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Actions of Love

Many people suffer daily from anxiety, depression, stress, guilt, shame, anger and inadequacy. Taking loving actions can heal this.

Myrna, 38 and a successful physician, sought my help because she often felt inadequate. While she really valued herself as a doctor, she did not value herself in her important relationships with friends and family. In addition, she said she wanted to be in a loving relationship but she took no actions to meet available men.

In the course of our work together, it became apparent that Myrna rarely took loving action on her own behalf with her friends and family. For example, Jessica, one of Myrna's friends, would often get angry and blame Myrna when Myrna was not available for dinner with Jessica. Myrna would feel guilty and responsible for Jessica's feelings and meet her for dinner even when she was exhausted from work. Myrna would feel drained after these dinners and depressed for a few days after, never realizing it was because she had abandoned herself.

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Your super power – find gratitude for your mind when it’s simply not sure

Dr. Sue Morter

Pause for a moment and ask yourself, “Am I regularly allowing love to be bigger in my life? Am I allowing my own inner voice to matter more? Am I migrating toward or manifesting the deep desires I dream of?”

If you answer yes (or even consider a yes), your mind is likely starting to get afraid. It gets afraid because when you say “yes,” you are recognizing more of your bigness. When you see from a larger, bird's eye perspective, the mind gets nervous.

What I'd love for you to know is, when your mind gets nervous, it's a good sign. This is a quantum flip that can change your life.

During this season of gratitude and beyond, I invite you to make a quantum flip and be grateful for your mind when it gets nervous.

When the mind senses there's something more manifesting and “I'm not in control anymore,” it gets nervous. This “something” is more of you, the Soulful Self, embodying.

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A Challenging Journey: From Mind Focus to Body Focus

Dr. Margaret Paul

Do you spend most of your time focused in your mind or your body? Are you staying in your mind as a way to avoid responsibility for your feelings?

"Breathe into your body and notice what you are feeling," I said to Bryan in our second phone session. "What are you feeling?"

"I feel bad and uncomfortable. I don't like focusing in my body."

"Where do you focus most of the time?"

"In my mind. I think about work all day and then the rest of the time I daydream or think of other things."

"So you do all you can to stay in your head and out of your body - right?"

"Right. It doesn't feel good in my body."

"Bryan, imagine that you always ignore your little daughter, and then when you finally do give her some attention, you find that she is upset with you for ignoring her all the time - and then you ignore her more because you don't want to know that she is upset with you for ignoring her so much."

"I would never do that with my daughter."

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Mrs. Lee’s Must Read Love Story

Arielle Ford

The cool, quiet room was overflowing with the grieving faces of friends and family as the funeral director invited Mrs. Lee up to the podium to speak. The petite, elegant widow walked slowly to the front of the small chapel and calmly began her eulogy.

“I am not going to sing praises for my late husband. Not today. Neither am I going to talk about how good he was.” Mrs. Lee’s eyes flashed.

“Enough people have done that here.” She took a deep breath, allowing the air to fill her lungs before she continued. “Instead, I want to talk about some things that will make some of you feel a bit uncomfortable.”

Several people stopped fanning themselves and sat up a little straighter. “First off, I want to talk about what happened in bed.” She paused dramatically, shifting her weight from side to side. A crow cawed outside the chapel window. She watched it perch itself on a nearby tree.

“Have you ever had difficulty starting your car engine in the morning?” She carefully studied the faces about the room. With a loud, grinding sound, she snorted and rumbled, violently shaking her tiny frame.

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The Major Mistakes People Make In Relationships

Kute Blackson

“If you want to have good relationships, don't expect people to mind read. Drop those expectations and projections, communicate how you feel without blame, expectation and entitlement.”

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How To Avoid Being Drawn Into A Toxic Relationship

Sherry Gaba LSCW

There are many different types of relationships, some of which are positive and healthy, and some which are toxic and unhealthy. Unfortunately, it is not always easy or even evident which type of relationship you are getting into until there are significant telltale signs.

