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MAKING LOVE with OPENESS

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Isn’t it great to be more open about SEX?

MAKING IT LAST

I’ve been having sex for forty years; bet you’d like to know what age I was when I started? I’ll tell you I was a virgin when married the first time…so it’s obvious I am a slow starter.
I guess I was supposed to make my marriage last by not having pre-marital sex as a “born again” christian. My husband left me because he came out of that repressive religious closet as a gay man, after granting us two beautiful daughters. Then, my sexual curiosity zoomed thru several boyfriends and three more marriages; my second marriage being an OPEN marriage trial.

Still, what was most difficult for me was to be able to talk out loud to my partners about what would bring me more pleasure: where to touch me, how to touch me, why to touch me. Thoughts of me ‘taking too long’ to reach orgasm stymied me, fearing I’d bruise his ego if I instructed my lover. Bottom line: fearful they wouldn’t love me enough, and therefore leave me.

Through psychotherapy, I became more OPEN with myself, I developed more
courage…asking to be touched or licked in certain ways. Most men responded without complaints. As my fears lessened, I noticed that I did not need as much time to come to orgasm, and also that I responded more to a lighter touch. This sensitivity was where men found me to be different…in a good way. They didn’t have to work so hard
Now, I let my tears be seen at orgasm, beautifully connecting us as one.

I’ve experienced men who enjoyed making love without having an orgasm right away or maybe none at all. I found my self saying out loud as I was feeling my pleasure of a building orgasm, my voice in his ear, “I want to make this last.”

natural medicine of the heart

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MEDICINE

April (2010), my daughter Megan drives me and her daughters Riley and Emily to a new wooden-structure playground, where my g-girls beg me to chase them. Although I run fast, they dodge me left and right, and with laughter eventually I tag one. Megan is sitting on the wooden bench watching us streak by, sipping her ice coffee.

As I dash up a few steps after my grand-girls, my sneaker slips, letting my left shin crash into the corner of a stair: I fall, my elbow scrapes and a deep slash pours blood out of my shin. I am surprised that no tears form, all I can do is breath hard and weakly tell Megan I can’t speak between heavy sighs. My nursing background pushes to the fore, asking Megan to give me her coffee plastic cup which still holds ice. I push the V-shaped-skin-tear together, pressing the icy cup to my shin.

After hobbling to the car, I make the decision not to go to the ER for stitches although I need them to create a pretty leg again. I have no health insurance. I direct Megan to buy some butterfly bandages and Telfa pads that do not stick to the wound, and some anti-bacterial ointment, while the girls and I wait in the car with my leg elevated on the dashboard. When we arrive home, my son-in-law Ben helps me arrange the bandages, while Megan prepares for a BBQ for friends arriving for dinner.

Two days later, I am scheduled to volunteer at Ithaca’s Free Clinic as an RN. I ask the doc to look at my slightly oozing butterfly-bandaged leg, and he says, “That probably should have been stitched, but it’s too late now.” And, it wasn’t the best treatment to be on my feet for the next 4 hours…miraculously, another RN shows up; she mistakenly thought it was her day to be there. Gladly, I left, to support my leg’s healing.

Although I am educated first as a Registered Nurse, I have been in private practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist for the past twenty years, avoiding medications for my clients as well as for myself as much as possible. I have encountered many experiences where I have learned that our bodies heal well when our emotional currents are cleared with tears. Still, I am very greatfull for traditional-medicine when I experienced a fractured skull (19 years ago), being hit head-on by a bicyclist. And I’m even more appreciative of my medical knowledge when the plastic surgeon told me I would need a tracheotomy in order to repair my facial fractures and jaw. I was scared to not be able to talk or breathe…I knew how helpless I would feel. I immediately asked for an oral surgeon consult…who thankfully said the tracheotomy was unnecessary. Despite a couple small scars, my head is fully healed (Still working on my mind)

And, my shin has healed as a purple-V-natural-tattoo which for me stands for Vulnerability, Valentine and Victory…I love my scar (that’s a first!) because…
when I returned in May to my daughter Megan’s family who live approximately 6 hours from me…I was asked to go to their friend’s house to pick up the girls. As soon as I entered the front door, Emily, who is 5, ran into my arms, saying “How’s your leg Didi? I want to see it!” (Isn’t this the best medicine?)

Addendum:
Today, (June 26, 2010), I cut rhubarb from my backyard to give to an elderly couple (ex-boyfriend’s parents). Teresa likes to make rhubarb pies and Don loves to eat them, as does their son Daniel. When I arrive at their home, Teresa is still recovering from bronchitis, and finds it difficult to talk, because talking makes her cough. She tells me “I need to get more cough drops: I have run out.”

