November 2010 Archives

As you lay your head on the pillow this Thanksgiving night, chances are you will do so with a full belly. As a woman, I have to say, the permission to consume, without guilt, unlimited carbs, multiple helpings and a slice of pie as a nightcap is truly something to be grateful for. And, while I have been known to eat enough stuffing to satisfy two grown men, the truth is that the fullness I have found the most satisfying for the past decade of Thanksgivings is the full heart I end my night with.

Somewhere around the age of 27, I decided to look past the pilgrims, stuffed turkeys, and football games to find what Thanksgiving really meant to me. While the food was always good, and it was nice to see relatives and friends, there always seemed to be something missing. On a day that is expressly about giving thanks, I often ended Thanksgiving Day full of stuffing but with plenty of room still left in my heart for what I think every human being could use three, four, even infinite helpings of - LOVE.

After 10+ years of experimenting with new and daring heart-filling Thanksgiving traditions, I am happy to say that my heart has not gone hungry since. Following are three of my favorite ways to stuff myself with LOVE on Thanksgiving. Give them a try, and give yourself (and others) the gift of a heart full of love this holiday.


Be an Intimacy Initiator  
I can remember the first time I suggested to my nice but not overly emotionally expressive or touchy feely family that we try something new before we dug into the turkey, stuffing and oh-so yummy gravy. For as long as I could remember, the meal had always begun with a short prayer said by the same two people - my uncle (who was not blood related and therefore had not problem using his emotional expression gene) or my 5- year old cousin (who was guaranteed to be brief.)   

This year however, before either could get a word out, I announced that there was something new that I wanted to try. The room got silent, their eyes got bigger and I could feel the "Oh no, she's been watching Oprah again!" running through their minds.

I didn't let their doubt, skepticism or rush of fear stop me. Oh no, I had the inspired spirit of gratitude running through me. With an enthusiasm bold enough to crash through their Great Walls of Repression I announced, "I'd like us all to go around the table and say from our hearts what we are truly grateful for." Now this may not be a big deal for your family, but for this tribe, I had just stepped over a line. Small talk, football, current events and a prayer, safe. Sharing from the heart, intimacy as in "into-me see," stop! Too close.

So it was no shocker that the first response was absolute silence. Gulp. But then, as if an angel descended from the sky to save me from my self-induced peril, my 5-year old cousin rang out, "Can I go first?" And with his child-like enthusiasm leading us, we were on our way around the table. One by one they shared (they had no choice, they were trapped for there was no way to excuse themselves to the bathroom now!) And for the first time ever, this family actually shared from their hearts (without the need of several cocktails to do so.)

It gave me great pleasure, not to watch them squirm (although they did), but to see that in the end, each person, well most of them, really did like sharing. Each man, woman and child felt a little more seen, and truthfully, isn't that one of the greatest gifts we have to give another human being? The gift of being seen for who we are.


LOVE DARE #1: 
Initiate an action that creates more "Into-me-see" with the people you spend your Thanksgiving with.   

• What is the edge of intimacy for your group? What one small shift can you initiate or what one courageous suggestion can you make to increase connection?
• What one creative way can you ensure each person leaves the gathering feeling more seen? It could be as simple as a place setting with their name and the thing you are most grateful for about them. Or as bold as giving every one a pad of sticky notes and a marker and full permission to stick words of personal gratitude on people throughout the entire evening.

Be a Story Changer
Turkeys. Pilgrims. Indians. Big Dinner. The End. That's the story that we all learned, enacted and painted our entire childhood existence. And if you were like me, you never questioned its validity or the fact the happy ending was absolute truth. The cute children's books, the holiday rituals and the high school history books all collaborated the same story, so why question?

Through my bold questioning and search for truth for the meaning of this holiday, I learned that the facts our societal systems teach us to believe are often stories fabricated to hide the ugly truth of what humans sometimes do in their quest for power.

Today, for most of us, the most negative reality of our post--Thanksgiving dinners are bursting waistbands and a turkey-induced nap. The consequences for the Native Americans that followed the original Thanksgiving dinner (if it even happened) were much harsher. Our history books just don't like to admit it.  

In today's virtually connected world, we can be thankful that we don't need the history books to tell the truth or to create a new story. We are each empowered to change the ending of the post-Thanksgiving story ourselves by acknowledging the true story and acknowledging the Native Americans who kept this land safe and sacred for thousands of years before we arrived to pollute it. Turkeys. Pilgrims. Indians. Big Dinners. Truth. Respect. Honoring. Native Americans. Love.

