Welcome to Ask Eve Relationship Advice!

It is my sincere hope that this blog assists you in creating healthier relationships—with your loved ones, family, friends, coworkers, with Spirit, and with yourself through enhanced self-esteem.
My web site www.EveHogan.com has a lot of additional information and www.SacredGardenStore.com has wonderful products for sale including my books: How to Love Your Marriage, Intellectual Foreplay, Virtual Foreplay, Way of the Winding Path and Rings of Truth. Enjoy!

With aloha, Eve

Trained for Love

I just got the world’s most adorable puppy and since he is destined to be BIG…(and I mean GIANT big because he is a St. Bernard Rotweiller/ mix with, at 8-weeks old, paws as large as my own hands) I figure I better start training him now. As I read article after article on dog training, the funny part is the realization that I am the one being trained. The dog is just “following my lead.” Literally. As I change my behavior, he changes his.

I can’t help but think that people follow our lead too—for everything from how to treat us to how to live with us to how to love us. Wouldn’t the same dog training logic—changing what we do to illicit a certain response—do wonders when we are raising children or establishing a relationship?

First of all, dogs need to know what is expected of them and we, as “owners,” need to be consistent. Isn’t that true of people, too? This is not as simple as it sounds. in order to let others know what we want, we have to know ourselves.

Last night, I laid down on the floor to play with the puppy and he climbed on top of me—which is exactly what I wanted him to do; it was adorable. That is until I fast-forwarded in my mind to his destined-to-be-150+-pound-body and realized immediately that I had just let him be “top dog.” Someday, that would surely come back to haunt me if I didn’t stop immediately. The dog was not “wrong” for climbing on top of me, I was wrong for letting him. I was, essentially “training” him (poorly) with my behavior.

When we are confused, inconsistent or misguided ourselves, we confuse or misguide others (canine and human) who are looking to us for direction. It was a bit of a rude awakening when I realized that I had “trained” my husband in exactly the same misguided manner. I inadvertently communicated to him that he didn’t have to do dishes by jumping up to get them from him every time he went to take them to the sink. After he heard me say, “Oh let me get those,” 100 times as I took them off his hands, he was officially trained by me that I am the household dishwasher. He probably even thought that I wanted it that way due to my insistence. (This is really “funny” when you hear yourself blame your spouse for something that in reality you were responsible for creating—sigh.)

In my reading I also discovered that dogs feel insecure when they don’t know what is expected of them. They want to know the rules. Apparently, any lack of consistency and guidance from me could cause my adorable little puppy to have anxiety and stress. The same is true with the people in our lives. Our own clarity, consistency and confidence actually relieve stress in those wishing to be in a relationship with us. The clearer we are, the easier it is for them to love us—and be loved by us.

To me, it represented my own growth in asserting how I expected to be treated when I was clear with the pup that biting me was not okay. I know for sure that a couple of years ago I would have just let him bite me to pieces thinking he was just “playing.” I have had to learn to assert the same boundaries in some of my personal relationships with people, too.

The funny thing here is it isn’t so much what I say as what I do that communicates my expectations to the pup. Isn’t it true that we find myriad ways to communicate to people what we will tolerate that speak even louder than our words? People—and dogs—only treat us the way we allow them to. The clearer our boundaries are about what is okay with us, the more respectful and responsive they are.
With Aloha
Eve

Intellectual Foreplay Question of the Week: How are you training the people in your life to treat you?

Love Tip of the Week: How you behave determines how others behave toward you. Big love requires big responsibility—to learn to behave so that others will, too.

A Question of Love

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, “Which direction do I go from here?” He responded with another question, “It depends, where do you want to be?” Alice, thinking for a moment said, “I guess it really doesn’t matter.” To which the Cheshire Cat replied with a grin, “Then it doesn’t really matter which way you go.”

Much like trying to “get there” without knowing where it is that we want to go, we spend our entire lives searching for answers, but seldom do we really stop to consider that perhaps we haven’t been asking the right questions.

As the author of Intellectual Foreplay: Questions for Lovers and Lovers-to-Be, you can imagine that I am an extreme advocate of asking questions of the people you are dating (or considering dating) as a means of determining whether you have anything in common and establishing a firm foundation for a relationship. The unfortunate reality is that many of us tend to ask more questions about a car we are buying or a house than we typically do about a guy or gal we are going to be intimate with—one whom we may become parents with, or vow our entire lives to.

One of the challenges reported to me is the concern that the questions go both ways, “If I ask them questions, they will ask me questions. I don’t know what to say.” Sometimes we don’t want to answer questions or reveal aspects of ourselves due to unresolved shame or embarrassment over things that have happened or choices that we have made, but often it is just a lack of self-awareness that causes us to be unsure of what to say.