“Oh, I can bring you some after I get my clothes from the Laundromat.”
Teresa immediately gets up from her kitchen chair to pick up money to pay me. “Absolutely not!” I emphatically reply. She threatens lightly, “Then, I won’t take them when you bring them here.”

As I scurry out the door, avoiding the money in her hand, I hear, “Shame on you!”
Briefly, I hear my mother’s same critical words in my head, then smile to myself, ‘this is the first time I feel good shame.’

Fathers Day meets the summer solstice

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I want to acknowledge all the loving fathers out there…and especially my father, Servy Michel Kohl who is no longer with me on this planet, but whose LOVE is with me always! He died in 1977, and I miss him more and more as my tears flow…loving to plant dianthus (close to my name diane)at his grave yesterday. I visit there once a month just to BE especially acknowledging of his specialness to me.

I encourage every son or daughter to have a special time with their dads…a special talk, walk, and I wish my own daughters to come to their granddad’s grave, whom they can barely remember…yet they have my love and his together whether they are aware of it or not.

For those of you who do not have that loving dad…my hope for you is to find an older man who could serve as a second dad…as I have with Bill Wernsing…now gone also…and Barry Vissell who will be the keynote speaker at the International Primal convention/retreat in August. www.primals.org for more info.

And may the summer sun give you pleasure of the flowers and trees and waterfalls of your life! Take time to notice:)
with more love, dianea

men are like women when it comes to FEELINGS

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Like to SPY?:)

THE OFFICE

I wish everyone could ‘be a spyder on the wall’ of my office where confidentiality is essential.

I tend to disagree with psychotherapists who believe that men are different from women in the emotional realm, even John Gray’s popular book, Men Are from Mars, Women are from Venus gives us this impression. I’ve worked with many couples over the spam of twenty-plus years, and at least half of my clients are male.

Two weeks ago, Steve came in alone for the first time, after attending sessions with his wife for maybe 6 sessions. Originally, Nancy had been seeing me for about four months; Steve was afraid to enter therapy yet saw the changes in her and decided to be courageous. As with all people, trust has to be built, so I was a bit surprised that Steve had agreed to see me alone after expressing much anxiety (fear) to do so. During that session, I asked if there was anything he could not share with his wife. He embarrassingly admitted there were two things. After he told me about two childhood events, he expressed how relieved he felt, because he had never told anyone, and had thought about those sexual events off and on for forty-some years. The following week I was surprised again when Steve and Nancy came in as a couple and told me that Steve had revealed his secrets to Nancy despite feeling great fear. Nancy said she felt afraid as well when Steve said, “We have to talk.”

Steve tells me with wide eyes, “As soon as I began to tell her, this HUGE weight came off my shoulders,” emphasized by his arms lifting up in the air, which he repeated with varying expressions during the session. Nancy said that Steve repeated his relieved feelings at home several times. It is difficult to describe the swell in my heart to hear Steve; it’s as if the mystical ONEness the Buddhists have long time spoken of is felt.

A couple I helped through a near divorce several years ago was initiated by the man who cried most sessions, while his wife rarely sprang tears.

Another man, who has recently returned to therapy after leaving a few months ago, and who had sobbed in sessions with his wife, (who was more angry than tearful), is crying again although I catch him trying to hold back tears. I ask him what makes him hold onto his tears. He replies, “My dad always says things aren’t so bad, just suck it up. But, I know I want to cry. Yet, I just hide in booze. I don’t want to be angry as I am.”

On the other gender, a 26 year old woman came in four months ago full of rage; she had thrown a garbage can over her husband’s head. She is a social worker who knew she needed help. She had been to another therapist the previous year, coming to me saying, “I need someone to challenge me…I didn’t let them put me on Lexapro. The anger and loss of control are getting worse…I’m scared and don’t want to own up to it.” Now, she is crying openly with her husband and her rage has dissipated thru connecting it to her loss of her dad after a divorce.

Yes, we still hear Fregie sing, “Big girls don’t cry,” and parents telling their sons, “Big boys don’t cry.” But, I am encouraged (and surprised again) by a new male client who had never been in therapy before, saying in his first session: “I am used to bawling myself to sleep.”

For the LOVE of my daughter Megan….her birthday today

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TEENAGERS

By the time I was a teenager I was taken into slavery. It seems harsh to say, but looking back on my life 40 years later; it IS a slavery of the heart. It took me years to recognize that I was sexually aroused one morning in my sunlit bedroom, a tingling between my legs that I have a clear memory of at age 16, yet I had no idea what was happening to me. I did not know what masturbation was until I was in nursing school. And, my mother was a nurse, but also a strict “born again” christian.

