I've always been a big reader, though the world of COVID has moved me more toward fiction than nonfiction because of the stress release it offers. I've also started listening to audiobooks while I sew, and that helped me polish off 67 books last year. I read in a variety of areas, but I especially enjoy fantasy, murder/mystery, and historical fiction. These are some of my favorite books from 2022. Trying to name my favorite of the year is impossible, but if you want the books I've recommended to the most people, they are Matrix, Hacienda, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, The Vanishing Half, The Gilded Ones, Honor, The Last Karankawas, and The Hero of This Book. So most of them. :) 

Murder/Mystery:
Before She Was Found by Heather Gudenkauf
Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson
The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James (This also ventures into supernatural.)
​The Overnight Guest by Heather Gudenkauf
A Madness of Sunshine by Nalini Singh
The Maid by Nita Prose 
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (This is also supernatural and historical fiction.)

Fantasy:
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean (feminist topics)
The Gilded Ones and its sequel The Merciless Ones by Namina Forna 
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
The primary four books of The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Historical Fiction:
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson (but not so much its sequel)
Matrix by Lauren Groff 
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (This also is supernatural.)
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Romance:
Instructions for Dancing by Nicola Yoon 

Memoir:
Somebody's Daughter by Ashley Ford 

Fiction:
The Last Karankawas by Kimberly Garza 
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken 
Honor by by Thrity Umrigar 

©2023 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

I’ve often wondered why I am so comfortable around people in the LGBTQ+ community. I was raised in a family where Republican Catholic ideals were the norm, so I certainly didn’t learn it from my upbringing. I’m a heterosexual, cisgender woman, but I’m a very strong ally. When I re-entered the dating market in my late 30s, I was frustrated that I wasn’t bisexual or pansexual so that I would have a wider number of dating prospects. I couldn’t figure out why I was so open-minded about others’ genders and sexuality, and yet my own gender and sexuality were rigidly stuck at one end of the spectrums. Then I fell deeply in love with a man who was bisexual (and also labeled himself as queer). Suddenly it all made a lot more sense: I am such a strong ally in this life so that I was able to be with him.

That bisexual boyfriend taught me about biphobia-- the fear of bisexual people. I had no idea how often it came into play in our society, but once he pointed it out to me, I couldn’t not see it. Even among my most liberal friends, many were very alarmed when I started dating someone who was openly bisexual. They were confusing bisexuality with polyamory. They didn’t understand how I could be monogamous and dating someone bisexual. I educated them on the difference between the two. Just because someone is bisexual doesn’t mean they are non-monogamous, and just because someone is bisexual doesn’t mean they are going to cheat on their monogamous partner in order to be with someone with different genitals.

One day, my bisexual boyfriend looked at me out of the blue and said, “You’re queer adjacent.” I was a bit taken back by this pronouncement, but I approached it with open-mindedness. I asked him what it meant to him because I was unfamiliar with the term. He replied, “You’re as queer as you can be with out actually being queer.” I laughed and thanked him. To me, that is a compliment. I am grateful that he gave me that designation.

In some ways, I’ve often felt more comfortable with people who were somewhere under the queer umbrella than I am with others who are straight and cisgender. So many of my friends, former roommates and clients are LGTBQ+ and/or polyamorous that I often feel like the unusual one for being straight, cisgender and monogamous. Yet I finally realized not long ago that part of that comfort is from being among others who are minorities in our society. Even though we are different minorities, we all understand what it feels like to be an outsider. As someone who is disabled with chronic illness and who is a psychic, I often am outside of the center of the societal bell curve.

I went to a happy hour last week for mental health professionals who are queer and queer-allied. I always feel so comfortable with that crowd. I am grateful that they allow me in their space with open arms. I made a very conscious choice when I began my business to make sure it was LGBTQ+ friendly as I would rather lose the business of those who are prejudiced and gain the business of those who are in the margins. For me, there really was no choice. I support those who are in need of support. I want to be there for those who are often excluded from other businesses.

​©2022 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

As I’ve mentioned before, the best healers are those who have been wounded and who have worked to heal their past. These healers continue to work on healing on deeper levels throughout their lives as they grow as individuals. If you find a healer who claims to be perfect and to have resolved all their issues, run in the opposite direction. They are deluded. We’re all human, and we’re all in need of healing our entire lives. Almost none of us reach enlightenment on this plane of existence. 

I am continuing my own healing because I practice what I preach to my clients. Lately, I have been working on some very core issues in my life. Like many people, I had a miserable childhood which included a lot of abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) and neglect. I was very different than many of my peers as a child, and as a result, I endured bullying, especially in the late grade school years. When I look back on my childhood, it’s not with fondness. It’s with painful memories and gratitude that I somehow managed to survive. 

Recently, a new issue surfaced during therapy. I’ve got a list of core issues which I have been working on healing in different ways over the years. However, as we approached one of my core issues, a new underlying issue suddenly popped its malicious head out of the woodwork for me to heal. Both my therapist and I were taken back by its appearance, yet it made sense to us in light of my other issues. 

When I came home from that therapy session, I created a flower essence blend for myself just as I do for my clients by using my intuitive guidance and my stock of 600+ flower essences. I then labeled the blend, “I Deserve to Exist.” I’ve learned that The Universe doesn’t observe subtlety when it comes to healing. We need to clearly state exactly what it is we’re working on and what we want to achieve.

​I had known previously that I was an unplanned and undesired pregnancy. Even though I was born in the post-Roe v. Wade era, my somewhat Catholic mother chose to continue the pregnancy. However, on top of not wanting a child, she also did not want a girl. The firstborn child was supposed to be a male, one who could carry on the family name. I grew up knowing that I was not wanted nor was I the right sex. On a subconscious level, I quickly learned that others fundamentally did not want me to exist.

Throughout my childhood, many people tried to make me disappear. They put masks on me, trying to transform me into the kind of person they felt I should be. In order to survive as a child, I conformed as best I could to their demands. At the time, I assumed their judgments meant I was imperfect or wrong. I tried to be perfect. As a teen, I started realizing I wasn’t being true to myself. As an adult, I've had to shed all of those prior expectations in order to find my true self. In retrospect, I have learned that others were not allowing me to be me because of their own emotional issues, not my imperfections.

Lately as I have been clearing out emotional baggage, I’ve simultaneously been clearing out physical baggage, too. I’ve been purging many of my childhood items that I still had packed away in boxes by giving them away on my local Buy Nothing Project list. I’ve experienced great joy in giving these items to others who can enjoy them. Some are getting to reclaim items identical to those which brought them happiness in their childhoods. Others are passing them on to children who can happily play with the toys rather than the toys sitting unused in boxes. 

