Good People

LanaReid.com

Posted on February 26th, 2012

I’ve become very in tune with how MY world naturally reacts to “good folks” and “bad folks.” I’ve noticed when I interact with “good folks” that I’m left inspired… I write, I envision, I create, I achieve, I evolve… I take on the world like a beast! On the other hand, when I bump into “bad folks”… I’m depleted, I lose a bit of my vibrancy, there always seems to be some sort of struggle or conflict, its an internal battle to jump start my motor that allows me to shine my light on the world just because dealing with the energy of “bad folks” is so draining. “Good folks” bring a certain kind of positive energy to your world that allows you to be the best you. Get you some GOOD PEOPLE in your life…

Categories: Musings

What Should Happen Before Valentine’s Day Arrives

LanaReid.com

Posted on February 12th, 2012

Being the relationship advocate that I am, Valentine’s Day tends to be a more hectic than usual for me in the giving advice area. I recently received an inquiry from a young man wanting to know if flowers are a good idea to give his girlfriend for the holiday.

Different women feel different kind of ways about flowers. I don’t really care for them that much but I do have one particular guy and his gift of flowers that stays with me forever. I had been dating a gentleman who was a brother of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity (NUPES represent!) and they have the tagline from Matthew 22:16 “Many are called, but few are chosen.” On this particular Valentine’s Day, this young man gave me a bouquet of white roses, with one solitary red rose right in the center. The note attached to the bouquet read “Many are called, but only ONE is chosen.” He put in some extra effort to make the flowers mean something to me, to send me a unique “between you and me” message that allows for him and his flowers to become a pleasant memory for me for years to come. His flowers were an extension of how he treated me on a regular basis, not just on that day.

I think that’s what most folks are missing about this whole Valentine’s Day concept… it’s not just a matter of going out to spend money on the person you are involved with… it’s about taking a small moment in time, effort and thought to express to them in a meaningful way “I’m so happy you are in my life.” Valentine’s Day should be an extension of the love you already give to each other on a day to day basis… the cherry on top of the cake, so to speak. So that means that although you might hate basketball, if your man loves it then you will buy him tickets with good seats to watch his favorite team and go with him, and wear his team’s jersey, and watch, and participate in his excitement during each play simply because that means something to him to know you are there with him and did all of that for him (even though you don’t even like the sport).

Simply buying a Valentine ’s Day card or flowers does not show someone how much you care for them or love them. It just shows you remembered the holiday. Valentine’s Day is not found in a bouquet of flowers but instead in the mutual thoughts, endeavors and sentiment put into the relationship that leads up to the presentation of the flowers. If your relationship is not being cared for, then there is no amount of money that you can spend on Valentine’s Day that will express your love for the other person. On the other hand, if you’ve been loving on your partner the right way all the other 364 days of the year, then when Valentine’s Day rolls around you should be able to simply turn to your partner and say “baby, you know I love you” and then watch as their whole face, soul, heart light up and smile as they respond and say “yes, I know that you do” and THAT is better than any gift you can buy at any store.

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings

Why Do I Write?

LanaReid.com

Posted on February 3rd, 2012

Yesterday one of my FB friends sent me the following question that I promised to respond to: Why do you write? What inspires you to write?

I write because where normal people have oxygen running through their body…letting it in and exhaling it out… I have memories, observations, feelings, and sensations that surge inside of me that fitfully desire to express themselves. Words are my only relief.

I write because I’ve visited a flower garden and it smelled…sorta fragrant purplish, with a little balmy greenish and maybe a dab of heady pinkish. It reminded me of sweetness, the taste of honeysuckle I used to eat in my grandfather’s yard as a child. While in the garden, I paused to look at the rich red velvetiness of a rose not yet full in bloom and could not resist reaching out to feel the softness of it under my fingertips and wonder whose vase it would end up in. Words are my only relief.

I write because in the past I’ve had to painfully part from a lover and he kissed the saltiness of my tears during the course of our lingering goodbyes. The powerful strength of his hand tenderly touching the soft brown skin of my face with a look of affliction in his eyes as he realized he could not stop my suffering inside. Not knowing if or when we would be able to fulfill our destiny together one day. Words are my only relief.

I write because I’ve sat and watched the kids playing outside on a warm, sunny, blue sky kind of day. The peaceful chaos of their excited squeals as they yell “tag, you’re it!” Smiled at their youthful reenactments of Superman and Cinderella as they leapt off slides and built castles in the sandbox. Chuckled at their debates over who got the bigger piece of the cookie that they agreed to share from their lunchboxes. Wishing they could feel that pure way about themselves forever. Understanding that the process of growing up washes away some of the innocent beauty of life. Words are my only relief.

