I believe the most generous thing we can offer anyone is our undivided attention. With the holiday season upon us, it is a great time to reconsider what matters most in our gift-giving rituals. Let's dig into three simple ways to bring your full presence to those you love. 

“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.” – Hippocrates

I spent five years writing a book about how to make sex work in your life, but pretty much since its publication, almost all of the conversations I have are about the sex that permeates our lives that doesn’twork. The unfolding revelations about rampant sexual abuses began with the brave and bold and...

“The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.” – Dalai Lama

I once had a friend who for many years taught me volumes about gratitude, while also teaching me quite a bit about my own capacity for envy. At first glance, it may have been her inherited wealthy lifestyle or seemingly effortless marriage, or her devoted relationships with her loving mother and sister… There...

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”  Anais Nin

For my birthday this year, the only thing I wished for was a few moments of pure happiness. I wanted, neededto feel the simple joy of being alive and living in a body at this moment. And so I took an impromptu trip to Hawaii with my husband — for as long as I can remember, Hawaii is the only place that I have traveled to that I...

“Maybe there’s a way out of the cage where you live
Maybe one of these days you can let the light in
Show me how big your brave is…”  Sara Bareilles

Getting an email today asking me to participate in a collective Carpool Karaoke video (which I didn’t even know was a thing until I got the invite…) so I needed to propose a song to sing. After listening to brief clips of old favorites all the way...

“One has not only an ability to perceive the world but an ability to alter one’s perception of it; more simply, one can change things by the manner in which one looks at them.”  Tom Robbins

It is odd how we take for granted the most basic of our sensory capacities until life teaches us otherwise. Losing our sight is one that is common to most of us as we age. Although both my parents wore...

“We do not learn by experience, but by our capacity for experience.”  The Buddha

I have been warning against the massive shift of our attention to social media for years now. I wasn’t surprised when a bunch of studies recently came outconfirming my worst fears- that social media is not really social and that the more that we do it, the worse we feel about ourselves. But new evidence suggests that...

“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”  Simone Weil

Love is an inside job. Learning how to learn to love yourself is where it all begins. Without this precious self- regard, we are constantly reliant on people and events outside of our control to fill us up and measure our worthiness. It is a losing game that frequently makes us turn away from the truckloads of love that is...

“There is a secret about human love that is commonly overlooked: Receiving it is much more scary and threatening than giving it. How many times in your life have you been unable to let in someone’s love or even pushed it away? Much as we proclaim the wish to be truly loved, we are often afraid of that, and so find it difficult to open to love or let it all the way in.”   – John Welwood

Most of...

“It’s not like consent is this big mystery. It’s not about controlling young people… it begins with a sense of responsibility about our own sexual needs that does not hurt or compromise anyone else’s.” – Wendy Strgar

I remember last summer sitting in a room full of 20-something kids, many of whom I had known since middle school. We were working on a project that has since evolved into our Make It...

“We applaud Good Clean Love® for pushing for modern animal-free test methods that are relevant to humans.”  Dr. Amy Clippinger, Director of PETA’s Regulatory Testing Department

Animals are us. And they understand us much more deeply than we often get them.

I was the mother who never said no to another pet. Always intrigued by the wonder that different animals would bring to our home, I would often...