While growing up, I had a strong desire to dance, trying it out in seventh grade, but my feeling guilty of going against my mother’s christian rules not to dance, “or be of this world” put chains on my wish-to-be dancing ankles. Although I fought with my mother often, my rebellious spirit was conquered by wanting and needing my parents’ loving approval more than the teenage need to be her self. To this day, I wish I could have danced with my father at my wedding.

Sixteen was also the monumental year for learning the shocking truth of my origins by my mother yelling at me, “He’s not your father!” Later, that same year I also remember myself walking up our cellar stairs experiencing an epiphany: ‘I am an individual in my own right’ a feeling of amazement that I could BE; I was conscious of my consciousness: immediately sharing thIS with my father. I wish I could remember his response, yet I feel he approved and supported me like how he wrote to me in college when I was 18, “That you make comments and ask questions in Bible class and are not afraid to think and ask and how happy I am about that.” It was dad’s openness that fundamentally led me to leave the religious ropes I wore until age 38 in 1984!

In my twenties, I delivered 2 beautiful daughters, and began living a double life, of dancing while still attending church every Sunday. It was when my eldest daughter was 12 that I told her I was leaving my christian faith while she cried in her top bunk, saying “But mom you will go to hell.” Even though my daughters enjoyed dance lessons, they were still indoctrinated like I had been, but with less rigid rules. It shakes me to my toes how easily children are molded by their parents as I watch a documentary on TV where a 16 year old tells the interviewer that he has his own choice to follow the mennonite religion he has been brought up in…teenagers may think they have the independence to choose, but they are still dependant on their parents, and I strongly wanted to call that teen up at that moment; to free him. And, I wanted to call the TV station and ask them to hear my heart!

My daughters no longer believe what they were brought up to believe, thank god, and it gives me pleasure to remember when my oldest, Erin, snuck out one night when she was nearly 16, after I had gone out myself to dance somewhere in Ithaca’s college town scene…and whom did I see crossing College Avenue? Erin in her short skirt dolled up to roam where the boys are. Promptly, I walked her toward home.

Now my 17 year old granddaughter Denali is spending her junior year as an exchange student in Paraguay, becoming fluent in Spanish and recently took an extended tour of Uruguay and Buenos Aires, Argentina. She emails me: (she knows I argentine tango usually two nights a week, and dance four nights a week) “Buenos Aires is amazing! I thought of you lots! I saw a tango show in the street, and danced for like 30 seconds with an old man “king of tango” and also went to a fancy dinner and tango show which was soo great! The whole time I was there I wanted to be tangoing…haha”

LOVING to FEEL: tears, our true connection to REAL LOVE

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Today i was enjoying tending to my garden, my expanding bed of Mrytle, the blue sea of flowers shining brightly outside my window. And, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I noticed a solitary Trillium ready to bud white…my first survivor of transplant from a field of them here in Ithaca , NY. I couldn’t help but say OHHHHHHH outloud, and thank you for your brave beauty!

And, I thought to myself, that Trillium i would have missed if not truly looking around SLOWLY…so many beautiful details of beauty I would miss like my May Apples, also transplanted from the wild last year…I can’t help but smile.

And what does this have to do with tears? Tears also may seem like details to add to the LOVE of yourself…very important details that happen when we are watching commercials, movies, listening to songs…or reading a book. Many laugh or hide when these drops of water appear unexpectedly. Yet, they are times, like springtime, to notice our own beauty through noting what was said that brought the tears, or the picture that brought up the tears. These times are OPENings to seeing yourself more clearly…and allowing the pain to let go…instead of suppressing those natural drops of healing our hearts…even endorphins, natural pain killers are part of the chemistry of emotional tears!!!

It was 1986, when in Mt. Rainier National Park, that tears sprang from my eyes as I came to the summit of a 6 mile hike….I didn’t realize why I cried then….but I never forgot those moments…and now know why. Tune in next time and I will let you know WHY.
I would love to hear from you about such moments for you…and any questions, I will be glad to answer!

slowing down to smell flowers that love us…

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Happy Spring to all…
which emphasizes the need to SLOW DOWN and smell and see the detail of the design of flowers showing their beautifull blooms.

Even though we are busy people, it is a continuing goal for myself to slow down in order to pay attention to the heart within us all…despite our reluctance to do so. Yet it is where I GROW like the flowers do…into beauteous REAL LOVE.

