Their relationship began brilliantly and Samantha and Tom went on to be married for 15 years.

They met in London while they were both participating in a fall semester abroad their senior year. Samantha attended college at Smith and Tom at Villanova.  Their universities held classes on the same campus and they met when they had both shown up at the wrong lecture hall for the first lecture in a series on life in London and found noone there but the other. By the time they found the correct location, the lecture was over and the two had already discovered they shared a love of fish and chips and so they had lunch together.

The two fell quickly in love and shared an extra week at the end of their term  traveling to the Greek islands of Mykonos and Santorini.

Arriving back in the states, just in time for the winter holidays, they met each other's families. Once the Spring semester commenced, they took turns visiting each other on the week-ends at each other's college...

Stress erodes our physical health. The presence of stress tattoos our bodies, limits our range of movement, draws away all that flows with dehydration, and colors with the pallor of pain and heartache. The effects of stress are also undercover in  physical ailments.

The worst thing to do, however, is to get stressed about stress.

When you think about feeling stressed, align with your inner power. Use the energy of stress to cultivate inner love. Take the time to care for yourself. When you do, something of profound value emerges: trust in yourself.

If we have allowed stress to run rampant in our lives, we will need to build trust in ourselves again. One of the ways we do that is by taking care of our bodies.

When under stress, taking care of ourselves is often the very last thing we consider.

Have you said:

"I don't have time to exercise." 

"Forget the bath, I will just take a quick shower."

"I can't lose my edge right now."

When you tell yourself that you...

One of the most important outcomes sought with Enlightened CoParenting is mental well-being for children.  When children face serious mental health issues, it is more important than ever for parents to collaborate to give their children the urgent and preventative mental health care.

Youth and young adult suicide is a serious health concern in the United States. More screening to prevent suicides is only one part of the solution.  More screening won't help without places to refer patients who seek help.

Pediatric emergency physician Samantha Rosman, MD, MPH, delegate for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), said,

"We are in the midst of a massive pediatric mental health crisis in this country.

Rosman testified that at the state and national level we are in urgent need for policies to prioritize children's mental, emotional, and behavioral health and to advocate for a comprehensive system of care that includes prevention, management, and crisis care.

"While we agree...

When we're feeling overwhelmed by divorce we freeze and see far fewer options for action and agency.

The house, the finance, legal issues,  coparenting; holding all of these challenges inside leaves us with feet in blocks of cement and a heart that is heavy. The holding weighs down the optimism we need to experience the alchemy of drawing lessons from our divorce and building a good life.

When we're feeling afraid and uncertain in the face of divorce, how can we lower our defensive posture and connect with possibilities for self-expression and creativity?

Do you love to paint? Do you find keeping a journal therapeutic? What dismisses your inner critic and quiets the critical voice inside?  What is the portal to  you? Go there! Do that!

For example, if you find you can lose the critic while journaling, plan to sit down, not to write anything in particular but to allow everything from your mind to pass down past your heart, down your arm and into your writing. No...

Mindy and Mark split up 3 months earlier. Mark moved out of their shared apartment and into his own place about 10 miles away at that time. Mindy drove by Mark’s new apartment every night. Sometimes Mark left his  blinds open and
Mindy watched the shadows move around the furniture and light from Mark’s TV.

Sometimes Mark's blinds were closed. This triggered panic in Mindy who presumed Mark had closed the blinds for privacy because he had a woman over. On the blinds shut evenings Mindy drove around the parking lot of Mark’s complex looking for cars that could belong to whomever the mystery woman was upstairs in Mark’s bed with
him. 

On one of these surveillance outings, Mark noticed Mindy when he went to get
his brief case from his car.

“What are you doing here?” Mark asked, obviously irritated and insistent about receiving an explanation.

Mindy thought quickly and told Mark that their cat, who now lived with Mindy, was in need of medical...

During challenging times we may want to be too busy to think about things. After a substantial loss, taking time to reflect can spark pain and feelings of emptiness.

Dissociation involves a continuum of experiences, ranging from a mild emotional detachment from immediate surroundings, to a more severe disconnection from physical and emotional experiences.

All levels of dissociation involves a detachment from reality. That is different from the   loss of reality as occurs in psychosis.

Dissociating is to separate our mind and thoughts from what's happening in our reality.  Our heart's voice may be muffled during difficult times in a relationship. We may fear we do not have the strength to hold the pain ourselves.

Victoria was devastated when her husband of 20 years chose to leave the marriage and began living with another woman. Victoria felt she could not cope with thoughts of the reality of her life in her mind.  With evidence of her loss everywhere and three...

How do we know when we're making the right decision?


What do you feel inside when you think about planning your future as well as when you think about the individual plans?

Start with day to day choices and small things. Notice the peace that you feel when you make a good choice for you. When you choose something that's healthy for you, there's a sense of peace. You add a glass of water to your regular intake.  That extra glass of water becomes integrated into what you do through the act of noticing how you feel after you drink it.

It can be a very small thing, but start to notice the peace that you experience when you do make a choice that's good for you.  

Choices regarding work life post-divorce are difficult. In some cases, we may have to work more. We may have to work more because of our financial situation. We may need to cut back on our work, to work less because when we have the children all to ourselves on one week we do not have a caregiver. If you don't have help...

Home. Feeling at home again in your home is an important goal after divorce; I would go so far as to say it is one of the priorities.

Our residence may or may not change with divorce but our sense of home likely will change in accordance with the particular circumstances of divorce.  Some of us will stay in our home and our ex will move out. Some of us will have to sell our home or terminate a lease on our apartment. We might need to downsize. We might need a room mate to help cover costs. 

Coming to terms with where you're at right now in terms of where you call home and making wherever you are a place that is safe and sacred for you, even if it's a transitional space, so that you can begin to feel grounded again.

Spring cleaning is not just for spring it is for all times of rebirth and renewal!

In this post I am speaking specifically to the situation where your ex has moved out and you are living in the residence where you had both lived together.

Others will think you...

Do you have a fear about anything that might occur today?

Are you significantly worried about future events?

What makes you feel fully alive, competent, and creative? 

Is it any less worthwhile to ask the third question? 

Researchers who study positive psychology believe understanding what makes life worth living is of equal importance to studies of disorders and mental illness. In fact, they believe that studying the conditions and processes that contribute to our thriving will also give us further insight into disorders and mental illness.  We know much more about how negative experiences lead to illness than how positive emotions promote health.  

Critics of the study of positive psychology suggest that positive psychology encourages us to see the world unrealistically, through rose colored glasses.  But positive psychology isn’t about denying the negative aspects of life nor does it imply that the study of disorders...

Where do you find organization and productivity?

At The Intersection of opportunity, desire, and action.

You can't take your eyes off of your daily jam and the clock has melted away.

Are You Productive…Or Just Busy?

You've observed someone who seems to be so darn busy all of the time but doesn’t really get anything done. Maybe you have found yourself rocking in this very same boat. We all do, occasionally. But if it is too frequently, your boat will capsize and your dreams will float ahead upstream and out of reach.  

Do you have goals? 

Of course you do. But can you state them quickly and concisely because they remain top of mind?

Productive People have clear goals upon which they focus all of their efforts on achieving those goals.  Of course there are always going to be distractions. For productive people, distractions don’t take priority over the big picture, the achievement of important goals.

Tell me, do you focus or...