The EROS Equation: A "Soul-ution" for Relationships
Based on the idea that it is our own response to a situation — rather than the situation itself — that creates a particular outcome, The EROS Equation is a unique approach to improving relationships. Instead of focusing on difficult partners or problems, author and relationship adviser Eve Eschner Hogan enables us to uncover new and creative responses in ourselves using the EROS equation. As she explains in the introduction, Hogan developed this problem-solving tool through years of work with clients, colleagues, and in her own marriage. She named it the EROS equation because it can be written as Event + Response = Outcome and Solutions (E + R = O and S). Invocative of the Greek god of love, this empowering outlook leads to deeper self-knowledge and more harmonious relationships. Writing in accessible, short chapters, Hogan uses real-life examples to look at typical relationship issues, from daily annoyances to extramarital affairs. She highlights common responses that don’t work and applies the EROS equation to show us how our own wisdom, intuition, and creativity can reveal solutions. The EROS Equation makes clear that by changing an unhelpful, habitual response that blocks understanding, we can create a loving and solution-oriented outcome.
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The EROS Equation: A "Soul-ution" for Relationships
Based on the idea that it is our own response to a situation — rather than the situation itself — that creates a particular outcome, The EROS Equation is a unique approach to improving relationships. Instead of focusing on difficult partners or problems, author and relationship adviser Eve Eschner Hogan enables us to uncover new and creative responses in ourselves using the EROS equation. As she explains in the introduction, Hogan developed this problem-solving tool through years of work with clients, colleagues, and in her own marriage. She named it the EROS equation because it can be written as Event + Response = Outcome and Solutions (E + R = O and S). Invocative of the Greek god of love, this empowering outlook leads to deeper self-knowledge and more harmonious relationships. Writing in accessible, short chapters, Hogan uses real-life examples to look at typical relationship issues, from daily annoyances to extramarital affairs. She highlights common responses that don’t work and applies the EROS equation to show us how our own wisdom, intuition, and creativity can reveal solutions. The EROS Equation makes clear that by changing an unhelpful, habitual response that blocks understanding, we can create a loving and solution-oriented outcome.
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The EROS Equation: A

The EROS Equation: A "Soul-ution" for Relationships

The EROS Equation: A

The EROS Equation: A "Soul-ution" for Relationships

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Overview

Based on the idea that it is our own response to a situation — rather than the situation itself — that creates a particular outcome, The EROS Equation is a unique approach to improving relationships. Instead of focusing on difficult partners or problems, author and relationship adviser Eve Eschner Hogan enables us to uncover new and creative responses in ourselves using the EROS equation. As she explains in the introduction, Hogan developed this problem-solving tool through years of work with clients, colleagues, and in her own marriage. She named it the EROS equation because it can be written as Event + Response = Outcome and Solutions (E + R = O and S). Invocative of the Greek god of love, this empowering outlook leads to deeper self-knowledge and more harmonious relationships. Writing in accessible, short chapters, Hogan uses real-life examples to look at typical relationship issues, from daily annoyances to extramarital affairs. She highlights common responses that don’t work and applies the EROS equation to show us how our own wisdom, intuition, and creativity can reveal solutions. The EROS Equation makes clear that by changing an unhelpful, habitual response that blocks understanding, we can create a loving and solution-oriented outcome.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780897936743
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Publication date: 03/01/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 240
File size: 993 KB

About the Author

Eve Eschner Hogan is an inspirational speaker and author specializing in creating healthy relationships — in the workplace, the home, and the heart. She is the author of multiple books, including Way of the Winding Path, How to Love Your Marriage, Virtual Foreplay, and Intellectual Foreplay, and she is a relationship columnist for Spirituality and Health Magazine. Hogan is also the Executive Director of the Divine Nature Alliance, a 501(c)3 public charity that runs The Sacred Garden on Maui and the Peace Starts Here Project. She is the owner of Heart Path Journeys, which offers personalized, private retreats on Maui, and the co-owner of Makena Coast Dive Charters. With a master’s degree in Confluent Education and a teaching credential, Hogan has served as a relationship adviser for newspapers, magazines, and websites for more than 15 years. A relationship coach for individuals, couples, families, and organizations, she lives in Maui, HI.
Jack Canfield is the coauthor of the best-selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction

I grew up reading Dear Abby and Ann Landers. As a little girl, I would run outside and get the evening paper and deliver it to my parents, snatching the comics and the Q and A column for myself. Who would have ever thought at the ripe old age of ten that I was setting the wheels in motion for my life’s work? But indeed I was studying the wisdom of the “answer ladies," even back then. Somehow my young brain must have been seeking the solutions to the age-old questions regarding love and life from the beginning.