This morning I had a healing session with one of my practitioners who uses NET. Unprompted by me, she used the term “mask” with me, and I began to laugh. I told her that my afternoon plans included smashing a mask I had created as a child; I had set the mask in my garage before I left home for the appointment. My healer got goosebumps as we talked about it.
​
So when I got home, I smashed that mask. I was utterly surprised how easy it was to break the ceramic with a hammer; it was like using a knife on warm butter. Symbolically, that’s probably true of many of our masks. While they appear to be sturdy and strong, hiding us from the world, the reality is that once we choose to remove them and be ourselves, they crumble quickly. ​

​The only piece of the mask that refused to smash was the nose. When I am doing psychic readings for clients, I see noses symbolically to represent wisdom. To me, that was a reminder to keep the wisdom of my childhood. I learned a lot through the pain I endured, plus I do have some happy memories. Those are the things that I should retain. The rest can be broken and discarded.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
 
I recently read a post about recommended new releases for feminists. On that list was Queer Sex: A Trans and Non-Binary Guide to Intimacy, Pleasure and Relationships by Juno Roche. The blurb for the book sounded great, and the recommendation was incredibly enthusiastic. Although I’m a heterosexual cisgender woman and ally, I want to learn more about experiences outside of my own around sexuality and gender so I located an advance copy of the book.
 
I quickly discovered I was not really part of the target audience for Queer Sex. Roche wrote this book as a way of working through her own issues around sex after having had bottom surgery in the UK. She was struggling with dating and what sex and relationships “should” be for her, so she turned to journaling and interviewing others. Those journal entries and interviews are then compiled into an awkward volume. Roche hoped that her book would serve to help others also struggling with the same issues. This is an incredibly important goal, and one that obviously needs far more exploration.
 
However, the result is that there is often not enough basic education for readers like me who came to the book with very little knowledge about the process of transitioning or the intricacies of surgery. For example, Roche begins talking about dilation after her surgery. To me, gynecological dilation is the cervix opening for a baby to be born. Obviously, that wasn’t what she was talking about, so I had to go do some research. Likewise, Roche interviews someone who talks about chemsex. Roche herself says she doesn’t know the terms involved with chemsex, but I didn’t even know what chemsex is. These are the types of concepts that a well-written and well-edited guide book would have made clear through a few sentences or a footnote.
 
Queer Sex clearly demonstrates that there is a huge gap in the NHS in the UK for helping individuals dealing with issues around their gender and sexuality. Unfortunately, Roche doesn’t explain how the process of gender surgery happens in the UK, so those of us who live elsewhere (including me in the US) can be confused by what she discusses. To me as an outsider, it seems truly unethical that the system would provide her with the changes to align her body with her identity but then not help support her in the emotional transitions and experiences that happen as well. Of course, I realize things are probably not much better for those in the US, but it left me wondering why this gap in support exists and how it could be fixed.
 
Roche clearly struggles with low self-esteem, and this comes through very clearly in her writing. While there is a time and place for exploring low self-esteem, a “guide” to queer sex doesn’t seem to be the appropriate place for it. Roche’s lead-in to the first interview is self-disparaging, and while she means it to be humorous, the result is actually painful to read as Roche’s account of herself comes across as self-loathing. So often throughout the book I just wanted to hug Roche and tell her to believe in herself, something she clearly struggles to do. To me, it felt as though Roche really needed to be working intensely with a sex therapist rather than writing a book. Her journaling from this time could easily be edited and integrated and included in a future work once she was grounded enough in herself to write a coherent narrative.
 
Amid all the missing information and poorly integrated personal emotion is some very important and very fascinating content that should have been the focus of the book. During the transcribed interviews in the book, Roche and her interviewees explore what it means to be trans and/or non-binary. These people are trying to understand their own bodies, both pre- and post-op, their sex drives, their attractions, and their orgasms. They discuss generational differences between transwomen and what’s expected of transwomen, how trans people define themselves, and how others define them. The book explores whether genital surgery is normative and whether or not being trans is still defined by a binary system (which most agree it is). They ask questions such as “Do you have to have female genitals to be a transwoman?” These issues are the heart of the book, but because they are only discussed in the transcribed interviews, they are not fully explored.
 
Overall, Queer Sex reads like the combination of a journal and series of interviews that hasn’t been well-integrated or well-edited into a unified work. The text is repetitious in places and very self-indulgent in others. Roche’s vulnerability and exploring her experience is wonderful, but her writing needed to be edited for coherence. Her prose is absolutely gorgeous at times, such as when she discusses interviewing Kuchenga who “has a strange little triangular house, with triangular rooms, on the edge of the roundabout. As I enter her domain, I feel instantly like we are in a story full of content. And as soon as she starts to unfurl her works, I remain almost spellbound for the next two hours or so. Unfurl her words she does with a kind of languid confidence that is sonically beautiful.” However, her writing isn’t able to shine because of the poor organization and editing. Queer Sex really feels like it was only half-done and rushed to press rather than taking the time to make it into the stellar book it could have been.
 
Queer Sex contains some very important content about issues that we all should be discussing. We are all sexual (or asexual) beings, and our society’s views on sexuality and gender are changing rapidly. Even as a heterosexual cisgender woman, I recognized issues that I personally have struggled with in the dating world that Roche touches upon. I hope in her future works, Roche spends more time integrating, exploring, and editing these important topics.
 
©2018 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., GreenHeartGuidance.com

The day after the 2017 Presidential inauguration, my 16 year old daughter came downstairs and asked me, “Is it true? Did they really get rid of the LGBT pages on the White House site?” Sadly, yes, it is true. I was amazed that she was puzzled by this happening. She continued asking me, “But who did that? How can they do that?” I let her know that the Republicans were in power now, and the new Presidential staff was more than legally allowed to remove any pages they wanted from the White House website. They want to make those in the LGBTQ+ community disappear. They want to restrict rights for those who are not heterosexual. They are going to try to repeal gay marriage. This is the way the next four years are going to be.

My daughter just sat there, looking dismayed. Her reaction made me realize on a deeper level what a privileged upbringing her life has been in terms of gay rights. She has grown up in a home where all people are seen as equal regardless of their sexual preferences, orientation or identity. Her grade school principal was an out lesbian who was partnered with one of the teachers at the school. Our nuclear family has friends and extended family members who are LGBTQ+. My daughter has been raised in a world where all of that is seen as so normal and acceptable it doesn’t even need comment. In her world, people are sexual beings, and any range of consensual sexual activity and identity is fine, most especially when it stems from love.

Yet back in the real world, members of the LGBTQ+ community still face daily discrimination. Not everyone is as accepting as our nuclear family. My daughter has never really known this except in the fact that gay marriage wasn’t legal until a few years ago. She doesn’t have the memories I have of being raised Catholic and being taught that homosexuality was a sin. She doesn’t remember the shock in a community when someone “came out.” She doesn’t realize the horrible stigma that HIV/AIDS initially had as a wrongly-perceived gay disease. She doesn’t understand the history of violence that was so prevalent and still continues in many places against those who are LGBTQ+.