LOVE DARE #2:
Invite the spirit of Native Americans to dinner.

• Set one place setting for the Native Americans at the table - and yep, put some food on it!
• Say a Native American prayer to start dinner, or before cooking. You'd be surprised what you can find in a Google search.
• Tell the real story (after dinner - not good digestion talk) and then share what you are grateful to the Native Americans for. If you don't know what they have given us, google Native American contributions and see what you learn.

Be a Gratitude Generator
Who needs Pictionary, charades, or another football game when you have a Gratitude Generator at the party? Over the years, I have made it my role to be a Gratitude Generator. Definition: one whose role it is to activate the spirit of gratitude in others, with the intention of filling hearts full of love on Thanksgiving Day. My multitude of Thanksgiving experiments have yielded some fascinating findings, including that one of the best ways to take the scariness out of the heart opening required for authentic gratitude is to add the element of PLAY. Make it fun and unassuming and people will participate. Before they know it, they will be adding their own flair to the fun, becoming Gratitude Generators themselves.

LOVE DARE #3:
Set the intention to be a Gratitude Generator for the day, inviting people into fun and playful ways to express gratitude.

Here is one creative idea I love, but put your Genius Gratitude heart on and see what creative ideas you can generate.

Gratitude Gone Wild - upon arrival, give each guest a marker and a colored pad of sticky notes instructing them that their goal is to leave the night with no sticky notes left on their pad. Their assignment? To spontaneously write all the things they are grateful for on the stickies (one per sheet) throughout the night, giving them liberty to put the stickies wherever they like (walls, ceilings, cupboards). Toward the end of the evening, gather the group and invite people to choose three gratitudes from all the postings that they would like to be able to say they are grateful for next year. Tell them they can take the postings home with them (the best leftovers ever!) And best of all, if you are the party host, you will be finding gratitudes all year long!


About Christine Arylo
Christine Arylo, an m.b.a. turned writer, speaker and teacher, is an inspirational catalyst who teaches women how to stop being so hard on themselves. A recovering achievement junkie and doing addict herself, Arylo is the co-founder of Inner Mean Girl Reform School and the author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love www.mebeforewe.com. Known as the "Queen of Self-Love," Arylo created Madly in Love with ME, the international day of self-love (Feb 13), dedicated to making self-love a tangible reality for women and girls around the world. www.madlyinlovewithme.com

3 Signs You're in an Unhealthy Infatuation vs a Healthy Connection

Attraction -- physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual --
is important, really important. None of us wants to hang out 
with a person who makes our stars fizzle or our minds yawn, but 
attraction must be healthy to create a great, or even a good, relationship.
 And the only way to determine if your attraction is of the 
healthy variety is to get downright honest about what inspired the connection. Of course no person wants to jump up and down
 exclaiming, "Look at me over here! I am dying to expose my 
messed up relationship!" but if we don't get real about the health 
of our attractions, we risk losing what's more important than
 anything else -- our selves.

One reason we often mistake unhealthy attraction for the
 healthy connections found in authentic partnerships is that most 
of us have never thought about it. When was the last time you sat
 down for a cup of tea and said, "I think I'll define what 'authentic
 connection' means to me today"? Even among those who have
 considered the source of their connection, most haven't been 
truthful about how healthy their attraction is or isn't. So, ignorant,
blind, or in denial, we end up living in the grips of unhealthy attraction, 
feeling like something is missing or wrong, lacking the words
 to articulate what that something is. If we're lucky, after lots of 
pain and suffering caused by the times we engaged in unhealthy
 attraction, we finally free ourselves and learn about our desire for
 a true, healthy connection.

I have met more smart and successful women than I care to 
admit who've lost their minds, and themselves, in the throes of 
unhealthy attraction, dare I say insane infatuation? Same goes for nice, solid men who have a penchant for dating crazy women. I've watched many a wise woman or man lodge a person so deep in their wounds that they mistake the resulting feelings for the authentic, deep, loving connection they were waiting for.  

Maybe for some the unhealthy attraction feels so fabulous because their catch comes with a first-class ticket to social status and financial security, filling their holes that come from the absence of self-worth or the fear of lack. Or maybe the person they meet seemingly gives them permission to be the wild child they always wanted to be but their parents never allowed, filling in their holes caused by never feeling like 
they fit with their family. Or maybe it is as simple as they crave love and attention so bad, that they are willing to take what they can get... or maybe even too afraid to end it for fear of how the other person will respond.

Regardless of our individual stories and corresponding wounds, when in the clutches of an unhealthy attraction, we are too entangled in our feelings to see the truth. You need to know the warning signs beforehand. Commit the following signals to memory and keep them for future reference.