Consequently, I am also an extreme advocate of self-inquiry and self-awareness. Asking questions of yourself and seeking the answers through meditation, contemplation, journal work, dream work or conversations will all guide you to a deeper understandng of yourself. Intimacy, in-to-me-see, is enhanced with deeper communication. A deeper look into yourself is required in order to share yourself more deeply with another.

The art of questioning actually seems to be a theme throughout the ages, and throughout the sages. The Benjamin Disraeli, a British Prime Minister said, "The fool wonders, the wise man asks." Businessman Claude Levi-Strauss said, "The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions." Voltaire said, “Judge people not by their answers, but by their questions.” And Decouvertes said, “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” Albert Einstein urged us with his thoughts, “The important thing is to never stop questioning.”

Some of the sages were kind enough to help us pose the questions, Ramna Maharshi urged society to ask, “Who am I?” James Twyman, author of Troubadour of Peace, suggested, “"How would you act and what would you do if you knew you were the Emissary of love?" and one of my favorites was from Martin Luther King Jr., ““Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” And from yours truly, “The question isn’t whether the glass is half-empty or half-full, rather do you know how to fill it back up?”

I invite you to begin (or continue) a personal practice of self-inquiry. Feel free to start simple rather than tackling the big questions that have haunted humankind since the beginning of time. Just start with tackling the moment and simply noticing, What am I doing, saying and thinking right now? Then, move on to: What do I love? What do I stand for? What are my non-negotiable issues in a relationship—(the things I must have, or must not have)? Do my thoughts serve me or hinder me? Do I know my beliefs are true? The more you know yourself, the more authentic you will be. The more authentic you are, the more loved.
With Aloha, Eve

Intellectual Foreplay Question of the Week: What are the key questions that, if we asked them, would lead us to peace, love, and happiness?

Love Tip of the Week: Ask others questions not to find out if their answers are right or wrong; ask just to find out who they are. Their answers are right for them. Your job is to determine if they are right for you.

What is Your Soul Purpose??

Recently I attended a workshop on Awakening your Soul Purpose. While I was there in part as a facilitator, I was also attending as a participant to get a better understanding of the process. At the end of the workshop the facilitator bounced around the room seeking the answer to the question, Who are you? And the participants eagerly offered up their powerful statements of soul purpose—why they are here and what they are here to do in the world.

One ten year old boy stood up in a room full of adults and shared that his soul purpose, “I am a powerful being of light, here to uplift and inspire others…” He went on to share how at school, if someone teases him, he simply remembers who he really is and thinks, “How can that be true? I am a powerful being of light….”

As I listened, I couldn’t help but wonder how awesome it would be if the whole world were equipped with a deep knowing of who we are, and why we are here. Can you imagine when you were enduring the trials and tribulations of being a teenager, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt who you are? How differently our lives would have been!

It is said that in Africa, in a certain tribe, when a woman is pregnant she and her friends gather to pray and listen for the song of the child. They recognize that every soul has its own vibration and as they listen, they discover the unborn child’s personal song. As the child grows up, the villagers sing the song to the child to remind him or her of who they really are. When someone does something wrong, the whole village gathers around them and sings them their soul song to get them back on track. They realize that when someone really knows/remembers their soul purpose, they behave very differently than when they forget. Simply punishing them merely reinforces the memory lapse. Instead, they sing the song to fill the person with love and reconnect them with the truth. The village takes responsibility for helping each other remember who they really are.

Have you ever stopped to wonder what your soul purpose is? If not, I encourage you to take a deeper look. What are your passions? What are your roles? What are your gifts and talents? What are your interests? What do you love? As my friend and mentor Joel Roberts says, What has your life been a perfect laboratory for? What themes do you see in the course of your life?

One of our homework assignments was to send an email to 20 people asking them to reflect to us what they saw in us, what they thought our talents and gifts were, what they felt we were here to do. This was a powerful experience as emails came in from long time friends, new friends, family, clients, and associates sharing what they saw. I encourage everyone to do this exercise. If it seems scary to you, it may be a sign that you need to realign with your soul purpose. Perhaps it is time to go into silence and listen for the song of your soul to be revealed—or replayed, so that you know that what others see is exactly what you are authentically sending out to the world. (If you have an interest in a Soul Purpose workshop, let me know!)

By all means, when you figure it out, tell the ones who love you about your soul purpose mission so that if you fall off the path, or your soul goes back to sleep, your “village” can sing to you and wake you back up to your mission.

So…it only seems fitting that I share with you mine, just in case:
“I am a protector of love and an instrument of peace. As I authentically walk my heart path, I guide others to unleash the wisdom of their own spirits. The Divine is the destination, and the journey. Compassion lights the way.”
With aloha
Eve

Intellectual Foreplay Question of the Week: Who are you?

Love Tip of the Week: When you think you are a sinner, it is natural to sin. When you know you are divine, sinning is totally unnatural. Align your words, thoughts and actions with the truth of your spirit.