I hate that my daughter’s innocence is being shattered, though I know she was privileged to be able to hold on to living in a utopia for as long as she did. Now, the issues of the LGBTQ+ community are personal to her. She is a proud ally. Her best friend is transgender. When my daughter’s friend announced his transition and his new name, she accepted him without question and knew her parents and siblings would, too. Now she is having to deal with the fact that the new order wants to make her best friend disappear, just like those webpages that were suddenly gone within hours of the inauguration. Yet she, like me and so many other allies, is not ok with that. They will not make those we love disappear just by removing a webpage. We will continue to fight to make all people visible and equal. In less than two years, she will be a registered voter, and she will be doing her part to make change happen in the mid-term elections as well.

​©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Like many in this nation, I’ve been using denial as a coping technique over the past two months. I’ve been trying to believe that somehow, miraculously, the shift in power we were dreading would not happen. I was hoping that it was all a bad dream or a horrible joke. It’s not, though. Our lives are about to change drastically.

The night of the election in November 2016, my 16 year old daughter came downstairs to the family room at about 10 pm from doing homework. Her twin and I were watching the returns come in with dismay. She had just received a text from her boyfriend about the ominous news. Her only words were, “Tell me it’s not true.” I had to tell her it was. She then asked, “Can we move to Canada?” Given that we have family there, it’s not too outrageous of a request.

My daughter’s reaction left me thinking. Her boyfriend is a darker skinned racial minority whose parents were immigrants to the US. Her best friend is transgender. Her mother is disabled. She is almost a woman. Her world is going to be drastically impacted by the changes that result from the election.

My life is also going to be impacted as well; the obvious is that I am a woman and I am disabled. Both of those groups have been declared targets of hatred in the new era, and I personally have already experienced it. I fully expect large parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act to be repealed because the ADA costs money to businesses in order to make them fully accessible, and in the new order, corporate money is far more important than those with disabilities.

There are other places where the new dawn is going to impact me. Without the Affordable Care Act, I am no longer insurable due to the past 14 years of health issues. I face insurance companies refusing to cover my medical bills because of my pre-existing conditions. Healthcare is going to be the most obvious place where I will feel the change.

Other places are less obvious at first glance, but they are real threats. I have never had an abortion in this life, and I hope I never have to. However, Roe v. Wade has ensured that abortion has always been an option in my lifetime. Now I am at a point in my life where I would have to terminate any pregnancy I might unintentionally conceive because of health issues, yet I expect Roe v. Wade to either be eliminated or heavily restricted in the coming year. If that is the case, I will have to limit my sexual partners to men who have had vasectomies or are otherwise sterile. I’m a little more than angry about (primarily older white men) deciding whom I can have sex with.

There are bigger fears, too. I spent the first part of my life living with a narcissist, and having a narcissistic man who uses gaslighting as one of his primary methods of communication in national power is triggering for me and for many others. Watching someone so ill-qualified and so mentally ill about to assume command of so many life-or-death decisions is truly terrifying, especially if one knows how fickle and dangerous narcissists can be.

I’ve spoken with my spirit guides, and they have assured me that the new Narcissist in Chief will not be pushing the big red button. However, they have also affirmed my fears that we are facing an ugly uphill battle in the near future. As a friend of mine phrased it, we are facing at a decision where we as a nation have to decide if we will be governed by fear or governed by love. As things stand now, we are heading toward being a nation governed by fear.

I choose not to live my life in that way, though. For me, the first question to any decision is always “What is the healthy decision?” That question is always accompanied by other similar supporting questions: “What will bring the most love into my life and the world?” “What will bring the most compassion to me, to others, and to humanity?” “What is the right thing to do even if it is the hardest?” I will continue to strive to hold those values dear even when the world around me is leaning in the opposite direction.

So for me, January 20th, 2017 is a day of mourning. I’m dressing in black, the traditional color of mourning in our culture. I’m letting myself grieve as hard as I need to, but I also am holding my heart in a place of love rather than a place of fear. While I can’t change the national or the global situation, I can keep working to enact change around me, helping those who aren’t accepted by others. I can keep working to get compassion enacted in our society on personal and legal levels.

The final words from “Memories” from the musical Cats have been echoing my head all day, prompting me to write this post. We are facing the new day, the new dawn, but we must hold tight to the memories that bring us hope and love.

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life 
And I mustn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory, too
And a new day will begin
​
©2017 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Many years ago, I met a woman through a local internet mothering group who had been diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer. Doctors had given her six months to live, and she was determined to prove them wrong. She lived-- truly lived-- for another four years before her death. The woman (whom I’ll call K) entered a healing path even though she was going to be dying in the near future. She was determined to lengthen her life as much as possible. K undertook many holistic healing protocols. Among her discoveries that helped her to find more happiness and more health was facing whom she really was. After two heterosexual marriages that ended in divorce, K finally realized that she was a lesbian. By “coming out,” K found happiness that had been missing all of her adult life.

Around the same time, I was friends with a woman, C, who was in a national internet support group for people with illnesses like mine. We were in and out of each other’s lives via email for quite a while. As we both walked our healing paths, C made a personal discovery. While C identified as pansexual, she’d had many relationships that ended unhappily including a recent divorce. It wasn’t until C realized that he was actually a man named J that deeper healing began for him.

As I watched these two people find happiness as a result of the deep work that chronic illness prompted in their lives, I began to question what was holding me back in my personal healing. Given what both of these two people discovered about themselves, the first things I questioned were my gender and sexual orientation. After much introspection and internet research, I discovered that I was a heterosexual cisgender woman, exactly what I had identified as all my life. Thus, I made no amazing life changing discoveries about my sexuality as my internet friends had done.

I remained puzzled for many years about what was holding my healing back. If it wasn’t my sexuality, then what was it about myself that I needed to find? In my case, it turned out that it was my spiritual self than I needed to rediscover. I had spent the past five lifetimes trying to deny, repress and ignore my metaphysical abilities. Because I grew up in a family in and then married and divorced a man this life ​who aren’t believers in the metaphysical, it didn’t feel safe for me to be my true self. However, a major illness in this lifetime forced me to to come to terms with my metaphysical gifts and my need to use them for healing myself and others.

For many people facing chronic or terminal illness, finding oneself is one of the challenges that can help alleviate a great deal of emotional pain and suffering. Because our emotional pain often manifests as physical pain in our body, finding oneself can sometimes bring improvement or even remission of one’s physical misery. Regardless of its impact on one’s physical symptoms, being true to oneself always brings happiness that was previously unknown in this life. There is nothing comparable to being able to say, “This is whom I am. I am proud of me, and I love being me.”