I hope this essay of my life may help you slow down…to love yourself more.

SLOWING DOWN

I feel embarrassed. I want to slow down but it is difficult for me to do so even though I am into my 6th decade. I do write in my journal as my meditation several days a week; as well as enjoy dancing four nights a week. At least I no longer run marathons, which I did in the 80’s: 36 marathons in 36 months, a national record for women. Then, I was proud of my accomplishment; now I see it as abuse of my body and soul.

I still feel a bit embarrassed to tell you what happened a few months ago. Last fall (2009), I met up with my ex-husband for a visit, being friends. I planned a picnic; at his suggestion it would be at Gilford Lake, NY six miles from where he lives in Oxford. I had never been to this lake, and was surprised to see a very small beach area, although the lake is beautifully clear with near a mile to swim and boat. I laughed at the sign on the beach saying: “Only 112 bathers allowed,” along with some other rules. Why only 112?

After that visit I wrote the SUN reader’s write about this BEACH, the topic for that month. Then, decided it would be funny to provide a photo of this beach sign for the SUN. The beach is an hour away from where I live, so I planned to stop there on my return trip from Boston where one of my daughters lives. I allowed just one hour of extra time to drive this side jaunt to take some photos. I am on route 206 west, having traveled this road many times with it many ups and downs and curves. I remember passing a small sign reading Oxford, the town I wish to travel to where Gilford Lake is located nearby. Because route 206 is a country road where I pass few cars, I drive 65mph (55mph state speed limit) so I can keep my speed up to 55mph on the big up hills is my rationalization. When I arrive in Greene, NY, I am wondering why I have not seen the sign “Oxford 11” (11 miles) as yet.

I drive a few more miles and realize I must have passed the sign, returning to Greene, where I know I can turn onto route 12, arriving in Oxford that way. Hurriedly, I take photos as I am worried I won’t make it back in time for a client appointment. I am disappointed in myself for not being more observant to see the sign which I had barreled by in West Bainbridge…which I made sure I saw again on my next trip to Boston. It was a short cut that would have provided new scenery and a more efficient drive to Gilford Lake.

I must have needed to be humbled, and of course the lesson…my guardian angel teaches me again today while reading a 1966 letter written by my loving dad to his dear younger sister, recently translated from German…that reads, “As I always do, I read your letter immediately and greedily, then very slowly again. I just wanted to tell you now that I hold you very dear.” which I wish to say to the SUN.

BEAUTY with tears

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How to find BEAUTY within:

BEAUTY

While growing up, I lived across the road from the city reservoir, where my dad walked with his 3 children, most Sundays. I cried at age 16 when we left that home to move to a house that my mother wanted…I must admit that the view of Cayuga Lake was pretty. For many years since then, during the summer, I still visit Potters Falls a few hundred yards down from the reservoir, where as a middle-aged adult I learned to swim nude; scary due to my religious strict upbringing to be modest, or rather learning to be ashamed of one’s body.

About 9 years after my first marriage dissolved, my dad died, leaving me enough money to put a down payment on the small lake house my mother was then selling. I have many fond memories of swimming, sailing and ice skating with my two young daughters, as well as playing in Stewart Park which was less than a ten minute walk. I taught my youngest to ride her bike there. It wasn’t until my girls were 12 (Megan) and 15 (Erin) that I was able to save enough money to drive a rusty dodge van that my boyfriend owned across country to camp and hike in many National Parks; which I have a love affair with since my first cross-country trip thanks to my first husband’s interest in the national park system.

During August 1986, we hiked in several national parks on our way from New York to California, where Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia dazzled our eyes. Then, on to Oregon’s Crater Lake and Washington’s Mount Rainier, where a six mile hike opened up to a 360 degree view of rugged peaks, clear lakes, boundless colorful wildflowers, (tears now), where I stood with tears rolling down my cheeks for no apparent reason.
It wasn’t until several years later that I understood why.

When Erin was 16, we moved to my then boyfriend’s home, because there was more room, which dismayed Erin; I had felt such feelings at 16; I understood that she loved our lake house. Later, I sold it. When that relationship did not work out, I bought a barn-style A-frame home that my girls liked, surrounded by trees instead of water. From this home, they launched their lives into college, all 3 previous husbands (2 stepfathers) present at Megan’s high school graduation. By their college graduation, I had finished my masters degree and was in private practice as a psychotherapist, married a fourth time. Since 1988, I had been chain-sawing down trees on my property to use as fire wood for our woodstove, opening our home to more light, not realizing the connection to my heart being ripped open to deep pain through my marriage.

