Integrating Your 4 Freedoms - Part 8 of 9 - Mate Relationship and Summary of the 4 Freedoms

Integration in a Mate Relationship

A mate relationship is a superlative setting for integrating your Four Freedoms. A relationship is the ideal arena for learning to become whole. Lovers do not complete each other but rather comprise one whole relationship. Not only is committed relationship a testing ground for confronting issues of personal and spiritual growth, it also provides a secure haven in which to do so. In its cocoon, you can cultivate pleasure and explore desire.

One of the most powerful choices you can make on your path to total freedom is to select your relationship as the most important thing in your life. When you make this choice, your relationship becomes a spiritual practice. Three essential qualities of a relationship as spiritual practice are commitment, fidelity, and time. In a relationship covenant, commitment affirms your intention to grow old together. Monogamy provides the security you need to risk being emotionally vulnerable and transparent, so you can open the door to a shared sexual/spiritual ecstasy. Spending lovers' time together feeds the relationship through such simple activities as daily gazing into each other's eyes, sending love back and forth, and taking a weekly block of hours to be lovers.

As you engage in the intimacies of a relationship, as you learn the knowledge and skills to become fit for a relationship, you will naturally call upon, activate, and reinforce your Four Freedoms. No matter how irrelevant or frightening a particular freedom can seem, it is essential to embrace each of them, because they all interact subtly in an infinite number of ways. Synchronizing, integrating, and bringing the Four Freedoms (Body, Mind, Heart, and Soul) into harmony are some of the most important tasks you can possibly undertake. Your health, well-being, and happiness depend upon harmonization. The Four Freedoms are optional, not mandatory. It is your responsibility to reclaim and embrace your Freedoms.

Embrace all your Four Freedoms

Reclaiming your Four Freedoms is not particularly difficult. You do not have to search for where to find them, for they reside within you. You do not have to earn them, because they are your birthright. You do not have to deserve them, because they wait to be claimed in the lost-and-found room where you have forgotten that you left them.

The essence of Body Freedom is direct sensory experience of what you see, hear, taste, smell, and touch in the now moment. To reclaim Body Freedom, adopt a pleasure orientation. Touch, make love, learn the art of sacred sex, and set aside shame associated with your body, sex, and experiencing pleasure. Love yourself, love your mate, love life.

The essence of Mind Freedom is consciousness. The responsibility of Mind Freedom is to exercise two kinds of choices. The first is what you think about, your attention. The second is how you think, your intention. You can choose to pay attention to what you want, rather than what you don't want. The subject of your attention becomes a choice-you are saying that you want more of it. You can think about what you want in a consistently positive way. Then you must take action to support your thoughts.

The essence of Heart Freedom is emotion, the capacity to feel. The supreme emotion is love, which by its very nature implies a relationship, the lover and the beloved. The responsibility of Heart Freedom is to allow yourself to feel everything, both positive and negative, and, in addition, to act in spite of emotional discomfort. Your challenge is to repeatedly open your heart every time it closes.

The essence of Soul Freedom is faith. In spiritual matters, faith is what you believe even in spite of evidence to the contrary. With faith you know that however bad the current situation is, something better is just around the corner. The responsibility of Soul Freedom includes the necessity to take action in faith, regardless of how hopeless the situation might appear.

Excerpted from our new book Sensual Love Secrets for Couples: The Four Freedoms of Body, Mind, Heart and Soul, by Al Link and Pala Copeland, Llewellyn, 2007.

Al Link and Pala Copeland own and operate 4 Freedoms Relationship Tantra. They regularly host Tantra Sacred Loving weekends near Ottawa Canada, and weeklong retreats in exotic locations around the planet. For more information call toll free from Canada or USA: 1-800-684-5308 International long distance: 1-819-689-5308. Visit Page http://4freedomstantra.ning.com/profile/AlLink or Send email: 4freedoms@tantraloving.com. Their book, Soul Sex: Tantra for Two, is published by New Page Books, 2003.

