Showing posts with label Dr. Martin Luther King. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr. Martin Luther King. Show all posts

Monday, January 21, 2008

Come to your Senses at Success with the Opposite Sex Fri Feb 1st at 8pm

Our next event is coming up on Fri Feb 1 at 8pm and it will be fantastic! The theme is SENSUALITY. We'll be discussing how to activate your senses and surrendering to sensuality. What has SENSUALITY meant to you, what experiences have you had? Would you be willing to discover it newly in the future if it produced the results you really want? Are you confusing Sensuality with Sexuality. We often do.
The sculpture to the left is by Michael Orgel titled Agave Urn.
Click image to purchase.


Consider that if you resist surrendering to your own or others' sensuality or sensualness, you may be preventing yourself from experiencing all of life fully right now. At the February event you'll have and opportunity to explore indirectly what prevents you from surrendering to sensuality with the opposite sex in various contexts.

This is going to be a juicy, really intimate evening of conversation. Come discover how you would rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being "being friendly" and 5 being "nothing hidden". Whereever you seem to be on the scale is not as important as what you think about all that and getting intimately connected to yourself around the topic of SENSUALITY.

On Sunday Jan 20th, I went to the Kevin Powell MLK Event at Kumble theatre/Long Island University in Brooklyn co-sponsored by April Silver's Akila Worksongs Events. After the event, I was sharing about SUCCESS with the OPPOSITE SEX (TM) with a divorced sister who is raising two boys, one is 19 and the other is 8. We got to talking about how important it is to talk with the opposite sex instead of just the same sex and she shared a wonderful experience that inspired me about sensuality.

She said her youngest REALLY LOVES BREASTS since he was very young. When he's close to a woman's breasts he wants to touch them (innocent sensuality). She started to clasp her own breasts without thinking to demonstrate for me. She told me she had began to say to him "Big boys don't do that" to try to curb his behavior. An adult male friend of hers told her to stop telling him that. She asked why. He said "I'm a big boy and I do it!" I loved this story because it made her point and mine. We are two different sexes and we need each other to learn about the other. She discovered that she doesn't really know what it is to raise a boy to be a man. She knows how to raise him to be human. Success with the Opposite Sex (TM) is adult men and women teaching each other all the things we can't know about the opposite sex around various topics.

What is sensuality as a lived and ongoing phenomenon?
This story made me think about expanding the conversation for Feb 1 to include the many levels to talking about sensuality. Some have to do with wanting to be close, to touch, to feel, to express your desire. Some have to do with learning to curb your desire in public settings as you grow older long before your hormones kick in sexually. Some have to do with learning to let go after all that suppressed and quite important training (what's appropriate when) and later as an adult you can surrender to your desires and to your partner's desires not to mention the simple desires we share with loved ones outside of romantic encounters. An embrace with a parent can be sensual or not.

Are you willing to explore surrendering like we all once did on Friday, February 1st? I promise it will be safe, you can share if you wish or not. The bulk of the evening will be intimate conversation and some interactions around sensuality. We will also practice receiving a hand massage from the opposite sex to see how willing you are to experience surrendering to sensuality.

There are several spots left, please register before the weekend. The fee is $20 which covers wine, wings, materials, advertising, and the facilitation & design of the monthly event. The goal is to have two of these a month for up to 30 people by May and to facilitate a major event this summer with 100 people (50 men and 50 women).

Whatever you want is available out of participating in the Get Related not Dated (TM) technology designed for developing your Success with the Opposite Sex (TM). 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed or your money back.

Kyra G

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Happy Birthday Dr. King...standing for my dream to be alive

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity".
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963 (More quotes).
I was doing 30 minutes on the treadmill gettin my sweat this morning on at the St. John's Recreation Center in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, my new neighborhood (yes I can't pretend I'm living in my beloved Bed-Stuy anymore). From a boombox in the cardio room, Hot 97 was being broadcast. It was about 10am. Hold on to your seat cuz' here comes the set up for a tribute to Dr. King on his esteemed birthday.

The two male and female hosts (can't call 'em DJs anymore) did this "YOU'VE JUST BEEN CRANKED" segment on this single mom followed by the most uncritical discussion polling the listening audience about whether men or women are worse at letting go in relationships. The conversation devolved when one of the male hosts suggested that more women than men are stalkers suggesting something along the lines of "when men stalk they are crazy but that stuff is natural for you all" meaning women. His evidence: Three men in his life have had women stalking them they haven't been able to get rid of (what a sample!). I've been asking myself and my students as well as clients I work with to avoid generalizations but it is so much more damaging when broadcast to the public--uncritical thinking that is.
To close the segment the sister hosting gives a dear John shout out to some brother whom she says "LOSE MY NUMBER! PLEASE!" That's the state of relationships between men and women. No intimacy whatsoever or negative intimacy aka gossip about others.

What was next? What does the female host transition into next without missing a beat?
"Today is Dr. King's birthday...my absolute favorite quote is" and she paraphrases:
The reason I can' t follow the old eye-for-an-eye philosophy is that it ends up leaving everyone blind
There was no sense that what had just preceded could in any way be connected, negatively or positively, to what Dr. King stood. Just making fun of violent tendencies and acts with NO facts or data sustantiating their talk about the opposite sexes. Fun and games just for a morning laugh. Hot 97 can't even devote the entire day in Dr. King's honor. Maybe Clear Channel doesn't allow that kind of thing on black stations. I didn't say black-owned.

So as I finished my workout I promised myself to make a post with some basic facts. I found these online. They are taken from the Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
  • 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are stalked annually in the U.S.
  • 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime.
  • 77% of female victims and 64% of male victims know their stalker.
  • 87% of stalkers are men.
  • 59% of female victims and 30% of male victims are stalked by an
  • intimate partner.
  • 81% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also physically assaulted by that partner.
  • 31% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also sexually assaulted by that partner.
  • 73% of intimate partner stalkers verbally threatened victims with physical violence, and almost 46% of victims experienced one or more violent incidents by the stalker.
  • The average duration of stalking is 1.8 years.
  • If stalking involves intimate partners, the average duration of stalking increases to 2.2 years.
  • 28% of female victims and 10% of male victims obtained a protective order. 69% of female victims and 81% of male victims had the protection order violated. [Tjaden & Thoennes. (1998). “Stalking in America,” NIJ.]
These statistics do not include the new threat of CYBER-STALKING. More on stalking. Ironically, the Stalking Resource Center considers January National Stalking Awareness Month. Stalking ain't too much different for women then lynch mobs were for blacks decades earlier. The cause of lynching was so beautifully represented in THE GREAT DEBATERS. Can't wait for a film to bring that kind of power to the issues of sexism, misogyny and stalking in the black community and beyond.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity".
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963 (More quotes).
This is always a sacred day for me and I want to remind people that Dr. King's legacy lives on everyday in me and you. If each of us could take on one thing that truly matters to us in our lifetime, the world would transform overnight.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. -- Winston Churchill

Kyra's Promise for the World:
By 2036, I promise a world where all men and women are ready, willing and able to embrace and be empowered by ANY communication, eye to eye with, the oneness of our Humanity.

What matters to you? What are you devoted to in your life? Ask yourself today and ask at least 2 others too.