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

When I was in high school, one of the guys whom I hung out with had an inferiority complex around women and intelligence. Any time we took a standardized test, he would come to me and proudly boast his results. I would smile and congratulate him and try to shift the conversation. It never worked. He always forced the issue to a head by wanting to know what my score was on the same standardized test. Every time, without fail, my score was significantly higher even though I was almost two years younger than him and, heaven forbid, a female. He would always get a crushed and frustrated look on his face that once again, a girl had beaten him. Hence, I tried to avoid the topic of testing or grades whenever possible.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve found that there are still many men who are made uncomfortable by intelligent women. One of the quickest ways to scare off a large number of men on a dating site is to tell them that you are a woman with a Ph.D. Other female friends with doctorates have experienced the same. There are men out there who are sapiosexuals, and these are the men I tend to seek out. They are attracted to women who are intelligent and not afraid to show it. Likewise, I am drawn to intelligent men. I want someone who can keep up with me in conversation and discussion. Both of the men whom I have been in love with had doctorates. That’s not to say I wouldn’t date a guy without an advanced degree or even a college degree at all, but I find intelligence incredibly attractive, and I want a partner who feels the same.

Last night, I was watching The Bachelor in Paradise (and yes, you may question my intelligence for doing so!). The Bachelor franchise is my only “reality” television indulgence. This season, there is a man named Joe Bailey who was also on the last season of The Bachelorette. I had a hard time understanding why Kaitlyn Bristowe, the bachelorette, was so attracted to him. To me, he was playing up the stereotype of a Kentucky hillbilly, right down to bringing a bottle of moonshine along with him to give to Bristowe. She really seemed to adore him, or at least making out with him. On Bachelor in Paradise, though, Bailey has demonstrated some very narcissistic tendencies as he emotionally manipulated one woman to advance in the “game” aspect of the reality show. When one of the other men on the show, J.J. Lane, a man who tends to get himself in trouble almost every time he opens his mouth, confronted Bailey about having deceived the woman in question, a very disjointed and pointless argument ensued. Along the way, Bailey insulted Lane by saying he has a sister who is more intelligent than Lane.

Whoa. Really? It’s the year 2015 and a man is going to insult another man on national television by implying that being dumber than a woman is a terrible thing? Things like this shock me, though they really shouldn’t given the number of insecure men I’ve met in my life who have been intimidated by my intelligence. However, I would hope by now that our society would understand that men and women are equal. Clearly our nation doesn’t completely comprehend this concept as women are still blamed for being raped by men, women are seen as being at fault for unwanted pregnancies even though it takes two to tango, and wages for women lag significantly behind. The fact that anyone could still generally assume that all women are less intelligent than all men is really a sad but telling state of affairs.

I have often felt sorry for my poor kids for the educational standards in our family. Even though my kids will only be the third generation of our family to go to college, they’ve got a precedent of a lot of doctorates in the family. Among my ex-husband’s and my siblings and their partners as well as us, there are six Ph.D.s, two M.D.s, one D.O., one terminal master’s and one terminal bachelor’s degree. Three of the Ph.D.s and both of the M.D.s are women. The one thing that my kids will never doubt is that women and men are both intelligent. We may have different innate areas where we are stronger and fields of study that we prefer, but women are not stupid, and insulting women’s intelligence is never acceptable.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Over the past few years, my life has changed a great deal. I am no longer the same person I was when I got Lyme disease, nor am I the person who suffered miserably with it in the early years. I’ve always been a fighter (or a “warrior” to use the more spiritual term), and that is part of what has helped me to defeat this disease. The spiritual transformation I experienced along the way is not an unusual story, though mine is unique, just like everyone else’s. However, as I worked my way thoughLiving in the Light over the past few months, I saw the generalized path I had walked laid out very clearly by a powerful author. As I turned the pages through the first chapters of the book, I kept thinking, “Yes, been there, done that.”

Living in the Light is about a different way of looking at one’s life than philosophies most of us were raised in modern Christian-dominated America. Gone is the judgment and fear of burning in hell that serves as the motivation in many Christian traditions. Instead, Gawain presents a vision of “a new world” that she sees developing around us. For her, life is a series of lessons to be learned as a we use our intuition to tap into the higher powers around us. By using our intuition, we can become creative channels for the higher powers of the Universe while we work on growing and improving our souls.

Along our road to growth, we have to learn to be truly open to whom we are. We need to become balanced beings who are able to give and to receive. To understand ourselves fully, Gawain argues that we need to face our “shadow sides,” a Jungian term for the parts of ourselves we are afraid of. It is only in accepting every part of our beings that we can find balance. This includes learning to embrace our emotions and face our problems. It also means recognizing that we are both souls and humans in bodily form, and we must live as both. Despite what many schools of thought might teach, our bodies are perfect, just as our souls are. Even though they have limitations, our bodies are amazing, and we need to respect them and listen to them in order to live healthy lives.

Shakti Gawain also discusses the concept of the world as our mirror: whatever we are struggling with inside of ourselves will also manifest externally. By paying attention to these synchronicities around us, we will be able to accelerate our healing and growth. Even though things around us may seem to be negative, they aren’t actually. Instead, what manifests in our lives are gifts for us to learn from; problems are actually messages if we are willing to use our intuition to listen to them. Our careers, our financial situation and even our health will reflect what is going on within us. Then, through the same mirroring perspective, the beneficial changes we make within ourselves will then be reflected throughout the world, too.

The most powerful chapters in the book for me were those on the male and female within which demonstrate that we all have both masculine and feminine energies within  us. The masculine side is the action side of us, the part of us that wants to do things. The feminine side is the intuitive side, the part that helps us find the correct direction to move in. Most of us have embraced one side at the expense of the other, but we all need to have both the masculine and feminine within us to be balanced in our lives. Like Gawain, I embraced my masculine side for the first 35 years of my life; in the more recent years, I’ve had to learn to accept, embrace and love my feminine side as well. As I have done so, I’ve found greater peace than I’ve ever known previously.

Working from this place of balanced masculine and feminine energies, Gawain demonstrates that romantic relationships in our culture have been built on theidea of romantic partners completing the other. Because we are not allowing ourselves to be both masculine and feminine, we end up in dysfunctional relationships because we want someone else to fulfill the part of ourselves we don’t accept or want to embrace. When we learn to be what we want rather than asking others to do it for us, we are able to enter into healthier relationships built on being complete individuals rather than partial ones. This new energy of balanced relationships will also spill over into our relationships with our children as parenting takes on a new perspective. By developing honest relationships and respecting our children, we will no longer expect our children to complete us either.

Living in the Light is not without its minor flaws. At one point Gawain refers to the Native American and African cultures. While an error like this might have been possibly have passed muster in the original edition of the book, the 25th anniversary edition that I was reading should have been edited to correct the better cultural understanding of our times. There is no one Native American culture. There are common elements shared by many different Native American tribes, such as a unifying belief in the sanctity of the Earth, but to speak of one particular Native American culture is lacking in perspective. Likewise, Africa is a continent that is over two million square miles larger than North America; Africa’s current population is double that of North America. To generalize that there is one African culture is completely missing the reality of the multitude of diverse cultures on the African continent.

