The shortest day of the year.

The “Holidays”.

Winter is here (sigh).

The cycle ends, the cycle begins.

Now comes the ever-lighter march towards spring.

Here, in California, winter brings the rains (I hope), the sudden greening of the brown hills, the sound of water flowing in the creeks, the ripe persimmons hanging on denuded trees.

I appreciate all the love and joy that you have brought to my life, and all the support you have offered me in my journey.

May you and yours have a happy, joyous, sweet, loving holiday time.

with love

c

My partner and I have been living together for more than 11 years. Wow. Time flies like an arrow. (Fruit flies like a banana, tee hee.) We’ve both been married before (two times each). Experience being a sometimes harsh teacher, we both came into the relationship with a (short) list of “must-haves” and “don’t-wants”.

A big “must-have” for both of us was ownership of ourselves. I own my body, she owns hers. I own my genitals. She owns her genitals. I own my thoughts, feelings and behaviors, and she owns hers.

Now that may sound obvious to you, but it has been nothing short of revelatory to me. In the past, if my partner wasn’t happy, I’d try to change me to fix it. In the past, my sexuality was held hostage to the desires of my partner. If she wasn’t horny I probably wasn’t going to be having sex. In the name of “relationship” I surrendered my autonomy. Predictably, over time, my relationships became prisons, service became servitude, pleasures become obligations and I became a resentful, unhappy eunuch.

Many of my friends and clients wonder if our autonomy means that we have an “open relationship“. Yes and no. If by “open” you mean that I choose who to be sexual with, and, when I choose to be sexual, it’s a personal decision that I make, then yes, our relationship is open. If by “open” you mean that I choose to have a lover (or several lovers) other than my partner, then no, my relationship is closed. Unless of course “open” implies that I could, if I wanted, have lovers other than my “significant other”, then it is open.

I’m pretty confused by that label: open. (Actually I’m pretty confused about most labels. It’s my habit of mind to hear a label and immediately search for exceptions and contradictions, and I rarely come up empty.)
What my partner and I have is trust, really great communication, and a commitment to each others’ joy. All I want from our relationship is our mutual delight, our mutual love, our mutual pleasure. I know that every relationship has painful moments, but I also know that dwelling on that pain, making rules to avoid that pain, trying to control her to avoid my pain, letting myself be controlled to avoid her pain, etc., hasn’t ever worked for me.

I recently interviewed Esther Perel, author of “Mating In Captivity,” a terrific book about how to keep the passion and eroticism alive in long-term relationship. In her book she writes “Trouble looms when monogamy is no longer a free expression of loyalty but a form of enforced compliance.”

Trusting myself to make good decisions, trusting Leslie to make good decisions, we create a relationship based on trust. And, like magic, we preserve our autonomy while creating loving, lasting relationship.

Human beings, that is to say you and me, are born wanting and needing intimate loving touch. And we never outgrow those needs. Sadly, most of the adults that I meet, and I meet about 1,000 each year, have precious few resources for getting their need for loving touch met.

Too often, when we feel lonely or sad or depressed, we wind up having sex with people to get our touch needs met. Sometimes the sex is good, sometimes not so good. Sometimes we feel good after the sex, lots of times we feel empty, sad, confused.

I believe there are better choices. Recently, I interviewed Dr. Karen Gail Lewis. She’s the author of “With or Without a Man: Single Women Taking Control of Their Lives”, a terrific book filled with all sorts of great ideas for filling one’s life with love and intimacy, with or without a partner. Chapters 4 through 12 describe nine tasks for living a satisfying single life — ignoring the societal bias. Weaving through each of these nine tasks is the basic human need for a deep connection with others. This comes from loving and being loved, neither of which is limited to romantic love alone.

In the “Love, Intimacy & Sexuality” Workshops that I lead, singles and couples learn to connect and open our hearts to others in an intimate and loving way, without necessarily involving our genitals. In a safe, supportive environment a person can uncover their passion for living, their natural self-appreciation and self-acceptance and feed their need for loving touch.

What is “lonely”?

I read somewhere that Fritz Perls, the “father” of Gestalt therapy once said: “Lonely is alone plus bullshit.”

I think he was saying that the part of lonely that is about solitude isn’t a problem. I’m pretty certain that all people want some amount of alone time. Some more. Some less.

The problem is that, for too many of us, our hyper-vigilant internal critic, ever on the lookout for evidence of our fucked-uped-ness, kicks in. Our critic tells us we’re alone because we are less than lovable. Our critic reminds us of all the ways we are less than “perfect”. We begin to long for someone to distract us from this critical voice. We begin to believe that the fact of our “aloneness” is evidence of our flaws. And that’s the bullshit part.

I think of my internal critic as a radio station beaming directly into my head, 24/7. I call it KFUK - all criticism, all the time. No matter what I’ve tried to do to eliminate KFUK, I always fail (and then listen as KFUK assails me for failing to silence KFUK…ugh).

One day I got the bright idea that maybe instead of trying not listen, or trying to blow KFUK up, or trying to re-program it wasn’t the answer. All I needed to do was change the channel.

So I launched KLOV - all self-loving affirmations, all the time. Now when I find myself listening to the litany of what’s wrong with Chip, I just change the channel. I take a moment to say to myself “I really love you, Chip”, “I am enough, I do enough, I give enough, I have enough” , “There was never anything wrong with you.”

And, without that critic beating me up I stop feeling lonely.

Wow.  Big title, eh?  Well, this may not be “THE” secret of life, but it certainly is one of them.  And maybe it’s not so secret, either.  The secret is…appreciate everyone.  As my Mom liked to say “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Everyone likes to be noticed and appreciated, even the ones who say they don’t.  When we offer unsolicited appreciations we invite that appreciated quality to show up more.  This is a key tip to you managers (and parents) out there:  what you focus on, that’s what grows.  As you bring positive attention to qualities and attributes you appreciate, the people you are appreciating get in the habit of showing those qualities and attributes more often.

And a life filled with looking for things to appreciate about others is a life filled with appreciation and gratitude.  And that’s a sure-fire recipe for joy!

So, this holiday season,  when you gather for a holiday dinner or party, start by sharing appreciations.  When its a smallish group, 4-8 people, you might try asking each person to say one thing they like or appreciate about every other person at the table and one thing they appreciate about themself.

When its a larger group, try asking each person to say one thing they like or appreciate about the person to their left (and/or to their right) and one thing they appreciate about themself.   BTW, this works great as a way to start your staff/team meetings, PTA meetings, Lions/Elks/Rotary/etc. meetings.

And, while I have your attention, let me take this opportunity to appreciate you and to express my deep and sincere gratitude for your presence in my life.  Thanks for your support of me, my podcast, my blog, my workshops.  Thank you for sharing the dream of living together in dignity, respect, understanding, trust, kindness, compassion, honesty and love.