Dr. Dorree

Welcome to Dr.DorreeLynn.com!

January 1st, 2013 § Comments Off § permalink

Have you met Dr. Dorree yet? If you are over 50, (or hope to get there), still rockin’ (and we don’t mean in a chair), if you’ve wised up with time, but haven’t lost your edge, if you’re smart, sexy, and savvy (and sometimes maybe a little confused), Dr Dorree Lynn is for you!

Currently residing in Northern Florida and traveling elsewhere, for close to four decades, Dr. Lynn maintained a “Master Class” psychotherapy practice in Washington, DC. As a then practicing psychologist, she was the respected ear to power-brokers in government, media, corporate America and the arts. She now continues her consulting, education and writing under the auspices of The Center for Relationship, Sexuality and Spirituality. After her last book: Sex for Grown-Ups, Dr. Dorree Reveals the Truths, Lies and Must-Tries for Great Sex after 50, she became well-known as psycho-sexual expert. She currently lives, in Northern Florida: writing her fourth book, consulting and lecturing predominantly on psycho-sexual issues.

Former celebrity psychologist, wise elder, and national “sexpert,” Dr. Dorree Lynn created FiftyandFurthermore.com as your interactive, sexy-post 50 wisdom portal. Dr. Dorree offers tons of juicy tid-bits and meaty information about everything from how to find Mr. (or Mrs.) Right, to “granny erotica,” the latest condoms and vaginal lubes, stunning stats about HIV and STD’s as well as how to talk to your kids and parents about intimacy, sex and tons of other stuff.

Discover that we really are precious, lovely, sexy, and wise at every age and stage. Welcome to FiftyAndFurthermore.com!

Shhh! Silent Shameful Secrets that Keep You from Having Sex

January 17th, 2013 § Comments Off § permalink

Just as with a well used car, as we age, sometimes body parts break down. Two pesky rarely addressed break-down areas are urinary and fecal incontinence. Phew! I can just hear you say. I’m not reading about this. Truth, it’s silly to keep silent about anything fixable that interferes with life’s enjoyment. And, these issues can almost always be fixed.

After carrying and producing a kid or two, women’s insides often droop and alter shape. The uterus can shift, the bladder moves and the pelvic floor can feel like it’s going to fall. A good belly laugh or an organism can make a bottom’s faucet suddenly drip or even worse, flood. For most people, this is just too embarrassing to face. Frequently women solve the issue by stopping laughter (How silly when laughter helps keep us healthy and alive). As laughter becomes limited fun, intimacy and sex stops.

Pads and diapers needn’t become a wardrobe staple. Usually, a visit to a good pelvic urinary gynecologist and simple surgery can fix your plumbing and make it as good as or even better than new. Simple Kegel exercises done on your own, often work miracles. A towel laid on a clean sheet makes an extra leaky wet spot easy to clean. If your car had an oil drip, you would fix it. Treat yourself better than any possession you own. Your body is the one piece of real estate that you own forever.

Now for the really stinky secret. Bowel challenges are hard to face. Yet, a large portion of the older population suffers from constipation, diarrhea or times when everything just lets loose. Who wants sex when they secretly they fear a dirty deluge? This too is common. Though how common, no one knows as its not exactly cocktail conversation. Remember, the body parts that don’t behave as you would wish are simply part of being human. Your entire physical self deserves to be honored, cared for and “yes” loved. Again, a good health care professional should be able to solve what ails you.

However, in many cases, there may be some easy fixes. Exercise matters and what you eat impacts what comes out. Some simple dietary changes can include experimenting with or eliminating some of the following.

Cured or smoked meats
Alcohol
Caffeine
Spicy Foods
Fatty and greasy foods
Sweeteners (sorbitol, xylitol, mannitol, and fructose)
Dairy products

Shifting to eating smaller portions during the day, adding or deleting fiber, going organic can all help your digestive system. With added years, we often lose the good probiotics we need for digestion. There are many inexpensive over the counter brands you can buy to supplement what’s missing, Emotional issues and stress can change how and what your system processes what enters and eliminates.

People tend to feel ashamed of urinary and elimination issues. There’s no shame attached. It’s silly to suffer in silence and lose out on a good orgasm. Take action instead. Talk to others. Talk with a friend, your lover, a professional. If a body part needs fixing, fix it. Or, start small by changing your life style: Do Kegels. No one needs to know you’re having fun while waiting to pick up your groceries. Look into pelvic floor exercises (There are great specialists in this area trained to help.) Once again, exercise or changes in your diet. You can help heal yourself.

