Sometimes we want everyone to like us and go into control
patterns to try to achieve this instead of being real with others.
This article talks about this and gives some tips on being your
true self.
"When I was a little girl, about nine years old, living in Bay
Village, Ohio, I came home from a birthday party and burst into
tears. “What’s wrong?” my mother asked.
“Suzy Wright doesn’t like me!” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Because everyone told me she doesn’t,” I sobbed.
Continued at http://www.realsimple.com/realsimple/content/0,21770,1580456-1,00.html
This week 2/7 I will be celebrating my birthday at Sandbox with the traditional
"desert is on me" - you will get the chance to cover me with desert toppings and then lick them off! Last year it was a lot of playful and tasty fun. :-) In addition I am planning to put 43 candles on my body too to blow out. Of course if this activity is not for you are at choice to attend and not do the activity and enjoy great company, food and connection.
If you have a birthday you are celebrating and what to do desert is on me at Sandbox just let me know in advance so we can schedule it. Or if you have another idea for fun connecting and yummy things to do let me know that too!
"The Power of Focus" by Jack Cranfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Les Hewitt. Great for achieving your goals. While I had read much of it elsewhere it is clearly written and well worth a read. My copy already has many dog eared pages!
The Sandbox want expression exercise last week was a lot of fun and helped folks
to express what they wanted and didn't want. It also help when some of us were in
the Sandbox (aka the dry hot tub) later in the evening to ask for a hug and to be ok
whether the person gave it or not. I think because people felt safe more cuddling
occurred that might have done before. :-)
So this Wednesday at 6:30pm we with do an exercise for those who want to strengthen their
expression of their boundaries. Practicing saying No helps us be clearer on what we want to
say Yes to and to who. Learning to hear No from someone else without having to turn it into
a rejection story is refreshing too. Saying or hearing No can be hard at first, so we will loosen
up first with some body movement exercises!
Of course if this exercise is not for you are at choice to attend and not do the exercise and enjoy
great company, food and connection.
I have noticed over the months of hosting Sandbox dinners that if we start dinner at 7:30pm
that unless someone pays attention to the time that dinner table conversation can go on until nearly 9pm. While
the conversation is often interesting that only leaves 30 minutes after 15 minutes of clean
up and before starting shutdown at 9:45pm for dancing, conversation or other
fun activities. So I am going to experiment with returning to the old Hollies dinner
start time of 7:00pm and start dinner clean up at 8pm. That will give us 90 minutes of
play time. Of course as always any late comers can still get any left over food from the kitchen. And just because the
dinner table is cleared doesnt' mean that conversation has to stop! I just want to
give more choices to people and to create more yummy connections. :-) Let me
know how you think it goes.
I made this one minute video "Erotic Encounter" with some friends in my Art group
http://www.youtube.
Many of us are afraid to ask for what we want in a relationship for fear or either not getting it or of having the other person give it to them out of obligation. Asking for what you want is an act of trust. You are taking a step into the unknown – not knowing how the other person will respond. We are giving up control because when we chose to relate we don't know what the answer will be. And in my experience it is better to practice lots of asking and getting some No than to avoid asking and then making asking a request mean more than it does.
This week we will practicing saying what we want, what we don't want and from who. And renegotiating these requests when we notice that our feelings have changed. Oh my goodness what if others get angry or upset by our requests? We will work with that energy too!
[Some text from copied from http://www.susancampbell.com/datinghelp/10truthskills.html ]
To touch or not to touch, that is the question in the sandbox
Jan 13
posted by Michael Smith in
Sandbox
| 0 Comments
I was talking with a fellow Sandboxer about touch today.
They like it! Ok, that is true for most of us, most days. :-) But they weren't sure how to tell folks
what body parts they wanted touched and want parts they wanted left alone. And worse on
some days they want to be held and on other days eye gazing is enough connection. Plus
they might want to be touched one way by person A and another way by person B and not
at all by person C. "Hmmm", I said, "this sounds exactly why we have a Sandbox!" - a safe place
where we can experiment with clearly expressing our wants and don't wants.