I write because I’ve stared at the lady on the corner for the past ten minutes and noticed her pants were unclean with a hole in the left knee, her hair with a dirty blue baseball cap had not been washed in some time, her face pitted and sunken in, her green eyes tired from constantly looking but never seeing. Lastly, I noticed that twitch… that all too familiar twitch in her face and body, that let me know she was in need of a fix and my spirit felt a little mournful kind of way for her. Despaired that she was not going to find what would make her whole in that fix or the next or the next. Words are my only relief.

I write because I see life. I write because I touch life. I write because I smell life. I write because I hear life. I write because I taste life. I write because I don’t have any other option to survive life… words are my only relief. ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings

RELATIONSHIPS: THE FATALITIES OF CHEATING WHILE COMMITTED

LanaReid.com

Posted on January 26th, 2012

This morning, actress Glenn Close was on the CBS “This Morning” show and she was talking about one of her well known roles in the movie “Fatal Attraction.” By now, I assume everyone has seen this classic movie but the concept is that a married man has an affair with a woman and everything is wonderful in the beginning and at some point she becomes a total basket case and wants more of a relationship than the married man is willing to give to her.

Now, I can approach this whole cheating while married/committed from a Biblical or spiritual point of view… but I’m not. I could also tackle the topic from a sexual health risk factor… but I’m not. Right now I only want to address the emotional issues that come along with bringing another person into your relationship.

Many want to argue that monogamy is not natural, that if we look at mother nature rarely do we find monogamous creatures. Ok, I’ll give you a pass on that. Lots of species in the animal kingdom are doing it whenever the urge hits them with whatever mate they find accessible at that moment. The one thing that humans have that other animals do not have is the “power of choice” over our urges. SURE, sex is a natural urge. Who and when we have sex with is our conscious choice though.

Sex does not “just happen” just like it does not “just happen” that you ate the whole cake, sat at the Blackjack table too long, or parachuted out of that plane. Speaking from a woman’s point of view, ladies know as we are getting ready for the date that night whether or not we will be “giving a man some.” We’ve already shaved our legs, sprayed on his favorite perfume and put on our matching pair of lace bra and panties and unless the guy totally screws up the date, we as women have already pre-determined the ending destination for the night. Men and women know the consequences going into sex… we make the choice, be it the right choice or the wrong choice.

The problem that arises for most humans is that we cannot repeatedly have sex with an individual without developing some sort of emotional attachment during the course of connecting physically and pillow talk. If you are married or committed and having an outside affair, you are stretching yourself thin emotionally while at the same time putting your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend in an “emotional threesome” that they most likely did not sign up for. She’s got feelings for him, he’s got feelings for her and her, she knows about her but cares less about her feelings, she does not know about her or all the extra feelings being passed around in her love life universe.

In time, the lady/man on the side will want to spend Valentine’s Day or Christmas day with you, but you can’t… and maybe, just maybe they won’t be too accepting of that or too happy with that. Maybe in time, you as the married/committed person might find yourself preferring to spend your birthday or free weekend with your “thing on the side” and then more and more you will find yourself absent physically and emotionally in your marriage/relationship. Or worse yet, in time you will find out you’ve brought someone into your life… into your marriage/relationship that, like Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction” refuses to be ignored and then what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into. You are not possibly just bringing destruction to your life but to your partner’s life as well.

Any man that emotionally attaches himself to a woman will tell you that at some point, it’s going to eat away at his mind (his manhood) to think about the lady he’s intimate with kissing on someone else, doing the things she does to him to someone else, it becomes harder and harder to send her back home to her husband/man even if he’s married himself. Emotional attachment to most men equates to territorial possession. For women, emotionally attaching ourselves to a man just opens a whole gamut of potential problems if he’s in a relationship. We go into what we are designed to be… nurturers. We want to take care of you when you are sick, share life with you (maybe even create life with you), pick your dress shirts up from the cleaners but that is not allowed in the “extra” or “side” relationship so emotional frustrations start to set in.

Look, cheating was around 2000 years ago and I expect it will be here 2000 years from now, so I don’t expect this article or the next 2000 that you read to stop it. My only goal is to hopefully get you to pause for a moment, to think for just that split second about not just what might feel good right now but the emotional consequences and resulting problems you might develop down the road.

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings

Blending Families: Making Your Own Brady Bunch

LanaReid.com

Posted on January 21st, 2012

Lana,

I’ve been dating this guy for about a year and he has two sons from a previous relationship. Although we get along great, I feel he always lets the mother of his kids intrude on our relationship and it’s really frustrating. There have been times when we’ve planned a date for weeks and he’s made arrangements for his kids to be with their mother and that night and all of a sudden, the day before our date, his kid’s mother decides she can’t watch the kids that night. I understand that’s the mother of his kids and those are his kids but at the same time, don’t I fit in his life with some importance as well? Am I wrong for feeling this way?