The term toxic relationship is used to describe a relationship where the couple is destructive towards each other rather than constructive and supportive. The destruction or toxicity is typically coming from one person, but it is possible for both people to become competitive and unsupportive of each other. In these cases, one person initiated the toxic behavior, and the other person responded in kind. In extreme cases, the toxicity can include physical abuse, but it is emotionally damaging even at best for the partner.

A toxic person or partner does not start that way. These people are manipulative, and they recognize that putting on a mask and being a positive, supportive person is important. However, even with their best attempts at covering up the toxicity, there are often subtle signs of potential problems.

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"Is My Need For Attention Reasonable or Needy?"

Dr. Margaret Paul

Have you ever wondered if your desire to share time with a partner is coming from need or neediness?

Sometimes it's a challenge to know what are reasonable relationship needs and when we are being needy.

Klarese is asking this important question:

"I am currently dating a wonderful person who I care about greatly. A challenge for me is his job is very demanding leaving us little time to spend together. I am aware my childhood triggers of abandonment are being tickled, however, I am having a difficult time figuring out if I am being reasonable or unreasonable with my need for attention. How do I discriminate between my codependent 'needs' and my true need to love and be loved while living my own fulfilled life?"

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LOVE; It’s in our DNA!

Arielle Ford

Lets talk about Love. It’s right up there with air, food and water as one of the most vital ingredients for existence. Love nourishes our souls and arouses our deepest desires. And yet, for many people, it’s the hardest thing to find. AND, even harder still is sustaining that love once you’ve found it.

Have you ever wondered why we humans seek a soulmate, a life partner, a beloved? What is it about us that craves this deep connection to another? Are we genetically made up to be mated?

One fascinating and possible answer comes from Aristophanes, the acclaimed comic playwright and philosopher of ancient Athens. He offers a wild tale that he shared at Plato’s Symposium about how the deep desire for Oneness came about.

Long, long ago in primal times people had doubled bodies, four arms, four legs, two heads and they were big and round…. These roly-poly creatures wheeled around earth like clowns doing cartwheels & were very powerful.

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Discover the Art of Receiving and Improve All Your Relationships

Polly Wirum

Eight ways to increase your trust, vulnerability and ability to receive.

There is one sacred ingredient in all great relationships; it transforms connections into a spiritual journey. Keep reading, and discover the art of receiving and watch everything improve, including the relationship you have with yourself.

What is Receiving?

What exactly is receiving? I’m referencing the ability to be vulnerable and truly receive love or even care from another. This open-heart experience cannot happen without being fully aware of the moment and fully connected with the other person’s heart energy. This in itself is rare. Frequently we are multi-tasking and not connected to the moment, or even the person.

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Signs You Are Only Getting Breadcrumbs In Your Relationship

Sherry Gaba LSCW

New terms are becoming popular for many of the bad, destructive, and even toxic relationship behaviors that help people label what they are experiencing. Over the last few years, people have become familiar with gaslighting and ghosting. To add to that, the term breadcrumbing has become mainstream, adding to the ability to easily describe the difficulties you are experiencing in your dating relationships.

What is Breadcrumbing?

Breadcrumbing is the act of dropping little bits of attention through social media platforms or technology to keep the other person interested in the potential of the relationship. Accepting breadcrumbs means that you are settling for these small and virtual signals of the potential for the relationship.

Most people that engage in breadcrumbing are those who have a significant fear of being on their own or alone. To hedge their bets of not having someone to be in a relationship with, they focus on keeping multiple potential partners available. In some ways, they are also testing the waters with numbers of potential dates or relationships without committing to any one person. It is highly manipulative, even if the person doing it may not think they are doing anything harmful.

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Positive self talk: trash vs. treasure

Julie Murphy

I talk a lot about dealing with the crabs in your bucket. Their negative words, actions or overall vibe can do some serious damage to our self image, dreams or big goals. The crabs like to tear you down by making jabs at the progress you’ve made, constantly attempting to knock you back down to their level.

