of conclusion about what happened. "Oh, this happened because of this" ends the discussion on a topic.

What If Things are Not that Simple?

Hitler had to be stopped, no question about that. What he was doing was horrid. And if he had survived to have faced the music, the international tribunals would undoubtedly have chosen to put him to death. Somehow the idea of justice comes with the concept of punishing those who have done evil. I can't see how killing a man for killing six million people is justice. Seems to me therapy would have helped him discover the wrongness of his deeds and then the remainder of his life he would have to live with the consequences of his actions.

But most of us are no Hitlers. While many of us do things that are horrible and must be stopped by someone if we can't stop it ourselves, it doesn't make us evil. Like Hitler we didn't wake up one morning and say, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' We do what we think is right at the time and then have to live with the outcomes. Sometimes we are right they are good, sometimes not so much.

What do you think?

Is a person evil if they do evil things? Are we good at core led to bad decsions by our life experiences?

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.

Dr. Phil went to visit Brittney in the hospital without the invitation of anyone. What does he think he is doing? Does he really think his "tough love" approach is going to help her? The kind of help she needs is beyond his reach.