What Does Love Have to do With It?
My journey then took me through my own relationship trials and tribulations as I sought my own life partner and dived into the quest for thriving love. As I think back on the love life of my twenties, I can hear Tina Turner belting out “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” She posed a question that I wanted the answer to. I listened to that song a thousand times after a man I adored broke up with me. I repeated that question so many times, wondering really—if I love him and he loves me, why isn’t that enough? But Tina kept belting out that question, causing me to truly wonder—what does love have to do with it?

What I have discovered in answer to that question is this, “Nothing.” Love has nothing to do with whether a relationship breaks up or lasts. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but if love was the secret ingredient to make a relationship work, they would. If love were all it took, millions of people who married, deeply in love, would not have gotten divorced. Simply put, love is not enough to keep a couple or even a family together if behaviors, choices, and even thoughts are not made in alignment with that love. So searching for my own answers to the question of what does make relationships work, delivered me to the EROS Equation.

How I Know EROS Works
I began my work in the arena of personal growth when I was teaching school in the late 1980s. I took a class on how to raise self-esteem in school children from Jack Canfield, cocreator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and author of The Success Principles. Prior to Jack’s class, I thought that my job was to teach subjects, like math, English, social studies, and science; after Jack’s class, I realized that my job was to teach children. With that momentous shift in understanding, I began teaching my students empowering concepts, such as positive thinking, responsibility, communication, and relationship skills. In class I would hear the kids talk about what their other teachers were saying and doing that was hurtful to them. While I tried to teach the children how to protect their self-esteem from the impact of other people’s words and actions, I began teaching workshops for educators to help them understand esteeming and empowering principles, so that we could work together as a team. In a sort of domino effect, I also realized that to truly help my students I had to teach their parents as well, so I started offering self-esteem workshops at night for them. Relationship issues emerged in those classes, and I began applying the principles to marriages so the parents could work better together in creating a harmonious home. I also offered self-esteem workshops for entire families to assist them in creating a common vision and recognizing each person’s contribution to the family.

At about this time, I met a wonderful man while I was on vacation on Maui. We spent a week becoming acquainted and then spent the next five months on the phone between Hawaii (where he lived) and California (where I lived) getting to know each other better. Wanting to make sure we were deciding wisely since one of us would have to relocate if we chose to be together, we asked each other a lot of questions about values, interests, goals, spirituality—everything! We coined the term “intellectual foreplay” for this process and began writing a book by the same name. The book is full of questions for people to ask each other—both prospective partners, so they can make wiser decisions about whom they get involved with, and people who are already in a relationship, to help deepen the communication and intimacy between them.

Although the process of intellectual foreplay helped my husband and me make a great choice in each other, there were still some challenges ahead. After we got married, things went really well for the first few years. I had a lot of adjusting to do since I was in a new place; had a new job, husband, and friends; and lived nearly three thousand miles away from my family. Although I had been teaching personal growth, self-esteem, and self-mastery to people for several years, about three or four years into our marriage I needed a serious dose of my own medicine. I suddenly found that I was resisting being married. I started feeling controlled, as if I were no longer in charge of my own life, and as if I had few, if any, choices. I didn’t like the feeling. I began resisting everything my husband did and said, and I started thinking about getting out. Of course, at the time, I thought it was my husband’s fault. After all, it was what he was saying and doing that was making me angry; therefore (I reasoned), it was his fault that our marriage was strained. I felt like I had fallen out of love, and I didn't believe I could get it back. In my mind the marriage was going downhill fast, and I had no hope for saving it (because I couldn't imagine that he was going to change).

My husband, on the other hand, probably didn't even know what hit him. We’d been getting along well. We’d each done our homework in picking a partner we were compatible with. We’d waited until we were in our thirties to get married (both for the first time). We had everything going for us, so he undoubtedly couldn't figure out why the honeymoon was suddenly over. When I thought about leaving the marriage, I felt trapped. We owned a house together, we had a dog and a cat and a business together. We weren't supposed to get divorced! I wrote a book on finding the right partner! Our lives were entwined, and I angrily believed I was stuck.

One night, after hours of tossing and turning, I jumped out of bed and walked through the house to look at all that was keeping me “trapped.” … Then, in the wee hours of the morning, as I stood looking at all I was willing to walk away from, I realized that I was still standing there.… Something else—not the house, business, pets, or any other thing—was stopping me from leaving my marriage.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to leave. This was a whole new feeling. Until then I had been blaming all the outer reasons for why I had to stay and thus was missing the inner reasons for why I wanted to stay. I believed in marriage. I believed in love. I knew my husband was a good man and that we had common values. Just a few years earlier I had loved him so much that I’d moved away from all the other people I loved. Maybe, just maybe, I was still there because I still loved him. Maybe love hadn’t really gone away; it was just being blocked. Maybe I hadn’t given him or my marriage my best shot. All I had taught others about taking responsibility for the quality of their lives loomed over me, and I knew I had not been holding up my end of the bargain.

