“I love you” Calculus

Mentality {(Need for Romance + Security) > (Fear of Rejection)100} -Memory {(Declaring Love led to Intimacy last time) ÷ (That relationship ended badly)3} × Anxiety (Will she/he reciprocate?)10 √ {(Is this bad timing?) +Intuition (I’m getting a good vide.)} × (Courage + Nerve ± Recklessness) = “I love you.”* What does it mean to you […]

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Are you Really There for Me?

  Are you Really There for Me? Why are some couples so quick to respond to their partner with anger or defensiveness?  How can we break the cycle of extreme arousal, pain and more wounding that some couples experience with nearly every interaction? “We can’t stop fighting,” I hear.  “Everything turns into a major blow-up!”. According […]

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Self-Care? What’s that?

Where do I begin? As a therapist, I talk to, my clients a lot about the importance of self-care. It’s a preventative approach to help preserve energy for the things that matter, manage stress and get after your best life. What I realized, though, is I’m not doing a very good job of it myself. […]

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Opening to Interdependence

I hear and read so many things that extol the ideal that we are—or should be—complete within ourselves and that we must achieve autonomy (e.g., merge our inner feminine and masculine, achieve enlightenment, overcome the need for others, etc., to realize our human potential.) Interdependence is forgotten in the pursuit of autonomy. What if the opposite […]

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Overcoming Feelings of Loneliness

Loneliness is reaching epidemic proportions. Despite living in an ultra-connected world where we have everything we need at our fingertips like finding out what friends are up to on social media, looking for a new mate on the latest dating app or my personal favorite: FaceTime, there are many people who still feel lonely. We […]

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A Heart-Centered Practice

According to the Eastern chakra system, when a person’s heart chakra (seat of love) is closed, it can’t hear, feel, or discern emotions.  As stated in ancient Eastern text, modern man/woman is ambivalent and confused due to a lack of knowledge.  Living without knowledge in a couple is like being hijacked by fear, dispensing energy towards […]

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Stop Shoulding on Yourself!

 Interactions with other people wire the brain for resilience. This dharma talk parable illustrates how interactions can be positively and negatively encoded in the brain.  A seven-year-old boy and his family are having dinner at a local restaurant. The waitress, addressing the boy, asks “What would you like, hon?” And the boy cheerfully answers: “I […]

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Intimacy, a REAL adventure!

Do you ever dream of a beautiful exotic getaway with intimate moments of delight? The adventurous intimacy that you yearn for is not as far away as it might seem, but it’s not always easy to get there. You have to visit your partner’s world–not their office or their hometown, but rather their private inner […]

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The Possible Marriage

My favorite marriage experts agree on at least one thing: The modern marriage is front-loaded with so many expectations for personal fulfillment that marriages often collapse under their own weight. In her popular TED talk, psychotherapist and author Esther Perel observes, “So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give […]

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Helping Teens in Crisis

Recent teen suicides in my hometown are bringing fear, shock, and sadness to the community.  These tragedies now have parents and teachers looking for ways to talk to their kids about it, and at the same time, fears that they are helpless to prevent a crisis. It’s true that suicides have increased by 28% from […]

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