Sometimes, though, we may be our own worst crabs. And I think that this has a big part in how we speak to ourselves. Our self talk is the gateway to what our future could hold. So often, we speak things into existence. If we tell ourselves that today will be a bad day, than it most likely will be. If we say we can’t go back to school to get a graduate degree, we’ll never even attempt it.

So, how do you talk to yourself? About your body? About your job? About your finances?

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What Are You Afraid to Feel?

Dr. Margaret Paul

Are you stuck in wounded pain due to avoiding your deeper existential pain of life?

We desire to find the path to peace, joy, and freedom. We strive to feel lovable, worthy, and secure. We know that if we do our Inner Bonding work and open to our connection with Spirit, we will feel all of that. Yet we don't. We put off dialoguing for days or weeks. We stay stuck in our misery or numbness. Why? What are we so afraid of, if we open to learning about loving ourselves?

I searched for many years for the answer to this question. Over and over, I would find myself falling out of grace and joy and into anxiety and stress. Each time it was because I failed to take care of myself in some way.

The problem is that all our feelings live in the same place in the heart. Pain resides in the same place as joy. We cannot numb out our pain without squelching our joy.

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Ambivalence, Relationships and Love Addiction

Sherry Gaba LSCW

We want love, but we are afraid of it. We seek out a relationship and then sabotage it the first chance we get. We want space and when we get it we are lonely. We can’t live without a relationship and we can’t live with it. What is going on here? It is simple. We are ambivalent.

Ambivalence is the number one problem in relationships today. We are no longer bound by a social order that dictates we marry and have children. We are no longer bound by a division of labor where the man has his duties [bread winner] and we have ours [domestic bliss]. We have choices and now we are confused.

I sometimes think that this is the lost generation and that in many respects my generation had it easy. I was told to stroke a man’s ego. I was told to let him make all the decisions. I was told that I should have children. Unfortunately, I was not meant to be a housewife and mother. I was born to write which is what I am doing now. So everyone around me suffered, especially my children, as I tried to find myself. I have thus concluded that even if this generation is confused and unhappy, so was mine.

I recently wrote an article about knowing yourself and it took me a long time to discover my true identify. So my heart goes out to young people today who have so many choices they don’t know what to choose. The media tells they can have it all and they believe this. So they run themselves ragged trying to take all that life has to offer. Then they reach middle age and are unhappy with life and the choices they made. They dream about starting over again and they can’t. They take control the situation, which has always served them in the past, and try to fix everything right now.

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The Difference Between Gaslighting And Healthy Disagreements

Sherry Gaba LSCW

It is common to have a disagreement with a partner in a relationship. In many cases, the source of the conflict or the disagreement is a difference in perception or a different memory or recollection of an event or conversation.

This is understandable as we see all experiences through the lens of past experiences. This means that two people can see, hear, or have the same event occur but walk away with a very different memory. Both people are absolutely convinced their experience is authentic, and for them, it really is authentic and accurate.

Gaslighting is a different situation. It involves the intentional manipulation of the other person to gain or maintain control of the situation. It is the creation of a false narrative to attempt to make one person look good, and the other person look bad. It is a technique used by narcissists to keep the other person uncertain, confused, and questioning their own perception and experiences. This is a form of emotional abuse, and it is both effective as well as highly destructive.

Understanding the difference between a healthy disagreement and gaslighting is not always easy, but it is possible. Often, working with a therapist or counselor is the first step in detecting an emotionally abusive or toxic relationship.

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Myths That Keep Us Feeling Sorry For Narcissists

Sherry Gaba LSCW

Narcissists are chameleons with the ability to appear to be just what you want and need, at least for the initial whirlwind part of the relationship. However, once they have established the relationship, the dynamics change rapidly, with the narcissist utilizing a variety of tactics and manipulations to keep you close. The relationship stops being about creating a partnership and becomes a focus on keeping them happy and their needs fulfilled.

The tactics that narcissists use in this process are easily recognized by those outside the relationship. They may also be evident to the partner, but the myths around narcissism can make it extremely difficult to leave.

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How Not to Die Alone!

