DISTINGUISH LOVERS FROM DADS & MOTHERS by Sasha Lessin, Ph.D.

If you or a lover react to each other as though you’re a
parent, you might consider this:

Bob Hoffman suggests you developed one of your (or your
lover’) personality facets, the Inner Brat, from your emotional pain
and from adopting parents’ worst traits. If parents didn’t
completely love and accept themselves and others, their
childrencopied this. Parents couldn’t model self-love and
overflowing love to others if their parents, in turn, didn’t model a
totally loving model for them to imprint.

As a child, when you lacked genuine love, you settled for
attention. Hoffman says that whether you deadened yourself
emotionally or developed a “nice” person or rebel facade, you’re
still angry at your parents. You try to hurt your parents by failing,
as though defeating yourself (as they defeated themselves) hurts them
for not giving you unconditional love. You continue self-defeating
behavior because it lets you to vent your childish anger.

Self-defeating behavior is also a desperate plea for their
sympathy and love. Your emotions remain childish, defiant, falsely
compliant or dulled, though your body and intellect continue to
grow. Your adult intelligence may tell you that smoking,
overreacting and pushing people away are self-defeating. Yet you
continue these behaviors because you remain a brat inside, still
copying or rebelling against your parents and their symbolic
substitutes.

When you’re unloving and self-defeating, you express
negative
love you learned from your parents. You can unlearn it. Stop being
a brat still getting even with them. Let your emotional development
catch up with your intellectual and physical development. “Get a
loving divorce from Mother and Dad.”

You achieve a loving divorce when you rise above parents’
negative example and realize they’ll never meet your childish demand
to love you “selflessly, wholeheartedly, and with nothing asked in
return.”
In Hoffman’s system, you prosecute Mom and Dad as you
remember and emote anger for the poor examples they exhibited and
wrongs they did you. You next put yourself in their places and
understand how the negative attitudes their parents gave them
conditioned them to imprint your negativities. You then experience
deep compassion, forgiveness and love toward your parents.

You copied some of your parents traits (by “parents,” I
designate the older folks in charge of you as you grew up–whether
biological, adopted or other). You probably love some traits you
copied–maybe Mom’s manners or Dad’s humor.

You could also have copied traits you’d like to change. If
so, try the rites in this section. Explore your mother’s model, then
father’s. Then reprogram yourself and you’ll love and forgive your
parents and yourself. You’ll leave your parents’ limits behind.
This model may, of course, help you understand why your lovers may
treat you like a parent, and you could discuss Hoffman’s model with
them.

Mend Mom’s Mistakes When You Mate

Hoffman suggests that one of your personality facets, your
Inner Brat, developed from your emotional pain and from adopting your
parents’ worst traits. If Mom did not completely love and accept
themselves and others, you copied this. If she couldn’t model self-
love and overflowing love to others if her parents, in turn, didn’t
model it. If that’s the case, when you’re unloving and self-
defeating, you express negative love, some of which you adopted from
her.

Stop getting even with Mom. Lovingly divorce her, rise above
her negative example, realize she’ll never meet your childish demand
to love you with nothing asked in return. First prosecute Mom: you
emote anger for her example and for wrongs she did you. Then you put
yourself in her place. You get how she was molded into giving you
negative attitudes by her parents’ attitudes. Then you then
experience deep compassion, forgiveness and love toward your mother.

Delete Dad’s Defects in Your Love Life

Hoffman says that if Dad didn’t completely love and accept
himself and others, you copied this. Divorce Dad, rise above his
negativies; realize he’ll never love you unconditionally. You express
anger, then you put yourself in his place and feel how his parents
imprinted him to imprint you. Finally, you forgive him and tell him
you love him.

[Based on Hoffman, B., Getting Divorced From Mother and Dad, New
York: Dutton, 1976.]

A woman in a red dress is striking and it does seem that red is the leading color for charities. (Red), Red Ribbon, Red Dress, all linking charity and fashion and help organizations whose similarity is in raising money and awareness for health issues. (RED) is designed to help fight AIDS in Africa. Red Ribbon raises money for AIDS research and treatment. Red Dress’s purpose is to bring awareness to heart disease in women. February 1st was National Wear a Red Dress Day in support of awareness of heart disease in women. Marie Osmond is their primary spokes woman. She appeared Friday morning on the Today Show wearing a red dress, along with all the other women hosts, and spoke about the organization. Along with wearing actual red dresses everyone wore the red dress pin to demonstrate their support. Much like the red ribbon pin, you can wear your charity support as a fashion statement.

Of course the reason we attach fashion to charity is because it allows us to integrate it into our daily consciousness. The color red is a good choice for initiating action. It is a color of passion. It is a stimulant often raising respiration and blood pressure (which on one side is ironic considering it is being used to support heart heath). Red is a call to action and always instigates a response. And, of course, blood is red so that does make an direct link to our heart.

