What Else Have YOU Been BOOTED Into?

What Else Have You Been Booted Into?

I couldn’t help thinking as I was going about my way today, that cars are not the only things we get booted info. We work our way into lives oftentimes that render our true authentic selves immobile; unable to grow, express, and reach their fullness; locked into the restrictions placed on them by others. All this is done without our express permission or consent, but by our unwillingness, inability or unawareness of how to define our own lives and how we live them.

Most of our lives are spent living the aspirations, expectations, and inclinations decided for us by other people. As children, this is usually a sign of healthy parental involvement. Knowing us better than anyone else, our parents are supposed to guide, teach, and direct us into pathways that will ultimately make it possible for us to be our absolute best selves. So when they say, “You’re really good at sharing,” we quietly agree. They say, “Math comes very easily to you,” we quietly agree. “Your friends are a good group of kids,” we quietly agree.

Have you been BOOTED?

Lacking the wisdom, life experience, or basic brain capacity to do so – we don’t question our parents pronouncements about us – good or bad. Consequently, many times we boot ourselves into situations that don’t serve us well. Our cars get booted after collecting several citations for parking violations that remained unresolved situations because of our persistent hesitation. Then comes the day that, without reservation, we are locked in, shut down, and caged – by a prison of our own making.

Are you ready to Unboot?

The good news is that every problem bears the seed of its own solution. There is a procedure to follow to free yourself from the cage on your car – and on your life. If I give you the key, will you set yourself free? Will you free others as you have been freed? Let’s see.

Take advantage of the offer below IF you are finally ready unBOOT your heart, your mind, your one and only life.

Like most people, I have often heard the all-too-common refrains, “you can’t help who you love”, “it just happened”, or “one thing led to another”. Most often, I hear this from women who are attempting to justify their ill-advised involvement in some situation that has come back to bite them in the behind.

Ladies, I’m about to set you free!! None of these assessments is accurate. The truth is – you absolutely, unequivocally “help” who you love; it did not just happen; and one thing did not lead to another. You either made it happen or you allowed it to happen. Now, you’re free because either way, the situation is in your control. For purposes of this entry, however, I will focus on the ‘who you love’ issue as it concerns unhealthy romantic love.

Contrary to popular opinion, love is not accidental, incidental, or happenstance. It isn’t random, arbitrary, or evolutionary. It happens by the sheer force of two independent wills focused in the same direction. It happens because the two people involved wanted it to happen, and have usually expended considerable effort to make sure that it did happen. Love is not a hole in the sidewalk waiting for you to blindly fall into it. Love is the by product of mental and physical time and effort deliberately put forth to create and continue feelings of infatuation and romance.

We’ve all seen the situations where people have gotten involved in emotional and/or physical intimacies with someone they were “just friends” with. The usual protests go something like “I don’t know how it happened”, “I never intended for it to happen”, or “I couldn’t help myself”. The facts are that these relationships never just happen. They occur after days, weeks, and months of finding big and small ways to perpetuate the ectasy of illicit attraction.

That fact alone begs the question, is it really love you’ve created? You might think it is. Your partner may even agree. The truth is you’ve created a fantasy that can only survive in the bubble of the manipulated realities you’ve invented. That’s why the magic dies under the stresses and strains of real life. No longer able to shield your “love” from the side effects and consequences of real life, you usually soon find that your “love” fades.

In short, true love is a series of choices that you get emotional about. It is not merely an emotion or a feeling that you just helplessly fall into like a hole in the sidewalk. True love is deliberate. It lasts, not because of how you feel about eachother – but because of your dedication to your commitment to eachother.

Your partner in SatisFillment™,

Eden
The Intimacy Officer©

There’s a lot of buzz about resolutions. According to the Encarta Dictionary: English (North America), resolution is defined as ‘a firm decision to do something.’ Notice what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say a firm decision to ‘change’ something, but to ‘do’ something. Traditionally, most take the idea of a resolution to mean change. Without question, there are many things we should all change. I’m certain, if given the opportunity, most of us could roll out the scroll of all the things we would like to change. Not necessarily a bad thing, but is ‘resolution’ the best way to do it?

