by Maggie Lamond Simone
This winter, I’ve decided, has been a lot like childbirth.
I don’t mean in the classic sense, obviously, because it hasn’t physically caused me to scream obscenities at complete strangers for hours on end (well, not often, anyway) and it hasn’t lasted nine months (yet), but rather in a more metaphysical sense – in the way that people seem to deal with them both. […]
by Liz Raptis Picco
When it comes to loving my teenagers, Crazy Loco Love stretches me just shy of breaking point. At times, the connection between our children almost seems hardwired to snap, split, and break away while they reach for adulthood. They seem like strangers when they’re sheathed in snarky self-absorption. The plausibility of body snatching pods intensifies: I’ve stared into their eyes, just in case. […]
by Brant Secunda and Mark Allen
February is American Heart Month. It provides a wonderful opportunity for us to focus on the organ that beats around 3 billion times, nonstop, in the average human lifetime. Your heart keeps you alive. It sends life-giving oxygen, nutrients, and natural medicine through your bloodstream to all parts of your body. That’s what your heart does for you. What have you done for your heart lately? Most women don’t think about heart health, until mid-life. Sometimes, once there, it can be too late. Why not take this month to pay attention to your heart’s health? Here are six ways to do it. […]
By Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. & Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D.
Would you like to spend less time racking up emotional debt and more time receiving dividends from your ‘feeling better’ bank account? Research findings show that the complex demands of family and work can really get you down. When inundated with a myriad of responsibilities, daydreaming about what you would rather be doing is a typical and common pastime. […]
by Jenilyn Gilbert
I met my husband swing dancing in Grant Park in downtown Chicago when I was 38 years old. We dated for a couple of years and I was one month into my fortieth year when I walked down the aisle. 
I recall the time before I met him; all the first dates, sadness over not having a life partner and feeling so left out and so behind my peers. I attended so many wedding showers and weddings that I never thought my turn would come. When I attended a friend’s second wedding, I thought ‘that’s it, this will never be me, now they’re starting to run two circles around me. I will never get married.’ Now that I’m two years into my marriage I just want to be pregnant. […]
by Evelyn Lim
I compiled a list of affirmations for children, recently, from a wish to help mine with self-mastery and positive programming. As adults, many of our limiting thought patterns can be attributed to childhood conditioning or having unconsciously adopted negative societal beliefs. While we look for ways to help realign ourselves, how about starting with a better way forward in our children? […]
by Karen Maezen Miller
They love us in a different way.
I said that when someone asked what it was like to have a teenager.
I feel like we’ve lost a daughter.
My husband said that after a silent and inconsequential Sunday.
Just shut up.
I said that to her after a ride in the car yesterday.
And yet, there is love, so much love between us and it has gone nowhere! I am standing on the high bluff over death valley, infinite openness in all directions, stunned dumb in the emptiness, but I know the space before me is pure love. Pure love. Life grows here, even when we can’t see it. Refreshed in a cool night, fed by invisible rivulets. A whisper of sea sails five hundred miles across five mountain ranges, and the whisper is this.
They love us in a different way.
They love us in the space, the space that is nothing but love.
Love is not a feeling, not a thought, nothing given or got, not more or less. Not a precaution or warning, not a push or a prod. Not a reminder, not a teaching, not a performance. Love is not what I say and not what you hear. Not how was school how was the test what about homework what are you wearing wash your face eat your dinner pick up your shoes I don’t like her him that when if what did you do what did you say what about your terrible wonderful failure success happiness sadness what about me what about me what about me?
Love is the space between us. There is so much space.
What will you put into that space today, I ask myself before I hear the roar of my own echo.
Just shut up.
Reprinted with permission […]
by Rosemary Lichtman Ph.D. and Phyllis Goldberg Ph.D.
Long before it was a song, the saying was a part of our conversation: Love makes the world go ’round.
With all this whirling, love can make you feel off balance and dizzy. Sometimes it’s tricky to keep your personal world turning without having it spin totally out of control. Although our focus is most often on romantic love, there are many different kinds of love that help keep us grounded. […]
by Marc Parsont
I’d like to offer apologies in advance to those of you who love Valentine’s Day and find my thoughts saccharine-religious. I don’t always spend my time thinking of things like this. Oh, no, it sometimes gets worse.
I wonder how old Cupid is and why he’s still wearing a Toga? Is he a party animal? Does he get drunk and stupid like we did when we were young and throw up on the floor? Who cleans it up? Do mother or father clean up after their little Cupid? (Midlife parents would do anything for their children, overlook any problem, for even terribly misbehaved ones like Cupid.) […]
by Ann Sheybani
image courtesy of flickr.com
I love, love, love Gala Darling. Her site is all about radical self-love. My favorite among her posts: 100 Ways You Can Start Loving Yourself Right Now. In it she says:
“Make lists of reasons why you love yourself… & write down (or keep mental lists) of the compliments other people give you. We’re so quick to believe people when they say nasty, unkind or “brutally honest” (ahem, cruel) things to or about us, & we discard all the times we’re told how amazing, beautiful or intelligent we are. Usually this is because our sense of self-doubt is stronger than our self-love. If you can build up the love side of things, this will begin to change.” […]