Lesson 1: To Thine Own Self Be True

The last time I was on an airplane I remember having an “a ha” moment while the flight attendant was running through the emergency procedures. If you haven’t been on an airplane before – if the plane were to crash, there are air masks that would fall from the ceiling in front of you for you to wear and get oxygen. According to the directions, you are supposed to put yours on first and then help your neighbor.  I remember thinking “that’s a novel idea. Help yourself FIRST. Huh”.

Too often we compromise ourselves for whomever or whatever. Significant others, jobs, family, friends all take precedent – we help them with their “oxygen mask” first before putting on our own.  All the while we are wondering why we are suffocating.

One of my favorite Shakespearean plays is “Hamlet”. And one of my favorite quotes from that play is Polonius’ farewell to his son Laertes: “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”  This means:

- If you are true to yourself in all things, there is no way you can be false to anyone. 

- You are the realest you when you are true to yourself first.  

- You can be better to other people when you are best to yourself. 

So a word of wisdom to you: Put on your oxygen mask first and then find out what the hell the rest of the world wants.  

“Farewell, my blessing season on thee!”

Oxytocin and Other Bad Decisions

This is a post for all of my women friends out there. 

So I was recently having a conversation with my mother, who likes to give advice, good, bad and ugly.  She was warning me to be careful with the men I sleep with in my newfound singleness because “we women have a hormone that makes us want to connect ourselves to guys that are not for us.”  Her words exactly.  I shook my head and said “no way” and she said “look it up before you sleep with some creep and attach yourself to him forever.” 

Notwithstanding that my mother feels the need to lecture me on the sex that I will have or that her concern was not that I use condoms, I felt the need to look up what she was talking about. Lo and behold, I found out a lot about the hormone Oxytocin.  It is the hormone that is released when we orgasm (both men and women) and when women have breast stimulation.  It is the hormone that attaches a woman to a male and makes us think we have found “The One” after sex.  Well, good sex anyway.  It is also the hormone that bonds a mother to a child. The article that I found pointed out that estrogen increases the hormones effects in women while the testosterone tends to mute it in men.  Explaining why a man can sleep with whomever and not feel a single bit of attachment but when a woman sleeps with a man she is ready to pick out china patterns.

So what does that tell us?

- Men are the animals we thought they were (just kidding…. Not really. Lol)

- If a woman thinks a man is a creep BEFORE they sleep together, he will probably still be a creep AFTER sleeping with him.

- This hormone was designed to keep the population going but instead has kept women in bad relationships with great sex for centuries. 

What have we learned?

-        -  Pay attention to your instincts.  If the guy is creepy or is a jerk, maybe you shouldn’t sleep with him in the first place.

-        -  If you do sleep with the guy who is creepy or is a jerk, keep in mind that you have this hormone that could make you see him through “rose colored lenses”.

-        -  If you sleep with the jerk, feel like he is “The One” and try to justify his “jerkiness” as quirky behavior - run quickly to your nearest friend. Ask him/her to slap you and move on.

So before you head out to Happy Hour tonight, keep in mind Oxytocin is a hell of a hormone. Don’t be a victim.  LOL

Oxytocin Article can be found at: http://www.savvymiss.com/love-advice/love-relationship-advice/love-and-relationships-archive/article/oxytocin-how-a-little-known-hormone-could-be-affecting-your-relationship-4326.html