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"Staying Focused In A Hyper World" is the recent book by internationally acclaimed relationship expert, Dr. John Gray. You are in for a treat today because Dr. Gray joins us for an interview all about how to focus your mind. Dr. Gray discusses how focus is pivotal to all areas of your life, including your health, your relationships, and your overall joy in life. Every day this week you'll explore a meditation technique to focus your mind customized on one of the core principles Dr. Gray shares in his book, "Staying Focused In A Hyper World." One of the greatest benefits of meditation is that it helps you focus your thoughts so you can live your life more fully. This is part 1 of a 7-Part Meditation Series For Focus, Episodes 457-463. You can find out more about Dr. John Gray and his book, as well as all the meditation techniques shared in this week's series at www.SipandOm.com. As always, you don't have to do the meditation techniques -- they are simply there to help you transition from your busy day to a state of stillness. The techniques also help to calm "monkey mind," when your thoughts continuously interrupt your meditation. 

For free meditation tools to help you start meditating please head over to my website at www.SipandOm.com, and there you'll find a multitude of free resources to help you on your Meditation Journey. Sample from a selection of resources including: 

*a Free 100-Day Meditation Quest you can join
*a Free Meditation Bundle to get started meditating
*a Free Sleep Technique to Sleep Better
*a Free Instant Calm Breathing Technique
*a Free Guide to Get Started Meditating.

Resources:
Music composed by Christopher Lloyd Clark licensed by RoyaltyFreeMusic.com, and also by musician Greg Keller.

#457 Staying Focused In A Hyper World Interview With Dr. John Gray  + Focus Meditation

A Valentine's Day special topic! What is love, really? This psychoanalyst of the Frankfurt school thinks that real love is not something one ""falls"" into, but is an art, an activity, and doing it well requires a disciplined openness and psychological health. Love is the answer to the deep human need to rid ourselves of isolation, but a mere sexual union won't provide real intimacy. To connect the center of your being with the center of another's being, you need to really know yourself and know the other, and this knowing requires an overall openness that amounts to a love of humanity, a feeling of oneness with nature, and an overall orientation toward the good, which is what he considers a mature take on ""love of God,"" which doesn't imply, e.g., a belief in a judging deity, which would be a mature imposition into nature of insecurities about the conditional love of one's father.

So yes, this is replete with psychoanalytic weirdness (and without any clinical basis presented), and very much reflects its time (prurient, sexist, homophobic), but Fromm also puts forward a Marxist social commentary that's very much in line with our New Work and Hannah Arendt episodes, i.e., we need to remake society into the kind of place where loving can be the rule and not the exception, as our current society steers us to treat others and ourselves like commodities to be used, and romantic love as likewise trying to score the best deal, find the best love object and make yourself the most desirable (attractive, successful), none of which adds up to intimacy. Oh, and also, stop watching so much TV!

This recording features the core four: Mark, Seth, Wes, and Dylan.

Recommended prerequisites: Ep. 26 on Freud's Civilization and its Discontents, Ep. 100 on Plato's Symposium. We've also discussed this issue of others' recognition of you on many episodes starting with Ep. 36 on Hegel, but perhaps the clearest statement, most relevant to this episode is Ep. 71 on Martin Buber.

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Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Part One)

Continuing on Fromm's The Art of Loving (1956).

In this second half of our discussion, we talk about love as requiring knowledge: as "knowing the secret" of humanity or at least being interested. This is related to sadism. Is there a difference between motherly and fatherly love? Fromm thinks so. He also talks about different degrees of maturity in one's belief in God, the best being like Spinoza's, where God is not an entity, but is the equivalent to the world and love of God is love of humanity, i.e., general orientation toward the good. Finally, we get Fromm's social recommendations: How could we reform society's structures and norms so that healthy love as he's describing it can be the norm instead of the purview of only those rebellious enough to reject the consumerist outlook? Hint: He likes Marx, though he argues that no allegedly Marxist actual state comes anywhere close to what Marx was after in terms of letting people live free, unalienated, fulfilling lives.

Listen to part 1 first or get the ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End songs: "Kimmy" (recorded 1995), from Mark Lint's Black Jelly Beans & Smokes. Listen to the album free. Also its sequel, "Kimmy 2002 (Mommy)."

Erich Fromm on Love as an Art (Part Two)

An archetype that can be traced all the way to the Bible gets a much-needed upgrade for the modern age

The sexist, empowering history of the femme fatale

With a collective 12+ million followers, and presence across multiple platforms from YouTube to Live.ly to Gas Station TV, Shira Lazar and Bart Baker are a true new-era power couple.  On this episode, Shira, the award-winning host and CEO of What's Trending, and Bart, a comedy and music-parody maven, both discuss navigating the ever-changing ecosystem of content creation.  From audience demographics and cultural appetites, from deciding which new platforms to be on, changes in algorithms and technology, working with brands, and the growth of their careers and personal points of view.  Recorded live at www.lapodfest.com.

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