The V-Word

“Good sex isn’t about just elevating your heart rate — it’s about elevating your heart.” -David Schnarch

The crossroads between our genitals and our neurology turns out to be a super highway. One of the most powerful transformers in the new science of brain re-wiring occurs during deep intimate connection. As some of the mystery of sexual intimacy is revealed through the emerging science of...

“Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.”  -Madonna

It occurred to me the last time that I was in the throes of passion, when I have some of my best thoughts, that so much about our sexual experience is connected to our ability to give ourselves permission to explore the far reaches of arousal. The permission that I am referring to is not really the cerebral ‘thinking...

“Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.” -Jonathon Kozol

Most of the arguments that couples have about their sex lives are not about sex. Sex is the container, where we are most acutely aware of the spaces in our relationship that fail to connect, that make us feel small, unloved, invisible, and that reflect our deepest conflicts. It is a little ironic that our potential for our...

“Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” -Sue Patton Thoele

I have never been much of a listener. I have always used my ability to articulate as a way to know myself. I am a fast thinker and am often onto the next idea while half listening to the people I love most. I...

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity” -Francois Gautier

Clarity is another act of grace. It is not at our beck and call, but rather an internal re-organizing and fresh perspective that comes through us when we are open and listening. Clarity is attracted to humility. It can fill us with an authentic and deep connection to our own truth when we give up the idea that...

“Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.” -Unknown

These days I feel swallowed up in the experience of grief and loss. Even as there is a part of me that recognizes the massive changes that are happening inside Good Clean Love are fulfilling my dreams, I can’t seem to explain or move through the heartbreak of losing control of a...

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” -Robert McCloskey

Again I am facing the painful awareness of the places where I continue to fall short in my capacity to relate. The ability to communicate at home, at work, and in life is a strong barometer and predictor of our success in the relationships that...

“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”  -Alan Lakein

The idea of business planning used to make me cringe. I knew it was the respectable thing to do, but I couldn’t get my mind to think that way. Raising four children had taught me over and over again that planning is what you do while life is happening and redirecting you. I tried a couple of...

“A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.”   -Leo Rosten

Communication is the essence and primary vehicle for most everything in life. Everyone does it all the time, with and without agreed upon signals, words, expressions. Communication...