Don’t be a silent suffer and lose out on fun. Sex is your birthright. Keep your sexuality alive.

Aging Gracefully: Not Me

January 5th, 2013 § Comments Off § permalink

Aging Gracefully is a term that makes me want to puke.
(In case you have any doubt, I can be passionate and opinionated). Aging Gracefully has become one of those politically correct terms for how Boomers, Zoomers and even their elders are supposed to fluidly dance into their twilight years.

The term has been picked up and embraced by society at large; including most magazines and the web, as they frenetically seek new terms to define our current living longer than ever, pioneer population.

How about Pioneers or (S)ages, Third Agers, Zesters, FiftyandFurthermores, Life Long Learners (LLL) or almost any other term instead! Aging Gracefullyis unrealistic and therefore may be considered inhumane. It evolved out of a prototypical Madison Avenue creative moment. That being said, it in fact serves to separate youth from having to relate to wise elders (another wonderful term) as human beings who continue to grow and face new challenges. If one believes they are supposed to Age Gracefully, how do we come to terms with the often confusing process that is essential when navigating new terrain? Though some of us may have attained periods of grace, thankfully, no one is so permanently graceful that life is over.

Aging Gracefully connotes the scene of a perfect ballet pas de deux or jette or a woman with perfectly coiffed grey hair forever smiling in the sun as if she’s never had a care (or a well earned wrinkle) or a guy who has tossed a football multiple yards to the receiver who then effortlessly turns and steps into the end zone for an amazing touchdown. Or perhaps, the beautifully played violin concerto, chess match easily won, or the perfect evening gown made by a loving grandmother for her granddaughter’s prom. All these accomplishments are truly acts of grace and are to be applauded for being so. However, simple appreciation of the final product belies the years of effort, practice, pricked fingers, broken bones and even battle scars that have gone into this final accomplishment.

Think about all the term connotes and the possible results. Aging Gracefully can actually damage self-esteem. It creates an unattainable, unrealistic standard that guarantees many people will feel inadequate. A life well lived may have periods of grace. Many though do not “go gently into the good night.” (Just think Kazantzakis’s Zorba and his passionate zest until his dying breath). I assure you, no (S)age who has lived more than half a century has gotten to where they are without their share of hard knocks. They do not simply age gracefully appearing as an elder version of Bottecelli’s Venus serenely risen out of a clam shell. We wise elders have become people of substance precisely because we have worked hard, lived long and experienced life fully. Our wrinkles, botoxed or not, are well earned.

It’s a myth to think that energetic elders are going to sit on their porches in their rocking chairs with their yarn balls knitting for their progeny or living their lives hitting golf balls. We may love our children and grandchildren. We may value quiet moments with a good book. But, the truth is that more and more of us are still rockin’ and we don’t mean in our chairs (unless it helps our sexual positions).

We have learned that love and spirit matter and that it takes a heck of a lot of time and effort to floss twice a day, eat right, exercise, remember to take our medications, keep those damned time consuming doctor’s appointments, and stay in good mental and physical shape. Whatever grace we’ve earned has been hard won and keeping it is far from easy.

Perhaps the best we can hope for is to age well and for aging well to be good enough. The term Aging Well (my current favorite) connotes many possibilities. It means aging with health, spirit and knowledge andcontinuing to age as one has lived his or her life; learning, living and doing the best we can.

Aging Gracefully? Not me. I will continue to live as passionately, productively, serenely, sexually, spiritually and lovingly as I can. I only hope that for those around me, my version of Aging Well is good enough.

Happiness Hints: When Battling Those Pesky Holiday Blues

December 26th, 2012 § Comments Off § permalink

In the wake of kids being shot (It happens all over the world, but the bullet pierces our hearts, when it’s on our own soil and we recognize the faces.) dangling cliffs known as fiscal, and a world at unrest, etc, still. The one thing we all have in abundance is the capacity to love and be loved… Give preciously and generously and don’t be a Scrooge, give with all you can and be open to receive love when it’s offered. This is no time for family feuds. Put them on the shelf.

We are all vulnerable, the antidote is to live fully, care deeply and hold the good moments preciously. This does not mean having to spend tons of money… only to be in debt in Jan. Small gifts, hugs, homemade handiwork and innovative crafts count.