Heart Disease in women has been far too over looked. It is the number one killer of both men and women in America and needs to be paid attention to. Everyone needs to educate themselves.

Here are some of the Heart Disease facts for women:

*Facts about Heart Disease provided by The American Heart Association

Early recognition of Heart Attack and Stroke symptoms can make the difference between life and death. What most of us don’t know is that the symptoms can be different between women and men. Women are more likely to have:

For a complete list of symptoms go to our Heart Attack and Stoke page.
If you suspect a heart attack or stroke, call 9-1-1 immediately. It is better to be safe than sorry and minutes really do matter. Certain parts of treatment are time sensitive and if given within a few hours of the onset of symptoms can prevent long term damage.

As far as taking Aspirin, yes you should. Take 1 aspirin at the onset of symptoms for a Heart Attack or a Stroke. It is also better to chew the aspirin than to swallow it. Chewing it allows it to enter the blood stream faster. The reason aspirin works is because it prevents the formation of platelets which are essential to clotting. If you can’t clot you can’t block an artery and kill part of your heart.

You all know how to help prevent Heart Disease: Eat healthy, exercise, quit smoking, blood pressure and health screenings.

Here is a list of the 25 Healthiest Foods on the Planet, don’t worry they are yummy!

Be sexy, be healthy. Go wear a red dress.

There is a new social networking site that is doing more than connecting less-than-lost friends or allowing you to secretly spy on you ex. Augmentation Nation is a forward thinking [tag]social networking[/tag] site with a purpose. They allow members to set up profiles with the intention of raising money for cosmetic surgery. The surgeries range from exercises in narcissism to facial reconstruction and surgeries that would offer substantial life changing results. People profile here I hopes of raising enough money to pay, or help with the costs of surgery, often because health insurance has denied coverage or they simply don’t have health insurance.

Each profile is linked to a Paypal account that accepts donations as small as a dollar. The profiles let you post a pic, explain your desired procedure and tell a little something about yourself. It also gives you a donation goal bar. As people make donation, the bar fills horizontally like a thermometer. It also tells you what percentage of your goal has been met. The site is completely free. Though they cannot guarantee that the people will use the money for their stated purpose, the donator must assume their monies are appropriately used. This would be why knowing the person or knowing about the person before you make your donation might be a good idea. Many of the members have external blogs or profiles on other social networking sites. This is a good resources for supplementing their [tag]Augmentation Nation[/tag] profile.

The site is small with less than 200 members, but seems to be growing at a steady pace. It offers resources such as “Surgeon Search.” Though it does not advocate for any doctor, they do assist you in finding one. They also post articles of recent news from the plastic surgery world, keeping their members abreast of controversy and change in the plastic surgery field. Currently in development is a forums section where, presumably, members will be able to talk to one another and support each other with their fund raising and their surgery.

As many people might suspect, the site has a lot of members with sexy pictures who are trying to sell you, with their bedroom eyes, as to why you need to give them money for their new boobs. I have to say, there are a lot of [tag]breasts[/tag] on the site. The creators must have had foresight to popularity of the [tag]Pam Anderson[/tag] special, because even their dummy image for the profile pic is a busty silhouetted woman. But breasts not withstanding, there are surgeries on the site that offer a reason besides living upto [tag]Playboy Bunny[/tag] standards of beauty. There are profiles that ask for help with nose jobs after being beaten and mugged, vision correction for near blindness, orthodontic surgery to correct severe under bites that interfere with speech and breathing. One blogger, Me and My Lazy I has been writing about the emotional struggles of living with [tag]Stratibismus[/tag], or a lazy eye, and her difficulties with getting the surgery to correct it. She created a profile after realizing she would have to pay for the surgery herself. Despite the intense affect this condition has on a person’s life, and is considered a social [tag]disability[/tag] due to evidence of discrimination, health insurance still considers this a cosmetic procedure. So she has started fundraising for her surgery. In return for the donation, she will continue to blog about her experience and pre and post-op pics. For those of us that like to watch plastic surgery TV for the procedures rather than the makeover, that is an exciting prospect. But beyond that, the blog offers a new dimension to the charity. Instead of giving money and never really seeing the fruit of your donation, with that addition of the blog you get to read how your donation affects her life both emotionally and physically.

So despite the abundance of breasts, Augmentation Nation has the potential to be a life-changing site for many people. Any donation you make is not specifically tax deductible, unless the people have established themselves as a non-profit, which is unlikely. However, if you speak with an accountant they can tell you if you are able to claim the deduction under general charity. To visit the site go to Augmentationnation.com

-Written by Lauren Armstrong