The V-Word

We were the only love company at this year’s American Gynecological and Obstetrics College Meeting (ACOG). There were a lot of medical technologies and pharmaceutical cures for problems that you never heard of and hope you never have. I went to meet some cool doctors who are faced with a third of all their patients complaining of painful sex. A complaint so common and so impossible to diagnose...

Here’s the thing to know about love, sometimes it feels great, like a sunny day in the Northwest after 26 days of rain, but sometimes it feels like the early stages of flu- unsettled, achy, loss of appetite. Ok, well maybe not as bad as the flu, but love lives can be irritating, like an insect bite that keeps itching. This is good to know about love because it allows you to have reasonable...

Love takes practice. Love is an action verb that is skill based; our capacity to love is the source of our genius, the inspiration for our creativity, and the essence of what roots us to the earth. Seeing our relationships in terms of a practice of love drills is a helpful approach that can keep your heart open and willing to try again, even after the inevitable hurts that define human...

We take our vitality for granted. The strength of our life force impacts not only our overall physical health, but often acts as a primary filter for our emotional life and how we interpret the events that make up our days. Often we also bear witness to...

Language is the metaphor we use to communicate our deepest feelings. A couple’s sexuality is the most profound vehicle of communication of all. The words we use and our physical language of love define our love experience.

Penetration is the word often used to describe the culminating act of sexuality. It’s a word I often use when describing the best use of good lubricant. But it was just this...

Our feelings are like weather patterns. They are changeable and act on the environment with great power. They inform and distract with their intensity. They reflect the nature of the moment with great accuracy. Our ability to experience and share our feelings in meaningful ways is one of the profound marks of our humanity.

Yet feelings are, for many people, a locked box; an experience that...

Making time for love is an important barometer of the commitment and sustainability of your relationship. When you consider the outrageous scheduling hoops we agree to without qualm in our work setting, or even more intensely in managing our children’s activity calendar, it makes you wonder how the idea of scheduling intimacy could still be so taboo.

Yet, taboo it is, with an overriding belief...

“Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.” -Wendy Strgar

We are wired to connect to each other. Daniel Goleman’s new book, Social Intelligence, has uncovered new research on social neuroscience identifying brain cells, termed mirror neurons, which actually link us brain to brain in social interactions. The complex neural circuitry that activates in...

“It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”

– Wendell Berry