The V-Word

I have written more than 120 articles about touch but have just recently learned its powerful healing effect firsthand. The last several days, I have been wracked with a painful pinched nerve in my upper back that has exhausted me. My best healing practices haven’t been working and the amount of energy that managing the pain has taken up has left me bereft. Last night, even sleep evaded me. The...

by Anastasia Strgar

At the dawn of my 23rd year I find myself on a whole new life track. This does not have anything to do with going on a crazy cross country adventure or skydiving over the Grand Canyon or anything like that (although that’d be awesome); it rather, has more to do with finally freeing myself from old negative thinking patterns about life and even more so, myself.

The last half...

Relationship Bootcamp Week Four

“There is no other physical act at our disposal that carries the physical, emotional and spiritual benefits of making love, especially with someone you love.” -Unknown

No one really understands sex, but if you are lucky, you get to spend years coming to grips with your erotic self and learning how to share and enhance the pleasure it brings. A good way...

by Kristin Neff

The golden rule tells us that we should treat others as we would want them to treat us. Maybe so, but hopefully we won’t treat them even half as badly as we treat ourselves.

“You’re so lame!”

“What a screw-up!”

“How can you ever show your face in public again!”

Would you talk this way to a friend — or even to a stranger, for that matter? Of course not. (Or at least I hope not!)...

I’ve been keeping a journal for the last few months in which I write a short reflection about my day and what I’ve learned and then list things I’m grateful for. It’s a way to keep me authentic and thinking about my daily experience. At times when I’m in a dark place I merely look through the journal and read about how far I’ve come in my personal growth quest. Last night, however, I tried...

by Elizabeth Spannuth

I have a new age-type friend that loves to tell me what to do. It is always under the guise of love and “divine guidance,” but it still feels like it did when my older sister would boss me around as a kid. She speaks with such absolute authority that her opinion is the only valid one that sometimes I get swept up in it, just as I used to do with my older sister. Yes! Eating...

by Anastasia Strgar

If today were the last day that you ever had on this earth, who would you want to be with? What would you tell them? And would anything that may happen really matter?

As human beings with advanced technologies and complex brains that are both blessings and curses, it’s easy for us to take this life for granted. It starts with little things… We take our daily cleansing rituals...

by Anastasia Strgar

Back in the day, girls were sent to college to find a husband. Once they did that, their entire lives revolved around taking care of their husband and their families. Their identities became grouped with their husband’s and they never really had a chance to develop their own identities. Flash forward 60 years to the “Me Generation.”

Today, girls are told to go to college and...

“Join me in the pure atmosphere of gratitude for life.”   – Hafiz of Persia

I took myself to the beach yesterday because I was longing to look out at the Pacific ocean, to look out at far as my eyes could see to the blue and white capped movement of the sea. I love the ocean and many of my most deeply grateful and joyous moments are memories of frolicking in it. I woke with memories of floating in...