Change and renewal are terms often used interchangeably. For the sake of clarity, however, a distinction needs to be made here. Change is inevitable. Indeed, it is the only constant in our dynamic, chaotic, miraculous lives. We like to believe that it’s something we can control. To some degree, this is true. The most far-reaching and significant changes, however, happen without our permission or consent. Yesterday, we liked this. Today, we don’t like it anymore. Last year, s/he seemed liked the best idea we’d ever had; this year, not so much. Chicken fettuccini florentine was my favorite dish, live theater my favorite pastime, and aerobics my favorite exercise. Now, none of it tickles my fancy or excites my soul. My time with the fellas was refreshing and invigorating. Now, I leave them feeling more drained than before I saw them. Change, sometimes internal, sometimes not; warning or not; permission or not – it happens – whether we like it or not.

Renewal is a slightly different animal. All renewal is change, but all change is not renewal. Here’s why. Back to the same dictionary, we find renewal defined as ‘giving somebody or something new energy; make something new again.’ Note the difference here. While change can be, and often is, random, self-perpetuating, and beyond our control, renewal is change with a specific purpose or design. Renewal is about bringing the ‘new’ into the ‘now’. Re-new, to make new again; to give new; to receive new; to love new the person you’ve loved before.

Renewal is an act of the will. It is a state of mind that’s open to accepting the possibility that what was before doesn’t have to stay as before. New energy, new love, new strength, new life can be infused into it and it will be new in my now. Just like the same sun has new shine today, my love can find new expressions today. Bringing the new into my now. With these same teeth, I can smile new smiles at new people. Bringing the new into my now. I can see my fellow man and with these same hands give a new handshake and hugs of encouragement just because I’m glad to see him standing there and I acknowledge the privilege of sharing this irreplaceable and unique moment in time and space with him. Bringing the new into my now. I can offer to hug someone today. Maybe I’ll know them, maybe I won’t, but I’ll offer from the overflow of my renewed heart a little of my extra love. Bringing the new into my now.

Change is good. It is foundational, necessary, and momentary. Renewal is dynamic change in progress toward an expected end, which can become a new beginning toward a new expected end. If so, then your life becomes an adventure, an exploration, a mega-journey of discovery that explores the heights, depths, widths, and breadths of how YOU can be new in your now.

Your partner in SatisFillment™,

Eden
The Intimacy Officer©

There was a time when I used to be amazed at the number of seemingly grown men who were unwilling to be responsible for their own lives and for those of the families they made. Like everyone else, I’ve seen the increasing dismal statistics of fatherlessness in the American community. I would even go so far as to say there is pandemic manlessness as well. Men in our extended families are also becoming increasingly rare. What seems to be commonplace now are families with lots of women, young children, and old men. Young men are few and far between – and getting fewer all the time.

Many women have rushed to blame the men for this. After all, ultimately it is their choice to leave; their choice to follow the examples, or the lack thereof, that preceded them. These are grown men and entirely accountable for their action and/or inaction – granted.

However, I submit to you that many women – particularly many single mothers – are in the deepest denial about their contribution to this pandemic. In their zeal to raise good sons they have often neglected to raise responsible men who would actually be suitably productive husbands and fathers. So many single mothers, mothering from the own pains and issues, often deliberately or incidentally surrogate their children into “pseudo-spouses”. In the process, these children often receive severely mixed messages. On the one hand, they are constantly reminded of how much they resemble all the worst traits in their fathers. On the other, their mothers are quick to lay guilt trips on them if they dare to establish an independent identity or a different significant female relationship. These boys get angry and resentful, so the mother’s remedy is often to indulge them. They are rewarded with material things in return for their faithfulness to fulfilling their mother’s wishes.

And so the cycle continues until the sex drive takes over. Now, these same young men start “mating and procreating” with no significant grasp of the level of responsibility that creates. However, thinking that they do, they often “try” to be there. That usually lasts until he gets overwhelmed and/or it’s not fun anymore. She wakes up one day without him; and grandma is raising babies once again. Why? Because we have spawned yet another generation of people who believe the universe exists solely to serve them. If it doesn’t, then there is clearly something wrong with the universe – it couldn’t possibly be something wrong with them. We’ve created yet another generation of perfect pimps and then we get mad at them when they behave accordingly. We often create the monsters that come back to kill us.

How do we stop it? Here are three things we can do: 1) Put them out of their parents’ house by age 21 – sooner if they don’t go to college at 18; 2) stop letting them have sex in a home they don’t have a lease/mortgage on; and 3) stop letting them move their girlfriends into that same house.

Brain surgery – it is not!

Your partner in SatisFillment,

Eden
The Intimacy Officer