I deeply believed, and taught, that the people and circumstances in our lives are not what creates our experiences or our feelings. Rather, our response to the people and situations we encounter is what creates the way we feel and experience our lives. I had learned this principle many years earlier, in my studies with Jack Canfield. He taught the equation “Event + Response = Outcome,” or E + R = O. People and circumstances fall into the “event” category. (I have added “solutions” to the end of the formula to make it the EROS equation, a prescription for restoring love.) As I pondered my marriage early that morning, I realized that I was blaming the “event,” blaming my husband, for all I was experiencing in our relationship rather than taking responsibility for how I was responding to him, how I was responding to being married, how I was showing up as a partner. I was blaming the event for the outcome instead of transforming the outcome by changing my responses....

I felt an amazing sense of power in the recognition that if the problem was actually my doing, then the solution was in my hands as well. Of course, there were things my husband could have done differently, and some of the issues I raised were certainly valid, but I had the powerful realization that I needed to respond to him differently and to handle those issues differently. It occurred to me, based on the material I had been teaching for years, that if I responded to him differently, he would automatically respond to me differently, and thus we would both be changing the way we were showing up in the relationship just because I was showing up differently. I didn't have to enroll him in saving our marriage; I just had to make it my own personal goal.…

I used the equation Event + Response = Outcome&Solutions as a guiding principle, and the “outcome and solution” I wanted were clear. I wanted to fall back in love with my husband and to make our marriage into a healthy and thriving partnership. I wanted to love my marriage again. The “event” (my husband) was not in my control to change, so I set about taking a deep look at my “responses.” I realized that all my responses to him—all my thoughts, words, and actions—needed to be aligned with the goal I was seeking: love. Anything that failed to move us in the direction of love was not the response I wanted because it didn't lead toward a positive solution.…

So I began to be self-observant, paying attention to what I was saying, doing, and thinking. I began to choose words, thoughts, and actions that were in alignment with my goal. I began to practice what I preached. The funny part was how different my husband looked when I looked at him differently! Lo and behold, the honeymoon began to return. The love began to flow between us again. The elation in our relationship returned and our partnership was restored. It didn't even take six months, and he didn't have to actively participate. He did participate, though, because it was also his goal to make our marriage work. In fact, I don’t think he ever lost sight of that goal. He participated by responding positively to the new and improved situation.…

Whenever we hit a rough moment, I reset my intention on the goal and made the choice again to align my thoughts, words, and actions with loving my marriage and accepting my partner. This is not a choice that is made only when we first agree to get involved or married, but a choice that we make continually, thousands of times throughout a relationship. It is a choice I continue to make every time I find myself annoyed or frustrated.

Many years have passed since that challenging time, and our relationship continues to strengthen. What I have found on the other side of the “wall” is a depth, a trust, and a respect in both my husband and our marriage that I am not sure I ever would have encountered....

Table of Contents

Introduction

EROS—The God of Love
Why Love Is Not Enough

Common Sense, Uncommon Knowledge
A Blueprint of the Human Being
Life Strategies that Don’t Work on Love
Powerful Relationship Principles

Just Because You Believe It, Doesn’t Mean It Is True
What Are Your Love Beliefs?
Believing Isn’t Attractive, Choices Are

Reawakening to Who You Are
The Golden Buddha
Self-Esteem, an Over-Used Phrase for an Under-Experienced Quality
Finding Your Power
A Prescription for Self-Strengthening
Resilience Training
Values—Guideposts to the Goal

Uncommon Knowledge
Learning to Appreciate the Ego
Commitment—The Ego Trigger
Being an Ego Magnet
Clearing the Blocks to Being Loved
Clearing the Blocks to Being Loving
Developing a Self-Talk Interpreter
Victim No More
The Beauty of Fear
What Do You Treasure?

The EROS Equation
What Is Your Target
Everyone Else and Everything External
Response—Ability
Outcome
Solutions
When the Grass Is Greener
Four Response Options
Negotiate
Resist What Is
Get Out
Acknowledge and Accept What Is
Step Into Creativity, Step Into Love

Five Essential Life and Love Skills
Remember Who You Are and What You Want
Self-Observe
Transcend the Ego Needs
Reconnect, Re-calibrate
Choose Aligned Actions

Creating a No Drama Zone
Stop Playing the Blame Game
Integrity Choices
Transforming Anger Into Love and Understanding
The Flag on the Mountain Top of Emotions
Letting Go of Resistance

Applying EROS to Dating

Applying EROS to Getting Married

Applying EROS to Chores

Applying EROS to Preferences

Applying EROS to Money

Applying EROS to Health

Applying EROS to Monogamy

Applying EROS to Sex

When the Equation Doesn’t Add Up
Managing Mental Health and Substance Abuse in Relationships

A Practice Makes You Stronger

The Power of the Moment

A Breath Away
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