The V-Word

The first conscious thought I strive to have each day is a grateful one.

Lately I am awake at least a couple of times – in and out of weird, anxious dreams. So it is not unusual that my first thoughts are anxious too. It is amazing how fast a couple of errant anxious ideas can spiral down into low grade rumination. Reminding myself through mediation to first create a grateful moment changes...

“After people are clothed and fed, then they think about sex.”  -Confucius 479 BC

What does sexual wellbeing mean to you? This is the question that the World Association for Sexual Health (WAS) selected for its focus on the 2^nd annual World Sexual Health Day this week on September 4^th. More than 30 countries took part by creating events to recognize the need to articulate and understand the...

“Don’t change the world, change worlds.”  -St Francis of Assisi

One of my favorite talks that I listen to over and over again by Pema Chodron is her teaching about cultivating Bodichitta, which is another word for the ‘awakened heart.’ Her advice is that we have to start where we are, recognizing the love we have to give and, more importantly, the love we can receive in this present moment. In...

I woke up crying today, listening to the soft breathing of my three kids filling the hotel room and remembering that this was the last morning in a long time that I would wake in the company of us all together. Today was the day I would drop my third child off for the beginning of his college years- a day that I saw coming from years away but still cannot believe has already arrived. When we’re...

I didn’t realize when we first envisioned the Love Agent movement that we were actually creating an ongoing mechanism for relational breakthroughs until recently when it has became clear how challenging it is for our hundreds of love agents to go from being registered to engaged. I naively thought that our little love missions would become a simple self fulfilling prophecy as people experienced...

“…Having breakthroughs isn’t the point.  Living them is.  Seeing in a new way is only the beginning.” -Martha Beck

I find myself sobbing in a bathroom stall in the Chicago airport on my way to a meeting across the country, thinking “has it really come to this?” Grief catches up to us in unexpected places and times. The airport bathroom scene was triggered by sitting near a young family with four...

The truth is that we all fall short of our relationship goals a lot of the time, especially when it comes to our dedication to loving the people around us. We are blessed with these brilliant moments of inspiration that too often don't come together in reality. One of the most powerful antidotes to this pattern of unfulfilled love ideas is to share our commitment to become more loving with the people they care about most.

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.”  -Francois Gautier

If you can’t clear your mind when you are about to have sex, don’t bother. Coming into bed with a head full of thoughts, any kind of thoughts- from to-do lists to insecurities to anticipation- will prevent you from the experience of engaging sex. Good sex demands one thing above all- your full presence;...

“I know what I have given you.  I do not know what you have received.” -Antonio Porchia

Perhaps the most salient recognition that we can make about our relationships is that we have no real control over what someone else receives from us, and moreover, often we are not even aware of how our love is transmitted to someone else. This explains the strange yet common phenomenon of long-term...