Greece Is the Word

📣 GREECE IS THE WORD IS ONE YEAR OLD! IT’S OUR FIRST BIRTHDAY! 📣
ΧΡΟΝΙΑ ΠΟΛΛΑ! CHRONIA POLLA!

1.

IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE

Greek scientists want to give names to heat waves and—after a summer from hell—PM Mitsotakis wants to get radical about climate change. 

2.

PRIVATE CAVE POOLS 

Yes, please. We’d like to stay at all eleven of these hotels in Greece, as a matter of fact.

3.

CAVE ROBOT TOUR GUIDE

You can meet Persephone at the Alistrati Cave. 

4.

PIECE BY PIECE 

This edition’s Bravo Sou Award goes to Rajaa Rajha, a Syrian chemist who is helping researchers of Greek Orthodox history.  

5.

ELA NA PETAXEIS MAZI MOU (COME FLY WITH ME)

American Airlines wants to know if you speak Greek and Delta Airlines wants to know if you want avgolemono with your peanuts. 

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW:
ALEXANDRA KATEHAKIS

This remarkable human is in a class of her own. We’re talking about Alexandra Katehakis, Ph.D., MFT, CSAT-S, CST-S. Co-founder and Clinical Director of the Center for Healthy Sex in Los Angeles, Dr. Katehakis is also an author, lecturer, and highly-sought-after podcast guest. As one of the nation’s foremost experts on sex therapy and sex addiction, the ways she helps individuals, couples, families, and communities will positively impact the world at large for generations to come.

GITW: After whom are you named?

ALEXANDRA KATEHAKIS: I was named after my paternal grandmother, Alexandra (Georgidis) Katechakis. She met my grandfather, Evangelos Katechakis, when she was nineteen years old and he was thirty-nine years old. He was a doctor in the army, stationed in Istanbul, and she a volunteer in a local hospital. After asking her father, an iconographer, for her hand in marriage, he whisked her off to his beloved island of Crete to his village, Platanos. As a city girl, she disliked village life; and to remedy that, they also had a house in Iraklion, where she gave birth to six children in less then nine years. Sadly, my grandfather Evangelos died nine years after they were married and nine months after my father, Sophocles, their youngest child, was born in 1928. 

WWII was very difficult for my grandmother, a single mother. Legend has it, however, that Alexandra was a formidable woman who prevented deaths in Platanos during WWII thanks to her ability to speak German and make peace with the German soldiers, when necessary. In fact, on two occasions, she saved my father and others from a firing squad. I had the good fortune of visiting her in the summers as a teen with my parents, and regularly in my twenties where I got to know her and experience how powerful she was. Tall in stature, she was intelligent with a quick wit and always reminded me that she was the “original Alexandra Katechakis,” lest I forget! We would chuckle about that, but over the years her words left me wondering about who I was, what I was capable of, and how I could live up to such a big name and legacy.  

What do you think of when you think about your Greek background?

I predominantly feel great pride when I think about my Greek heritage, especially the Cretan half of me, which is reflected in a quality of fierceness I possess when it comes to taking risks and trying new things. I assume I inherited that trait from my father, who immigrated to the U.S. in his early twenties, shortly after the Nazis left Greece. Like many Greeks, he struck out to America having few relatives to rely on and not knowing what would befall him. Through an arrangement between my maternal grandmother and my father’s aunt and uncle who lived in Miami, he married my mother within two weeks of landing there. Together with her, and through a lot of hard work—including having to learn English—he became a self-made man exemplifying the American Dream.

My mother, Virginia Chakiris—yes, first cousin to actor George Chakiris—was a first-generation Greek American who was devoted to empowering me as a female. Like my father’s family, my mother’s family struggled greatly until they made it to the U.S. And like my father, my mother grew up poor but shared a work ethic and belief in possibilities that I inherited from her. My mother’s sense of humor came directly from my maternal grandmother, Anthe, who's wicked sense of humor is shared by my siblings and cousins. Without a doubt, it’s a Chakiris trait! 

How did you get into your profession?
My parent’s marriage was difficult, and—after 25 years—they called it quits. I myself struggled to understand what made for a good, intimate love relationship that was sustainable over time. In and out of relationships that didn’t work in my twenties, I decided to go to therapy to better understand myself. Some of what I learned was that two traumatized people who hadn’t had the luxury of therapy to heal their wounds raised me. In part, I was carrying the trauma of WWII in my nervous system through the intergenerational transmission of the atrocities my father suffered under the Nazi occupation of Crete, namely PTSD. Through my own healing process, I became fascinated with the human psyche and, ultimately, human sexuality. I earned a Doctorate in Human Sexuality and am licensed as a Marriage, Family Therapist in California. Eventually, I did marry and together with my husband, created a sexual health center in Los Angeles, California called Center for Healthy Sex. Since 2005, we’ve served thousands of men and women in their quest to heal their sexuality. While I might not be fighting a war the way the Original Alexandra Katechakis did, I do feel that I embody her spirit in fighting ignorance and lack of sex education when it comes to sexual health. 

What projects are you excited to be working on now or do you hope to be working on soon?
Since 2010, I’ve published four books and contributed to a number of others in my field. Currently, I’m completing a workbook titled, “What Turns You On?” This workbook is expressly designed for people in their twenties and early thirties in an attempt to assist in shame reduction, honestly facing each individual’s truth about what’s sexually arousing (and what isn’t), and promoting sexual pleasure. I’m having a great deal of fun writing and designing this workbook because I think it will be a useful resource for young adults the world over. 

Of what are you most proud, and why?
As I get older, the thing I’m most proud of is my Greek heritage. As a young person, I never would have said that. In fact, growing up in a beach town in Florida I was at odds with my ethnic looks, felt “other” around my peers, and knew that my unusual last name singled me out as different. Little did I know that I’d been handed a legacy that I had to grow into and embody. I can’t explain what it feels like to be a Greek American. Everything about me is American, but internally I feel a larger-than-life essence, a confidence, passion, sensitivity, and creativity that I believe is encoded in my DNA and belongs to my ancestors. Some days I feel like I’m walking on the shoulders of Minoan goddesses and I can feel my father’s power and my mother’s fierceness. But on most days, my feet are on the ground as a mere mortal, grateful to be connected to such a rich and beautiful heritage. 

For what are you grateful?
What aren’t I grateful for?! Given my parents’ upbringing and histories, I marvel at my success and the riches I have in family, friendship, career success, and health. What a gift my life has been and, if I’m lucky, will continue to be. I lost both of my parents recently—my father in 2018 and my mother in 2019. I think about them both every day, and the lessons they taught me resound in the food I eat, the things I say, and the way I think. What a gift to carry on their legacy of trying to make a small difference in the world. Today, I’m grateful that you invited me to this interview; it’s been a lot of fun answering your questions! 

Thank you, Alexandra! We are grateful for the work you do in the world, and we are grateful for the time you’ve given to our readers and us.

As the Delta variant continues to ravage communities across the globe, our face coverings are on 100% of the time we’re indoors with others. #maskupforothers We are committed to protecting those around us. #maskupforothers. If you could use another washable, reusable face covering, consider buying one of our Greece Is the Word neck gaiters. Besides the fact that wearing face coverings indoors makes you a safer, more considerate human to those around you, one of the other cool aspects of these particular face coverings is their versatility: The neck gaiters can be used as face coverings, head bands, bandanas, wrist bands, and head warmers.

Mike “Stonie” Woods will be back in the hizouse very sooooon! Subscribe to his YouTube channel so you are notified when he publishes a new video.

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Take care of yourselves and one another!

Opa!
Peter and the Greece Is the Word Crew