WARNING SIGNS OF AN UNHEALTHY ATTRACTION

HOLE-STUFFING JUNKIE.

Without a doubt, it's our emotions, hormones, and emotional wounds that control the show here. The feelings swirling inside our bodies and psyches are so intense that it seems impossible to control our actions or stop making self-destructive decisions. Convinced that this person is the love of our life, we experience the relationship as if it were a drug, and we 
become like a junkie. The person becomes the fix for our external
 needs and gaping holes, and the bigger our emotional holes, the 
more intensely we feel drawn to and attached to this one human being.

The physical connection is usually undeniable, like a gravitational pull we can't control. And our emotional and intellectual fantasies 
run rampant, which is why most people mistake these unhealthy 
relationships for authentic partnerships. But unlike healthy connections,
which support us and encourage us to be our full and
 authentic selves, the unhealthy bonds lead to devastating and life-draining
 lows.

While the ride may feel good at times, in the end
 we are too often left unsatisfied, sad, and empty, with our desires 
and needs unmet. The cycle is always the same: we give in to the 
intense attraction, fall totally into it and enjoy the highs, plummet to the depths of despair, and then start the cycle all over again.
 While it may feel fantastic at times to be intertwined with the other,
 using another person to avoid healing our wounds is unhealthy.

COTTON BALLS IN YOUR EARS

This person is "the one," and we will vehemently profess to those closest to us that "HE/SHE is the love of my life, I don't care what you say! . . . If you really loved me, you would be happy for me. . . . You just don't understand." Convinced that we know the real deal even if our friends and family think otherwise, we won't listen to what anyone has to say.

Sure, the relationship isn't perfect -- they've got a girlfriend, they lie, they have an addiction problem, or they are not committing anytime soon -- but because we have great chemistry or some other "special" connection,
 we're convinced that the rest of the world just doesn't know
what they're talking about. What most of us need when we're in
 this state is a bucket of cold water in the face to wake us the hell up!
 If our friends and family scream, "Stop!" and we don't listen, it's
 almost a sure bet that our relationship is not a healthy influence.

THE DERANGED LOVE TRAIN.

Our heads fill with thoughts like "Who cares that we just met three weeks ago? He/she told me that they love me, and I love them." We believe without a glimmer of doubt that we are in LOVE. Sure, the feelings are undeniably powerful, and the sex fantastic, so how could it be anything but love?

Warning!

When we start asking ourselves questions like "How would
 his last name sound with mine?" "What will our babies be 
named?" and "Where will we live?" weeks into our relationship,
we have just entered fantasyland. Even if this person is playing
 along, and even if you really are meant to be life partners, questions
 like this do not belong anywhere near the beginning of a relationship.
There is no getting around the fact that we cannot be in 
love with someone we don't really know. Intensely attracted, you 
bet, but in love, no. Love and authentic partnership take time.

ANTIDOTES FOR UNHEALTHY ATTRACTION

While unhealthy attraction may feel great, liberating, and even 
life-giving at times, in the end the great feelings are not sustainable.
They may, however, keep us in a relationship for years, preventing 
us from finding the kind of relationship we really desire. 
Luckily for us, there are extremely powerful antidotes to the 
unhealthy attraction syndrome, which all entail being truthful to 
ourselves -- and admittedly, this is usually easier said than done.

One of the most effective ways to snap ourselves out of the
 unhealthy delusions of our attraction is to stop and question ourselves. 
Automatically, whether we're in a relationship or single, it 
forces us to turn our focus away from HE, SHE and WE, and place it
 directly on ME. The only way we can create what we want is to be real with ourselves, even when it isn't easy. So if you find yourself in a WE, even if things are going great, stop and answer the following questions from time to time.

Challenge yourself to be 100 percent honest, even if -- especially if --
you don't like the answers.

ANTIDOTE 1:

Why do you want a HE/SHE and a WE in your life?

ANTIDOTE 2:

What kind of HE/SHE and WE do you currently have? 
Does what you have fit what you want?

ANTIDOTE 3:

If it fits, great. If what you have doesn't fit, what line of 
bull are you feeding yourself to make it okay to stay?

In what ways are you settling?
Write the ways you are settling out on a piece of paper and stare at them for a while. Play your life forward based on what you are currently settling for. Ask yourself, is this what you want for YOUR life? If not, it's time to take a stand for loving the most important partner in your life - yourself!

