The Lazy Way to Stay in Love

http://ticotimes.com/costa-rica/crocodile-man-sarapiqui-tarzan

This is from a post by a father expecting his third child. He and his wife began experimenting with bonding behaviors a few weeks earlier. (She wasn't feeling up to intercourse.)

This is not an easy time in most relationships. However, we seem to be getting closer right now, both mentally and physically. Communication has improved, and Mrs. Skeptic has been more open with me about her thoughts and ideas.

I asked Mrs. Skeptic if things have improved, and she gave me a rather straight forward answer. She told me: "Our relationship is much better, which is why I am reluctant to end our 'experiment'...maybe we should stick with the status quo." She added that I have been "nicer", less moody, and helped out more, among other things.

I am mature enough to know that it is my job to help out, especially considering her condition, regardless of how things are going. I also know that it takes effort to maintain a relationship, especially when things are challenging. But it somehow makes it more exciting to think that we are working on a common goal. I have also lost at least 5 lbs. recently and I feel a lot better. I should be "nicer" regardless, but all of this is making being "nicer" more fun, at least when I am not feeling too anxious, stressed out, or insecure.

I am also excited about laying the framework for our post-procreating life. So, it looks like we our plan is to continue indefinitely for the moment. Some have suggested that this website is not really about abstaining, but instead about not setting the goal of having more O's. Given our circumstances, I am not sure there is much of a difference (at least for us at the moment) between not trying to have an O and trying not to have an O. We have certainly been much closer physically lately, but we have not engaged in any conduct which would lead to an O. Mrs. Skeptic feels very poorly overall, and any attempts at Karezza are going to have to wait until well after li'l Skeptic comes into the world.

As long as I feel close to Mrs. Skeptic and our relationship is improving, I think I am going to try to ride this out as long as I can. It is satisfying that Mrs. Skeptic has been more vocal and direct with me. I want to improve our relationship, which seems to be happening. But my wife's physical condition means that the near future means more kissing, affection, cuddling and arousal, but no O's unless I MB. The practical reality may be that abstaining is a goal for us right now.

I share this with the writer's permission. It hints at what couples could do to help heal old wounds by starting out slowly and working with attachment behaviors consciously - in this case before moving into intercourse. (But established couples could back up and do the same thing.)

Dear Marnia,

I am finally living out, to some degree, the experience of [author Rudolf] von Urban and Lili when he was 12 !! I'm nearly 40 years older than that, but it is still truly wonderful !!

My love and I started, as I mentioned, by holding hands for about 1 1/2 hours. The next time I suggested that we close our eyes and talk very little while holding hands. Shortly after we started, I instinctively leaned toward her and cradled her elbows in the palms of my hands with our lower arms in full contact. About 20 minutes in, she started gently swaying from side to side, and I just went with it. A friend had the insight that to sooth babies that have not had enough touch, they are laid on a soft piece of cloth and rocked from side to side. My love mentioned that while growing up her father was emotionally unable to give her any physical affection -- only in his later years did this change. Perhaps my gently holding her arms took her back to an early point of her life and filled in some of the affection from her father that she missed. This experience was so healing and moving for her that, when we finished, I whispered good night to her and let her know that I would let myself out -- I didn't want to disrupt her from falling asleep or quietly processing what had just happened.

In touching and being touched, I see both of us being healed, step by step -- it is truly a wonder to behold !! On another evening after holding hands at the table, I suggested that we sit on the couch and hold each other. This felt very nurturing. It was very nice to occasionally nuzzle her neck without it having to go anywhere. The next evening, I suggested that I lie face down on the couch in a pair of light summer shorts with her lying on my back. Our previous experiences made us both eager for more skin contact in a posture that felt safe to both of us. Even though this posture has several pitfalls, it was our best option at the time. I didn't want to get on an arousal track, which I felt was more likely in a face-to-face or male-behind-female posture.

She needed lots of skin contact and nurturing without any emotional connection with the postures she associated with being used by a man. Each time we both felt more deeply rested, more energetic, and more focused the next day. The first time, when I got up to leave, I felt "drunk" with energy in a good way -- kind of like the "good" head rush the one time I drank an ounce or two of wheatgrass juice. The second time we both relaxed enough to briefly fall asleep -- in spite of the mental distraction of a sound of a TV in another room. Where there's a will there's a way !!

