I have been recommending a wonderful book entitled, “How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul” by Jason and Crystalina Evert. The Everts have literally travelled throughout the world speaking to young single people about finding love without having to settle for less. Besides authoring numerous books on the subjects of relationships and love, they run a website entitled chastity.com. Check out the book and their website.

Every woman knows when something is not right in a relationship; there is a lack of peace. Generally when faced with two options: fix the relationship or get out, a woman will attempt to remain emotionally married and postpone indefinitely getting out of an unhealthy relationship. They stay put and try to rehabilitate the relationship. The key in all of this is to avoid committing to such guys in the first place and to begin to recognize the difference between a “frog” and a “prince.” The question becomes when to pass on a potential boyfriend. The Everts identify “The Top Ten Guys to Avoid” and describe each type in florid detail.

Flip-Floppers are easy to detect because they will drag on a physical relationship without bothering to make a clear commitment. Women who fall for flip-floppers are masters of denial and often create excuses for why the guy won’t commit to them. Love thrives in the presence of commitment so a woman should not waste literally years dragging on a relationship that exists only in their imagination.

The “Problem Child” comes from a troubled family and has had trouble with the law, difficulties at school, an addiction to drugs or alcohol, a history of violence, or all of the above. Women who fall for such guys begin to feel sorry for them and to “see in him what nobody else does.” These women are hoping for a miracle makeover and are always thinking about how great he will be in the future. The best way to deal with a problem child is to let go of him and teach him the priceless lesson that poor behavior results in negative consequences.

The “Walking Hormone” has one thing in mind, self-gratification at the expense of women. He will often manipulate women with pressure or guilt. He won’t hesitate to make a woman feel like she is a cruel, heartless, and stingy prude for denying him his physical “needs.” If a woman has any self-respect, she should have no choice but to dump him. When a woman begins to doubt or ignore the voice of their own conscience, she becomes her own worst enemy. Walking hormones scan their environment for women who possess lower-than-average self-esteem. At the root is a fear of rejection and thus she is less likely to just say no to his desires. Generally such men make deadbeat dads, poor fathers, and are prone to view pornography on a continuing basis. Such a man has trained himself in selfishness and lust and is limited in his ability to make a gift of himself to a woman.

This is just a sampling of all the wonderful information contained in this book and it would make a wonderful Christmas gift for all who are serious about relationships.

The first step to wisdom is to get in touch with the negative feelings that you may not even be aware of. Gain an awareness of your negative feelings. Ask yourself if you are gloomy or moody. Do you feel self-hatred or guilt? Does life seem pointless or make no sense? How about looking at those hurt feelings! Get in touch with these very powerful and potentially destructive emotions. A whole lot of people are very depressed and lonely. It is only when making contact with joy that you may well understand just how depressed and lonely you are.

The second step is to understand that that feeling inside of you may not be reality. It is in you but it may not accurately reflect reality. Many people from all walks of life, even those one might consider very intelligent or very powerful, don’t understand this. As one man put it, “I got a pretty good education. It took me years to get over it.” Wisdom and spirituality go hand in hand and you may well have to “unlearn” a lot of what you have been taught especially by the secular society. We live in a society that is not spiritual, nor interested in what spirituality has to offer. This means you may have to stop trying to change other people including our spouses, your bosses, your friends, and even your enemies. You don’t have to change anything other than to recognize that negative feelings are in you. No person on earth has the power to make you unhappy. There is no event on earth that has the power to disturb or hurt you. We have been told the opposite so much that we create a lot of messes that are so difficult to clean up. Let us suppose you plan a picnic and a rain storm washes out the picnic. Who will feel negative? The rain, or you? What might be causing that negative feeling, the rain or your reaction? So step two says, the feeling is in the person, not in reality.

The third step is rather straitforward, never identify with that feeling. Do not define your essential self in terms of a feeling. If you want to say that depression or gloominess is there, that is fine but not, “I am depressed.” If depression or hurt feelings is there right now, let it be, leave it alone, and it will pass. Everything passes, everything. If you are a person who seeks kicks or thrills, then get ready for depression. Do you want your drug? Get ready for a hangover! If you try these first three steps many times (perhaps even thousands of times), you will get it. Many people have arrived at the conclusion that if they were just loved by somebody or belong to anybody or anything (such as a group) they will be completely fulfilled and happy. But the opposite is what is true, what you and all of us need to do is to love another. We are undeniably created in the Image of God and that means loving God and our neighbor first and foremost. Love, by its very nature, wants to give to another. Wanting to be desired, applauded by others, or attractive to others is a waste of time and energy. You can be blissfully happy without it. You do not have to do anything to acquire happiness. “God is not attained by a process of addition to anything in your soul, but by a process of subtraction.” If you want to be free, examine what needs to be dropped from your life.

The fourth step to wisdom is to understand that we always want someone else to change so that we will feel better or good. What does that do to you? Well what happens when someone close to you does change? What does that do to you? Well very little as you are still vulnerable to your feelings and whims. You are the one who needs to change, not your spouse or your boss or a friend. When we are hard at work on ourselves and our spiritual journey then we will barely notice what we think might be wrong with others or the world. “The world is right because I feel good.” Anthony De Mello

Media executives are making a lot of money churning out trashy films, downright stupid television programs, music that speaks of hate toward women, sleazy magazines, and pornography-laden material that proliferates on the Web. While these media types are partly to blame for generating this stuff, someone is indeed buying this junk. This is not only dumb, it is also destructive. We are literally poisoning ourselves and future generations.

Culture is defined as the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time. Somehow we must confront the supreme ugly and sad nature of current trends and celebrate that which is good and right. If someone arrived from a remote culture where there was little or no contact with the “modern world” of America, how would they react to all of this sleazy material? For example how do you react when a pop-up ad for “XXXHot Young ThingsXXX” flashes on your computer screen when showing guests family vacation photos? Would you want your children to look at a website like that or for that matter any child to see that? I hope that your answer is a resounding “NO!”

One typical defense raised to those who would voice a complaint against such filth is that everything under the sun is protected by the First Amendment and that any attempt to regulate content is “censorship.” The second defense is “just turn it off”, no one is forcing you to listen to those musical lyrics or watch that particular TV show. This is nothing more than an insincere defense and really, it is quite pathetic. Afterall would some of these media types want their own children exposed to this trash or go a step further, would they want their own grown children to be in a pornographic movie or be the object of someone’s hate-filled musical lyrics? I would hope not.

First and foremost we should demand more from our entertainment, media, and adverstising industries. We should be able to watch a sporting event such as the Super Bowl or World Series and not have to keep a tight hold on the remote for fear of what might fall out, pop out, or stick out next. No one should have to drive down a highway looking at billboards advertising strip clubs. The intelligence and values of the vast mainstream of American culture is constantly being insulted by a “freakish fringe” promoted by the media and politicians. How can anyone in their right mind watch or listen to someone like Howard Stern or Hugh Hefner and yet these men are held up as some kind of role models and are placed in postions of high esteem as if they had something to offer us and our children. They don’t and they do nothing but appeal to those facets of human nature that can in fact destroy families and even whole cultures (not to mention one’s soul as well!).

Those who promote this stuff are also insincere because they do not like it at all when they are insulted by someone’s elses “hate speech.” There is a double standard in place and those who promote filth cannot have it both ways by hiding behind the First Amendment or the “just turn it off” defense when it only suits their purpose. The culture has become polluted with negative stereotypes, sexualized content, and very rough and inappropriate language. When individuals are bombarded by sexual imagery the “just turn it off” defense does not work because this imagery is everywhere. Our culture is toxic and it is damaging relationships that matter, especially in the family.