Being a parent is a pretty amazing experience, I am learning things about myself everyday. Yesterday I had to take my son to the Dr. They think he has pink eye. I'm not one to over react when it comes to things like this, its not life threatening, but It is the first in what I am sure will be a number of sicknesses he will get. I am grateful for every moment I get to spend with my precious boy. We are taking him for his first camping trip this weekend. Both my wife and I enjoy camping, so he is going to have to get used to it sooner or later. It will be interesting to see how he does, my biggest concern is the 3-4 hour car ride. He does love being outside, so I am sure he will have fun. Did I mention that we are tent camping. lol. Well I will follow up with some pics and highlights next week. Other than that, take care, have a safe and fun weekend.

Is Love a choice

Feelings are not the end all be all. Feelings serve a purpose, yes. There is a reason however that we have the capability to feel one thing but can choose to do another. Just to be clear, everything is a choice – everything, and by not making a choice, we make a choice.

Any pre-marital book you read, and any relationship counselor you talk to will tell you that the “In-love” feeling will eventually go away. If you go into a relationship with the idea that you will always feel the way you felt in the beginning of a new relationship, you will ALWAYS be let down. Then you will decide you're not in love with the person and most likely move on. Being “In-Love” serves a very real biological purpose, think about how the process works for a second, it is directly related to our need to procreate. Not only will the “In-Love” feeling go away, but your love will change. I love my wife differently today than I did even 1 year ago. I actually love her more today (5 years later) than I ever have. It is not superficial, it is not like it was in the beginning when I was too “In-love” with her to see her defects, and I was excited in getting to know her. We (my wife and I) made a choice to grow in our relationship and friendship. We understood that at somepoint we would have to learn to truly love each other and we have. We have had to work through the tough times, the frustraiting times. We have both made the choice to work on our relationship no matter what and that divorce is not an option. That being said we have also made the commitment to not step outside the marriage, no matter what our feelings might tell us. It is seriously unrealistic to think that you will never be attracted to another person in your life, because you are married to the one you love. The difference is what you do with that attraction or those feelings.

This is a little parable that does a great job of describing our choice over feelings -

Choosing empowerment and positivity, or negativity and unhappiness, is a decision that you're making every day, whether you realize it or not.

Native American culture tells the story of a man who explains his own constant struggle between positive, empowering, creative impulses and negative and self-destructive ones by telling his son that he has two wolves fighting in his heart -- a good wolf and a bad one. The boy asks him which of the two will win the battle. The father replies, "Whichever one I feed."

It's very true. The feelings that we nurture and return to, time after time, are the ones which come to dominate our thoughts and actions, while the ones we turn away from fade away.
The exciting thing is, we have a choice. Although the two wolves both exist, we can choose which one of them we want to feed. That means, we choose which one will win.

You probably know people who feel sorry for themselves, who belittle others, who seem to get some kind of pleasure out of feeling miserable, who portray themselves as victims and reject the affections of anyone who doesn't offer constant sympathy. Often it seems to everybody but themselves that they actually have a whole lot going for them, but they're apt to be defensive if anyone should ever dare to point that out!

That's a classic example of what happens when you feed the bad wolf. You don't satisfy an appetite for any kind of feeling when you feed it - you only make it stronger. If you indulge negative feelings about yourself or other people, you strengthen them until they're very hard indeed to break away from.

The other side of the coin's what happens when you feed the GOOD wolf. If you know people who always seem to get a real kick out of life, who laugh a lot, have lots of friends and interests, and light up the room with energy and sparkle, who succeed in everything they turn their hand to and who always seem to have a lot of fun, you don't need ask which wolf THEY'RE feeding.


Choosing Empowerment And Positivity - Feeding The GOOD Wolf by Aislinn O'Connor Supreme Success

Forgiveness

The thing about resentment is that it hurts the person that holds on to it more than anyone else. Its liking being angry at someone and then drinking poison to get back at them. Forgiveness is a huge key to being content and finding happiness in this life.

Forgiving someone is not saying what they did was right or ok. Forgiving someone is not condoning their actions.

Forgiving someone is releasing the power, bond or hold that that person or their actions have over your life.

I have had to forgive some people for some pretty horrific things that were done to me. I am in no way saying this is easy or that there is not a process one must go through, but having gone through it I can attest to the fact that I have never felt as free or as comfortable in my own skin until I was able to truly forgive them.

"What if you have no desire to forgive them? That living with the turmoil and disgust of the situation at hand is far better then releasing that hold that they have on you?"

I can really relate to what you are saying. I don't feel this is the proper place to go into the details, but I have been able to forgive people for the cruelest things a person can do to a child.