We also briefly tried spooning with her on the outside, but it didn't feel quite right. (I think at that point she needed more nurturing.) We started with her on my back a third night, but she had to get up for a moment. When she came back, I suggested that we lie on our sides with me on the outside. I then felt more confident within my own body, and her trust in me had grown; so lying together in spoon fashion seemed less threatening to both of us. This was so much more relaxing, and even more wonderful !! We talked for a few minutes at the end while still spooned together, and it was very difficult for us to physically separate.

My love and I are in perfect agreement to not pursue sex yet. This seems to have had the effect of getting the whole fertilization behavior chess game completely out of the way. When the will is firmly set, the mind seems to move on to other, more easily accomplished tasks.

It is so amazing to feel absolutely safe and trusted while luxuriating in each other's energy and tenderness. She has needed a reassurance of my intent at a couple of points along the way, but that has opened even more opportunities for me to heal.

By always staying current with each other, and receiving her healing touch when I had a stomach ache, I'm pretty sure that an old hurt of being rejected when I was a teen was finally laid to rest. (I had stored an "emotional hurt" in my gut way back then and the "hurt" manifested again when my love told me "we need to talk" on the phone -- a potential rejection took me emotionally right back to that long ago rejection. I had been taking exceptionally good care of myself, so I felt there was little or no physical reason for my stomach to hurt. I felt emotionally stronger too, so I wanted to resolve my love's questions if at all possible, but if not, let the chips fall where they may. I was crystal clear that nothing would be gained by dodging any issue that came up. After we talked and were in complete harmony regarding our intent toward each other, my stomach still hurt. After an hour or more, during which we took a walk at a beautiful beach park that ordinarily would have been pure pleasure, I still had the stomach ache. While we sipped on a fruit smoothie in our vehicle parked in the shade, I was able to put the pieces together. I asked her to place her hand over my hurt and within minutes the lingering stomach ache simply melted away.

We both clearly recognize that for our physical bodies to heal completely, our emotions need to be healed also. Neither one of us has any agenda for our relationship. I am trying to remain open to any possibility. It is so absolutely wonderful to watch my love change before my eyes.

After the evening when we briefly fell asleep together, I didn't see her for almost 48 hours. Although she had had more than her usual amount of stress during our time apart, and less than her normal amount of sleep, she was positively radiant and very grounded. I think that her body, mind, and emotions are responding to our time together.

All this has been the result of simply sharing our energy with each other for 1 1/2 to 2 hours at a time. She is so amazed by the benefits, that she remains as eager as I am. Sometimes it seems better and easier to experience something first and then read more to find out the hows and whys to clarify what exactly happened. There are safe ways to share loving touch that demonstrate the multitude of benefits in it -- if there is trust and the boundaries are completely clear.

What I realised is that it's not only about engaging eye contact but two other things at the same time: Being in your body instead of your head and having the sincere motivation to connect with the other person by wanting to feel him / her. That's interesting and important. Engaging eye contact while still being in my head didn't change anything for me.

From: http://www.reuniting.info/node/4351#comment-25700

"Human Connections Start With A Friendly Touch"

http://www.reuniting.info/node/4705

on a story about the benefits to infants of skin-to-skin contact. (http://scienceblog.com/39663/even-the-sickest-babies-benefit-from-breast...)

That story really touched me. I breast fed both my kids, and the feeling of bonding and love that I felt then is the same as I've felt recently with my mate while experimenting with bonding behaviors. With babies, the power of that feeling, at least when they're tiny, is not clouded with any other emotions. Karezza seems allows us to access that pure love.

It's not infantile, it's ageless.

I had mentioned to her that psychologists are confused in that they often argue that attachment cues are only appropriate between infant and caregiver. Tell that to adult tamarin monkeys, who keep their pair bonds strong with attachment cues! http://www.reuniting.info/node/4211

Nurturing Nests Lift These Birds to a Higher Perch

By NATALIE ANGIER
Amid all the psychosocial caterwauling these days over the relative merits of tiger mothers and helicopter dads, allow me to make a pitch for the quietly dogged parenting style of the New Caledonian crow.

New Caledonian crows are renowned for their toolmaking skills.

In the complexity, fluidity and sophistication of their tool use, their ability to manipulate and bird-handle sticks, leaves, wires, strings and any other natural or artificial object they can find into the perfect device for fishing out food, or fishing out second-, third- or higher-order tools, the crows have no peers in the nonhuman vivarium, and that includes such textbook dexterous smarties as elephants, macaques and chimpanzees.

