For the man who is looking for a relationship, let’s test your understanding of how a woman may see things differently than you do?

Look at the picture on this blog and tell me what you see?  Let’s be creative.  Let’s say you’re on your second date with someone you could like/love, and you’ve chosen to take her to a local gallery opening. There are interesting people there, free chardonnay and all the cheese and crackers you can eat.  You’re on your second glass when you notice this picture hanging on the wall.  The group of people who have been blocking your view have moved on. You take your date by her arm and bring this picture to her attention as you stop directly in front of it. Looking at the artists’ rendering of a couple, a switch is turned on in your head, and you find yourself having this dialogue with yourself that might sound something like this. “God, is this picture hot or what?  A perfect picture of two people madly in love with each other obviously.”  This is what you almost blurt out to her as you turn to her, but you’ve just heard a voice in your head saying; “Don’t speak!”

You shake your head, momentarily removed from the feelings the picture has aroused in you.  You stop to take a closer look at it.  You’re a little perturbed because you still haven’t a clue as to why you heard that voice in your head?  Now you look at their hands.  You observe the picture more carefully, and the picture has even a greater story to tell.  You can hear her moaning as he kisses her neck. Eventually, you notice his hands.  He’s holding her tight, in fact, she might have some bruising on her arms the following morning.

Relax, every man whom I’ve ever shown this picture too, over 95% of them had thoughts very similar to those of yours.  It was a picture of passion, intimacy, and love.  For most of the women that I had shown the same picture too, they thought it was a dark and cruel portrait. In fact, they were the ones that got it right.  Her clenched fists were signs of anger, frustration, and fear.  Some women thought that as soon as he loosens his grip, she’d scratch his eyes out.  Some even thought she would use the kitchen knife hidden in the shadow just there on her left side and plunge it into his back as soon as he was lying on top of her.  This picture happens to be the cover of a book on sexual and physical abuse!

This is only one example of how differently the sex’s views on the world is.   Let’s look at who was one of your most important role models. For most men, it would be their father.  Much research has been done on this one subject; a man’s relationship with their father.  Consider the physiological role that most of what makes us who we are today are what was downloaded unconsciously in the first three to four years of your life.  What was the dynamics, the communications like between your parents when you were little?  As much work as many of us has done on putting distance between our fathers if we feel that we were not supportive, or loved for who we are by them.  We are still taking in information through our parents interjects and that is what is hard-wired into our beings.  This process of changing ourselves has to be on a daily basis if we are to integrate, with our well-deserved power points of what kind of man we choose to be.

In every moment man has choice, it is the awareness to do this that one has to strive.

John Shinavier, MA, Life Coach

I was asked by a neighbor the other day how I was doing?  What started as a casual inquiry suddenly felt like a loaded question as I paused, looked at the sidewalk and returned her gaze.  I gave her a generic answer of “Okay, I guess” before I continued to my car.  I sat in the driveway and felt the dread in my stomach building before I pressed a station on my radio and turned up an eighties dance song.  As I pulled away from my house, I began to say my blessings out loud and gave thanks for all that I had.  I didn’t feel any better, but more often than not this habit initially stops or lowers the volume of negativity in my head and I am able to redirect myself with the help of my affirmations and the music blasting.

Every day I am challenged to keep my heart open and my breathing full.  Like many of you reading this if you’ve been around long enough, we’re finding ourselves dipping into our reserves of grace to stay present and active.  In talking with my clients and others, we are all using our mantra’s, breathing deeply into our bellies and keeping our fitness goals just to be able to stay confident and aware.  Every day, and unfairly so, we are learning to devour more horrific news expanding our capacity for being uncomfortable and releasing it all back into the luminous universe when we get a chance.

A practice that my guru taught me has become very necessary throughout my days.  Whenever a disturbing thought starts gathering steam in my head, I focus on it first releasing any ownership to its place in my brain.  Secondly, I take a deep breath into my solar plexus connecting the thought to the breath.  Thirdly I then exhale, escorting the thought out of my awareness on the out breath.  This exercise has been part of my “toolbox” for some time.  It’s only in the last year or so been a mainstay of how I cope.  After a while, the anxiety-inducing thoughts stop showing up as much as they use to and they don’t stick around. 

So whatever you may use to free yourself of daily dramas know that you’re in good company and that when you stay for extended periods in awareness, that which used to take you down will, in the end, make you stronger.

John Shinavier, MA, Life/Career Coach

I title this blog specifically because I am a part of that stereotype that the rest of the country may or may not remember when the ripe subject of what Californians are doing comes up around the dinner tables of the rest of the country; vegan eating, meat shaming, prayer shawl fashion, mantra loving yoga twisting crowd!

I say we are pretty lucky that Jerry Brown is still Governor of California, and still, there is a groundswell growing pack of extreme liberals that suggested we leave the rest of you, and secede.

However, it is to my own crowd that I expected more from?  For all of my “spiritual” friends, I found a lot of catastrophic responses to something that we have no control over; the social media!

We should know that the basis of practicing spirituality comes to knowing the message and then practicing it; “Stop Reacting”.  Stop being outraged and do a little more Breath of fire to blow out the rest of your expectations of yourself and others and get to work.

The misconception that we as meditators should be able to “hold the space” and let others have their feelings and their reactions is sorely being tested in these times.

Tool:  When becoming overwhelmed, with one-foot, stomp the floor and shout ( or say loudly in your mind: “STOP.”  Your mind will stop bothering you.

John Shinaiver is a Life/Career/Spiritual Coach