During the nineties I was drawn to primal therapy, which is truly “gut-wrenching” …and healing, like childbirth’s labor turning into joy of the newborn! It was during a primal-session that I connected with the tears I spilled on Mount Rainer; the beauty that I had seen with my eyes, I did not feel in my heart: the beauty of my body or my soul. Although I had received a 65 in English my freshman year at Cornell University, I was motivated to begin writing books about the healing connection of tears to LOVE. To support this self-publishing venture, I sold my home, and rented a renovated chicken coupe on big sky farmland, on top of a hill, surrounded by light, across the road from my favorite state park garnering many waterfalls of grandeur and gorges of glory.

children’s LOVE allows tears

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I write these essays about real life experiences that allow tears to bring us more love:

THE LAST WORD

It’s a windy January morning in Boston, my five-year-old granddaughter, Emily warming my lap. She opens up a book on the computer desk and pauses at the photos, as I tell her that I wrote the book. Her amazing dimple appears as she exclaims, “You wrote all those words?” Emily tells me she thinks it is Erin (my oldest daughter) in the middle of the photo of me between my parents at my nursing school graduation. I smile to see the resemblance to myself. There are several photos of my dad’s family whom she has never met and she wants to know who they all are; one is with her mom as a little girl. I tell her that my favorite is the one with me as an infant in my daddy’s arms, the only photo of me being held by him as a child.

Then, Emily finds some cursive passages that dad and I had written to each other, and she wishes me to read them to her. The first is me writing to my dad for Father’s Day 1968: there’s a long list describing “What a Real Father You Are – Dad” poetically and pragmatically, where eventually my tears have the last word while reading out loud:
(I realize more deeply this is true in 2010)
…”a lightening, to the disheartened
a listening ear to any problem;”
by now my tears have become snot down my lip and belly bumps, that Emily calmly and contentedly takes in with listening ears; her back leaning into my chest. There is no separation, or fear. And wonder of wonders, Emily turns the pages and picks out another cursive page, a card my dad wrote to me during my sophomore year of college. She asks me to read: “Dear Di,
just a quick note to let you know: (there are 12 items listed)
1) That I had a wonderful time just being with you.” (My dad’s underlining) Tears return, I am now being with Emily as I was too scared to BE with my dad, as we never shared tears together and I wish we could have.

11) “That I hope you are well and happy.

12) That I love you, Dad.” which dad had not spoken out loud as I do to Emily (and to the rest of my family)
Emily asks, “Can I have this book?” My delight sparkles my wet face with “Of course! I’ll write an inscription for you.” I am so pleased that she wishes to know her great-grandfather despite the lack of blood relation (he adopted me when my mother did not want me, and married my mother to raise me as his first born.)
Emily has been sitting on my lap with the serenity of love I’ve journeyed to know, my dad leading my way. Emily flipping through my 217 pages (she counts them) book TEARS ARE TRUST…waiting to be felt, for more than a half hour, eventually slides off my lap, readying for her noon kindergarten school bus, saying, “I’m going to put my book in my (school) backpack.”

10 steps to access healing TEARS of Love

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Hi everyONE,
Hopefully your new year is off to a clean snow start…or better yet,
“crying that makes you happy,” as one of my male clients has said.

This entry is to GIVE you:
10 steps to Access healing Tears: “your pearls of god” as the poet Rumi expresses it.

1 Notice your feelings! Focus on feelings, not thoughts. I FEEL…sad, hurt,scared,alone,rejected,misunderstood,unheard,mistrusted…etc.

2 I feel like…I was hit by a Mack truck is a thought, not a feeling.

3 When angry, ask what triggered it? (or triggered the sadness, hurt, or fear)

4 Write the feelings down, as well as the triggering event

5 Close your eyes, ask yourself how this feeling feels familiar from your childhood – write down the memory (if you are crying, let yourself cry as much as needed first – same applies to anger/rage)

6 Give ROOM to FEEL…15-45 minutes if you can. If angry: hit pillows. tear paper, go to your car and scream, throw pillows. stomp. etc. whatever your body wants to do safely.

7 Get support, such as re-evealuation counseling, or co-counseling, or 12-step group

8 Let yourself feel tears: at movies, commercials, songs, looking at babies…:)

9 Find a photo of yourself as a small child, and put it up where you can’t help but SEE it, LOOK into his or her eyes for at least a minute, then hold that picture close to your heart for at least a minute …daily!

10 Say outloud to your child’s picture, “I love you,” every day.