Videos of laboratory studies with the crows have gone viral, showing the birds doing things that look practically faked. In one famous example from Oxford University, a female named Betty methodically bends a straight piece of wire against the outside of a plastic cylinder to form the shape of a hook, which she then inserts into the plastic cylinder to extract a handled plug from the bottom as deftly as one might pull a stopper from a drain. Talking-cat videos just don’t stand a chance.

So how do the birds get so crafty at crafting? New reports in the journals Animal Behaviour and Learning and Behavior by researchers at the University of Auckland suggest that the formula for crow success may not be terribly different from the nostrums commonly served up to people: Let your offspring have an extended childhood in a stable and loving home; lead by example; offer positive reinforcement; be patient and persistent; indulge even a near-adult offspring by occasionally popping a fresh cockroach into its mouth; and realize that at any moment a goshawk might swoop down and put an end to the entire pedagogical program.
Jennifer C. Holzhaider, the lead author on the two new reports, said that in one year of their three-year field study, the crows they were following gave birth to a total of eight chicks.

“We thought, yay, we’ll have eight juveniles we can watch,” she said. But the goshawks, the rats, the owls and the torrential rains took their toll, and only one of those eight chicks survived. “It’s a hard life in the jungle; that’s all there is to it,” said Dr. Holzhaider.
By studying the social structure and behavior of the crows and the details of their difficult daily lives, the researchers hope to gain new insights into the evolution of intelligence, the interplay between physical and social skillfulness, and the relative importance of each selective force in promoting the need for a big animal brain.

The researchers want to know why it is that, of the 700 or so species of crows, ravens, rooks, jays and magpies that make up the world’s generally clever panoply of corvids, the New Caledonian crow became such an outlier, an avian savant, a YouTube top of the line.

“It’s a big puzzle,” said Russell D. Gray, head of the Auckland lab. “Why them? Why is this species on a small island in the Pacific able to not just use but to manufacture a variety of tools, and in a flexible rather than a rote or programmatic way? Why are they able to do at least as well as chimpanzees on experiments of cognition that show an understanding of the physical properties of the world and an ability to generalize from one problem to the next?”

If the birds learn to avoid holes and barriers in the experimental setting of a plastic tubed box, for example, they will avoid holes and barriers in the very different conditions of a wooden table. “Knowing their social structure,” Dr. Gray said, “is one part of the jigsaw.”

New DNA studies suggest that corvids first arose at the end of the dinosaur era, roughly 65 million years ago, somewhere in the neighborhood of Australia, and radiated outward from there. The ancestors of the New Caledonian crow didn’t travel far before settling on the 220-mile-long land sprig from which the species derives its name.

The modern New Caledonian crow is funereal of bill and feather and, at an average of 12 inches in length and 12 ounces in weight, a middling sort of corvid: much smaller than a common raven, slightly more compact than the ubiquitous American crow, but beefier than a jay or a jackdaw. Brain size is another matter.

“All corvid brains are relatively big,” said Dr. Gray, “but preliminary evidence suggests that the New Caledonian brain is big even for corvids.” Moreover, the brain is preferentially enlarged, displaying impressive bulk in the avian equivalent of the cogitating forebrain, particularly structures involved in associative learning and fine motor skills.

Their bills are also exceptional, “more like a human opposable thumb than the standard corvid beak,” said Dr. Gray.
The bills “appear specialized to hold tools,” said Anne Clark, who studies American crows at the State University of New York at Binghamton but who also has observed New Caledonian crows in the field. “When I was watching them, they seemed to grab a stick whenever they appeared unable to figure something out,” she said, rather as a mathematician has trouble solving a problem without a pencil in hand.

The birds are indefatigable toolmakers out in the field. They find just the right twigs, crack them free of the branch, and then twist the twig ends into needle-sharp hooks. They tear strips from the saw-toothed borders of Pandanus leaves, and then shape the strips into elegant barbed spears.

With their hooks and their spears they extract slugs, insects and other invertebrates from deep crevices in the ground or in trees. The birds are followers of local custom.

Through an arduous transisland survey of patterns left behind in Pandanus leaves by the edge-stripping crows, Gavin Hunt of the University of Auckland determined that toolmaking styles varied from spot to spot, and those styles remained stable over time. In sum, New Caledonian crows have their version of culture.