The one place where I felt that Gawain hasn’t fully worked through her theories yet is in her discussion of “Taking Care of Ourselves” (chapter 14). Often as we as a society develop ideas, we swing between extremes. Think of the conservative 1950s, the liberal 1960s, and the more balanced 1970s. Here, Gawain has responded to the societal tendency to repress our emotions rather than facing them; she swings too far in the other direction by stating that by being honest about our needs and emotions, we will get we want most of the time. To me, this section feels too much like a distorted law of attraction. Unfortunately, honesty will not always get us what we want because those around us are individuals with free will, too. Some will chose to respond to our honesty by removing themselves from our lives rather than engaging honestly with us. Living and speaking honestly will change our lives, but we won’t necessarily get what we want. We will, however, get what is best for us by being honest.

It is rare that I recommend a book to a half-dozen people after I finish it, but that happened to me in the days after I finally finished Living in the Light. As I have begun my spiritual singles meetup, I have shifted the original plans I had for the group in order to use this book, asking participants to read a few chapters each month as we work our way through the larger concepts of the book. The material is that powerful and that helpful. I’ve included a huge list of book group or discussion group questions below that can be adapted as needed for your group. For mine, I’ll be dividing the questions over 20 sessions over eight months or so.

Living in the Light is a book I suspect that I will return to many times over my life, and I suspect it will always be a book that will give me helpful reminders and insight no matter where I am in my journey at that point. Even as I read it the first time, I found that synchronicity prevailed, and whatever I read was exactly what I needed to hear at that particular moment.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

I’ve had several people ask about what Chris Harrison said at the book signing I attended last week on May 20, 2015 at the Arboretum Barnes and Noble in Austin. Since I’d typed up a very long email for my Bachelor/ette watching buddy in New York the day after the event, I’ve reworked that e-mail into a ridiculously long blog post. Please take into account that I was not taking notes or recording anything during the evening, so this is my memory of what was said. While I wrote it down within 24 hours of the event, I’m sure this is not perfect. I am positive that much of the content is not in the actual order it was presented. However, if I misquoted or misremembered something, the error is mine, and I apologize to those who were posing the questions and to Chris Harrison who was answering them. I have interjected some of my personal observations; these are mine alone. Harrison speaks with a great sense of humor and jokes around quite a bit which gave the evening a very light-hearted feel. I don’t know that I can easily convey his humor, but I will try to make it clear when he was obviously joking with the audience.

As he began speaking about his new book, The Perfect Letter, Chris Harrison seemed nervous to me, something I found surprising for a man who is certainly no stranger to public limelight. After a few minutes, though, he found his rhythm, and by the time he moved on to the question and answer section of the evening about ten minutes later, he was totally at ease and enjoying the evening.

Chris Harrison said that the character of Leigh in his book is based on no one woman; she is a conglomeration of a lot of women in his life including some of the bachelorettes. The love triangle in the book was inspired partially by Andi Dorfman because he feels like she truly loved two different men, and he feels like we have the capacity to love more than one person at once. He didn't endorse polyamory or explore ideas along those lines, but it felt like Harrison was one step away from being able to expand onto that concept. 

Harrison said that the lead male character of Jake in the novel was NOT named after Jake Pavelka. He just thought that Jake made a good Texas country boy name.

When explaining why he chose to write a romance, he said people want him to write a Bachelor tell-all which he could definitely do because he has stories that would make heads spin. However, Harrison doesn't want to burn bridges until the show is over and even then he's not sure he wants to do it. He also doesn't want to write a dating book because he doesn't feel like an expert on that. Harrison said he's divorced, so that definitely means he doesn't have it all figured out. He also said at one point he is NOT a matchmaker. He really identified more as a show's producer than as the host as he was speaking.

Returning to the topic of the romance novel, he said his now ex-wife was a big Nicholas Sparks fan, and so he's read The Bible (aka The Notebook) and others of Sparks’ works. Harrison has spent time socializing and talking with Sparks as well. He really was inspired by Sparks and his great books. Chris Harrison did not like 50 Shades of Grey and described those as "sex scenes, not love scenes"; he wanted to write something tamer but yet more adventurous than Sparks in the romance/sex department. When he was writing love scenes, he'd send them to a few trusted females and ask them for suggestions and opinions. He said he promised he wasn't sexting them! The women would send back their opinions including issues around various word choices. Harrison wanted it to be clear that he had not written the love scenes in a vacuum.

He said that he was raised in Dallas and had an uncle in Austin, so he often visited here as a child. (His cousin Daniel walked in a few minutes after Harrison began speaking and Harrison pointed him out; Harrison also paused and said "Oh, hey Karen" at one point to another woman who was there.) He used to go hunting and fishing in the Hill Country, the setting for his novel. Harrison definitely identifies as a Texas boy. He always liked Austin because it's just different than the rest of Texas. He said he's always known his first book would be set here.  

With regard to future books, Harrison said he plans to write future books that will be set in the places he's been blessed to travel with The Bachelor. His sense of gratitude around his blessings and what his work on The Bachelor/ette has allowed him to experience was really palpable. He comes across as a truly nice guy who understands how blessed his life has been. He also said that he had a wonderful marriage when he was recounting the list of his blessings.

Harrison wants a movie version of The Perfect Letter and told the audience to start thinking about who should be cast.

As the evening’s question and answer section began, a woman asked, “Have you begun dating again?” Harrison jokingly said something along the lines of, “Thanks for jumping right in with my personal life!” but then he went on to say yes, he has started dating. I thought this was public knowledge, but I guess not everyone is up-to-date or this woman wanted a more specific answer as to a current woman in his life. However, Chris Harrison said that in the words of someone he knows, he is “tragically undateable” because of his schedule. I think most of the women in the audience disagreed! I would suspect the median age of the audience was 40 (Harrison is 42), and the range of ages of most of the women was 15 to 55. There were only a few men there: a couple of teen boys who must have been brought by their mother and a few husbands. I think the only single guy there was an employee at the store. As I enjoyed the people watching opportunity, I was thinking to myself, “The single guys of Austin don’t realize what a prime opportunity they missed here… a captive audience of women who are fans of romance and love!” Anyway, Chris Harrison joked that he had he had a window of about three months in the fall when he might be able to date, but between traveling to Mexico in June to film The Bachelor in Paradise and then moving to Connecticut to film Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in September, plus his book tour and all the other travel The Bachelor requires, he just doesn’t have a life conducive to dating.

With regard to this season of The Bachelorette, Harrison said it was a knock-down fight about Britt versus Kaitlyn amongst all those involved. Harrison reminded the audience that 10 years ago they'd done the two bachelors thing which included Byron Velvick; then Harrison then launched into a brief side remark about how Velvick is down the road in San Antonio, and Harrison had recently talked to him. Returning to the issue of having two bachelorettes at the start of this season, Harrison said that the producers swore they’d never do again. He said that during the meeting when Mike Fleiss decided to do the two bachelorettes, he reminded Fleiss of the vow and was duly ignored. Harrison said it shows how much power he doesn't have as a producer!