Avoiding Holiday Blues

1. Don’t be alone.

2. If someone is alone, go to them. Get them out of their house.

3. Give up fantasies of the past or what the holiday is supposed to be.

If you are divorced , separated, etc . which 52% of the population is, the reality of where the kids spend the holiday time drives adults (and kids) to heartbreak and distraction. If you are one of the many in that situation, kids come first. Act like adults and manage differences for the sake of the kids… and yourselves. Everyone will benefit.

4. Laugh a lot. Funny movies help. See them, rent them, borrow them. Do silly things. We a all remain children at heart. Use this capacity for yourself and others.

5. Donate time to someone, an event or a charity less fortunate than yourself.

6. Understand that if you are blue, you are not alone. Therefore, community helps. Share with your place of worship, your family, friends your neighbors , firemen and women, Vets, those in need, others who might be alone.

7. Sex with a stranger is not the answer. (Yes, it happens, all too frequently. You’ll feel lousy in the morning). Besides it’s dangerous. Friends with benefits, well on the other hand, after all, they are friends. Condoms still count.

8. And if it’s all too much, get out of town and escape. Nothing wrong with avoiding it all.

9. For many people, the blues are real. (The highest rate of suicide is New year’s Day). If you are desperate, go to your nearest walk-in clinic or emergency room.

10. Holiday consumer commercialism and what’s supposed to be does not always fit one’s own life. People get blue because their own reality does not match Madison Avenue’s (And Christmas music messages). In this day and age of planes, trains and automobiles with families living miles and worlds apart, it’s normal for many to feel the separation of family rather than the June Cleaver, Father Knows Best, 1950′s fantasy. In today’s world, it is often a wished for fantasy that causes a pain in the gut.

11. No 1 repeated: The best thing to do is to reach out and not be alone.

12. If you are alone, enjoy your time. Read a good book. Meditate. Have your favorite meal, a glass or two of champagne (not the entire bottle, you’ll suffer the next day). Candles, a bubble bath and a fireplace are nice, as are long beach walks, if you are out of the cold. Masturbation always gets your serotonin and happy hormones going. Nothing wrong with toys for joys. A little ingenuity and pleasure, joy and peace are yours.

USE THESE HINTS HAPPILY!

Dr. Dorree

NPR’s First Coast Connect: Dr. Dorree on Overcoming the Holiday Blues

December 21st, 2012 § Comments Off § permalink

Listen to Dr. Dorree’s (S)age advice on overcoming the holiday blues:

Click to hear segment

Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey

December 19th, 2012 § Comments Off § permalink

An open blog in “ancient days” i.e. “letter” to Oprah Winfrey that contains some wishes and advice.

Dear Oprah,

The blatantly over the top HuffPo headline 11/26/12 Oprah May Stop Printing O Magazine, Had A Breast Cancer Scare, culled from an article in NYT, Nov 25, 2012 has had me thinking for several weeks. The headline was such an odd juxtaposition, that I found myself thinking about you both, as an individual and as a metaphor for our current zeitgeist. I’m in my seventh decade, which I consider an honor and privilege, for one does not add years without opportunity to fall, fail, grow and blossom. Each decade has been a period of personal change. My fifties were no exception, as I am sure they are for you as well.

My forty plus years as a psychologist, web site founder, author and most humbly, developing (s)age kept me returning to the “missing link.” The typical “screaming to catch attention message” peeked my interest in a way that I doubt HuffPo intended. As I tried to digest the quixotically unnerving mixed headline and ensuing story, I kept returning to one version of the unspoken puzzle. If the story as stated is true, (and it appears to be) this is what I believe and suggest.

1. Oprah, you have always tried to base your appeal on your authenticity. Stating you had a mammogram scare that ultimately came to nothing says nothing, except that like most women who get mammograms something was amiss. Mammograms are always a bit frightening: a false positive, a biopsy, a lump, a recall for another test leaves one feeling that this time (blessedly) they escaped what is probably inevitable. One gratefully takes a breath that this time the dreaded term cancer is not diagnosed. But, what will the next test diagnosis bring?

2. Telling about the mammogram scare for the first time in front of a general audience which contains your supposed best friend is odd and confusing at best and at worst, thoughtless and potentially cruel to her. This behavior is so out of your usual more thoughtful character, that coupled with the message about possibly closing the magazine, it’s akin to voicing an internal manifestation (I’m concerned about my health, but whew, this time it was nothing) related to an external reality concern, “Where is my future (especially my magazine) going?” Daring to delve deeply and thinking out of the box, the messy combination, may have been an unconscious “cry for help.”