Being cultured is hard work. In studying the birds’ social life, Dr. Holzhaider and her colleagues confirmed previous observations that New Caledonian crows are not group-living social butterflies, as many crows and ravens are, but instead adhere to a nuclear family arrangement. Males and females pair up and stay together year-round, reaffirming their bond with charming gestures like feeding and grooming each other, sitting close enough to touch, and not even minding when their partner plays with their tools.
Young birds stay with their parents for two years or more — a very extended dependency, by bird standards — and they forage together as a family, chattering all the while. “They have this way of talking in a quiet voice, ‘Waak, waak, waak,’ that sounds really lovely,” said Dr. Holzhaider.

The juveniles need their extended apprenticeship. “They’re incredibly persistent, wildly ripping and hacking at Pandanus leaves, trying to make it work,” said Dr. Holzhaider, “but for six months or so, juveniles are no way able to make a tool.”
The parents step into the breach, offering the trainee food they have secured with their own finely honed tools. “By seeing their parents get a slug out of a tree, they learn that there’s something down there worth searching for,” she said. “That keeps them going.”

The carrot-on-stick approach: It works every time.

You can't help but smile

Smile. And the world smiles with you. Frown and your face drops and frightens children

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/help+smile/1021916/story.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=WK2LpUoqX6A&vq=medium[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=FZ-bJFVJ2P0

A forum member contributed this:

http://brucetholmes.com/Dance/DanceECD.html

"English Country Dancing is from another time and place. It's the stuff you see in the Jane Austen movies, though nowadays they skip the bows and curtsies. The dancing is genteel, the music sublime. I've lost you already, haven't I? But hear me out. Would you believe it's the most erotic thing I've ever done? English Country Dancing is intense, choreographed flirting. The Emma Woodhouses and Mr. John Knightlys of the world may have known more about the good life than we would have guessed.

It's all in the eye contact. Done right, you are constantly gazing deeply into the eyes of your partner of the moment. I remember a weekend workshop up in Wisconsin a few years ago. I showed up knowing no one. But the caller kept reminding us to keep eye contact, and the sense of intimacy in that room just soared. Between dances everyone was very friendly and we talked. By the end of the weekend I found myself rather fond of about 40 women. And the sense of flirting had gotten completely out of hand. Since you may only be with one partner for a few seconds, it seemed like an unending series of passionate encounters. Only with the eyes, of course, but still very intense."

I remember back when I was 16-18, I still had a food addiction that wasn't as strong as it is now. I didn't enjoy being over-weight and knew It would be difficult to change my habits. With this knowledge I never went out of my way to change them. I was going to school full time, playing games 3 hours a day and occasionally taking on extra curricular activities. I had a few acquaintances from school I kept in touch with online (2001-03) and was ok with how life was proceeding.

Of course there was a girl who I cared a lot about but my self confidence was very low and I "knew" there was no chance. Too make a very.. long story short lol, I ended up with her when I was 18. With this change in my life a lot of other things changed

I was out constantly, immersed in a small group of friends, so things like over eating and porn/masturbation fell to the way side. I was lucky to get enough food if anything. That brings me too something Ive thought frequently about since I've read much on plasticity.

The ease with which I was able to eat very little (for me),and not care or notice, while spending time with my partner. Its been a while since Ive read some of those articles but I recall great emphasis put into the link between Oxytocin and Plasticity. I was swimming in a sea of passion at the time... (2003) everyday was racked with intense emotion, contact with her, massages, eye contact etc etc.

During this time (the whole year), pounds MELTED off me and I absolutely didn't notice it happening. In contrast compare that to the year before (2002) where I would eat everything in sight and would be very unhappy if I didn't. The same with now. I cannot imagine a proper diet right now. It would just leave me devoid

Ill just go ahead and put the emphasis on it. There is NO WAY IN HELL that my appetite could be curbed or bent even slightly under "normal" circumstances. Normal being not in love, isolating etc. My appetite/consumption has been like clockwork for ten years. Absolute unwavering clockwork.

Except for that one time I was truly in love with a woman and it became more then easy. I didn't even notice it happen <_< The ease with which I was able to change my habits was staggering. Even the word ease is misleading. Ease implies that I put effort into it. It just... happened.

That is my Oxytocin/Plasticity story for you. I hope it comes in handy Smiling