Someone queried something about the length of the first episode this season; because the audience members were not using microphones and Harrison wasn’t repeating their questions, I didn’t hear the exact inquiry. He said that this cocktail party this week was basically two in one and so it lasted way too long. He explained how first they were having a cocktail party for the men to decide on the women; the second party was for Kaitlyn to decide on the first 15 men. Harrison said there was nothing sexy about it by the end. He said normally the sun is coming up, but it was full on breakfast time by the time they got done the first week of this season. He said they didn't get home until 8-9 in the morning. Harrison also described a bit what was going on behind the scenes during that extra-long cocktail party. He said that the "control room" is in the three car detached garage. They've got a couch in there, and he and another producer often crash on it. He said he used to try to stay awake all night, but no more. Now some poor kid has to fearfully poke him and whisper, "Mr. Harrison?" to try to get him to wake up. As a tag-on question to this one, someone asked if the night is open bar. Harrison confirmed that the contestants can have anything they want all night long in regards to alcohol.

An audience member asked who should play Harrison in a movie about his life. Another audience member joked it should be Matthew McConnaughey, an Austin local and favorite. Chris Harrison then started talking about his relationship with McConnaughey; they were involved in two triathlons together. I think he called McConnaughey an interesting guy. When Harrison got back to the actual question, he jokingly suggested Denzel Washington would be great. Someone else in the audience suggested Paul Rudd, and Chris Harrison didn't seem to know what to make of that.

A woman asked what they needed to do to get Chris Harrison to show up at their Bachelor watching party in Fort Worth. He said bbq and Shiner Bock are pretty good lures. He said that he loves LA and there is great food there, but nothing to compare to the Tex-Mex and BBQ in Texas.

Someone asked if the contestants ever eat the food that just sits in front of them on plates. Harrison laughed and said he gets that question a lot, and yes, they eat some, but that watching people eat is really boring. He said once the contestants have eaten, there are usually a lot of leftovers so he just eats those. :) He views a lot of the show through the lens of a producer and what will draw in an audience. In regards to editing and things we don’t see, Harrison said that the contestants do discuss movies and politics and "normal" things, too, but it's really boring watching two people discuss a movie they've recently seen.

Someone asked if Harrison preferred The Bachelor or The Bachelorette, and he said the former. He said that was where it all started, so The Bachelor is kind of his baby. He also said women make better tv because of, no offense meant, the drama they create when living together whereas guys work it out or slug it out and then five minutes later will be drinking a beer together.

Chris Harrison said that super-drunk contestant Ryan on Monday was actually bad tv. The producers want stories when they cast people, things that they can draw out across the season. Ryan was just pathetic, and it was over before it began. In contrast, he said Kelsey was gold. She had the amazingly tragic (or in her words, amazing) story, but the way things turned out on screen was the kind of thing that one can't predict but that producers are utterly grateful for.

Someone asked how much say the contestants have in casting, and he said virtually none. He said that the show does casting calls and actually keep files. Harrison was extremely complimentary of the casting department, though I don’t remember the names he mentioned. Sometimes the casting staff will call someone three years later to see if someone is still single because they think that person would be good for whomever is the current star. Harrison said that they have 30 women up until that very night of the first cocktail party, and that it is a battle between producers as to which 25 make it on the show. Each producer may have visited ten of the women at their homes, and so they'll have bias towards whom they really want on the show.

Though it’s been mentioned many times before, someone suggested Harrison should be the next bachelor. He said that he would make a terrible bachelor because he's not the type of guy to take off his shirt in a hot tub with 25 women. He said that you have to be willing to put it all out there, and he's not that kind of person. Harrison said it's why they turn down some great people, because they just don't have the right personality to do it.

Another audience member asked if the producers know how "crazy" the contestants are before signing them on, and he said no. He said that something we need to face as a society is that most of us are crazy. He said if they locked the doors, 50% of the people in the room, if not more, would turn out to be crazy. It's just a fact of life.

Harrison referred to the “women,” not the “girls,” throughout his presentation which I appreciated a lot.

The next questioner asked if Ashley S. from last season would be in Mexico for The Bachelor in Paradise. He responded, "God, I hope so! If she's not going, I'm not going either." He said Ashley is really great and is on the joke until she's not. He said that he's heard (wink, wink) that she's supposed to be there, but with her you never know until she actually shows up. She might forget or go to Mesa Verde. 

Someone asked about the legacy issue: it seems like you have to have been on the show to be on the show. Chris Harrison said that this was partially just the battle of getting an audience. If they announce that Susan, an accountant from NY, is the next bachelorette, no one cares one way or the other, but if they announce it's Britt, people will say, "OMG. I hate her so much. She's so fake." He said that even if people hate the person they choose, that's good, because they care and are engaged and will watch. It's half the battle. [I actually disagree with Harrison on that idea. I disliked Juan Pablo so much that I refused to watch his season. It turns out I was right! However, Harrison is probably right that most fans won’t tune out just because they don’t like the star of the show.]

Another questioner asked if the producers would consider doing an all-star season of The Bachelor or Bachelorette. Harrison felt that was unlikely because it would detract from the success of the established show and what it is. He said the closest they came was with Jesse Palmer who made his Bachelor appearance into a sports casting career (whereas Chris Harrison had made his sportscaster career into The Bachelor). Harrison said that he has a lot of athletes who do approach him about wanting to be on the show, but what they want is to date 25 women at once. When he clarifies that they have to fall in love with and marry one, suddenly the athletes aren't interested any more.

According to Harrison, it is now ok for celebrities to “come out” as liking Bachelor now since they’re established. He named Jennifer Aniston and several others. Someone asked what Chris Harrison things about Jimmy Kimmel’s predictions, and Chris said he loves them. He also related that Jimmy Kimmel does not want spoilers. Chris Harrison also thought Jimmy Kimmel was awesome last season because Kimmel got to be Harrison’s alter ego and say all the things he wishes he could say.

A woman asked asked how they pick the date locations. I thought she meant more the activities on the dates, but Harrison interpreted the question to mean the locations in a global sense. He says that they now get approached by tourism boards from around the world. The countries can spend $100K for a short 30 second commercial in the US that no one will watch, or they can spend the same amount on the show and get a two hour high-def sexy commercial for their country. Harrison said that they went to Ireland this season, and that when you watch it, you'll believe it never rains in Ireland because of how they are editing it, but he assured the audience that it very much does rain in Ireland. He said they make Ireland look really sexy. So the producers respond to offers now as to how they select travel locations. However, Trista gives him all kinds of trouble still about how her exotic trip was to Seattle.

Harrison said that he brings his kids on a lot of the trips, and the family is lucky that the kids' teachers agree that travel is one of the best ways to learn. His son is 13 and in 7th grade; his daughter is 11. He said they've traveled more in their lives than he did in the first 30 years of his. Harrison said that when the show goes to the various foreign destinations, they hire locals to work on the show, and he usually befriends one of the locals and gets them to show him the town so he can see it in as non-touristy of a way possible. He said he has lots of down time on the trips, and he takes advantage of it to see what he can.

