Good Clean Reads

Here is a remarkably accurate list of terms that a woman you know might say to you and the meaning that is implied. The code list is funny to those of us who share the lexicon because it makes us realize how we cover the things we are communicating in a dignified and acceptable form, whilst actually saying the thing we want to say.

There are definitely terms on this list that my husband still does...

I have been on vacation for the last 3 weeks with my family in Europe. Sounds exotic, I know, but the reality is not so much exotic as it is a crash course in learning how to love. Life at home with four kids is an on the go experience with multiple personalities and conflicting needs- but I realize now, that our busy life style actually only allows us an hour or two per day to interact as a unit....

I have been traveling in parts of the world where I cannot even say “how do you say ….” I barely have the basics of hello and goodbye down. And yet as I move through the daily activities of life, shopping at a market, sitting on the coastline in a crowd of people, standing on line to shower or wait for the bathroom. the scenes I witness between parents and children, lovers – old and young are more...

This is my fifteen-year-old son’s favorite expression of late. It applies to everything from the right snack selection to a teacher’s grading system. Sometimes it also applies to the meaning that I try to live: about being authentic with the people that mean the most to us.

Authentic communication requires vigilance and presence. Slipping into habitual behaviors that offer protection and cover is...

Avoiding emotional escalation with your partner is an excellent and often successful way to invite a loving passionate response. It is so easy to get caught up in each other’s bad moods that not doing it takes real effort and clarity. Habitual patterns of negative communication feed on each other. One person makes a sniping comment, volley and return with the other person’s pent up rage. Throw a...

Here is a fact about eagles that inspires me to believe in love. As eagles prepare to mate, they lock talons and free fall through the sky. It is a do or die proposition, as it is with us humans, or at least it feels that way as we project ourselves forward, heart wide open, hoping to be loved back.  This act of free falling can be seen as a love metaphor for emotional intimacy, where vulnerability and trust are essential. I don’t know if there is a sign that the eagles give each other so they know the...

What is that “mood” thing anyway? I know it is in me somewhere- this secret passage that sometimes feels like a dark and narrow hallway with no windows or air and other times is like throwing open huge windows to a beautiful summer morning. Finding this space, where I am more in my body than in my mind is a journey. It is as unpredictable and changeable as I am. But I have been paying attention...

Nothing teaches us as much about the brevity of this life as it’s ending. This weekend our community witnessed a boy in my daughter’s graduating high school class take his life. This occurred on the same day that a man recently married to a single mom I had known for years, fell to his untimely death. There are no words that express the loss, shock, sadness, anger, disbelief that course through...

Here is an interesting dilemma on being human. You can see that what you are doing is not working. You might be getting consistent negative results, which is to say you are stressed, overwhelmed and in doubt about your present course and still it is somehow easier to stay the rocky course than face the empty space of not knowing how to do it differently. Here is the thing, you have to stop doing what isn’t working and give yourself the time and space for personal development to figure out how to reinvent the process. It seems like a no-brainer. It should be easy actually.