3. Oprah, you are 58. You’ve had the foresight and wisdom to understand you were aging and that as a result energy might flag, health scares could come more frequently, body parts would change and new internal (spiritual and purposeful) needs would emerge. With wise and elegant business acumen and deliberate planning you gave notice and began your mid-life transition from your daily face time grind to new creative endeavors. Kudos.

However, Oprah, you are in uncharted territory. You had the courage to plunge to new web modalities, new opportunities, new attempts to be your authentic self in mid-life and hopefully, beyond. When a statement such as that odd headline is out of keeping with one’s supposed image, it’s worth paying attention to. In fact, over the years one of your well honed skills has been learning to pay attention to the nuances of how a statement is phrased or to what is not said, those vital spaces between words. As you well know, meanings are so often found in the unstated or seemingly jarring or chaotic sentence.

4. I wanted to share my insights with you. You’ve gained your popularity and power and in part your trademark by always trying to be the fully authentic SELF you have been at every life stage. Now, you are a in the process of becoming a woman graced with age and wisdom. Why change who you are? Why risk losing your authenticity and altering your appeal? So, I ask, as the article indicated you wanted to do, (“to attract women “in their 30′s or perhaps their 20′s, to be able to reach people when they are looking to fulfill their destiny.” Adding “By the time you’re 40, 42, you should have kind of figured it out already.”) why in the world would you want to focus your magazine on young women? HuffPo understands the 50’s as do dozens of other sites including, in full disclosure, my own, www. fiftyandfurthermore.com. Strikingly, I am in the process of redefining it to reach those in their true third age. Let’s get to the crux. The boomers have boomed and are as challenged by their newly formed identities, as are you. You, they, we are the pioneers and role models we seek. We are the trailblazers and role models we may wish we had.

5. America has its first population of active wise elders who are living longer than ever before. Along with all the new issues they are confronting, they are the fastest growing ratio contracting STD’s, STI’s and HIV. We are having sex, or wondering why we aren’t We are growing, facing new challenges and traveling new paths.

6. We have books about reinventing ourselves, dating, once one’s hair is grey (covered over or not) and vaginas that get dry and penises that function perfectly well, just not the way they once did. We are seeking new purpose, new forms of spirituality and new ways of giving. Oprah, there is a void that either is not yet recognized or that people are afraid to fill. Yes, it’s our responsibility to mentor youth. But pandering to their culture is like a 58-year athlete trying to compete with a 22 year old. Can we really? And why should we? Aging well is a privilege. My wish and advice, Oprah, fill that void.

Approximately 10 years ago I started www.fiftyandfurthermore.com as an online magazine. I was a bit of a flailing about visionary. I did my homework, talked to publishers, researched what was evolving on the net and acknowledged that my economics would not enable me to publish the magazine I thought was needed. I also foresaw that the age of print was in for a bumpy ride. I remember thinking that when the time was right, maybe Martha or Oprah would fill the void.

In a relatively short time, the web has undergone more permutations than anyone can keep up with. What was in vogue yesterday is passé today. You understand this better than most. Live it. There is a need for O to grow and lead (s)ages. You are the one person I can think of who can and should do it. “Change the focus of the magazine. Build it, re-brand it, and they will come.”

I am aware of these changes, and I too, am in the process of changing my brand including my website to reach my peers. Women (and men) who are vital, alive, have had marriages, divorces, relationships, affairs. Adults who are parents, grandparents, even great grandparents who still go to yoga, Pilates, travel, eat healthily and are interested in politics, culture and life. So Oprah, why alter your formula for success? Why try to appeal to those who need you to be who you are? My advice: Honor your age, your wisdom, your health, wealth, power and spirit. Reach out to those who know and understand your current challenges now and in the future. Be true to yourself. Your formula has worked for you so far. Grow O and your other endeavors to suit your age.

Unanticipatedly, writing this open letter to you, has helped clarify my own next steps. As a new year, 2013, begins, so will I. Thank you for helping me better define the direction I was seeking.

With respect and best wishes,

Dr. Dorree Lynn

Psychotherapist, life coach, media personality and author of:

Getting Sane Without Going Crazy
When The Man You Love is Ill: Doing the Best for Your partner without Losing Yourself. (With Florence Isaacs)
Sex For Grown-Ups: Dr. Dorree Reveals The Truths, Lies, and Must- Tries for Great Sex After 50.