Every person deserves a dynamic, life-affirming partnership, 
but many of us settle for less, and as a result, we get a relationship, 
not a partnership. We stay with people we connect with or are 
attracted to, but who are not walking with us down life 's path as
 authentic partners -- we aren't supporting each other, enriching
 each other's experiences, and nourishing each other's spirit and 
heart.

When the relationship moves past the dating stage and in to
 the more serious living-life-together phase, unless it's a partnership, 
you will find yourself dealing with life's demands 
alone. Because we can, we forge ahead, attempting to carry the 
burden of the entire load, putting our own needs last and ending
 up tired as hell. My experience of doing it alone while in a relationship
 was that it had far too great a cost to my soul. No matter
 how attracted we are to a person, if they are dead weight, an emotionally 
empty vessel, or toxic sewage in our energy streams, then they 
have no place in our lives.

About Christine Arylo

Christine Arylo, an m.b.a. turned writer, speaker and teacher, is an inspirational catalyst who teaches women how find the love and happiness they want, by loving their most important partner first, themselves! Arylo is the popular author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love www.mebeforewe.com and is a frequent media guest on the topics of love and life. Known as the "Queen of Self-Love," Arylo created Madly in Love with ME, the international day of self-love (Feb 13), dedicated to making self-love a tangible reality for women and girls around the world. www.madlyinlovewithme.com

I believe that each of us wants to be deeply loved, and that without that love, we will never find the happiness we've come here to experience.

No matter how much money you make, how beautiful your body or how many accolades you acquire, at the core of who you are, you desire to be deeply loved.

And yet, in our world, how many of us would be willing to stand up and admit to the world this deepest of deep desires?

Would you?

Of course you might say that you would like a relationship, that your family is important to you, or that you love having love in your life.

But would you peel back the curtain that protects your delicate soul to reveal that inside is the most innocent and pure heart, one who craves to be seen by another so deeply that you could almost feel that person witnessing your soul?

Would you show us the holes of loneliness that sometimes surface on that same heart when your soul feels unseen, unheard, un-understood?

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

The loneliest times of my life have been when I've been in a relationship - whether a parent or a romantic partner - in which I called out to be seen... when I reached out for unconditional love... and neither was returned.

After 30 years of trying to find that deep love from the people around me whom I loved, I was gifted with a profound realization, one that I have since come to understand is the secret to everything in life. When we live by it, the happiness and love we seek is ever present. When we don't, we will find ourselves forever seeking out happiness and love, in vain.

The secret is this:
The deep love you seek starts and ends with the love you have for you.

Every person on this planet, including you, desires to be deeply loved. At the core of your soul, your spirit requires that in this lifetime you seek out and find unconditional and pure love. The reason most of us spend our lives searching without ever really finding it, is not because this precious love doesn't exist, or even that it is rare. You've been taught to look in the wrong places - outside of you - when the truth is that the love you seek starts and ends with the love you have for you.

It is your right to fall so deeply in love with yourself that you only invite that same kind of unconditional love into your life. It is your quest in this lifetime to get to know who you truly are in your soul, beyond all the surface and societal muck that covers up your beautiful spirit. It is your gift to learn to accept the person you are today, right now in this moment and love him or her, all of her. And it is your duty to free yourself to fully express every piece of you without apology, so brightly that it lights every heart it touches like a firefly, including yours.

That is self-love. Being. Loving. Living. You.

When you can do this, you not only receive the extraordinary ability to feel the greatest of love, but you also gain the ability to give that same deep love back, giving others the gift of witnessing and loving their beautiful souls. My wish for you is that today, you start your journey of falling madly in love with the powerful, beautiful and free being you are, just because you are you!

There is nothing more powerful, beautiful or free than a woman who truly loves herself. ~Christine Arylo

Drama. Deceit. Devastation. It's not just reality TV, it's the reality that most of us experience when we end a relationship, because we don't and won't leave our men until we reach the point of hating, hurting and hardly speaking. Like a pit bull gripping its most beloved doggie toy, we believe that if we feel any 'love' at all for our man, we must stay, fight and make the relationship work. And only when we think that love is gone, do we concede and dive head first into the despair of the 'bad breakup.'

Women have been doing it for centuries. Walking on coals, swallowing swords, whatever it takes, because love is supposed to conquer all. No matter if you are happy or this guy is the best partner for your life, if you love each other you must stay and make it work, or keep trying until things get so bad that you can justify the ending, right? Wrong!