FACT: One of three Americans is now a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling, or some other member of a blended family.

How a couple is going to intertwine families should be honestly and openly discussed as soon as things look serious in the relationship. When two people come together, they are merging all the people in their lives hopefully into one big happy unit. Blending families will only work if two things happen.

THE FIRST THING THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN:

Each significant other needs to go to everyone they are bringing into the relationship (kids, parents, mother/father of their children, friends, etc) and essentially tell them “Look, I’ve got a new quarterback on my team and since I’m the entire offensive line… I’m blocking all drama, protecting my quarterback so we can score in a big way.” This means: “Mom, no I can’t spend every Sunday dinner with you anymore because my man/woman wants to cook for me and spend time with me sometimes.” This means: “Jackson/Jill…no, I can’t hang out in the club with you every Friday night like we used to because sometimes I need to hang with my boyfriend/girlfriend on Friday nights.” This means: “Kids, mommy/daddy has found someone who makes my heart really happy and I would really appreciate if we all tried to make this work.” This means: “Look Ray/Racheal.. I know we’ve got these kids together and at all times I will handle my responsibility as a parent to them but I’ve got somebody in my life who also has priority and I will not allow any of your actions to minimalize his/her importance to me.” Will you have to go back to a few folks in your circle and give them this lecture a few times before they get it? Sure you will! As long as your actions consistently match your words, they will get the message soon enough.

THE SECOND THING THAT NEEDS TO HAPPEN:

Once the partner has laid down the law to everyone that he/she is bringing into the relationship and given their significant other the emotional confidence and security that they are indeed a priority in their life then the significant other has to take that hold card, tuck it in their pocket/heart and never ever ever play it. Never put your partner in a position where they have to choose between you or his/her kids, family, friends. If your partner has done the first thing I’ve mentioned above, then you should never feel the need to say “me or the kids,” “me or the ex,” “me or your Dad,” “me or all your friends.”

Each partner has to show the other that they are committed to the relationship and once each is shown to what extent their partner will go to honor their commitment, they must never make their partner “jump through hoops” just to show how committed they are. I don’t promise you that it’s easy, I only promise you that for real love…it’s worth it. Happy Blending!

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Lana Might Know

I KNEW HE WAS WRONG FOR ME WHEN…

LanaReid.com

Posted on January 17th, 2012

My girlfriends from college will tell you that I rarely date a man for longer than six months before I panic, put on my track shoes and start running. It’s ironic that I turned out to be the relationship/marriage advocate that I am today but read further, there are some gems of sanity in my behavior It all boils down to knowing who you are in love… how you love… what you need back in return to be happy in love. I am FIERCELY loyal and committed, heck I’ve had the same cell phone number and been with the same cell phone company since 1999. Can you imagine how unwavering I am when a man manages to club me over my head and throw me over his shoulder? When I settle down in a relationship, I’m there to stay so I take my time making sure I’ve picked the right one I can plant my feet in so that I’m not miserable down the road.

Everybody is not a “fit” for everybody. Maybe in life you will find less than a handful of partners that you can ride off into the sunset with. When I was younger I dated a guy who had his stuff together in all areas of life and we got along very well… until one day about three months in he said “you need to quit college and stay home and have babies, there is no need for a woman to have an education.” I never even picked up the phone when he called after that… never even offered him an explanation. Once, I dated this guy who was so sweet, thoughtful, and affectionate and then I noticed he was randomly driving by my house or posted up close by it. He got the “look I don’t think this is working for me…” discussion (this guy is probably the reason why to this day, I don’t tell men where I stay unless they are truly very special to me). I’ve even dated a guy who constantly tried to belittle me. Instead of celebrating my accomplishments with me it was “anybody can do that,” or “that ain’t no big deal.” When you know who you are (personal baggage and all), it’s difficult to tolerate people longterm who are only offering what you are not.

It’s never taken me long to figure out if I can go the distance with a man. While dating, I’ve never been the type to waste too much time trying to make it work, trying to make “us” fit. Too many times, people come to me after they’ve picked the WRONG person to settle down with and say “Ok Lana, FIX THIS!” I can’t fix that because you did not take your time picking a partner who was one you could work with. The beginning of a relationship is the easy part, the rose gardens, giggles, holding hands and lovey dovey googly eyes part. If you are already struggling at that point of the relationship, how are you going to weather the storms seven, fifteen, twenty years in when his/her young office assistant creeps in your marriage or he/she loses her job or when he needs Viagra and you need extra strong duct tape to hold your boobies up? If the two of you were a broken couple from the beginning, don’t expect to be able to wiz through these life hurdles then.

