What you do every day matters

Do you buy stuff you don't need? Do you talk about exercise and a good diet but rarely do either one? We're all guilty. Here is a terrific little article that helps us see that what we do every day is really more real and actually who we are than what we do every once in a while. See it here: What%20You%20Do%20Every%20Day%20Matters.

5 Surprising (But Easy) Ways to be Good at Sex

We often forget what a wonderful gift lovemaking is. It's easy to take sex for granted in our hectic, often emotionally shallow, sexually saturated society. But it is an amazing part of healthy living and it should be celebrated. Here are some great tips for having good sex. See it here: 5 Surprising (But Easy) Ways to be Good at Sex

Have you discovered your life purpose?

Have you discovered your life purpose yet?  Your role?  What it is you love and are good at and want to spend your life doing?  Below is a brief but terrific essay on how one person discovered all of this for herself in her mid-fifties.  It's never too late to be who you want to really be and do what you truly love.

http://www.meditationsforwomen.com/artman2/publish/featuredarticle/featuredarticle.shtml

Once we connect with people, we stay connected.

Once we connect with people, we stay connected.  It's a quantum physics thing.  Anyone who ever saw your potential, who saw your strengths, who admired your honesty or creativity or determination, believes in you still, is cheering you on and wishing you well. ~ Susan K. Minarik

There is no real power in intention

“Listen carefully to me. Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is absolutely no power in intention...There is no difference in the person who intends to do things differently and the one who never thinks about it in the first place. Have you ever considered how often we judge ourselves by our intentions while we judge others by their actions? Yet intention without action is an insult to those who expect the best from you.” ― Andy Andrews, Author/Speaker 

Being human my way

"There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else's life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life; I miss what being human is for me."
—   Charles Taylor, Canadian philosopher

If other people do not understand...so what?

"If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being "asocial" or "irrational" in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to "explain," which usually implies that the explanation be "understood," i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation." — From the The Art of Being, by Erich Fromm

Therapy That Can Help Depression

Mild depression, discouragement, feelings of being sort of lost in life are things that I help people deal with. But chronic or debilitating depression that significantly interferes with your relationships, work, and daily life, usually require some kind of ongoing therapy. For more information see an excellent article here: Health.com

Book Review: The Shadow Effect

The quest for perfection is failed from the start for all of us. There is no perfect life. All of us are a mixture of all that we have experienced, all that has traumatized or hurt us, all that has informed us, all that has inspired and healed us. Our growing up years. Our college days. Our career or work choices. Our marriages and divorces. Our parents, lovers, and friends. It's all a part of who we have become and who we are now.

The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your Self, written by Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and Marianne Williamson, is a fascinating book that explores all we have been, are now, and can still become once we understand and accept our own hidden power under the layers of all that we are.

Read a review of the book here: The Shadow Effect

Find the courage to ask questions

"1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret."

~ Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Why men die long before women

"American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough." ~ Pat Conroy, Novelist

Without Courage We Wither

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential.  Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency.  We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." ~ Maya Angelou, Writer/Poet

When the Heart Speaks

"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object." ~ Milan Kundera, Czech Novelist

Become Yourself

Now all that is left is for you to become yourself. ~ Goethe, German poet

What Makes Us Weak?

Something we were withholding made us weak,

Until we found out that it was ourselves.

—Robert Frost, “The Gift Outright”

We All Have Masks

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. – James Baldwin

A Reality We Cannot Avoid

There are realities we cannot avoid.  One of them is the importance of self-esteem.


Regardless of what we do or do not admit, we cannot be indifferent to our self-evaluation.  However, we can run from this knowledge if it makes us uncomfortable.   We can shrug it off, evade it, declare that we are only interested in "practical" matters, and escape into baseball or the evening news or the financial pages or a shopping spree or a sexual adventure or a drink.


Yet self-esteem is a fundamental human need.  Its impact requires neither our understanding nor or consent.  It works its way within us with or without our knowledge.  We are free to seek to grasp the dynamics of self-esteem or to remain unconscious of them, but in the latter case we remain a mystery to ourselves and endure the consequences.


~ Nathaniel Branden, The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

Look Inside

"If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will grow stronger and return." 
— Deepak Chopra, Author/Physician/Mystic

A Powerful Truth

"What I am is good enough if I would only be it openly." ~ Carl Rogers, Influential American Psychologist (1902-1987)

How To Find Our Way Through Discouragement

1.      Face what you are feeling.  Trying to ignore feelings only leaves us more frustrated and wanting to shut down.

2.      Search for understanding.  See if there are insights in the messiness.

3.      Express anger, disappointment, fear, confusion in healthy ways.

4.      Reach out.  Talk to those you trust.  Listen for clues, within and from others, for how to move on.

5.      Stay open.  Be willing to accept and not get stuck in denial.

6.      Change your thinking.  Sometimes just deciding to stop fretting over something helps us begin to get past it.

7.      Allow some affirmation.  Be with those you love and those who love you.  Take in some good feelings from being in their company.

8.      Extend yourself.  Offer support to someone else who needs some care.

9.      Be aware.  Not everything is ugly or frustrating or hurtful right now.  Look for glimmers of goodness around you.  They are there if we care to search.

10. Treat yourself.  Buy some fresh flowers.  Take a modest shopping spree.  See a movie you like.  Have coffee with a friend.  Sometimes the smallest things have a way of lifting us out of the gloom.