The crazy line of thinking has kept women in stuck in relationships and suffering through bad breakups for way too long, telling ourselves, "If I love this man, and he loves me, that's enough, no matter how exhausted, unhappy or lonely I feel." Even if we know our guy will never be a true partner, we hang around because we "love him." But love should never require sacrificing one's self or forfeiting our joy or life dreams. And frankly, it's not enough, because the truth is:
 
You can love a man and choose not to be with him.
Love is not enough of a reason to stay in a relationship.

Like most women, I figured this out the hard way, after my epic bad breakup, which took the storyline of my fiance announcing on the car ride to our engagement party, "I don't love you anymore. I don't want to marry you anymore. And, oh by the way, I've been cheating on you for six months." Drama. Devastation. And Ouch! 

After the sting of having my heart broken and with enough distance to clearly see what had actually happened, I realized that my bad breakup would have been totally avoidable if I someone had clued me into the truth that even though you love a guy, it doesn't mean you should marry him. Alas, the women in my life had failed to teach me this along with other key facts of love and relationships (mostly because they didn't know either.) The truth is that if I had known the truth instead of bought into the fairy tales, I would have been the one to end my relationship and leave my former fiance way before the situation ever got to the point of drama and devastation. We could have had a good breakup, and I could have avoided a lot of the hate, confusion and suffering that sent my life reeling for months and months afterwards.

As a 21st century woman, you can't afford not to trade the love lies in for the real relationship truths. Because when you find yourself in a relationship that has run it's course, it's far better to be able to make an empowered and healthy choice, than to end up a victim to the drama, deceit and devastation of a bad breakup.



Lie: You shouldn't break up until you've fallen out of love.
Truth: Once you love someone, you love them forever. People fall out of trust, intimacy, and respect, not love.

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you." How many of us have either heard or uttered those words as we walked head first into a bad breakup? Those words are such a cop out. People don't fall in and out of love, as if love can be measured. What they do fall out of is trust, intimacy and respect, and usually for good reasons. The problem is that those reasons never get communicated to our partner because we use cop out phrases like "I'm just not in love with you any more." And when someone tells you they just aren't in love with you any more, there is really nothing you can do about it, so it leaves the receiver feeling confused and just plain awful, and it lets the person doing the breaking up feel somehow better about what they are doing.

Good Breakup Rule:
During a breakup, take 'love' out of the equation. Be honest about the real why's this relationship is no longer working, which have nothing to do with love. It's okay to love each other and still choose to end your relationship, in fact it's the best way. And while the breakup will still be sad, it won't be dramatic or deceitful.



Lie: If we loved each other more, we would be able to make this relationship work.
Truth:  Love is only a prerequisite. Great relationships take authentic partnerships, and they require much more than love.

When we get asked why we want to marry or be with "this guy," most of us retort almost automatically, "Because I love him." While it sounds like the right answer, make no mistake, it's a danger signal that you've created a relationship based on ideal love versus the authentic partnership actually required for long-term happiness and relationship success. Authentic partnerships are full of respect, trust, truth, friendship, intimacy and unconditional love. And you've got to put energy into each of these to keep your relationship working for you.

Good Breakup Rule:
Be honest about your what your relationship lacks, and what the two of you are capable of creating together, before the breakup even happens. Assess on a scale of 1-10  how well your relationship scores on the each of the six indicators of an authentic partnership: respect, trust, truth, friendship, intimacy and unconditional love. If you score less than an 8 any individual indicator, you have some work and soul searching to do. Getting real, ask yourself, "Can this relationship and the people in it create a deep level of 'insert indicator" If the answer is no, it could be time to start a good breakup. If the answer is yes, it's time to talk with your partner and start creating the relationship you really want, together.


Lie: If the relationship ends, we have failed.
Truth:  The failure is overstaying in a relationship.

Good Breakup Rule:
Be honest with yourself and each other when it's time to end your romantic relationship. Talk to each other instead of resorting to behaviors that cause drama, deceit and devastation. Your goal is NOT to become the next reality TV show, but to use the power of unconditional love and respect (that you hopefully started the relationship with) to gracefully transition out of this romantic relationship. Remember, you both want the best for each other, don't you?

About Christine Arylo
Christine Arylo, an m.b.a. turned writer, speaker and teacher, is an inspirational catalyst who teaches women how to give up their doing addiction and to stop being so hard on themselves. A recovering achievement junkie and doing addict herself, Arylo is the co-founder of Inner Mean Girl Reform School and the author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love www.mebeforewe.com. Known as the "Queen of Self-Love," Arylo created Madly in Love with ME, the international day of self-love (Feb 13), dedicated to making self-love a tangible reality for women and girls around the world. www.madlyinlovewithme.com