So this Wednesday at 7pm we with do an exercise for those who want to strengthen their
expression of their boundaries. Practicing saying what touch we want, what we don't want
and from who. And renegotiating these boundaries when we notice that our feelings have changed.
Oh my goodness what if others get angry or upset by our requests? We will work with that energy
too. All part of the growth possible in the Sandbox. Afraid of doing this kind of work? All the more
reason to show up this week!
Of course if this exercise is not for you are at choice to attend and not do the exercise and enjoy
great company, food and connection.
In my experience this method avoids the other person getting too defensive and ignoring the feedback.
"Begin with praise and honest appreciation. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders... Make the fault easy to correct. Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest."
- Dale Carnegie
Here are the dates for Dark Odyssey events this year. I will be presenting at Spring Fire and Summer Camp
April 6-8, 2007: Dark Odyssey: Spring Fire, Washington DC
June 20-25, 2007: Leather Retreat, Northern Maryland
September 12-17, 2007: Dark Odyssey: Summer Camp, Northern Maryland
http://www.darkodyssey.com/
This letter was read at George's memorial last week. He ran
Beltane, PolyLiving and FSG. He was great at getting things done
and encouraging others to do the same. - Michael
Greetings to you all, friends and acquaintances of my late
husband, George Marvil. I wish I could be there today with you to
mourn and share your good company. Please know that I am thinking
of you as I work at my business this afternoon and try to do all
the things I believe George would want me to do to keep our home
and family running on an even keel. I want to take a moment of
your time to tell you some things about George.
George was a difficult man to know. When I first met his father
years ago, he asked how long I had known George. I said I'd been
dating him for six months. He said, "Six months is hardly a hello
with George." He had depth to him that he almost never let anyone
see. In the last 18 months, he had let down some of his guard.
I'm so thankful we had this time together. I'm an Aries, and we
tend to make war, not love, but in that time, things changed for
us dramatically.
Our previously stormy marriage transformed into a source of
strength for both of us. We learned something about loyalty, and
something about the true meaning of love and of marriage. He
learned to let old angers go, and I learned the value of being
present in the here and now. Hard lessons learned, but good ones
nonetheless.
As most of you know, he was fiercely devoted to Free Spirit
Alliance, spending many years donating hundreds of hours to its
service, and serving as its president. Not a perfect man by any
stretch of the imagination, he always strived to give his best
efforts to FSA. He had a dream that the organization's events
would reach more and more people each year, eventually drawing
Pagans from all over the world. He shared my dream that we could
help the greater Pagan community's kids get a good education
through scholarships and an environment that valued college
degrees and learning. Thus was born the scholarship fund which
will now bear his name.
His favorite way to pass the time was developing ideas and
serving this community. He cared deeply about building it into
something we could all be proud of. I hope you all know how
important you were to him as members of that community.
Before I let you get on with this service, I want to tell you
something that I have learned. Maybe some of you already know
this, but I'm going to say it anyway. Time is the only thing we
have that is truly of any value. You never know when your time is
going to be up. I thought we'd have at least a few more years
with George around to share his hare- brained ideas, boss us
around, get things done, make us crazy, do the things he did. I
was wrong, and I feel much the poorer for it. He would tell you,
and I will, too, that you must make the most of your time. Live
life to its fullest. Don't hold grudges. Don't dwell in the past
and, by the same token, don't live for some future dream without
regard for the gifts of the present. Tell those you love that
you love them. Tell them every day. Live and be as happy as you
can be. That's what he would want from all of us.
Thank you for being a part of this service. There will be
memorials held at Beltane and Free Spirit Gatherings in 2007, and
some of George's ashes will be scattered at Ramblewood in the
spring. I hope to see some or all of you there for those
memorials as well.
Blessings,
Cat Castells
