I remember one of the fathers of a little girl on a soccer team I was coaching years ago who came out to me and told me he was going to go through a transgender process. We were friends, so I was able to ask him about his motivations to go through the painful and expensive process. He said he wanted to finally look how he felt. 

 

Did you know that June is LGBTQ Pride Month? Pride is celebrated in June due to the Stonewall Riots that happened in June of 1969 when the police raided the Stonewall Inn—a New York City gay club. This marked history’s first major protest for homosexual equal rights.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when I was sitting in the waiting room, having been called back for another magnified view of my mammogram and an ultrasound for some suspicious lumps in my left breast. Something similar had happened several years before when I first began the yearly mammogram rite of passage, so I tried to assuage my fear that it was probably nothing. This is true for many women, getting called back in and frequently it is a false alarm – but, not always. The rate of illness in this part of the body is mind-boggling. Breast cancer affects one in eight and heart disease kills one in four women. 

This weekend (June 3) was National Cancer Survivors Day, a day for those with a history of cancer to celebrate milestones, connect with one another, and recognize their support network. Most, if not all of us, know someone in our family or community who has been affected by a cancer diagnosis. In fact, roughly 38% of women in the U.S. – or more than one in three – will develop cancer during their lifetime. Given those odds, it seems only fitting to reflect on three practical things to know about reducing our risk. 

I am currently on a meditation retreat and about to begin three days of shared silence. Anyone who knows me would understand my anxiety about waking up and not talking. I could argue that it’s not my nature, that I learn more about myself and the world in the daily exchanges with the people around me. And I honestly lament not having more time to get to know the amazing tribe of people who are in attendance. But everyone assures me that this particular form of meditation is one of the most powerful ways of self-recognition as well as a direct path of feeling into your connection to the divine. We’ll see.

Meditation can be a unique experience for each of us and we may meditate for different reasons. But, it is usually to accomplish the same results: relaxation, clarity, peacefulness, mindfulness, and to feel grounded and in tune with ourselves. Evidence of meditation dates back to as early as 5,000 to 3,500 BC based on wall art found from that time of people sitting in meditation postures. So, as you can see this form of self-love has been around for a long time. 

There is no time like long summer nights to cultivate our uniquely, profoundly human capacity for pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. Our pleasure response transforms our relationship to each other and even to life itself. Focusing on pleasure not only changes how we see our opportunities for intimate connection, but also invites us into a deeper relationship with our erotic soul.

It becomes hard to trust your own thinking when nothing seems to be working. The space between how I thought it would go and how it is going seems to widen in front of my eyes. Maybe most difficult of all is how often the undesirable outcomes around us spill over into our relationships, both at home and at work. An errant comment too easily turns into an argument. I become blind to my impact on people around me, caught up in the unresolved problems surrounding me. During times like these, we often underestimate the power of the choices we make and how it can create a path back towards what’s working or down the slippery slope of self-destruction, which my husband affectionately calls “flirting with the gutter.”

If you’ve just gone through labor, it’s natural that your own wellness and hygiene may not be as top of mind as your newborn baby’s. However, new moms are especially vulnerable to infection in the days and weeks after childbirth and it is not uncommon for women develop infections especially if they had a difficult delivery.

Mother’s Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society.

In the first few weeks of May, the grocery stores are filling up with “I Love My Mom” balloons and flowers that are bundled together with “Happy Mother’s Day” ribbons. It’s that time of year again— when every son and daughter is on the hunt for that perfect gift to give their moms.

We interviewed Wendy Strgar, founder, and CEO of Good Clean Love as well as a mother of four, about motherhood from her point of view—a mother’s point of view.