Someone asked him if he ever clues in the bachelor/ette about problems going on with the contestants or if he just keeps quiet. Harrison said that he's learned as a parent and as the host that if he tells someone not to do something, they'll do it. If he tells his kids not to touch something, the first thing they’ll try to do is grab it. So while he might probe around and try to convince a contestant to talk to him about what they see in the (troublesome) person, he knows that it's part of the bachelor/ette’s life experience to figure it out. He also said there's no accounting for that spark that happens between people when it sometimes makes no sense to an outsider.

Someone asked about the minority casting issue with regard to the show: the fact that minorities are severely underrepresented. I thought Harrison answered this well. He said that it was a problem that they'd created and that they need to fix. He said that it's a problem across Hollywood. Harrison said that it is also reflected in casting calls: minorities don't see themselves on television, so they don't think they can be. When The Bachelor/ette holds the open calls, they only have 5-10% minority turnout, a far cry from the representative portion of the population. From there, the applicants have to pass through a series of hurdles including interviews and a blood test, so that process ends up screening out more people. He said they'd like to have a minority bachelor/ette, but they don't want to just pick a token minority who won't be a good star. Harrison said that a lot of people wanted Marquel to be the bachelor, but there was no way because Marquel had major issues with women and didn't get along with them very well. Harrison thought that was the main qualification for the job! So the producers are looking for the right person, but that person hasn't shown up yet.

At some point during the evening, Harrison mentioned that he said he is still friends with a bunch of the show participants, especially older cast members who are more his age. Throughout his various answers, he'd talk about the people he's still in touch with including Trista and Brad Womack who lives in Austin. He said he got Ashley S. to work a benefit with him in L.A. recently. He does a lot of charity events, especially golf ones from what he mentioned. Harrison also said he was going out to dinner with Brad Womack. When someone asked him where, he jokingly said, "Oh, you know. KFC." I thought that was a great way to diffuse a potentially invasive question with humor.

Someone said something about Juan Pablo (again, hard to understand due to the lack of audience microphones), and Harrison replied, "Ah, my buddy Juan Pablo. Surprisingly, I haven't talked to him lately." Harrison said that three weeks into the show, he knew the season was over and they should pack up and go home. He said that Juan Pablo is a control freak who couldn't let go and experience it. He said that Sean had to go through the experience of letting go andKaitlyn did, too. He said they have to learn the lesson that the more you cling, the less control you end up having.

He said Catherine and Sean really are in love. He said as far as he knew as of earlier that day, Chris and Whitney were still together, though if someone had heard otherwise, it would be news to him. Chris Harrison was glad that Dancing with the Stars was over so that they could leave L.A., go back to Iowa, and start living life.

Harrison said that most audience members can't grasp the stress of the show. They think they wouldn't become a crying mess like so many people on the show, but Chris Harrison said it's totally different when you're there because you don't have your cell to call your mom, you can't do your normal stress relief activities, and you get faced to actually force your raw emotion, and the emotion is RAW. He said it's really hard.  

Someone asked him if he had opinions about people who post spoilers. Harrison said that back in the day when they started The Bachelor, the internet wasn't what it is now with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blogs, etc. Now it is an issue. When they hold dates in public, people will see, and they will post. They try to embrace it as much as they can by inviting people to certain dates. Harrison said that the bottom line is that there are mean people out there, and mean people suck. He said that if those people put half as much effort into not sucking instead of waking up each morning and asking "How can I make the world suck today?", then life would be so much better. He doesn't like the spoilers that ruin the final episode, but they can't stop them completely because if two people know things in the modern age, it's not a secret any more.

A young woman who didn’t fit the stereotypical look for bachelorettes jokingly asked why he hadn't replied to her tweet asking to be the bachelorette. Harrison tactfully avoided a direct reply and said that she had a leg up towards becoming a bachelorette because she was from Texas and everyone knows that Texas is the hotbed of controversy half the time.

During the entire evening, the only question I didn't appreciate how Chris Harrison answered was when a man asked when they would do a show with some "normal people.” There was a murmur rumbling through the audience as though some couldn't believe he asked that; I’m not sure if it was his poor phrasing or the idea in the first place that caused the widespread dismay. The audience member quickly clarified, “Like the geeks, the nerds, the people who don't look as great with their shirts off.” There was more chattering and murmuring at that point, and someone near him must have said something to him (but he was behind the bookcase I was leaning against so I couldn’t see the people involved), so he proclaimed at that point, "No, no. I'm married! I'm just asking." Chris Harrison responded curtly that tv is a visual medium, and that when they do the radio version of the show, they'll consider it. Despite the personal questions earlier in the evening, this was the only time I felt like Harrison got bristly with a questioner. The topic clearly generated some deep feelings in him. Whether those feelings are because he agrees with the audience member about wanting some more average people on the show or if it’s because he feels persecuted by fans about this topic on a regular basis, I couldn’t tell. Either way, it was obvious that this was a topic Harrison didn’t want to have to approach.

As the final question, an audience member asked him how he has stayed grounded and if he has a strong faith that makes him the way he is. Harrison said that he comes from a strong family with seven grandkids (including him as the youngest) and 13 great-grandkids. He said that his 99 year old grandmother is the matriarch of the family and is still alive and kicking. He said she's a very strong woman. Harrison briefly mentioned his grandfather but I didn't quite hear what he said (due to the store’s staff talking really loudly near me). He said that when his book came out earlier this week, he realized that he wasn't curing cancer or anything, but his family didn't take much note. (I heard a lot of deep pain in these comments. Like many of us, Harrison jokes about his family’s response, but things like this can be very difficult. I understand that one from a lot of personal experience!)

Harrison followed up by saying he does believe in God, but he really skirted away from the discussion of spirituality for some reason. I can understand how working on a show with a highly Christian-based contestant population, he might want to keep his personal beliefs private if they don’t align, or he might just be the kind of person who prefers not to talk about his spiritual beliefs.

From there, Harrison did say that there is one thing he can't tolerate, and it's lying. He tells every group of contestants that if they are lying, and some of them are, possibly about a boyfriend or girlfriend back home, some about being there for the wrong reasons, then he will find them out. He reminds them that he has a bigger podium than they do, and he will not put up with it. He will call them out on it, and they will regret it. So just don't lie to him. Harrison said Ryan was a great example on the season premiere of someone who was there for the wrong reasons, but he didn't have to call Ryan out on it because Ryan did such a great job on his own. Based on these comments, I took it as a huge compliment when Harrisontweeted that he liked the honesty in the book review I wrote about The Perfect Letter.

As I mentioned previously, I really enjoyed the evening and getting to learn more about Harrison, his book, and The Bachelor/ette. I felt like I walked away with a better understanding of many topics I was curious about.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

Language is important in our society. The words we use convey great meaning and emotion, and they can hurt deeply if they are loaded with meaning. Our society even labels some words as “bad” because their connotations are so strong, though words themselves are not inherently bad. It’s the meanings we attach to the words that makes them kind or less so.