I know that at some point living with the hurt becomes normal and almost a fuel or a catalyst for certain areas, for instance I had step dad that told me I was a worthless piece of shit every day he was in my life and that I would never succeed in anything, and I would never even graduate highschool. That motivated me to prove him wrong, I do have a high school diploma, and I just graduated from college (@ 30, but still have my degree). Now that was fine and all, except the fact that as long as I held on to that resentment, I still felt deep down inside that I was that piece of shit, no matter what I accomplished.

The bottom line is until you truly forgive that person it will eat you from the inside. You can try and mask it with a happy face, a career, alcohol, sex, what every you choose, but it is always their when your home alone in that quiet place and the alcohol is warn off and the girl is gone.

Also I didn't want to have the baggage to carry into my marriage and take out on my wife or children, I wanted to deal with it the best I could so I don't make the same mistakes. There is a saying that unfortunately many times is true - "We become the things we hate"

Healthy vs Unhealthy Relationships

I found this on the following website - http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/youth/health/relationships/healthy.htm

How a Healthy relationship looks compared to an Unhealthy one -

Healthy
Loving and taking care of yourself, before and while in a relationship.
Unhealthy
You care for and focus on another person only and neglect yourself or you focus only on yourself and neglect the other person.

Healthy
Respecting individuality, embracing differences, and allowing each person to "be themselves."
Unhealthy
You feel pressure to change to meet the other person's standards, you are afraid to disagree, and your ideas or criticized. Or, you pressure the other person to meet your standards and criticize his/her ideas.

Healthy
Doing things with friends and family and having activities independent of each other.
Unhealthy
One of you has to justify what you do, where you go, and who you see.

Healthy
Discussing things, allowing for differences of opinion, and compromising equally.
Unhealthy
One of you makes all the decisions and controls everything without listening to the other's input.

Healthy
Expressing and listening to each other's feelings, needs, and desires.
Unhealthy
One of you feels unheard and is unable to communicate what you want.

Healthy
Trusting and being honest with yourself and each other.
Unhealthy
You lie to each other and find yourself making excuses for the other person.

Healthy
Respecting each other's need for privacy.
Unhealthy
You don't have any personal space and have to share everything with the other person.

Healthy
Sharing sexual histories and sexual health status with a partner.
Unhealthy
Your partner keeps his/her sexual history a secret or hides a sexually transmitted infection from you or you do not disclose your history to your partner.

Healthy
Practicing safer sex methods.
Unhealthy
You feel scared of asking your partner to use protection or s/he has refused your requests for safer sex. Or, you refuse to use safer sex methods after your partner has requested or you make your partner feel scared.

Healthy
Respecting sexual boundaries and being able to say no to sex.
Unhealthy
Your partner has forced you to have sex or you have had sex when you don't really want to. Or, you have forced or coerced your partner to have sex.

Healthy
Resolving conflicts in a rational peaceful, and mutually agreed upon way.
Unhealthy
One or both of you yells and hits, shoves or throws things at the other in an argument.

Healthy
There is room for positive growth and you learn more about each other as you develop and mature.
Unhealthy
You feel stifled, trapped, and stagnant. You are unable to escape the pressures of the relationship.

Thoughts on Homosexuality

On this subject I have to go from personal knowledge I have gained through life experience. I have a few gay friends, whom taught me some great lessons about life. When I was younger I struggled with my sexuality, I never really experimented, but definitely questioned my feelings and emotions. I am sure that the copious amount of drugs and alcohol that I abused didn’t help my case any. The fact that I was molested by a neighbor boy when I was in the second grade did not help my case either. I also struggled with many of the stereotypes and opinions of what is considered masculine, such as football, being a logger, not showing emotion, not crying, and what is stereotypically feminine, such as being artistic, liking to shop, or sew, showing emotion, writing poetry. During a time of self discovering I was talking with a gay friend of mine about these things (he is a logger). What I came away from that conversation with is this; It does not matter what your interests are, the only thing that determines whether your heterosexual or homosexual is if you have sexual relations with the same sex.

On a side note another good friend of mine who is gay taught me by example, that it is ok to be who I am and that I do not need to be ashamed of who I am. I realized if this guy, who has obviously struggled with severe discrimination is ok with who he is, why shouldn’t I be ok with who I am.

Setting Boundaries

I think that setting boundaries is one of the most important aspects of any relationship. It doesn’t matter whether it is a platonic, romantic, or family relationship. We are responsible for teaching others what is and what is not ok, and how to and how not to treat us (yes it is your responsibility). That being said, setting boundaries has been one of the most difficult skills that I have had to learn. Here is a website that goes a more in depth on the subject, along with ways to increase your skills. http://www.joy2meu.com/Personal_Boundaries.htm