10 Ways to Keep Your Expectations From Making You Crazy This Christmas
Christmas is a wonderful time! Everyone is full of good cheer, the milk of human kindness and 20 pounds of candy. All gifts are given with love, are exactly the right size, are exactly the right color, or exactly the right thing for exactly the...

What Does it Take to Make Life Better?
What does it take for you to pay attention? You’ve probably heard this said, or said it yourself sometime, “I just realised how precious life is.” Maybe you heard it when a relative died or maybe you said it after an accident or some other emotional...

Say "YES" to Life!
Lately, all we've been hearing is to say, "NO" to so many things. Say no to carbs, saturated fat, Vioxx, etc. The list goes on and on. I do understand saying "NO" to unreasonable demands on your life, but saying "YES" brings so much more to your...

Life Gets Teejus, Don’t It?
Those five words are from a song that I remember hearing a long time ago. It may even be the song’s title. I dunno. For those of you who don’t speak casual English, the word “teejus” can be translated to “tedious”. Somehow it just doesn’t have the...

Powerful Communication:Language: The Key that Opens or Closes that Imp..
What prevents people from using their native language or secondary languages confidently comes down to seven traps that most people fall into. Language is one of the things that sets us apart as beings, one of the things that essentially defines us...

I'll Be Home For Christmas
Direct Answers - Column for the week of November 29, 2004 I have been married 25 years. We come from completely different backgrounds. I grew up in a large family in a small town, and we were poor. My husband is an only child, privileged, and he...

Love and Light
Seems that everyone who writes to me signs their letters "love and light." It has such a bright uplifting sound to it. Lightworkers are being taught to hold the energy of the light and to equate love with a warm white light that heals and...

Giving Up Too Soon
So you feel beaten up and bruised and you're ready to quit. You have no support system or the one you have is pathetically inadequate for the goals you've set. You're so tired that the couch is looking more and more inviting everyday. You have...

MISTAKES
Don’t worry about making mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Why should you be different. The person who never made a mistake, never made anything. Mistakes can be costly. They can also be educational. Look upon your mistakes as an asset. Life is a...

The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The Hasidic master, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach taught that on Passover night we are bringing our entire life stories to the Seder table to be freed. What exactly does this mean? To begin with, we are by nature, storytellers. Whether we are aware of...

How to Get Motivated and Have Industrial Strength Self-Motivation
It is not your fault if popular self-help courses have never worked for you over the long term. How to get motivated is not adequately dealt with. Why? Because generally speaking there are problems with the material you have read and listened to...

A Global Empathy Deficit- 2 Lessons
"...We've got a budget deficit that's important, we've got a trade deficit that's critical, but what I worry most is our empathy deficit.” – Interview in O Magazine with Barack Obama. Perhaps this is not only a US national concern but a global...

Healing The Abandonment Wounds
I have counseled individuals, couples, families and business partners for the past 35 years and authored eight published books. Every individual I’ve worked with has had some abandonment wound to heal, and most relationship problems stem from...

Should I Give Up Me To Not Lose You?
How far can you afford to bend your values to preserve your relationship? How far can you go in giving yourself up to avoid losing your partner? How much of yourself can you afford to sacrifice to not lose someone you love? How do we find the...

How Can I Get My Partner To Change?
How much energy do you spend trying to get what you want from your partner? Think about it for a moment - how much of your thinking time is spent on what to say to your partner to get him or her to be the way you want him or her to be? Many of us...

Fight, Flight, or Loving Action
Fight or flight - our automatic response to danger. When fear is present, adrenaline pours into our system to prepare us to fight or flee - from the tiger, the bear, the lava from the volcano…. Fight or flight - today we automatically respond this...

To Thine Own Self
Direct Answers - Column for the week of December 6, 2004 Someone gave me a bit of advice, and I'm doing my best to get my head wrapped around it, trying to understand and comprehend and translate it into my own life. What does it mean to "follow...

How To Stay Positive In spite of The Negativity Around You
I'm often asked how it is that I stay so positive. Now allow me to clear up some misconceptions you might have based on that last statement. I am not one of those folks that walk around with what is commonly referred to as a career politician's...

The Disciplines of Success
Success, in the dictionary, is defined as, “The achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted.” So why is success in our society defined by the balance in your bank account, the car you drive, or how big your house is? You are successful...

Speeding Myths and Facts
Speed Reading is one of those subjects that is spun to sound like a tonic that will solve all your educational ills and grow hair on your bald head for 2 easy payments of $19.99 each. At times it sounds like a medicine show. Some write about how...

The Art of Learning
My temples begin to throb and I can feel the panic rising in my throat, as I sit in the classroom. The minutes tick by and I still don't know what he's talking about. I look around the class and everyone else seems calm. It's just me. I rifle...

My Journey
I believe it's important for you to develop a mission statement for your life; one that is unique and articulates your values, goals, dreams; how you want to live. Your mission statement is a living, breathing testimony of the life you are...

The Art of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a critical element in becoming self actualized and fully loving. Forgiving is the process by which you let go of feeling victimized or having wronged others. It allows you to climb out of the dark well of anger, bitterness, or guilt...

The Art of Selfishness
Mature selfishness is the cornerstone of effectively living with passion and purpose. A commitment to self- interest is practical and efficient since you are better able to meet your needs than hope that someone else does. It is the basis for the...

Passion or Purpose?
I hate moderation. I hate doing things moderately. I hate having to be controlled, mature, and disciplined. I don't want to moderate how much I eat or drink. I don't want to be moderate with sex, or playing, or vacations. I don't want to moderate...