Sex and Waffles and Pancakes -

Sex, for a woman at any age, can be very difficult - I'm talking turning off the world and turning on. And that is often not easy - RESPONSIBILITY is the big demon for most women. It's not lack of drive, lack of appeal, lack of desire, but too much responsibility, and no way to turn that off. 

One of my favorite therapists shared a story the other day - 

We seem to have more difficulty (in general) than men do when trying to focus on just. one. thing. 

That is why I believe women are like pancakes and men are like waffles.  When you pour syrup on your pancakes, it flows all over the top, down the sides and onto your plate (and sometimes onto the table).  However, when you pour syrup on a waffle, with a just a small bit of effort you can control which square gets the sticky stuff and which does not.  You can fill them all in, make patterns, go every other one. Whatever you like.
 
The syrup represents every aspect of your life.  Work, relationships, kids, chores, responsibilities…the stuff that fills your brain.  Men (in general) have an easier time compartmentalizing the aspects of their life. They are the waffles.  When they are working, they think about work. When they are golfing, they think about golf. And when they are having sex, they think about sex.  This is a great skill to have for many aspects of life and can aid in better focus at work or in complicated projects.
 
Women (in general) are more like pancakes.  Each aspect of our life is interrelated in our mind.  We can think about workchildrenrelationshipschoresmoneyandfood…all at once.  Or at the very least all in one 60 second period of time. The syrup goes everywhere, and it is difficult to control, even with a significant effort.
 
Now, this is not always a negative trait.  It takes a ton of brain space to think about all the little things that must be remembered throughout the day, especially with kids. So, the “juggle” works well for us at times. The difficult part is learning how to turn off the flow of all that sticky syrup.
 
For all of us pancakers out there, a simple place to start is by practicing mindful focus.  Some people try mediation for a couple minutes a day as way to train the brain to turn it all off.  Whatever you do, rehearse applying yourself to one thing at a time, especially at those moments when you really need to…like when he is doing that thing and you are supposed to be focused on the pleasure of the moment.

Makes great sense - now how to practice being a pancake? For starters, I'm off for a weekend with my love, gonna see what we can do about makin' breakfast.