A Stronger Connection with Dad: Why it Matters and Tips to Make it Happen

A Stronger Connection with Dad: Why it Matters and Tips to Make it Happen

Strengthening our connection with our fathers--directly or indirectly, physically or metaphysically--opens important channels of success and happiness in our lives. From all sides of the family dynamic, read on for some suggestions to consider to help fathers and their children create a stronger connection.  

How to Approach Tricky Conversations with Sensitive People

How to Approach Tricky Conversations with Sensitive People

As counter-intuitive as it might feel, we benefit greatly from challenges — especially once we ACCEPT AND EMBRACE FRICTION as a tool to grow stronger within ourselves, to become better people and ultimately to build the real love and unity we so yearn to share with others. Here are 7 tips and considerations when approaching difficult conversations with sensitive people (or sensitive conversations with difficult people).

Making the Most of Your Mother-Daughter Adult Relationship

Making the Most of Your Mother-Daughter Adult Relationship

Of all our family ties, the mother-daughter one tends to remain important through adulthood. With life expectancy ever increasing, we mothers and daughters will only continue to spend more of our lives together as adult women. What a great opportunity to invest in making this bond an even greater source of strength and growth.  

Being Real Is Good for Your Health

Being Real Is Good for Your Health

Living authentically is not for the faint of heart.  It can be scary and vulnerable to address our emotions and frailties, to look at ourselves honestly and to be more real with the people in our lives. That being said, not addressing our emotional side, along with not being true to ourselves, comes with a heavy burden — on our mental health as well as on the fulfillment and satisfaction within our souls.

Finding Inner Peace and Joy During Highly Emotional Times

Finding Inner Peace and Joy During Highly Emotional Times

For so many people, the events around us have evoked a great deal of anger, fear and confusion — and a widespread increase in “us versus them.” It’s understandable that we would feel strong emotions these days, and that it’s a time for speaking and standing up for what we believe in. But how do we find balance when anger or sadness take hold?

Establishing Boundaries and Being True to Yourself in Your Close Relationships

 Establishing Boundaries and Being True to Yourself in Your Close Relationships

We are people who need people. We simply cannot reach our true potential without being loved. The paradox is that to attract the right kind of person into our lives, one with whom our love can grow and grow, we must first have a strong connection with our self and the light we possess inside. Only when we are emotionally independent, when we let go of the desperation and intense “need” for someone else to validate or want us, to praise or make us a priority, do we build the proper platform on which to actually draw the love we so desire.

How to Support Your Mate with Depression, Anxiety and Disorders

How to Support Your Mate with Depression, Anxiety and Disorders

When I work with couples in my counseling practice, time and time again, I see one or both struggle with some kind of anxiety, depression or other mental health disorder. While not a deal breaker by any means, unresolved mental health problems can lie at the heart of couples’ greatest friction and disconnection.

New Year’s Resolutions? 4 Secrets Behind Those Who Succeed

New Year’s Resolutions? 4 Secrets Behind Those Who Succeed

The essence of our being is DESIRE. We don’t move a finger without it. Desire lifts us out of bed in the morning, propels us forward day after day, year after year. Why is it so easy to create a wish list of goals and yet so hard to follow through - especially long term?

How Happy Couples Deal with In-Laws: Tips for the Holidays... and All Year Long

How Happy Couples Deal with In-Laws: Tips for the Holidays... and All Year Long

Inherently tricky to navigate for many, in-law strife shows up most especially between mothers- and daughters-in-law. And pouring into the mix the degree of conflict and division from our unprecedented election year 2016, the views and dynamics among all family members- especially in-laws, makes for quite a vulnerable time. Here are some tips to help make the holidays and this relationship go more smoothly this year, and from now on.

Election Stress Disorder: Tips for Mental Balance and Relationship Harmony

Election Stress Disorder: Tips for Mental Balance and Relationship Harmony

While this election season has stirred up an especially bitter brew of indignity and conflict, one common bond crossing the political and gender aisle is the election stress. The American Psychological Association just released a new survey indicating that more than half of American adults are either very or somewhat stressed by the 2016 election.

Raising Teenagers: Staying Connected

Raising Teenagers: Staying Connected

Teens need a healthy attachment more than ever during this trial and error phase of life. The more we stay close and connected to our teens (not to be confused with hovering or controlling), the better we can support them emotionally. Through our attachment, we equip them with a compass as they find their own truth and strength, and decision making power. 

Overcoming Anxiety Disorders and Depression

Overcoming Anxiety Disorders and Depression

If you’ve ever suffered from depression and/or anxiety, or love someone who has, then you know intimately how one’s mental well-being profoundly affects the quality of every aspect of life, and those near and dear as well. Brewing for decades, my wish for this article is singular and precise: to empower anyone who suffers from anxiety and depression to heal themselves and find greater meaning through the overcoming process.

Michael Phelp's Comeback: The Psychology and Lessons From His Rise and Fall ... and Rise

Michael Phelp's Comeback: The Psychology and Lessons From His Rise and Fall ... and Rise

Michael Phelps is swimming in Rio, appearing stronger than ever, athletically and mentally. But he has traveled along quite a journey. As privileged and fortunate as high-profile, successful athletes can be, they also have their own burdens to bear. Any human who achieves what Michael Phelps has, coupled with a great and public falling and then rising, becomes a valuable inspiration for us all.

Empowering Our Kids for Back to School... and Beyond

Empowering Our Kids for Back to School... and Beyond

With school about to start, what can we do as parents to help SUPPORT and EMPOWER our children with tools they will need to make the best of their young lives. 

Your Facebook Relationship

Your Facebook Relationship

While we can now reach people in a broader and simpler way, our connections have grown shallower. Many are calling this the age of isolation. Yes, more access — to people, information, opportunities. And yet, we are seeing signs of greater alienation, detachment, and loneliness.

Body Confidence: 8 Tips to Feel Good about Our Body

Body Confidence: 8 Tips to Feel Good about Our Body

How do we overcome the preoccupation and stress when our appearance matters too much, when we feel shame about our bodies, when by comparison to others, we never feel “enough?” Here are 8 tips to help build a loving and positive relationship with our body, which begins with the power of our mind…

Transforming Anger into Growth in Our Relationships

Transforming Anger into Growth in Our Relationships

The key is being proactive and not approaching any conflict from a victim mindset. Rather, see it as a perfect opportunity for growth. This empowered consciousness and approach will begin to eliminate a huge component of what makes us angry in the first place — helplessness.

How to Get Along with People Who Rub Us the Wrong Way

How to Get Along with People Who Rub Us the Wrong Way

We all have people in our lives with whom we find it difficult to get along.  In many cases, we can simply avoid them.  However, what if those we “don’t like” are people we just can't get rid of? Like a sibling or parent, or hey what about those in-laws; or maybe it's a coworker or boss, or member of a community in which we are deeply invested.  We might wish certain people away, yet the truth is, people we have a hard time getting along with—they are in our lives for a reason. We don’t want to miss the learning opportunity that these challenging people might present for us. Explore this growth-oriented paradigm as a first step in navigating the process of trying to get along. 

Proactive Parenting

Proactive Parenting

We all love to weigh in when in comes to critiquing others' parenting moves and styles, but ask most moms and dads in the thick of raising young people today, and even the brightest, most confident among us will admit (at least privately) that it's the hardest job on the planet. Parenting is not a black and white business, and is certainly not for sissies.