Our first experience with touch is our mother's loving caress in our home. Within our family we learn how, when and where to touch. Yet natural touch among family members is an often neglected means of communication...

Too many people are afraid of being alone, afraid of discovering something dreadful about themselves. We see people constantly surrounded by a group of friends, postponing the inevitable confrontation with themselves. We see people rebound from...

How can we tell if our intimate relationships are based on need or something deeper? Here I share some common indicators of codependency and other behaviors that erode goodwill and harmony in relationships and...

"Until Death Do Us Part"... How much do these words have to do with the reality of life in the 21st century and with modern-day relationships? Let's compare the reality of women and men today with the time when this marriage vow arose...

Ending a relationship is so painful and makes us feel so awful — bad, hopeless, inadequate, desperate, lost, lone­ly, and worthless — that most of us are afraid we won't live through it. We feel bad about what our families will think, we're afraid of what...

It's tempting to want to fix others and tell them how to live. But you have no idea how someone else should live. It's hard enough to figure out how you should live — so how could you even begin to know someone else's right path?

Everyone has unique words they need to hear. These words are like a magic sound to their ears, for they have perhaps longed to hear them all of their lives. The important thing in our relationships is to...

Choosing to be peaceful over needing to be right is a big challenge. But it's one you must tackle if you want your life and your relationships to change. You have to give up the need to be "right." Giving up the desire to be right doesn't come as easily, per­haps, and that's...

From time to time, Joyce and I hear people refer to their partner, male as well as female, as high maintenance, meaning the relationship takes too much work. Naturally, there is an undercurrent of unfairness and even resentment, as if they...

When it comes to living together or marrying, both partners must equally choose, or the relationship is being built on a faulty foundation. The “chooser” is somewhat like a parent, while the chosen one becomes more of a child. The person not making the choice has...

A teenager facing a parent's illness may go off in all kinds of different directions, and that's okay — that's normal. A parent's grave illness brings demands that most teens don't even begin to know how to handle. As adolescents, they're...

You need to be 100% genuine with yourself. If being completely connected and honest with the way you feel about everything sounds stressful to you, then I’m sorry. Sweeping things under the rug is not allowed...

Since we’re all energetically intertwined, loving yourself and disarming your self-judgments benefits everyone else, too. There’s a Buddhist principle that says we all would love one another fully and completely if we...

The Family of One is gaining momentum every day even though we may not hear anything about it in the mainstream media. The Family of One. Think about it. And when you do, doesn't it resonate?

For years, I looked at myself through the prism of trying to “fix” myself. It was subtle, out of sight, like a current underneath the smooth surface of a river, but it was altering the flow of my life...

Think about a bright twelve- or fourteen- or sixteen-year-old. One night she hears, or overhears, that her dad has something called a "gli­oma." What will she do? There's a chance she'll head straight for the computer and Google "glioma."

When we’re not getting along with our partner, we’ll talk honestly and frankly to our friends about what’s irritating us. But then, when we sit down face-to-face with the person, we’re not communicating authentically...

It’s a wonderful gift to have caring family and friends to listen to you. When life gets turbulent, they can be a safe haven where you feel protected and embraced. However, when we internalize other people’s problems and take on their pain as our own, then no one is being helped.

In many ways, to encourage is to help the heart unfold. And each time we do so, another aspect of our true self unfolds. Very often, the art of encouragement is needed to counter some sort of fear...

Many parents think they have to protect their children from their (the parents’) confusion or so-called negative feelings. They think that being a good parent means maintaining a certain role — always being patient, loving, wise, and strong. In fact, children need honesty — they need to...

For parents, cycling with their children opens up a range of possibilities. A bicycle can bring out the kid in a grown-up — and give a kid a chance to show resilience and strength. When those things happen, everybody wins...

by Dr. Caron Goode. If we knew that our children were our planetary and societal salvation and held the answer to the questions of how to survive and thrive into the next century, how would we treat them? Collectively, the statistics regarding our children's state of consciousness are frightening.

People with low self-esteem have believed the worst about themselves so strongly and for so long that they readily discard any feedback that contradicts their belief. They are unable to trust compliments and praise and often unknowingly twist such comments to mean the opposite.