Arielle Ford

If you are single and dating online, How Not To Die Alone by Logan Ury is a MUST READ. (She is the Director of Relationship Science for Hinge.)

I consumed most of it in one sitting, riveted by all the research and science she included that explains why online dating can be a struggle because it offers “too many” choices.

And, if you understand this, how you can overcome it.

Hint: Most people do best when they have six or less options to choose from!

Drawing from years of research, author/behavioral scientist turned dating coach Ury reveals in her book:

What’s holding you back in dating (and how to break the pattern)
What really matters in a long-term partner (and what really doesn’t)
How to overcome the perils of online dating (and make the apps work for you)
How to meet more people in real life (while doing activities you love)
How to make dates fun again (so they stop feeling like job interviews)
Why “the spark” is a myth (but you’ll find love anyway)

> Get it Here <

Many people suffer from patterns of behavior that hold them back from finding love.

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Why Some People Attract Dysfunctional Relationships

Sherry Gaba LSCW

Most of us tend to pick partners who reflect the vision we have of ourselves and our world. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Compatibility and a sense of ease in a relationship come from having similar preferences, ideas, and values about things like money, religion, monogamy, parenting, and even what makes for good sex. The Legacy Project at Cornell University even did a study on this. They interviewed hundreds of people who had been married 40 or 50 years, and even longer. Most agreed that shared values are at the core of a healthy, long-lasting marriage.

But we don’t pick the people we’re with based on values alone.

We also choose people who have similar ideas about what relationships look like and how they should play out. This sounds good but it can also backfire.

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The Myth of Explaining and Defending

Dr. Margaret Paul

Do you believe that explaining and defending will convince the other person to see things your way? Has this ever worked?

"What's the matter with you?"
"How could you do that?"
"Explain yourself, young lady/young man."
"Why are you dressed like that?"
"Why are you late again?"
"What did you do to your hair!"

How often did you hear some variation of this when you were growing up? I heard it all the time. And what I learned to do was to desperately defend and explain in fruitless attempts to get my mom or dad to stop judging me and SEE me. Or I would apologize and become the "good girl," so they would approve of me.

Of course, defending and explaining didn't work. But that didn't stop me from trying because I just didn't know what else to do - other than completely give myself up, which is what I eventually learned to do.

When I got married, I continued in the same pattern - first trying to explain and defend and then giving myself up. The result was, of course, no better than it was with my parents. Again, I had no idea what else to do.

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How to Interrupt the Pattern of Fighting

Guy Finley

Have you ever been drawn into a fight with a loved one where – by the time you got knee-deep into who's “right” and who's “wrong” – maybe over the most trivial of matters – it felt as if, somehow, your very life depended on the outcome of that fight?

We’ve all had moments like this, perhaps too many times; which is why it seems strange that we’ve yet to see the following: there's no such thing as a “winning” side in any fight between two people who love one another, any more than one seat proved itself better than another on the deck of the Titanic.

Our demands never prove we’re right, any more than our negativity proves our partner is wrong. The only thing this kind of stress and strain between us proves is that we're missing at least one piece of the puzzle in that struggle with our partner.

What’s the missing piece? We can call it “love.” But if the word – or even the ideal – had the power to hold us together when everything feels like it’s trying to pull us apart – especially in the throes of a fight – then all we would have to do is call up that word, and our world would suddenly be right.

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Seven Ways to Protect You and Your Loved One’s From Negative or Dark Energy

Polly Wirum

Negative Energy is only as as we allow it to be.

Have you ever wondered if there is bad, or negative energy floating around like a cloud just waiting for you to bump into it? Or maybe you have wondered if you have been cursed? I am going to help you release these concerns and share with you how to protect yourself from negative or dark energy.

This week I had several people reach out to me regarding negative or dark energy. One person felt a presence that she wasn’t sure was good or bad. I applaud her for tuning in and asking herself what the energy felt like. I reminded her that she is in control. Whatever is wanting to get her attention, she has the power to turn it away. I will share more on these invincible protection techniques later on.

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