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Sluggish Cognitive Tempo and It's Relationship to Inattentive ADHD

The diagnosis of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo is made in individuals who process information slowly. These individuals appear to be in a constantly under aroused state. They appear as though they are in a fog and are slow with both the input and the output of information. Individuals with SCT seem to lack energy and motivation.

There is currently no formal mental health diagnosis for Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT). SCT is currently a sub-category of the Inattentive type of ADHD (ADHD-PI) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current version of the DSM-IV is due for revision and the new DSM-V is due to be published in 2012.

The American Psychiatric Association is reconsidering the current classification of SCT and it is likely that this mental health condition will likely have its own category separate from the Inattentive ADHD category in the 2012 DSM-V.

It is unknown how many individuals with ADHD-PI have symptoms of SCT. Some researchers have put the estimate at 30% and others at as high as 50%. What is clear, however, is that the majority of people with ADHD-PI do not also have SCT. This is important because many authorities in the field of ADHD have proposed that these two conditions are all part of one diagnosis.

Some psychiatrist, psychologist, and teachers fail to see a distinction between people with Inattentive ADHD and people with SCT. Teachers often expect a child who is primarily inattentive to have sluggish cognitive skills. This assumption can sometimes impair a child's ability to get the classroom accommodation that they need. Winnie the Pooh is used by some psychiatrist and psychologist to demonstrate the characteristics of Inattentive ADHD. Winnie the Pooh is a better characterization of SCT. Using Winnie the Pooh to describe ADHD-PI is unfortunate and misleading because often ADHD-PI occurs without symptoms of SCT.

The symptom of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo in combination with the diagnosis of Inattentive ADD is simply a combination of symptoms or an accompanying condition (a comorbidity) to the ADHD. This particular combination is not unlike the symptom of hyperactivity in a person with the diagnosis of combined type of ADHD (ADHD-C). People with ADHD-C have significant symptoms of Inattention and impulsiveness and they are hyperactive. People with Inattentive ADD and SCT have significant symptoms of Inattention and they have sluggish processing.

People with a diagnosis of ADHD Hyperactive/Impulsive have significant symptoms of hyperactivity and Impulsiveness without a significant amount of inattention. People with ADHD-PI have significant symptoms of Inattention without hyperactivity, sluggishness, or impulsiveness. There have not been many studies done on individuals with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo but anecdotal reports suggest that a person with SCT may also have symptoms of inattention and impulsiveness. This finding is interesting as individuals diagnosed with ADHD-PI do not have impulsiveness symptoms.

It is very common for people with the combined type of ADHD to also have a diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder or depression. Sensory integration problems such as auditory or visual processing issues are also very common in people with ADHD. It would appear that SCT is a comorbity of ADHD much like these other problems.

There would need to be many additional ADHD subtypes to adequately categorize all the possible combinations of ADHD symptoms. If we were to make a fourth subtype for individuals with ADHD-PI and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo the symptoms would break down as follows:

ADHD-HI: Symptoms of hyperactivity and Impulsiveness without a significant amount of inattention.

ADHD-C: Symptoms of Inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness.

ADHD-PI: Symptoms of Inattention without hyperactivity, sluggishness, or impulsiveness.

ADHD-PI/SCT: Symptoms of Inattention and slow processing without symptoms of impulsiveness

Sluggish Cognitive Tempo can is a condition where an individual, cognitively, is continually in an under aroused state. Not all individuals with Inattentive ADHD have symptoms of SCT. Currently SCT is classified as a subcategory of the Predominantly Inattentive subtype of ADHD. The American Psychiatric Association is reconsidering the current classification of SCT and it is likely that this mental health condition will likely have its own category separate from the Inattentive ADHD category in the 2012 DSM-V.

For more information on Primarily Inattentive ADHD please visit Tess Messer at http://www.primarilyinattentiveadd.com/2010/02/why-blog.html. There you will find information on ADHD symptoms, ADHD treatment, alternatives to medications, Information on ADHD vitamins and supplements and much more. Looking forward to meeting you there!

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