If you take some time to honestly reflect, we all have relationships (past and maybe current) that we can say “I knew he/she was wrong for me when…” but we hung around too long, we fought for it to work too long, we wasted time we could be happy alone or in wait for the right person. So that’s your assignment for this week… tell me your own personal “ I knew he/she was wrong for me when…” that’s the first step in answering the other question…” I knew he/she was RIGHT for me when…”

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings

Don’t Be Delilah, When He Lays On Your Lap

LanaReid.com

Posted on January 15th, 2012

While in my Bible this weekend, I thumbed across Judges 16. You know that whole Samson and Delilah story. Samson, a man dedicated to God from birth whose strength was in his hair, fell in love with Delilah and she sold him out to the highest bidder. While Samson was asleep in her lap, she allowed his enemies to come in and cut his hair, leaving him powerless. During the course of my marriage and on a few occasions of dating different men, I’ve been privileged (yes, I said privileged) with watching a man fall asleep in my lap. Maybe I’m just hypersensitive and in tune to certain things but the sight of that has always been such a spiritually touching and moving thing.

As the story plays out in the scripture, Samson knew full well he was giving Delilah the tools to take away his power but he loved her anyway. He understood that he was leaving himself open and vulnerable when he feel asleep in her lap but he did it anyway. For the love of Delilah, he essentially said ” I will be weak for you.”

I don’t think (some) women understand or respect the depth of a man’s love. What all a man will go through for you if he loves you. What he is releasing to you, what he is submitting to by giving his love to a woman. With love, a woman becomes a man’s weakness and she can either shore him up and protect him… or strip him of his power/manhood as seen with Delilah. Be responsible with a man’s heart when he hands it to you.

Ladies, when you come across a man (and I truly mean a MAN) that is out in this world handling his business, there will be times when life is kicking him in the gut with a few upper cuts to the jaw thrown in. Maybe work ain’t going right, he don’t know how certain bills are going to get paid, possibly his parents are very ill and it’s weighing heavy on him, or maybe his haters are simply dishing the filth and foul deeply that week. Pay close attention, if you are his “boo thang” he will come to you in some kind of way simply wanting to be wrapped up in the warmth and security of the tender cocoon he feels only YOU can provide for him. He’s emotionally weak at that moment. Let him rest in your lap(or next to you)(or hold your hand)(or look at the stars together)(or sit on the couch with him)(or make love to you). Let him collect his thoughts in the comfort of you, maybe talk things through with you (or he might not even say a word), so he can get his game plan together and go back out in the world and do his manly thing.

One last thing ladies, when a man comes to you like this, at this point in his life… THIS IS NOT the time to start in on “why don’t you want to go to my mother’s house for Christmas,” “I told you last week junior needed new soccer shoes,” “Why are your friends always hanging out over here.” Just be quiet and save those conversations for another time… if you play your position well, that man will be around for a long while anyway and you’ll have plenty of time to talk about this and that…or not talk at all and simply love on each other.

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings

January 10, 2012

LanaReid.com

Posted on January 10th, 2012

MUSING ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS: I was coaching a particular married couple awhile back. Everyday he got up and went to the gym and worked out. Everyday she went to school or studied for her Masters degree. They had three kids and got them ready for school everyday, made it to all the school plays and baseball games. They remembered to pay the mortgage every month, buy groceries every week. They seemed to put in work and remember everything going on in their life… but their relationship.

Have you ever wondered why your high school love is forever burned in your brain and heart. Why you smile almost every time you reflect back on your love of a younger day? The one key element that young love has that mature love seems to forget is WORK. In young love, all of those hours on the phone, passing notes in class, holding hands in the hallway, going to the movies on Friday, sitting on the bleachers at the football field for hours…that is the WORK that a couple is putting into their relationship. That is what allows each partner to feel special to and about each other. It’s what builds a platform to withstand the storms when they do (and will) come. It is what makes each person like “air to breath” to each other.

The older we get in relationships, the less time and work we put into them. Life catches up with us. After all, we have work to get to, bills to pay, kids to take care of and the one thing that always seems to get put on the back burner is your relationship. Love does not understand… nor does it appreciate being on the back burner. Love is like that unruly spoiled kid who will throw a temper tantrum in aisle five if it’s not getting the attention it needs. Cracks will appear… you will notice you don’t talk to each other as much, you don’t hold each other as much, you don’t miss each others presence as much…you drift apart.

With today’s technology, its so much easier to keep the love in your relationship. A text just to say “I was thinking of you and can’t wait to see you later tonight.” An email to arrange a quick “lunch” before the kids get home from school. A two second call, just to hear each others voice.

If you remember to brush your teeth everyday… you MUST remember to love your partner in some kind of way each day. You have to give your partner’s heart that comfort of “Nothing even matters”…but YOU.

I love it when y’all are loving each other. Peace and Blessings ~Lana Reid

Categories: Musings