One of the things that makes me grimace when watching both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is the language used to describe the contestants. The males involved with the shows are referred to as “men.” However, the female participants are almost always referred to as “the girls.” On rare occasion, they sometimes are referred to as ladies. There’s a great disparity in these chosen words. The word man represents a grown male; the parallel term is woman. The word boy represents an immature male, usually a teenager or less; the parallel term in this situation is girl representing an immature female. However, when language is used on The Bachelor/ette, parallel terms aren’t used. Instead, we repeatedly hear “men” paired with “girls.”

I find this linguistic disparity discouraging and sexist. It seems to be putting down the women and making them less mature and capable than the men. Language like this reveals our latent cultural attitudes and an undermining belief in the equality of the sexes. However, many folks would tell me that this is no big deal. After all, it’s “just” a reality show, but everyone knows that reality shows aren’t all that real. Yet the language used by the show is reflective of a greater issue in our culture.

The traditions on The Bachelor/ette are well entrenched, and fans are liable to revolt if changes are made that are perceived as too drastic from the norm. However, I wish that those on the show and those producing it would make an effort to make sure the language used reflects the equality between the sexes that should exist in our world.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

In our world, the default standards are often based on the male perspective being the norm. Women and their bodies are somehow expected to conform to ideals that are biologically impossible. One great example of this can be found in the all too common process of peeing in a cup. I would venture to guess that women’s urine gets analyzed far more often than men’s because women are eight times more likely than men to get a urinary tract infection (UTI), and it’s rare for a man under the age of fifty to experience a UTI. In addition, women have their urine checked at every maternity appointment. I’d guess I had my urine tested at least ten times in each pregnancy. My ex-husband had to be drug tested before each new job he took, but aside from that, I don’t think he’s had other urine testing done on him more than a few other times in his entire life. That total is less than the number of times I was tested in just one pregnancy, and I’ve had three pregnancies!

Despite the fact that many women have to pee in a cup regularly for testing, the standard design of a urinalysis cup is not ideal for women. It’s designed for men whose penises can easily be directed into the cup with little to no mess. For women who sit while they pee, the process is not as easy. Trying to aim into something you can’t see and which isn’t wide enough to catch a stream that may flow in any direction depending upon the exact angle of the woman’s body is very difficult. Furthermore, for an obese woman, her arms aren’t quite long enough. Trying to hold the cup beneath one’s urethra is a physical struggle that contributes to the mess.

It seems like someone should have solved this problem long ago. While someone did design the Go-Girl for women to use in situations such as road trips to allow women to easily pee while standing up, it seems like there has to be a better solution for giving urine samples. Holding the patent for whatever device gets designed has to be a million dollar idea. So with all the useless innovations that have flooded the market, why is there still no easy, clean,affordable, and sanitary solution to assist women in easily giving a urine sample? I look forward to the day when peeing in a cup is a simple process rather than a body-bending challenge for women!

(For those who are ever attentive to detail, that is actually a stool specimen container pictured above. I didn't have a slightly larger urine one available to photograph.)

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC

My kids and I completed watching Star Trek: The Next Generation plus its ensuing movies a while back, and now we have moved on to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I've never been able to get into DS9 the way I enjoyed other modern Star Trek series, but my one son loves it so we’re watching the series via Netflix. In episode 10 of season 2, a new humanoid species arrives as refugees at the space station. The Skrreea are a matriarchal society, something that comes across as shocking to the station’s crew. Haneek, the only woman who arrives in the first group of four to the station, talks with the leadership of DS9 about her culture as they discuss the impending arrival three million more Skrreea from the Delta Quadrant:

Clearly this is meant to be a parody of the biased and erroneous statement we often hear in our society that women suffer from too many hormonal mood changes that therefore make them unsuitable for powers of leadership including politics. There’s a terrible age old joke about how a pre-menstrual President would be far too likely to hit the big red button and start a nuclear war. In Skrreean society, men's emotions are seen as troublesome just as women's emotions are seen as almost dangerous in ours.

The real truth is that we are all emotional creatures regardless of our sex or gender. We all feel and we all act on those feelings. While higher levels of testosterone may make some people more aggressive and higher levels of progesterone may make some people more likely to cry, the bottom line is that we all have emotions that we feel overwhelmed by. How we act on those emotions is probably influenced by both nature (hormones) and nurture (what our society teaches us the gender-specific appropriate response is).

Another truth that our society is very afraid of at times is that all of us possess a masculine side and all of us contain a feminine side. We all have traits that are seen as male and others that are seen as female. What most of us don’t have is a good balance of those traits because we are afraid to embrace one side or the other. In her seminal work Living in the Light, especially in chapters 8 and 9, Shakti Gawain discusses the feminine and masculine within each of us. As Gawain explains, the feminine side of us is the nurturing, intuitive side. We all are nurturing on some level, though not all of us are called to be parents. Still, we know how to care for others around us who are family members, friends, or lovers. We also have intuition, though since the Enlightenment, our science-dominated society has taught many of us to suppress this intuition in favor of rational thought. Unfortunately, our society sees this nurturing and intuitive side as weak and powerless. This is far from the truth. Our intuition can be one of the strongest ways we live if we allow it to be a part of our lives. Men who are in touch with their feminine side, who aren't afraid to follow their intuition or feel their emotions (aside from anger and aggression), are often judge by our society for being weak and feeble as the feminine is poorly stereotyped as such; the media crucifying Howard Dean in the 2004 election season for expressing what was seen as unacceptable passion is an excellent example. In contrast, the masculine side within all of us is the action side. It is the part of us that follows the understanding of the feminine intuition in order to make things happen. Men are expected to be doers, to be problems solvers. Women who have this same strong masculine action side are judged by society as being too “butch” or too unfeminine; Hillary Rodham Clinton is a prime example. However, we all have to be people who take action if we want to accomplish anything in life!

This disturbing division of the feminine and the masculine in our society is based on unhealthy stereotypes. Even in my own life, I've experienced quite a bit of judgment because I am “too masculine” since I am a strong, highly-organized, educated woman who doesn't hesitate to act on what will help her life. I had a male friend act surprised when I said that I missed having opportunities to dress up in frilly dresses; he erroneously presumed that since I didn’t wear makeup I didn’t enjoy most stereotypically feminine things. For me, developing my masculine side was probably more of a survival technique, one that I began in my childhood as a way to protect myself. Like Gawain experienced personally, part of my challenge as an adult has been embracing my feminine side and recognizing that it is not a sign of weakness: The feminine is merely a different type of strength.

It will be a wonderful day when our society can accept the masculine and feminine as different but synchronistic qualities which work together to make our society complete. I look forward to the day when the way women are still treated now is seen as ludicrous as the Skrreean idea that men are too emotional to be involved in leadership. Once the yin and the yang of our lives is more in balance, our society will become totally different than what most of us experience now.

© 2015 Elizabeth Galen, Ph.D., Green Heart Guidance, LLC