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Posts tagged with “Love”

Strong and Vulnerable: How I Learned to Let People In

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“Vulnerability is hard. And it’s scary, and it feels dangerous. But it’s not as hard, scary, or dangerous as getting to the end of our lives and having to ask ourselves, ’What if I would have shown up?’” ~BrenĂ© Brown

January – 2012

I remember sitting in a small, dark room waiting for the surgeon to arrive.

My son had just had major surgery to treat a complex condition that had cost him his small bowel, and it had taken much longer than expected.

My stomach felt tense as the surgeon sat in the chair opposite us.

He looked at …

3 Ways My Anxiety Has Helped Me Love Better

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“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” ~Dr. Stephen Hawking

I have wonderful family and friends and have always hoped that I would pass along a helpful legacy. Lessons for them to remember, memories to smile about, and love to lean into during hard times. For years, though, it seemed like the biggest thing I was passing down to my exhausted wife, flustered and at times terrified kids, and friends was my struggles with anxiety.

As my anxiety grew and the panic attacks came, I grew apart from those I needed the most. Hard for a son and wife to connect …

Text Me When You Get Home

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Love Yourself Until You’re Restored

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Do You Remember When You Didn’t Worry About Your Weight?

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“We need to start focusing on what matters—on how we feel, and how we feel about ourselves.” ~Michelle Obama

Do you remember the little girl (or boy) in you? The kid who ran, jumped, danced, laughed anywhere and everywhere they felt like it—before someone told them to shush, that they were too big, too loud, too much.

The kid who didn’t even know what a scale was before someone told them their size was wrong.

The kid who just ate—before someone gave them a mile-long list of “bad” foods and made them scared of food and distrusting of themselves.

After …

What You Need to Do If You Feel Insecure in Relationships

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“The key is in learning how to live a healthy, satisfying, and serene life without being dependent on another person for happiness.” ~Robin Norwood

When it comes to relationships, people can call you “crazy” and “needy” all they want. I can only guess some people don’t know how crazy it feels when every cell in your body feels like the only way to breathe is to stop this person you desire from abandoning you right now.

You may not realize it as the emotions hijack your mind and body, but unconsciously, you only have one job in that moment—to …

How to Get Through Hard Times Without Hurting People We Love

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“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” ~Buddha

Just the other day, I had one of those moments with my husband, and not the kind of moment they write about in romance novels.

The world has been so different these last several months, and so many are feeling the effects of months of struggle, uncertainty, frustration, and limitations.

I consider myself to be someone who works to see the positive, finds the silver living in situations, and believes in the best of people, and that things can and will always get better. But lately, that has …

How to Tell If Your Relationship is Codependent (and What to Do About It)

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“Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.” ~ Esther Perel

Healthy relationships require a delicate balance of intimacy and autonomy, giving and receiving, self and other.

As we struggle to walk this delicate tightrope, we might feel less like graceful acrobats and more like pendulums swaying recklessly from side to side. As I reflect on my own romantic journey, I notice a trend: I got very close to past partners, losing myself in them entirely, and then emerged from the codependent haze terrified and self-abandoned.

“Never again!” I …

The Power of Compassion: How to Make Do in an Unfair World

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“A good head and good heart are always a formidable combination. But when you add to that a literate tongue or pen, then you have something very special.” ~Nelson Mandela

Ever thought, “Life is so unfair!”

Is it, really?

Has life given you circumstances that keep you in a deep, dark hole of disadvantages that seem impossible to clamber out of?

Has life decided that you need to live in abject poverty and watch everyone in your life suffer from being denied everything a human needs to be human?

Has life put you in a position where you wouldn’t dare …

Dear Childhood Friends, Thank You and I Miss You

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“Sweet is the memory of distant friends. Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.” ~Washington Irving

Why is it that the older we seem to get the more and more we miss friendships from days long past?

You know the ones


The friendships where you felt 100% happiness being in their presence.

Where you felt as if you could be your true self—goofy, silly, honest, and real.

Where you would get lost in conversations, imagination, and being fully present in the moment.

Where you went on adventures, told them your …

How to Love a Lying, Cheating Heart

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Brett’s name flits onto my screen with an incoming email.

“Call you right back,” I say, hanging up on a friend.

Last time I talked to Brett, the Obama family lived in the White House. Last time I thought of him? Last year, as Melania took her third crack at presidential Christmas décor, and I failed to muster enough spirit to fetch our pre-lit tree from the garage.

Brett’s message came in through the contact form on my website. He invited me to meet for coffee; full respect if I decline.

Four years ago, it was me who reached out …

How to Survive a Breakup with an Addict and Heal Your Heart

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“The positive cannot exist without the negative.” ~Alan Watts

My heart was empty. It had never felt that empty before. Sometimes I felt a gap gnawing at my chest making everything around me feel like half of a whole. I felt like a piece of me had died.

I painted my childhood bedroom grey that summer, picking out the color carefully after taping paint samples on the wall and pondering them for hours.

The old color gave me a headache; it glowed neon green and looked dirty now from years of feet on the walls. Hidden above the moldings, I …

A Heart That Wants You There

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What I’ve Learned Since My Years Feeling Stuck and Unlovable

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This writing is in memory of my father, who—without knowing it—helped make me the man I am today.

When I was a young boy, my father seemed bigger than life, like most fathers seem to young sons. I looked at him in the same way that I imagine my son Jeremiah looked at me at that age—like a superhero, a towering giant who could fix anything, do anything, and make anything seem better than it was. We see what we want to see, until we don’t.

Life took him away from me very early in my life, so we never …

If People Can Hate for No Reason

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What It Means to Love: 9 Steps to a Strong Relationship

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“Be there. Be open. Be honest. Be kind. Be willing to listen, understand, accept, support, and forgive. This is what it means to love.” ~Lori Deschene

They say your heart pounds when you’re in love.

But the very idea of opening up and letting love in can bring on the wrong kind of palpitations.

Saying yes to love
 that’s like standing naked, bare naked, every inch of you on show.

Completely vulnerable.

Or so I thought.

My Impregnable Force Field

 “Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” ~Bertrand Russell…

How I Know I’m Strong (and You Are Too)

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“If there’s ever a tomorrow when we’re not together, there’s something you should remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart, I’ll always be with you.” ~A.A. Milne

Two years ago, I was anticipating a monumental shift. I couldn’t tell you what had changed around that time, but my mindset was moving away from the brasher side of my natural, projected extroversion and seeking solace in the comforts of solitude.

It felt like the waves drawing back before a tsunami, and over …

How to Come Out Stronger After Heartbreak

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“And when I thought ‘I can’t go on,’ the universe expanded, mother earth hummed and the moon whispered, ‘Yes, you can’.” ~Wicked Words

Heartbreak. The feeling that so many of us would pay big (BIG) money to skip through. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard (and heard myself say), “I just want to skip this part and fast forward to when I feel better.”

I fell in love unexpectedly, but when is it ever expected? I had just gotten through an awful breakup and this perfect man for me fell from the heavens. He made me feel …

HumanKind: A Book That Will Inspire You and Help Change the World

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I have always believed that kindness is the truest measure of beauty. And I need only think of my grandmother to confirm that this is true. Giving, nurturing, understanding—she was all these things till the day she died, undeniably radiant, at the age of eighty-four. She smiled with her eyes and loved out loud, and that’s who I want to be.

If you’re fortunate, you’re close to someone like this, a person who exudes warmth and meets you with gentleness and compassion, even when you’re not at your best.

If you’re observant, you’ll see people from all walks of life …

If Today Gets Difficult

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